[Narratives below]
On the occasion of May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia, the Feminists for Jina Network issued a call to collect and archive queer narratives of life under war and government-imposed internet shutdowns in Iran. Here, we share English translations of some of these narratives.
Many of these stories underscore how authoritarian regimes operate through the marginalization of the most vulnerable, and how marginalized bodies are rendered the sites where the costs of geopolitical conflict are ultimately borne. Collecting and preserving these stories is also a way of resisting colonial narratives that continue to portray war as an opportunity for the emancipation of oppressed people, narratives that many Western governments and media outlets continue to reproduce while overlooking the lived experiences of those they claim to liberate. By documenting queer narratives, we want to remind others that our story is not separate from the story of society; it is woven into its very fabric. The future we want to build and struggle for cannot promise democracy, freedom, equality, and a life of dignity if it does not reflect our voices. Fighting queerphobia means moving toward a society in which no sexual or gender identity dominates others, something that, in our view, is inseparable from the struggle against patriarchy and class oppression.
We know that even in ordinary times, the experience of living as a queer person is not the same for everyone. In times of crisis and insecurity, these differences can become sharper, more complex, or even invisible. For some of us, internet shutdowns have meant becoming disconnected from the few communities where we felt a sense of belonging. For some, war has meant greater difficulty accessing hormones or seeing a lover. Evacuation orders during wartime may have forced us to return to homes where we once had to hide our identities. Or perhaps, for the first time, in a home emptied of family, we were able to breathe freely beside our beloved. These stories are about many things: internet shutdowns, runaway inflation, the Dey massacre, family, friendship, love, housing, work, money, the body, fear, hope, and simply enduring precarious times.
Documenting these stories matters to us because we want to say: we were here; we lived; we were afraid; we loved; we were loved; and we endured. Listening to queer narratives may seem like a small step, but we believe it is a necessary one for navigating the difficult road ahead.
Narrative 1
Being queer, for me, is not only about who I love or who I am in a relationship with; it is also about resisting the assumption that everyone should live the same way, love the same way, and be the same kind of person.
Rooted in this, since last summer, that sense of resistance has become even more pronounced in me — or rather it has been growing stronger and felt more crucial with each passing year. The most defining turning point in the meaning of this identity for me was the Jina uprising, while the 12-day war occupies a less central place in relation to it. In fact, the war distanced me from my sense of self and reduced everything to survival and fear for the survival of those I love. But in relation to the January massacres, I would say that because I was not physically alongside the crowds in the streets, my queer identity and lived experience helped me better understand people who did not think like me, and helped me imagine a more peaceful way of coexistence with them.
My queer identity helped me greatly during the forty-day war — perhaps most of all through the sense of peace I experienced beside my partner, through sharing the intimate space of home, and through feeling safe in the midst of extreme insecurity. Yet, as I mentioned in relation to the 12-day war and the reduction of queer experience to mere survival, I think queer narratives — like the narratives of many minority groups — rarely enter the public sphere during wartime.
War is usually framed around traditional ideas of “family,” “heroism,” and “unity,” where identities are expected to dissolve into a vague concept called “the nation.” Queer people, as those who exist outside conventional norms of gender and family, are often excluded from that circle. The most painful part, for me, is that because queer relationships are not recognized by society — and often not by families either — the desire to remain together and to be a family during wartime, when the presence of family beside one another takes on an even deeper meaning, is also denied recognition. And this becomes an ordinary yet deeply painful part of the experience.
Narrative B
Throughout my life, apart from a period in my adolescence and early youth when I believed my queerness was wrong and that I should try to become straight, there has never been a time when the meaning of being queer changed in my mind. External events did not change that either — perhaps because I was fortunate enough to spend the war under the same roof as my partner, whom my family believes is just a friend.
I have many friends who accept my queer identity, and among them I feel free. But after the January protests, the war that followed, and the reconfiguration of the Islamic Republic,there have been many moments when I think about what I would say, or how I would hide my queerness, if I were arrested.
My experience of queerness during wartime was different to usual. I kept thinking that if I had been married like my straight brother, I too would have had the support of our families. I would have had the right to speak openly about my new family — my partner and I — and to share my fears and worries. My relationships are understood only as friendships, yet I have built a new family that my parents do not recognize.
During the 12-day war, my partner was not in Iran, and I found myself becoming that teenager again — stepping away from my family several times a day just to be able to speak with them. I imagined myself through my family’s eyes: someone who only cares about their friends, someone who does not understand the value of family, and that there is nothing more important than family?
