Commentary
I could have been Omar Mateen
Pulse Nightclub gunman reportedly used gay hook-up apps
Nemat Sadat (Photo courtesy of Nemat Sadat)
Like Omar Mateen, I grew up Afghan, American, Muslim, and (if he truly was gay) a repressed homosexual. Although I grew up in a household that didn’t support the Taliban, I was still socialized in the same cultural milieu that had a zero tolerance for gays.
In my teens; while living in Irvine, Calif., I was cursed by my father, who repeatedly called me a kuni, a derogatory word equivalent to “fag,” because I loved to dance and acted effeminate. At the mosque, I heard sermons preach homosexuality as an illness and sin and justify the death penalty for gays and lesbians. My entire youth was tainted with fear, guilt, intimidation, shame and untold repression stemming from my same-gender attraction and the psychological violence I was subjected to because of my Afghan roots and Muslim faith.
When I reached adulthood; I was pressured by my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and family acquaintances to act manly and marry a woman. I spent years dodging the issue and pursued higher education as a stalling tactic until I found myself on the fringes and realized there was no escape. Fretting that I drifted too far away from our tribe and traditions, my parents colluded with relatives to reign me in and forced me to marry a woman even after they knew I was gay. Thankfully, I refused.
So it could very well be that long before Mateen turned his internal rage into a violent rampage at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando last week, that he, too, was a victim of honor violence. Since families give themselves the right to kill anyone who brings dishonor and shame to the family, Mateen had no option of ever coming out if he actually was a closeted gay man. As someone who has averted honor violence and religious bigotry, I know firsthand the struggle of the tens of millions of L.G.B.T.Q. (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning) persons within Muslim communities who continue to suffer in silence from the ongoing persecution and the inability to reconcile their homosexuality with Islam.
After I came out to my immediate family in December 2009, my parents believed I was going through a phase and that being gay was a lifestyle choice. My father, a well-known Afghan intellectual of his generation and a former ambassador of Afghanistan to West Germany, believed that homosexuality was a western invention, used by the United States, to subvert Islam. My father, like Mateen’s father, are byproducts of the ferociously homophobic society they grew up in.
A 2013 study conducted by the Pew Research Center showed that 99 percent of Afghans favor sharia law in Afghanistan. Under sharia, is it is permissible to kill homosexuals since it is considered the worst sin in Islam. In fact, LGBTQ people are criminalized three times in Islam. The first, for the act of liwat, or sodomy; the second, by doing zina, or having unlawful sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage; and the third time for assuming an LGBTQ identity which threatens the predominance of cisgender Muslim men over women and minorities. In other words, in the eyes of devout Muslims, LGBTQ people are regarded as enemy combatants and an affront to the Islamic way of life.
To protect their Muslim faith and the image of Islam, pro-Islamist activists and scholars argue that the roots of homophobia in the Muslim World stems from western colonialism (such as the British buggery laws) and suggest that Islamic societies have historically been tolerant towards homosexuality. This deceptive obfuscation isn’t helpful or true. In fact, Islam has been the main source of LGBTQ persecution in Muslim communities for a millennium before European imperialism and since Muslim-majority countries achieved their independence in the 20th century. The only historical example of homosexuality of having been decriminalized in the Islamic past was during the Tanzimat reforms of 1858 in the Ottoman Empire. The Tanzimat reforms, heavily influenced by European ideas, were based on secular thinking and nothing to do with Islamic teachings.
Therefore, the one constant in the criminalization of LGBTQ people imposed by Muslim purists and Islamic theocracies like Iran and Saudi Arabia are the passages within the Quran and Hadith that legitimate violence against homosexuals. So the tactic of blaming the West while turning a blind eye to the plight of LGBTQ people in the Muslim world is nothing but a pure distraction from the underlying issue.
If Mateen was gay, he succumbed to the social pressures of conforming to a militantly patriarchal culture, which caused him to live a double life and fail to properly integrate into American society. I, on the other hand, took a detour from the norm but have also suffered incredibly for the post-conventional position I have taken.
