One of Egypt's most recognized actors has garnered a wave of support after he spoke publicly about his transgender son's transition and appeared with him on a DW program this week.
After the actor first spoke publicly about Nour, formerly Noura, on local television last weekend, the two went on international TV to express support for one another and talk about Nour's transition and the challenges he has faced.
"I thought I wasn't a normal person, I thought I couldn't live my life … It was very, very hard," Nour told his father. "But I learned to love myself and stand on my own two feet, so that no one could tell me I am either right or wrong."
Read more: Morocco's LGBT community faces death threats after online outing
Changing the conversation
As Egyptians stay glued to their favorite TV series during Ramadan, the rare public message of solidarity from a top actor in a largely conservative and patriarchal country generated an emotional response on social media.
Many were surprised by the positive reactions of their families and older generations.
Some thought that this positivity signaled a shift in the conversation about sexual identity in Egypt.
But the show also received resistance from some conservative quarters. One Twitter user told the show's host, Jaafar Abdul Karim, that he only aired disgusting stories.
Read more: How Iran's anti-LGBT policies put transgender people at risk
Unofficial transition leaves him as 'her' by law
Comments like these are not the worst Nour has struggled with in a conservative state where official gender transitions require religious approval.
He told "Jaafar Talk" that before he started his transition five years ago, he and his father decided not to request that approval, having expected to be misunderstood and criticized. Only God could judge him, Nour said.
That may now make things difficult for him in the future because in the eyes of the law, he is still considered female.
According to an Associated Press report, only 87 transitions were officially allowed for "physical reasons" between 2014 and 2017 in Egypt, while none were approved for "gender identity disorder."
But Nour pushed back on the discrimination he faces. "I am Egyptian and I will remain an Egyptian. I don't want to leave this country," he told show host Abdul Karim. "Try to understand me, don't hate me without knowing me at all."
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Masculinities: Liberation through photography
A quiet revolution
Questioning your own identity is usually a lot easier when others are already doing it for you. With the onset of the gay liberation movement in the late 1960s, the LGBTQ community — alongside Women's Lib — led the push for questioning the values of the global patriarchy and machismo attitudes. Photographer Sunil Gupta captured gay men in New York at the time of the Stonewall Riots.
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Masculinities: Liberation through photography
Men in uniform
At the top of the abstraction that is patriarchy, there have always been men of war. This photo-collage by Tristan Fewings shows just how powerful and intimidating those men can be; looking at this avalanche of images of generals and admirals from movies about World War II can feel overwhelming. Yet the images appear to be stacked up like a house of cards that could easily collapse.
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Masculinities: Liberation through photography
Brotherly Love
If aggression is a key feature of toxic masculinity, it might be skin-deep. The aesthetic of this picture is part of the Taliban self-image. Photographer Thomas Dworzak compiled dozens of such shots in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2001, as the US-led invasion of the country started. The contrast between macho insurgents portrayed by the media and their vulnerable self-image could not be greater.
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Masculinities: Liberation through photography
Soldiering on
Adi Nes likes to document the unending conflict in Israel. Highlighting moments of intimacy and carelessness among soldiers, he shows the softer side of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Many of his pictures are deemed homo-erotic and have a following in the gay community around the globe. Nes insists they reflect moments he experienced personally while he was in the Israeli army.
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Masculinities: Liberation through photography
Waterproof mascara
A good man is supposed to ruin your lipstick and not your mascara, or so the saying goes. But what happens when the person wearing the mascara is a man? Peter Hujar looks at a prism of non-conformist male identities. Is a drag queen necessarily any less masculine than a soldier wearing face-paint as camouflage? And who gets to make those decisions?
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Masculinities: Liberation through photography
Facial flair
What makes a man a man? That's not just the lyric of a Charles Aznavour ballad but the subject of Catherine Opie's body of work. She likes to dress her son in a tutu or invite her friends around to tack fake mustaches on them. Opie aims to explore differences in behavior, perception and poise when a small feature is altered on a person. Does facial hair alone a man make?
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Masculinities: Liberation through photography
Marginalized men
Men of color often experienced different narratives in their quest of male identities than Europeans and Caucasians. From O.J. Simpson to Bill Crosby, they saw their own role models rise and fall. While defining and redefining masculinities was often a slow process for "old white men," people of color witnessed change at a higher pace, fighting racist stereotypes of violence and hypersexuality.
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Masculinities: Liberation through photography
Body positivity
Only in recent times have men been objectified in the same way that women have in the media. From body dysmorphia to suicide, reaching for impossible beauty standards has taken its toll on men and their self-image. The "Masculinities: Liberation through Photography" exhibition makes mention of this, but in its quest to fully portray contemporary masculinities, it unfortunately falls a bit short.
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Masculinities: Liberation through photography
Rotten Adam's apple?
Is it just an Adam's apple - as seen here in a photograph by Sam Contis - and a Y-chromosome that separates the sexes, or is there more to it? Is patriarchy dead? And what kind of self-image do men adopt in the #MeToo era? The Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin looks at many such questions with its "Masculinities: Liberation through Photography" exhibition, which runs through January 10, 2021.
Author: Sertan Sanderson
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