Thursday, Oct. 26, the WSD Handa Center for Human Rights & International Justice invited Spectra Project Chairman Subhi Nahas to talk about suppression of the LGBTI community in Syria and beyond. Nahas, a gay man himself, explained Spectra Project’s role in assisting LGBTI refugees after he shared his own experience fleeing Syria. In order to explore the experiences of LGBTI refugees across the world, Nahas joined forces with Amy Weiss, Director of Refugee and Immigrant Services at the Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay, and Dr. Sarah Chynoweth, a Research Fellow at the Handa Center.
“What we’re talking about is a double stigma: the stigma of being migrants and stigma based on sexual identity,” Meredith Vostrejs, moderator of the panel, said.
Nahas started the discussion noting that, even before war struck Syria, the country practiced zero tolerance for LGBTI individuals. He explained how growing up with a transgender older sister made him realize his own circumstances.
“Looking at my father and mother’s behavior with her and the way they treated her, I realized [being gay]was something that’s not okay,” Nahas said. “This was something that would cause me trouble.”
When Nahas examined the Syrian Constitution in his youth, he realized Article 520 made LGBTI behavior punishable with up to three years in prison. Chynoweth said LGBTI citizens who escaped this rule could still suffer charges under “unnatural practices” or “immoral behavior.”
“That made me realize my feelings are illegal,” Nahas said. “I did not want to be part of that community.”
Nahas said he assumed his psychologist would hold a more open mind since he studied in the United Kingdom. After informing the psychologist of his sexuality, however, Nahas said the man called his parents, outed him, and “told them exactly what to do with their pervert son.”
“I was not allowed to have my own life,” Nahas said of his 16-year-old self. “Everything was monitored.”
In 2011, during his last year of school, Nahas said the war made his sexual orientation even more life-endangering. Al-Qaeda would not just imprison LGBTI individuals but would torture and kill them as well.
After six months struggling to find work in Lebanon, Nahas entered Turkey to provide aid to fellow refugees in 2013. But Nahas’s connections in Syria started sending him threats after joining ISIS, so Nahas moved between safe houses for more than a year while waiting for the vetting process that would allow him to come to the United States.
“In the San Francisco Bay Area, [LGBTI refugees] are warmly welcome and wanted,” Weiss said. “And yet the barricades to getting them here are really tremendous.”
As the leading US agency dedicated to resettling LGBTI refugees, Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay resettled Nahas in 2015. He started Spectra Project to help LGBTI refugees in countries of transit by providing access to food, shelter, winter clothing and multiple forms of counseling.
“What we see is tremendous resilience on the part of folks who are even at the extreme end of vulnerability,” Weiss said. “It’s really holy work.”
All three panelists offered advice on how students can support the global LGBTI community. Chynoweth advocated for the hiring of more LGBTI citizens at all levels of government. Weiss added that simple donation drives and advocacy on overseas issues would help immensely.
“[In Syria], you may lose your life if people find out you’re helping LGBTI people,” Nahas said. “Education is the number one key to solving this problem.”
Holden Foreman is a freshman events reporter at Stanford Politics.