Talk about running a risk, but someone has to do it"When I came out in 2003, I thought I might be killed or displaced from the community," she says, acknowledging she received anonymous telephone threats and that her car was damaged after word got out. "I'm still alive and I'm not displaced."
Morcos is the general coordinator and a co-founder of Aswat: Palestinian Gay Women. Aswat means "voices" in Arabic, and is the first and only group of Palestinian lesbians in the region. On March 28, it held in Haifa its first public conference.
The meeting, which Morcos said was attended by as many as 350 people, marked five years of the organization's existence and the publication of a new book in Arabic about lesbian and gay identity.
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For those who are unaware. In the Palestinian areas, one can be killed for being gay, for talking to a Jew, for selling their land to a non-Arab, or looking at someone cross eyed (my exaggeration on the last bit there). Most of the citizens in the area pretty much know how to lay low and not draw attention to themselves when the "morality squads" go around. For those who take this kind of stand they risk being drawn out into public and executed without a trial of any sorts.
Group website:
ASWAT - Palestinian Gay Women
