Coming Out in Cairo

[Jamison]

Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to share a casual read about some of my experiences in Cairo. It just got published on Vocativ.com and is the main story. Feel free to comment on the site's page and share!

http://www.vocativ.com/12-2013/coming-cairo-trans/
Source: Vocativ

edit by LH to comply with posting guidelines

[Joelene9]

  Thanks for your story of your trip to Cairo.  Not only that you are in transition, so is Egypt.  A very unique perspective and you pass well as a male.  The societies in the middle east do favor the male with the social interactions.  Women travelers have to be careful there.  I am transitioning late in life and the changes showing is not quite female. I still look like a male retiree and can still interact with those same people you did.  Those younger MtF ones I seen here on Susan's cannot because they pass to well as female.  Remember what happened to the female reporter last year during the riots? 
  I did come close to visiting Egypt in 1975 when the relationship between the US and Anwar Sadat thawed.  The USS America crew had already have a liberty call in Alexandria.  We on the USS JFK were slated next, but a liberty call before in Italy had 40% of the crew getting the clap cause a delay while the crew was treated plus the skirmish in Lebanon with evacuation of US citizens was proposed.  That delay was enough to me to miss that liberty call due to the end my enlistment was up.  That was the last time Lebanon had a stable government. 

  Joelene

[Jamison]

Hi Joelene,

Thanks for your reply. Egypt is definitely an interesting place to visit at this time, but I would not recommend it to female travelers. That article mentioned a sliver of my experiences in Cairo, many I would have never had if I were female. Though the article doesn't go into this depth, I was also doing research on the labor protests during that time and wrote my master's thesis on it. I plan to keep Egypt in my future research and will hopefully go back when finances and career opportunities allow. I believe the journalist you're referring to was the one I mentioned in the article (Lara Logan?) though many females suffered a similar fate and didn't get coverage.

It's interesting, the academics use to flock to Egypt for the stability, now their going back to Lebanon (for the stability, relatively speaking).