I learned a very long time ago that I could post in English on the Anglo internet about my experience as a sexual minority in the #middleeastandnorthafrica region. I could vent about every slight or slur, every indiscretion, all the doors that might not have closed in my face had I not been who I am. But that all it would do is earn me a seat at a table half the world away, a seat that I would lose the second I said “but my people are still human. But we are Arab women before we are queer women. But we are muslim before we are trans women. But we are imperialised subjects of the periphery before we are bisexuals. But we are ‘combat-aged males’ before we are gay men and boys.” A seat that I could only keep if I show a willingness to betray my people. And I will not. I do not want it. The price is too steep and the value too low.

I have come to know now that this western voraciousness for our stories was never an impulse born out of empathy; it has always been little more than a gathering of intel, of reasons to hate us and to justify the destruction of our bodies and the pillaging of our lands and the looting of our resources. So I no longer see the utility in being one more primary source for the proverbial NYT opinion editorial manufacturing consent for the latest campaign of imperial slaughter in my backyard on account of our inherent backwardness.