Curtsey to Theocrats: Kuwait Bans Transvestites
Towering Repressions: Martin Amis, the British writer, once described Kuwait City as "a conurbation seemingly put together, from top to bottom, without a woman's touch, its only colors commercial, its only curves devotional, under a sinister mist of damp dust." Kuwait's recent crackdown on transvestites--one of many repressions in that embowed emirate--further validates Amis' observation. (Photo by Hamad M via Flickr, some rights reserved.)
There goes Kuwait again, repressing in the dubious name of religion. Earlier this month I noted Kuwait's fetish for bans--on women performers, on women holding jobs after 8 p.m., on movies it doesn't like, even on valentine's Day commemorations. Now comes its latest ban: on transvestites. This one is a bit more brutal than a ban. It entails imprisonment and humiliation, too.
A Law Policing Fashions
On Dec. 10, 2007, Kuwait’s National Assembly amended its criminal code to say that "any person committing an indecent act in a public place, or imitating the appearance of a member of the opposite sex, shall be subject to imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year or a fine not exceeding one thousand dinars [US$3,500]." According to Human Rights Watch, police began arresting people immediately, netting 14 arrests in December and more in March. Of the people arrested in December, three were reportedly beaten in custody, and one left unconscious. Human Rights Watch spoke to two people arrested on March 14. "One," the New York-based organization reported,
recounted being stopped with a friend at a police checkpoint at 10 a.m. in Kuwait City: "When we reached the checkpoint, we were wearing men’s jackets and sports caps. When [they] asked for our ID cards, they removed our jackets and hats and made us stand with our female clothing to prove we are imitating the appearance of women. [One police officer] hit us on our faces, then insulted us, saying ‘You are an animal, nothing but garbage. You are a cast-off of this society, disgusting.’” Police held them for five days, shaving their heads before releasing them.Curiously, in the middle of the crackdown in January. the Kuwait Times, an English-language daily in Kuwait, ran a story from Turkey describing how "A unique play in an Ankara theater ended with a standing ovation ... as the little-known actors-transsexuals and gays raising their voice against discrimination-fought back their tears on stage. Their play, "Pink And Grey," put the spotlight on the plight of transsexuals in mainly Muslim Turkey, in the latest initiative of a fledgling but increasingly vocal movement for rights by a community long ostracized and often harassed."
War on "Alien Influences"
The very same edition of the Kuwait Times ran a story quoting the suitably named (and presumably dressed) Faisal Al-Muslim, a member of the Kuwaiti parliament, excoriating human rights groups that "interfere" with Kuwait and reminding Kuwaitis that "alien influences" are impermissible.
To press his point, he reminded anyone with revelry on the mind that permission must be secured to hold parties, even private parties. Al-Muslim is an Islamist with Wahhabi views of Islam and society. This, in what is reputed to be one of the Middle East's less repressive regimes--the regime the United States and 50-odd nations went to war to "liberate" from Saddam Hussein's army in 1991.
"There's No Fun in Islam"
The crackdowns aren't a mystery. "There's no fun in Islam," Iran's late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini once said, albeit while referring to its Shiite derivative. Sunnis rule Kuwait. But Islamists of every stripe are on the rise throughout the Middle East. Governments can choose either to placate them, which means giving in to their moralistic crusades (which cost the government little to nothing, except in reputation), or opposing them, which, judging from Turkey's, Algeria's and Egypt's experiences, only encourages Islamists to press on.
The future doesn't bode well for a more liberal, more reformist view of Islam when even the Middle East's milder autocracies feel compelled to curtsey to theocrats.
Comments
Let us not confuse by unfair association those who have medical issues…and Let us recognize the facts..Every ten minutes a child is born, 1/2500, in which the doctor cannot determine the sex, or gender. This is not talking about homosexuality, but tragically a congenital condition of birth which can be caused by endocrine agents and chemicals. These children are Intersex; they are born into a life of not male or female. Likewise in similar fashion the Transsexual is identified with a Bioneurological congenital condition, and they too are locked into something not quite so clearly defined as male, or female. The best we can do is live as close to what we seem to believe we are. That may preclude the wants, and often ignorant and bigoted beliefs of others. In what case do we ignore this issue and abandon the children who now cannot hide? How can anyone continue in hate and prejudice so as to deny simple equality and justice? Not an easy thing to resolve, but one that is present and will not go away. I can appreciate social opinion, and the freedom to express same, but I would hope our culture and ethos would be with regard to the children, teens, and emerging adults, and all who are not so fortunate to have been born by someone’s idea of “normal.”
You’re right all around stellwriter, although the bigotry in Kuwait is of a piece with Islamists’ incapacity to deal with sexual matters of any sort, even the hetero kind, without heart or reason. “The more common patern,” as Amis also wrote, “is to keep your sexual tension stopped, and work it off with religious rage.”
We should also note though that when it comes to countering transgender bigotry, the United States isn’t exactly a shining city on a hill. In this country Arabs, gays and intersexuals are sill, unfortunately, fair game for bigots.
Sure is a good thing we “saved” them from Saddam, just as we are saving the citizens of Iraq now.
I wonder how many other people would like to be saved by us ?
Patrick, I’m reminded of a M*A*S*H episode where the doctors save a prisoner of war only so its captors can execute her (the prisoner was a woman). Operation Desert Storm doctored Kuwait’s “liberation” for much the same ends: to secure a return to that city-state’s authoritarian compulsions.