'Outed' by the Military, Some Gays Fleeing Iran

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Five years ago, while speaking in New York, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad infamously declared that there are no homosexuals in his country. But for at least 15 years, the regime has quietly been offering gay Iranians exemptions from mandatory military service.

Those exemptions, however, often come with costs, and gay-rights activists say that a considerable number of male homosexuals are fleeing Iran rather than living with the stigma attached to being gay in the Islamic Republic. According to the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees (IRQR), a Toronto-based human-rights group, 118 Iranian queer asylum seekers requested its help last year—the highest number of cases the organization has ever seen in one year.…

… Other times, doctors will perform degrading mental evaluations. "Sometimes they ask you if you prefer 'top' or 'bottom,'" said Hossein Alizadeh, Middle East and North Africa coordinator at the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

The insinuation, he said, is that “if you're on top in a sexual relationship, you're probably man enough to still serve in the military, but if you're on the bottom, we'll have to let you go."…

…"They want to exclude you by saying you're not macho enough to serve in the military,” he said. "It has been a nice way for gay people not to join a harsh situation, but the truth is that the laws are written by people who are concerned not about sexual rights but about the protection of Islamic morals in the Army. So they decided that ‘gay bottoms’ are the biggest threat to the Army and we have to let them go."…

Read the full article at The Daily Beast »