In 2012, I returned to my birthplace, Kabul, after living three decades in exile, to work as a professor of political science at the American University of Afghanistan. While I tried to remain discreet, I was still persecuted for being gay. Instead of caving into demands of orthodox Muslims, I fought back by meeting queers in the Afghan capital, mobilizing a gay movement and using social media to promote LGBTQ rights. A year later I was forced to resign from my post and threatened by the Afghan government that I would be arrested, drawn into court, and handed down a life sentence or the death penalty, even though I am a naturalized U.S. citizen, on allegations that my presence and self-expression was destabilizing the social order of Islam. I fled to New York City and in August 2013, I came out publicly to the whole world. Since then I’ve been disowned by much of my family and relatives, deserted by many of my friends and ostracized by most Afghan Americans and Muslim Americans.
While I opted for freedom, it has come at a huge cost. I’ve endured poverty, ending up on the streets and living in homeless shelters. After receiving numerous death threats and a formal fatwa, I continue to live in hiding. Yet, I remain steadfast in advocating for gay liberation in my homeland and across the Muslim world so that future generations of LGBTQ people don’t have to endure the hardships and trauma I’ve encountered.
In Muslim-majority countries, LGBTQ people suffer from mob squads and state-sanctioned terror on top of the honor violence imposed by their families. The suffering LGBTQ people endure in the chaotic underworld of Muslim communities is the hidden war, which we are now beginning to understand with my testimony and scrutinizing the life of Omar Mateen.
LGBTQ victims of honor violence, even here in the United States, are too embarrassed and scared to come forward since homosexuality is still a taboo among Muslims and there’s a culture of stigma about seeking help in the community. Most LGBTQ Muslims would rather die or suffer in silence instead of taking the uncharted path I’ve taken.
If we want to have an honest discussion about why Mateen killed 49 people and injured 53 others, then we have to end the denial and address the root cause.
Last week’s Orlando massacre proves that preventing Islamic indoctrination in the United States is a first step in ensuring the well-being of our society, and safeguarding our national security. Those who’ve experienced honor violence and radicalization have two choices: They can fall deeper into the trap of extremism as Mateen did by embarking on the path to martyrdom by expunging his sins and seeking entry into paradise by murdering other sinners or they can break out of the mold as I did by coming out gay and speaking up even if it means offending Muslims who hold parochial views about gender identity and sexual orientation.
Once we accept the bitter truth that religious indoctrination played a big role in brainwashing and weaponizing an American-born citizen to become an armed Jihadi, we will be able to prevent future terrorist attacks and help LGBTQ Muslims trapped in unending turmoil. Leaving Islam’s punitive line towards homosexuality out of the conversation will ensure that Muslim communities continue to incubate more Omar Mateens.
Today, on World AIDS Day, we honor the resilience, courage, and dignity of people living with HIV everywhere especially refugees, asylum seekers, and queer displaced communities across East Africa and the world.
For many, living with HIV is not just a health journey it is a journey of navigating stigma, borders, laws, discrimination, and survival.
Yet even in the face of displacement, uncertainty, and exclusion, queer people living with HIV continue to rise, thrive, advocate, and build community against all odds.
To every displaced person living with HIV:
• Your strength inspires us.
• Your story matters.
• You are worthy of safety, compassion, and the full right to health.
• You deserve a world where borders do not determine access to treatment, where identity does not determine dignity, and where your existence is celebrated not criminalized.
Let today be a reminder that:
• HIV is not a crime.
• Queer identity is not a crime.
• Seeking safety is not a crime.
• Stigma has no place in our communities.
• Access to treatment, care, and protection is a human right.
As we reflect, we must recommit ourselves to building systems that protect not punish displaced queer people living with HIV. We must amplify their voices, invest in inclusive healthcare, and fight the inequalities that fuel vulnerability.
Hope is stronger when we build it together.
Let’s continue to uplift, empower, and walk alongside those whose journeys are too often unheard.
Today we remember.
Today we stand together.
Today we renew hope.
