The Arabic Word for Gay is Not Pervert

One of the first LGBT books to be translated into Arabic from English has hit the press.  Gay Travels in the Muslim World, a collection of true-life stories explaining what it's like to be gay in a region of the world where the issue of homosexuality is commonly perceived as complicated (to say the least), has been translated by the publisher Arab Diffusion.  The only problem?

The publisher did a number on the title, choosing to translate the word "gay" with the word "شاذ" (shaath) -- which in Arabic happens to mean pervert or deviant.  Unfortunately, "Pervert Travels in the Muslim World" doesn't sound so interesting and informative.

This incident raises important issues about LGBT rights and the Muslim world.  Neither are monolithic blocks, of course, but as Global Voices Online points out in some truly excellent commentary, the concern over this translation chosen by the publishers highlights a larger concern over the pejorative terminology used by Arabic media to descibe LGBT people.

The issue isn't new by any means.  CNN reporter Hala Gorani (who has received plaudits from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for her LGBT reporting) wrote several years ago about trying to cover the issue of homosexuality in the Middle East:

I then asked our Arabic speakers at CNN what word they thought was the best translation for "gay" in Arabic.

Heads were scratched. "Luti," one suggested. "Shaz," another offered in an e-mail.

Those terms are widely understood, but essentially translate as "pervert" or "deviant" in Arabic.

The only neutral term in existence is the recently coined "Methleen Al Jins," meaning "the same kind or gender" -- the closest equivalent of the word "homosexual."

So this is an issue so taboo, there isn't even a commonly understood non-pejorative word to describe it in the Middle East!

Yikes.  What's an LGBT person to do when the only words used to describe their sexual orientation are akin to people who break the law or do disgusting things?

Well, in the case of the translation over Gay Travels in the Muslim World, one can protest.  That's what one of the contributors to the book, Richard Ammon, is doing.  Here's what Ammon said about the book's unfortunate translation of the word "gay" into "pervert":

It is doubly regretful for me to have this book, an honest testimony of gay Muslim life, have its title mistranslated with the use of a pejorative term that demeans gays. It is regretful that we have come so far in the struggle for gay rights and recognition only to be publicly smeared by a single unaware Jordanian publisher.

The issue of language is just the tip of the iceberg.  With the uptick in violence committed against LGBT people in Iraq, with the Iranian President blaming the recent uprising of activists on "thieves and homosexuals," and with Ethiopia leading the campaign against a UN statement calling for global decriminalization of homosexuality, it's clear that the issue of LGBT rights in Muslim parts of the world will continue to be a hot topic (and one that will require serious changing of minds and hearts).