After FIFA's threat to sanction players for wearing OneLove armbands at the Qatar World Cup, many members of the LGBTQ+ community in the UK were incensed – especially when England reneged on its pledge to send out captain Harry Kane wearing one. "Real allies would have taken the fine/sanctions. This fake ass allyship is utterly worthless," one fan tweeted, echoing a sentiment held by many. The UK's leading LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, meanwhile, aimed its criticism at FIFA: “By threatening sporting sanctions and stopping players from wearing #OneLove armbands, FIFA are brushing criticism of human rights abuses under the carpet.”
The World Cup has long been a cultural moment that transcends sport and sets a stage for social and political dialogue. The 2022 tournament has felt more heated than any in recent memory – with much of its discussion centering on the incongruence of the global sport’s biggest moment being hosted in a place whose laws so adversely affect the LGBTQ+ community. During Monday's match between Portugal and Uruguay, a 35-year-old Italian man, Mario Ferri, invaded the pitch waving a rainbow flag. (Ferri, a frequent pitch invader, also wore a T-shirt with "Save Ukraine" on the front and "Respect for Iranian women" on the back.) However, LGBTQ+ Qataris don't have the privilege of protesting in this way – or even expressing an opinion publicly. Their government forbids them from campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights, doesn't recognise same-sex marriage or civil partnerships, and has the power to punish sexual relations between men with up to three years in prison. "The rights of LGBT people in Qatar are largely repressed," says Rasha Younes of Human Rights Watch (HRW), an NGO that works to protect people in 100 countries worldwide.
According to Younes, this repression extends beyond sexually active gay men to people right across the LGBTQ+ spectrum. "Ahead of the World Cup, Qatar and FIFA had over a decade to introduce fundamental protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but failed to do so," she says, suggesting FIFA could have predicated the country's tender to host the tournament on improving its human rights record. "But in fact," Younes continues, "HRW documented six cases where LGBT Qataris reported being arrested for their gender expression, taking place between 2019 and September 2022, [and were] detained without charge or trial and faced ill-treatment during detention, including severe beatings and sexual harassment."
Activist and physician Dr Nas Mohamed is believed to be the world's only publicly out LGBTQ+ Qatari. After moving to the US to study medicine, he sought asylum in 2015 based on his fears of being persecuted if he ever returned home. It wasn’t a decision that Mohamed, who now lives in San Francisco, took lightly. His immigration attorney told him that applying for asylum would mean "you can't go back home ever again"; and after coming out he now has no relationship with any members of his family.
Today, Mohamed tells GQ that fellow LGBTQ+ Qataris still living at home "do not feel safe at all" and are likely to be "deep in the closet". If you're queer in Qatar, he says, "you must keep that part of you hidden", otherwise "you are at risk of being socially rejected, losing your job and not being able to access affirming physical or mental healthcare". And if you're found out, "your own family may hurt you [and] force you to get conversion therapy". The latter is a discredited pseudoscience predicated on the false and massively damaging idea that being LGBTQ+ is a mental disorder that can somehow be "cured".
The outlook for queer Qataris is so dire that in October of this year Mohamed launched The Alwan Foundation to fight for the rights of LGBTQ+ people across the Gulf region. Both Younes and Mohamed point out that gay England and Wales fans visiting Qatar for the World Cup will be treated very differently from the country's own LGBTQ+ citizens. Adam Crafton, a British journalist and member of the LGBTQ+ community currently in Qatar covering the tournament for The Athletic, tells GQ he feels "broadly safe" going about his work there. He also says it felt "draining and deflating" to hear about rainbow bucket hats being confiscated from Wales supporters early in the tournament – something FIFA and the Welsh FA later made sure was a one-off – and calls the armband decision a letdown. “If the players had worn the armband after the threat of sanctions, it would have been a pretty strong statement of support," he says. “Instead, we've kind of found out that the line of allyship is a yellow card.”
Younes warns that the Qatari government's repeated insistence that international LGBTQ+ visitors are welcome at the World Cup "risks erasing the lived repressive reality of LGBT residents of Qatar". Mohamed has another, possibly even greater worry – namely, that this message will "directly affect" queer Qataris seeking asylum by making their home nation seem more progressive than it really is. Because there is currently no data on exactly how many LGBTQ+ Qataris are actively seeking asylum, Mohamed says gathering information is one of the The Alwan Foundation’s main objectives. He adds: “I am personally in touch with people actively filing for asylum in the US, UK and Germany for being LGBTQ+ and Qatari.”
To highlight this disparity, Mohamed has founded The Proud Maroons, a supporters’ group whose moniker is a riff on the Qatari national team’s nickname. It’s billed as "the only national football supporters' group that can’t have fans from its own nation – because joining would send them to jail". Mohamed is encouraging Western football fans to show solidarity with Qatar's oppressed LGBTQ+ people by following The Proud Maroons. "I really did my very best to find an easy and light way for people to engage with this difficult topic and be part of positive change," he says. "Being a Proud Maroon and buying any merchandise or 'membership' will help The Alwan Foundation." Mohamed says this money will go towards supporting the local LGBTQ+ community with research and advocacy work that is "similar to what I personally have been doing this year but on a bigger scale". He also wants to offer practical and emotional support to LGBTQ+ Qataris navigating the serious challenge of "building a new life in a different country".
"We cannot protect ourselves," Mohamed says. “By supporting the Proud Maroons, you can help us make sure that all the fragmented efforts around LGBTQ+ rights in Qatar are firmly anchored in one place.”
