No Cure: Illness through a Lebanese Arab Queer Lens

ABSTRACT Queer Arab life writing, especially in the context of the Coronavirus pandemic, is scarce. In my three-part auto-ethnographic essay, I explore the overarching relationship between illness and queerness, given that in many spaces the latter still falls under the umbrella of the former – especially in the Middle East where I reside. In the first part, set in 2018, I tackle the idea of wanting to have a terminal disease, cancer, and try to work out why exactly I feel that way. To do so, I revisit scenes that juxtapose this ‘real’ sickness with the ‘perceived’ sickness of being queer in Lebanon. The second part examines the relationship between queerness and a specific illness, COVID-19, as I experienced it in 2020. The third part elaborates on the prolonged, still roiling, impact of this illness, on queer life particularly, and possible positive aspects of the pandemic. While the essay starts with my point of view as someone who has recently come out as queer and moved to Beirut, the rest is written after living there two years as an openly LGBT person. I reflect on the evolution of my relationship with illness and queerness through this coming-out, and ultimately coming-of-age, transition.