Abraham Junior lives in the Gorom Refugee Settlement in South Sudan.
Commentary
Perfection is a lie and vulnerability is the new strength
Rebuilding life and business after profound struggles
I grew up an overweight, gay Black boy in West Baltimore, so I know what it feels like not to fit into a world that was not really made for you. When I was 18, my mother passed from congestive heart failure, and fitness became a sanctuary for my mental health rather than just a place to build my body. That is the line I open most speeches with when people ask who I am and why I started SWEAT DC.
The truth is that little boy never really left me.
Even now, at 42 years old, standing 6 feet 3 inches and 225 pounds as a fitness business owner, I still carry the fears, judgments, and insecurities of that broken kid. Many of us do. We grow into new seasons of life, but the messages we absorbed when we were young linger and shape the stories we tell ourselves. My lack of confidence growing up pushed me to chase perfection as I aged. So, of course, I ended up in Washington, D.C., which I lovingly call the most perfection obsessed city in the world.
Chances are that if you are reading this, you feel some of that too.
D.C. is a place where your resume walks through the door before you do, where degrees, salaries, and the perfect body feel like unspoken expectations. In the age of social media, the pressure is even louder. We are all scrolling through each other’s highlight reels, comparing our behind the scenes to someone else’s curated moment. And I am not above it. I have posted the perfect photo with the inspirational “God did it again” caption when I am feeling great and then gone completely quiet when life feels heavy. I am guilty of loving being the strong friend while hating to admit that sometimes I am the friend who needs support.
We are all caught in a system that teaches us perfection or nothing at all. But what I know for sure now is this: Perfection is a lie and vulnerability is the new strength.
When I first stepped into leadership, trying to be the perfect CEO, I found Brené Brown’s book, “Daring Greatly” and immediately grabbed onto the idea that vulnerability is strength. I wanted to create a community at SWEAT where people felt safe enough to be real. Staff, members, partners, everyone. “Welcome Home” became our motto for a reason. Our mission is to create a world where everyone feels confident in their skin.
But in my effort to build that world for others, I forgot to build it for myself.
Since launching SWEAT as a pop up fundraiser in 2015, opening our first brick and mortar in 2017, surviving COVID, reemerging and scaling, and now preparing to open our fifth location in Shaw in February 2026, life has been full. Along the way, I went from having a tight trainer six pack to gaining nearly 50 pounds as a stressed out entrepreneur. I lost my father. I underwent hip replacement surgery. I left a relationship that looked fine on paper but was not right. I took on extra jobs to keep the business alive. I battled alcoholism. I faced depression and loneliness. There are more stories than I can fit in one piece.
But the hardest battle was the one in my head. I judged myself for not having the body I once had. I asked myself how I could lead a fitness company if I was not in perfect shape. I asked myself how I could be a gay man in this city and not look the way I used to.
Then came the healing.
A fraternity brother said to me on the phone, “G, you have to forgive yourself.” It stopped me in my tracks. I had never considered forgiving myself. I only knew how to push harder, chase more, and hide the cracks. When we hung up, I cried. That moment opened something in me. I realized I had not neglected my body. I had held my life and my business together the best way I knew how through unimaginable seasons.
I stopped shaming myself for not looking like my past. I started honoring the new ways I had proven I was strong.
So here is what I want to offer anyone who is in that dark space now. Give yourself the same grace you give everyone else. Love yourself through every phase, not just the shiny ones. Recognize growth even when growth simply means you are still here.
When I created SWEAT, I hoped to build a home where people felt worthy just as they are, mostly because I needed that home too. My mission now is to carry that message beyond our walls and into the city I love. To build a STRONGER DC.
Because strength is not perfection. Strength is learning to love an imperfect you.
With love and gratitude, Coach G.
Gerard Burley, also known as Coach G, is a D.C.-based fitness entrepreneur.
Commentary
Elusive safety: what new global data reveals about gender, violence, and erasure
Movements against gender equality, lack of human rights data contributing factors.
