Sometimes the obvious is so obvious that people forget to state it. So let me observe one small footnote among recent obvious things.
Earlier this month, Donald Trump killed the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and most of the senior leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary government in Iran.
There are many things to be said against the Ayatollah and his friends. Since 1979 they have repressed the population of Iran and hurtled one of the great civilisations backwards by a millennium. From the start of the revolution they have murdered their domestic opponents by the thousands. They have shot students in the head when they came out on to the streets in protest. They have massacred, raped and tortured prisoners. They have exported terror around the world. They have sent agents to kill American politicians on US soil and death squads to the UK, and they have pronounced a death sentence on a British novelist for the ‘crime’ of writing a novel.
The unwritten rule has been there for decades: the fight for gay equality halts at the borders of Islam
Here is an obvious thing. As well as repressing women, the regime is not exactly progressive when it comes to the issue of the gays. In fact this lack of acceptance, tolerance or ‘kindness’ extends to publicly hanging people by the neck from cranes for the ‘crime’ of being homosexual.
I mention this not to single out gays as especial victims of Tehran’s revolutionary regime, but rather to notice a rather curious corner. That is the silence about the demise of the Ayatollah and his thugs from people and groups who can usually be relied upon to mouth off about absolutely anything they deem ‘homophobic’ or ‘anti-LGBTQIA+’. I mean all the Russell T. Davies, Alan Cumming, David Tennant and Lord Cashman types who love to lam into the Conservative party, the Republicans or Reform for generally imaginary reasons.
I just performed the lachrymose task of looking through what remains of the ‘gay press’ in the UK and US. Were I editing one of these papers, I would think the top story might be a strong image of a gay couple being hanged from the neck in Tehran. I might accompany it with an editorial noting that whatever you think of the military action launched by President Trump, no one is going to mourn the regime in Iran. Maybe – it being a gay publication – I would also extend some hope and solidarity towards my gay brothers and sisters in Iran and voice a wish that in the near future being gay will not be a capital crime there.
Have the residual gay publications in the West done any such thing? Have they heck. The UK’s Pink News is, as ever, filled with stories about ‘trans’ issues. There is an attack on Trump for some legislation which the publication deems ‘anti-trans’, a tirade against America’s ICE agents and a story about a trans bathroom bill in New Hampshire – so it’s not as though these publications mind meddling in other countries’ politics. There are also quite a lot of stories about the drama Heated Rivalry, a gay romance about two ice hockey players, plus a story about a boss at Pixar who has been ‘slammed’ for his response to the cutting of ‘queer’ scenes from a cartoon called Elio.
Attitude is more of a ‘lifestyle’ magazine, but strangely enough it too is vocal on US politics. From scouring its front page, I learn once again that Trump is to be criticised for something to do with ‘anti-trans’ legislation. I can also learn Tom Daley’s daily workout routine.
Crossing the Atlantic, I scour the dumpster fire that is Advocate magazine. There I can learn about a Texas attorney general who seems to be against ‘trans kids’ being given ‘gender-affirming care’. Plus the fact that ‘Scouting America accuses LGBTQ+ travel agency Queer Scout of trademark infringement’. Like me, you may think that much of this seems to have been written in some foreign language. And indeed it is – it is written in the language of cowardice, privilege and parochialism.
Some of us have for years noted a particular oddity of the ‘rights movements’ as they have manifested in the West. Which is that however dogged – indeed dogmatic – they are at home, however much they will pursue a backbench MP or Republican congressman for not being completely on board with gay marriage or the transing of children, they become silent at the borders of Islam.
In a different universe, some 15 years ago or so – when the battle for gay equality was won – the remaining would-be warriors might have decided to continue their fight to highlight the abuse of gays in other countries. I mean real abuse, not just another story about the horrors of growing up under Section 28.
Imagine if instead of spending 15 years trying to push ‘trans kids’ as the next forefront of the rights struggles, the activists had decided to stick to the basics and become more geographically adventurous. They could have. Just about the only gay pride organisers I have any respect for (the others being mere party organisers) are the people who have tried to hold gay equality protests in places like Moscow. That is actually brave.
The unwritten rule has been there for decades: the fight for gay equality – as for women’s rights – halts at the borders of Islam. You might say that is simply because of cowardice, or that no western groups could have made any impact on the Ayatollah’s thinking anyway. Or perhaps – most likely – the cowardice is caused by a fear of accusations of having a ‘colonialist mindset’ (which I think we can agree is the most dangerous mindset of all).
You could believe any or all of these excuses. But I can’t help finding it interesting that Trump may have just done more for gay rights in Iran than any activist group in the West could ever have dreamed of. Not that they’ll thank him, of course. They’re probably too busy trying to find another way to demonise the creator of Harry Potter.
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