Not that anyone would ever think of Kuwait as the ideal destination for a lavender holiday, but the country wants to make sure that you don’t get the chance to visit at all. The government is planning to screen people entering the country to make sure that they are not LGBT.
“Health centers conduct the routine medical check to assess the health of the expatriates when they come into the GCC [Gulf Cooperation] countries,” Yousouf Mindkar, director of public health at the Kuwaiti health ministry, said “However, we will take stricter measures that will help us detect gays who will be then barred from entering Kuwait or any of the GCC member states.”
Just what these mystical medical tests might be aren’t detailed. We can only imagine what the meeting is like when Mindkar and company brainstorm about them.
Kuwait criminalizes homosexuality, with a penalty of up to ten years in prison. The country has conducted ongoing campaigns against the LGBT community, arresting LGBT teens and trans citizens. Fine thanks to the LGBT servicemembers who fought to secure Kuwait’s freedom when it was invaded by Saddam Hussein in 1991.
Photo credit: Raphael 17
Kenover
My best friend and his boyfriend (both Westerners) lost their jobs and were deported from Kuwait for being gay. Both were English teachers at the university and were careful to be discreet. The fact is, like all the GCC countries Kuwait is a totalitarian monarchy and foreigners have no rights there — they can and will spy on you, bug your phone, investigate your personal life, etc. — and they will kick you out if they don’t like what they find. Nothing will happen to the Kuwaitis who had sex with you, by the way. And one of their “tests” for homosexuality involves a rectal exam to reveal whether or not you’ve had penetrative anal sex. These countries are despotic hypocritical theocracies where foreigners are despised and gay people are ill treated. If most Americans knew what life is really like in Kuwait, they never would’ve supported “liberating” them from Iraq.
CalgaryBill
Sounds to me like any and all folks associated with Kuwait government should be barred from entering any country in North America unless and until their policy is announced to be terminated and the county’s rulers have apologized to the world.
ho
Would it be reasonable to have all Kuwait students in the US sent back to Kuwait?
Teleny
Ironically Iran is sympathetic to transsexuals as long as they get surgery. Otherwise the entire Middle East is in the same boat as Republican Americans.
Icebloo
I don’t remember Kuwait complaining when gay soldiers in the armies from the west were helping free their country from occupation during the Gulf War ? HYPOCRITES !
Q8_A
As a Kuwaiti citizen, I can say that I am pessimistic that things will get any better for lgbt in Kuwait in the near future no matter how load the foreign outcries are, despite being the most liberal country in the Gulf area. I was lucky to be a dual citizen (Kuwaiti/American). I came to to the US (like many Kuwaitis do) after high school for college and decided that I’ll be living in the States for the rest of my life. I know so many Kuwaiti gays who are so lost in their closet, which is much safer place for them. Not everyone had the privilege I had to leave.
Yet, I still have hope that some day things will get better, maybe 30 years later. There are very few pro-lgbt voices in Kuwait, but they’re immediately backlashed and smeared down. Some Kuwaiti politicians are known to be pro lgbt, but they don’t dare to speak out because that it will be the end of they’re political career. The conservatives always play the stupid “bringing western agenda” card since most liberal politicians are western educated (as if being gay is a western invention!).
Besides, it’s hard to jump in lgbt rights when these issues are only a consequence of a larger problems (religious hegemony over reason, absence of secularism, lack of freedom of expression .. etc). Even when women rights were finally granted in 2005 (embarrassingly very late), people still used religious grounds to either oppose or support women’s rights.
Daniel-Reader
Interesting and absurd posturing by the Kuwaiti government. They know as well as anyone that the literally billions of LGBTA people on the planet do not have to continue putting up with the Kuwaiti government.
Snapper59
As there are rapid HIV tests I would assume that would be the most likely screen. Why single out Kuwait? It’s Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE, too. How odd the center of gay rights and democracy in the region is poor little liberal target Israel.
How do the gay libs handle this discrimination and oppression in a Muslim region? Like this writer jokes: I’m not going there anyway for my “lavendar holiday”.
SeanB
What the heck!
2eo
islam, the religion of violent hate. Where r@ping a five year old child is condoned but educating women is met with bullets to the brain, lashes and beheading.
Fuck their stupid beliefs, fuck them with a ham hock.
jwrappaport
Damn, I was actually considering visiting these festering theocratic hellholes before I read this. A clue: no.
the other Greg
Ever notice how all these r@ghead countries, in recent years, have become very fond of bizarre skyscrapers that look like extremely scary dildos?
Probably no psychological explanation for that… not at all…
wakeupscreaming
The medical test is probably what the U.S. Military at one time used. They simply see if the person ‘gags’ when a stick is put near the back of the mouth. Sort of like the ‘open up and say ahhhhh”. Obviously, if the person does not gag, they are presumed to be gay. It’s not exactly scientific. This would place these countries about 60 years behind most western countries.
Spike
Huh, curious why the usual Queerty gay.police here here aren’t demanding that Atlantis Cruises boycott Kuwait, not that it has ever been on one of the itineraries.
Whup-Ass Master
Check out the Kuwait’s M4M listings on Craigslist. There’s lots of sugar mixed in with that sand.
Ogre Magi
I utterly despise muslims
jwrappaport
@Ogre Magi: That is a deeply sad, hurtful thing to say. I don’t think you realize how bold a statement that is. Two classmates of mine I met abroad are now fellow students at my school here in the US. They are two of the gentlest, kindest, and most generous souls I know, and they are both devoutly Muslim. They also know I’m gay, and they have no problem with it whatsoever.
I grant you that many of their countrymen would not be so live-and-let-live about the gays, but you do yourself great discredit to make sweeping generalizations about people whose lives you know nothing about. You will find fewer more ardent critics of religion (especially Islam) than me, but to demonize all of them is profoundly unjust.
JohnnyRalph
Kuwait is a joke.