Between two fires

Abstract

This paper will explore the challenges faced by LGBTQ+ advocates in the Middle East and North Africa region in the 21stcentury in scholarly and cultural discourses. It will explore how these advocates can continue to create cultural waves by separating themselves from international Islamophobic and local anti-LGBTQ+ cultural dialogues. Its methodology will explore scholarly debates within the literature and cultural debates in the region and it will adopt a Postcolonial International Relations (IR) theoretical framework and using critical cultural theory. It will apply the scholarship on the topic to two previously unexplored case studies in contemporary Egypt and Lebanon. The paper will conclude that the legacy of colonial domination still impacts cultural dialogues in the region. However, LGBTQ+ advocates can navigate the cultural discourse to promote indigenous LGBTQ+ rights discourses, and the chosen theoretical framework is a useful framework through which to study modern events in IR.