Implications and Opportunities for Sexual and Gender Rights in the MENA Region

CTDC Policy Brief No. 3 – April 2017

This policy brief builds on CTDC’s earlier report Conceptualising Sexualities in the MENA Region, proposing a practical shift in advocacy strategies from identity-based frameworks like SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) to a more context-sensitive framework: SPGP (Sexual Practices and Gender Performance). The brief responds to the growing limitations of mainstream LGBTQI rights programming in the region and offers a roadmap for inclusive, locally grounded, and rights-based advocacy.

🔍 Key Issues Identified

• LGBTQI categories are limiting: They often exclude people who face discrimination based on non-normative practices but who do not self-identify as LGBTQI.

• Persecution is rooted in patriarchal gender norms, not just identity: SPGP-related discrimination targets visibility, behaviour, and performance—across all genders and sexualities.

• Top-down, Western-centric approaches provoke backlash and fail to resonate with local contexts and lived experiences.

• Visibility is not always progress: Increased exposure often leads to increased violence against LGBTQI communities.

🛠️ Strategic Recommendations

• Adopt SPGP frameworks to reflect the actual basis of persecution and expand protection to those overlooked by identity-based models.

• Centre grassroots-led advocacy to ensure sustainable, locally legitimate progress.

• Conduct SPGP sensitisation trainings for professionals in healthcare, media, law, and social services to challenge public stigma.

• Develop inclusive programming that addresses all non-normative sexualities and gender expressions.

• Rethink visibility as a metric for success and ensure emergency support systems where visibility increases risk.

• Support local women-led and intersectional initiatives that often remain marginalised in LGBTQI discourse.

• Create an SPGP-sensitive asylum handbook to protect those persecuted for gender performance or sexual practice, regardless of whether they identify as LGBTQI.

• Ensure foreign funding supports discreet, long-term, and culturally grounded efforts.

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