Friday, September 28, 2007

Meem and the new changes of my life


Well, I promised to keep you people updated on my situation so far. Well here’s what happened: When I stopped updating a while back, it was because the month was over and I had to pay the internet bill, but back then I had made the decision to move to another provider but needed an additional 75$ for installation and stuff, so I decided to wait a month and then register. Then by the end of the month I realized that there is no need, I could move to my uncles’ place by the start of winter and they already have internet connection.

No, I wouldn’t be moving just to get internet access (that would be funny). In fact I am planning to move for three reasons. The first and most compelling reason is that I have a plan to start a small biotechnology lab and I have so many ideas how to develop it and everything, but I need the space, since my home in Jounieh is too small hopefully my grandparent’s home in Beirut is a better option.

In addition, I have started writing articles in the Beirut Marathon magazine: Running Middle East. Though I have no direct contact with the administration being in Beirut will help me more than staying in Jounieh.

Finally, I have become active in a growing and active society in Lebanon, the LBTQ women society (LBTQ standing for Lesbian Bisexual Transexual and Queer). All our weekly meetings are help is private and secret places in Beirut which makes it much easier for me to move to Beirut.

Now about our LBTQ society… The seed of this activism had started blooming exactly one year ago with the help and support of the helem association (The association for the protection of homosexuals in Lebanon. Quickly our community grew in numbers and in projects. During this summer it finally resulted in the launch the very first Middle East community for Lesbian rights, active on an Arabic soil: Meem.

Meem being a symbolically feminine letter in Arabic, symbolizing everything that the woman is in our community from her identity to her suffering, we had decided that Meem would only have one public aspect, our website: Meemgroup.org. The website is still under construction but some of its main features are already up and running.

Now the community is certainly secretive and private for the obvious reasons, first of all the privacy of our members is a need, considering the difficult situation in which we live and plan on improving. Second, our first goal is not advocacy of Lesbian rights, it is the internal empowerment of the girls to help them overcome the scars of a sexually repressed and repressive environment. Not that we don’t believe in the need to educate the general public on what we are and what we are not, no! Our advocacy will mainly be channeled through our cooperation with supporting organizations such as Helem or Aswat (the Palestinian Gay Women).

In addition to our website and our blog we have been organizing weekly support groups dealing with our communities problems and issues. We do have many other projects summarized here.

Now Meem is still young, it has succeeded in a very short while to gather a significant number of ladies (around 129) who simply appreciate other ladies but in order to sustain the ongoing effort we do need support, though financial support is certainly needed we most of all need recognition inside Lebanon and outside to ensure additional protection and additional efficiency.

So if you are interested in supporting, helping, encouraging, bashing us feel free to contact either me in person on my gmail account: Xie.medusa.stheno @gmail.com or directly contact the big bosses on the email: meem@meemgroup.org. And spread the word for others that I cannot contact myself.

6 comments:

NOMAD said...

wouah,

I had the feeling that you would coming out :lol:

anyway bon courage

I support you, dunno yet how

xoussef said...

Bravo

BHCh said...

Oh, heck. Are you sure? why?

I've read that most women could swing either way. Guess a lot depends in meeting the right guy(s).

Pazuzu HSP said...

nomad: Merci, tu pourrais m'encourager si j'arrive a accomplir ce voyage prevu l'ete prochain en france :P

xoussef: merci

Shlemazl:... ah the eternal homphobic in denial :P... I am not saying that I refuse men in any way... no not at all. All i am saying is that I refuse to refuse women... being a straight guy you can certainly understand the charm I find in women, right?

BHCh said...

Well, I have nothing against gays. They make world more diverse and hence more fun. Don't even have anything agains people trying out different things, albeit the thought of guys doing it makes me go "yuk".

However I prefer when

a) guys are gays rather than gals, so we get more competition among the straight ladies for the remaining pool of straight men and

b) it's not someone I know personally and like, because it's a shame for people to miss out on family.

Unknown said...

In my impression, this effort is not driven by Pazuzu coming out or addressing her own sexuality at all. Her expression of wanting to address desire on a person to person basis, a case by case approach is less important than the other issue:

which is to address current needs in a society which is sexually repressive, especially toward women. The obsession with virginity and intolerance of variation make Lebanon a difficult place to live for many people. It is nice to not be alone in recognizing this and I hope Pazuzu will find some like-minded friends in the real world through this group. People who have had to feel repressed by their society, like her.