“My identity could be revealed, people can say whatever they want [online] without consequences. [Hormone replacement therapy] is illegal here so I’m just waiting to find a way to get out of here.”
-Anonymous respondent to the 2024 F&M Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index from Iraq, self-identified as a transgender woman and lesbian
As the campaign for 16 Days Against Gender-Based Violence begins, it is a reminder that gender-based violence (GBV) — both on– and offline — not only impacts women and girls but everyone who has been harmed or abused because of their gender or perceived gender. New research from the Franklin & Marshall (F&M) Global Barometers and its report A Growing Backlash: Quantifying the Experiences of LGBTQI+ People, 2022-2024 starkly show trends of declining safety among LGBTQI+ persons around the world.
This erosion of safety is accelerated by movements against gender equality and the disappearance of credible human rights data and reporting. The fight against GBV means understanding all people’s lived realities, including those of LGBTQI+ people, alongside the rights we continue to fight for.
We partnered together while at USAID and Franklin & Marshall College to expand the research and evidence base to better understand GBV against LGBTQI+ persons through the F&M Global Barometers. The collection of barometers tracks the legal rights and lived experiences of LGBTQI+ persons from 204 countries and territories from 2011 to the present. With more than a decade of data, it allows us to see how rights have progressed and receded as well as the gaps between legal protections and lived experiences of discrimination and violence.
This year’s data reveals alarming trends that highlight how fear and violence are, at its root, gendered phenomena that affect anyone who transgresses traditional gender norms.
LGBTQI+ people feel less safe
Nearly two-thirds of countries experienced a decline in their score on the F&M Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index (GBPI) from 2022-2024. This represents a five percent drop in global safety scores in just two years. With almost 70 percent of countries receiving an “F” grade on the GBPI, this suggests a global crisis in actual human rights protections for LGBTQI+ people.
Backsliding on LGBTQI+ human rights is happening everywhere, even in politically stable, established democracies with human rights protections for LGBTQI+ people. Countries in Western Europe and the Americas experienced the greatest negative GBPI score changes globally, 74 and 67 percent, respectively. Transgender people globally reported the highest likelihood of violence, while trans women and intersex people reported the highest levels of feeling very unsafe or unsafe simply because of who they are.
Taboo of gender equality
Before this current administration dismantled USAID, I helped create an LGBTQI+ inclusive whole-of-government strategy to prevent and respond to GBV that highlighted the unique forms of GBV against LGBTQI+ persons. This included so-called ‘corrective’ rape related to actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression” and so-called ‘conversion’ therapy practices that seek to change or suppress a person’s gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or sex characteristics. These efforts helped connect the dots in understanding that LGBTQI+ violence is rooted in the same systems of inequality and power imbalances as the broader spectrum of GBV against women and girls.
Losing data and accountability
Data that helps better understand GBV against LGBTQI+ persons is also disappearing. Again, the dismantling of USAID meant a treasure trove of research and reports on LGBTQI+ rights have been lost. Earlier this year, the US Department of State removed LGBTQI+ reporting from its annual Human Rights Reports. These played a critical role in providing credible sources for civil society, researchers, and policymakers to track abuses and advocate for change.
If violence isn’t documented, it’s easier for governments to deny it even exists and harder for us to hold governments accountable. Yet when systems of accountability work, governments and civil society can utilize data in international forums like the UN Universal Periodic Review, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Sustainable Development Goals to assess progress and compliance and call for governments to improve protections.
All may not be lost if other countries and donors fill the void by supporting independent data collection and reporting efforts like the F&M Global Barometers and other academic and civil society monitoring. Such efforts are essential to the fight against GBV: The data helps show that the path toward safety, equality, and justice is within our reach if we’re unafraid of truth and visibility of those most marginalized and impacted.
Jay Gilliam (he/him/his) was the Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator at USAID and is a member of the Global Outreach Advisory Council of the F&M Global Barometers.
Susan Dicklitch-Nelson (she/her/hers) is the founder of the F&M Global Barometers and Professor of Government at Franklin & Marshall College.
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