PERSPECTIVES
Reaching Out to Refugees
An LGBT Syrian refugee shares his personal story with Bay Area high schoolers who are helping raise money to purchase food cards for LGBT refugees in Turkey. Credit: Courtesy of ORAM.
The refugee crisis is not over and LGBT Syrians are particularly in need of culturally competent support. By
Hala-Mary Hazar
The LGBT population is mostly comfortable in the United States right now. Marriage equality is now legal in all 50 states, so we can marry whomever we love and receive equal rights. But what about those who come from countries where it isn’t even safe to be gay, let alone to fight for equal rights? And what happens when those people are forced to flee due to violence and terrorism? It’s been in the news constantly: refugees fleeing for safety in droves. They are fleeing in terrifyingly precarious rafts to varying degrees of success and paying huge amounts of money to try to save themselves and their families. They are leaving everything they know 116 | Boston Pride 2016
behind - their safety nets, families, and memories. What could possibly make this a better option than staying put? What has the world come to that this is really their best option to be able to live in peace? It’s terrible for everyone, but what happens to the ones who cannot safely be themselves and worry that coming out means certain death? Daesh is known to throw men they believe to be gay off roofs, for no other reason than their perceived sexual orientation [Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the group commonly referred to as ISIS in the United States. –Ed.].