I have always hidden a significant part of my life from my family. Me, the person who hides nothing from them.
F From Tehran
After many years, I had finally begun to feel confident in my queer identity, only to find myself at another dead end, seeing both myself and the society around me trapped in a state of suspended life.
During the war, the total internet shutdown imposed absolute isolation on me and my sense of loneliness reached its peak. Even under ordinary circumstances, I live a double life, and the internet was the only way I could keep a small connection to the queer community. For safety reasons, many of these relationships had never gone beyond Telegram and Instagram, we had never exchanged phone numbers. And suddenly, all of them were gone. The abrupt internet shutdown also made me realize how deeply important the intellectual orientation I have developed, and the content I engage with on social media, are to my life.
I have recently entered the fifth decade of my life, and still I live with my family to financially support them. At work, and in social life more broadly, I have to wear the mask of a straight man who, like everyone else, follows the socially approved paths of progress and success.
At the same time, I have to think about rainy days ahead. I cannot spend my small savings, that lose value every single day, on renting even a small place of my own. Inflation and the collapse of the currency have wiped out all my plans and horizons for personal and professional growth, as well as the possibility of continuing my education.
After the Nowruz holidays, when I returned to work, my hours were cut. The workplace has become even more hostile, and the threat of being laid off is constantly hanging over me. Because both my work and my relationships depend on internet access, I have had to spend a significant amount of money just to stay connected, adding yet another layer to my financial burden.
And then there is the political dimension. It feels as though queer issues have been pushed backward, almost erased. As if, because there is a war, there should be no space to speak of queer lives, no room for us in the media, no urgency to our existence. In opposition circles and in debates about Iran’s political future, queer rights remain absent. We are not a priority. We keep hearing the same thing: “Let things change first; we’ll get to you later.”
And even when we are mentioned, it is only under vague phrases like “recognizing minority rights.” There is no depth, no concrete plan, not even the courage to name queer lives explicitly.
N Narrates
When the protests began in December, I, like many others, took to the streets. On the very first night, I witnessed the killings firsthand. The internet and phone signals were cut, and it was impossible even to call an ambulance. For hours, I ran from one park to another until I finally managed to contact a friend. In the following nights, I returned to the streets, and in one confrontation I was beaten so severely that my teeth were broken. A few days later, security forces came to my small apartment, turned everything upside down, destroyed my belongings, and confiscated my laptop. As a result, I lost my job as well. Later, when the war began and the internet was shut down, I could barely find any work at all, since my job depended on content creation.
During that time, several other trans and queer friends who had nowhere else to go moved into my tiny 28-square-meter apartment. Some had been rejected by their families, and because of hormone therapy or their physical condition, returning to their hometowns was dangerous for them. Unemployed, penniless, and without support, we endured the war and the internet shutdown together.
In those same days, I was excited to hear that several queer groups had formed on one of the local apps, and I happily joined one of them. But because I am non-binary, I was mocked and called things like “confused.” Eventually, anyone who did not identify as gay was removed from the group. I realized that we have no place even in some parts of the queer community itself. Part of our experience—especially for trans and non-binary people—is that we receive no support from our families, no support from society, and sometimes not even support from the LGBTQ community. Every day, I wake up with anxiety, nightmares, unemployment, homelessness, and fear for the future.
S Narrates
After three years of working myself to the bone, I was laid off from my main job—even though I was working for significantly lower pay and under conditions that were nowhere near comparable to everyone else’s. I was simply the easiest person to let go, because no one asks why. It’s as if, for a trans person, just being given a job—just being “allowed” to be exploited—is already more than they deserve! They should be grateful for such generosity! Private tutoring and my small business (my second and third sources of income) were also wiped out because of the internet shutdown. After a few months of living off my savings, I ran out of money. After spending some time staying at different friends’ places—a situation made even harder by the war—I was forced to return to my parents’ home, to the city and the house I had once escaped from. Hormones had also become scarce and so expensive that, just to keep myself from breaking under the pressure, I stopped even asking around about the prices because I knew I couldn’t afford them. Knowing would only push me one step closer to the edge. Having to stop hormone therapy made this return even more terrifying than the war itself. I wished I were dead. I lasted only a few days before I left again, despite having nowhere to go. After threats and countless hardships, that period of homelessness finally came to an end thanks to the kindness of a friend and I survived. I still can’t fully tell this story the way it deserves to be told. But I want to say this: we have no one but each other. My commitment to the blood of our sisters, those who perhaps weren’t as fortunate as I was and were killed, was my tether to life.
For freedom.