Nouran Hussein, Egypt
My name is Nouran, and I’m 23 years old. I’m originally from Egypt. I first started feeling like I may have been a lesbian in grade 6 but I didn’t really admit it to myself until I was in high school. I made sure to keep it secret and hide it from everyone. My background is Muslim and so I felt like I could never come out to my family.When I was in college, my family looked through my phone and found messages between me and my partner. They beat me and couldn’t accept it. They even admitted me to a mental health hospital for one week.
In Egypt, the LGBTQ community is so hidden and nobody can show their sexuality in general because they can be taken by the police and tortured. It’s not just the police and government, but the general public too. I met my partner Miral on Instagram while I was living in Egypt. We knew we were in danger and so in September 2017 we tried to escape. We traveled and hid around Egypt until we could finally get a visa to leave as refugees thanks to the support from Rainbow Railroad. We came to Toronto in June 2018 and neither of us have relationships to our families.
We could never imagine that there would be a place in the world where we could walk around freely, hold hands and kiss publicly. When we first arrived in Toronto, we were so happy that we cried. We both received refugee status and are currently applying for our permanent residency. In December of 2018, we were both attached on social media and newspapers in Egypt for announcing that we would like to get married one day. We received threats from the Arabic community here in Toronto so we went to the police to report it. Even though we’re here in Toronto and things are more open, we still experience homophobia. In Egypt I was studying language and music and and now that I’m in Toronto, I dream of one day being a pilot.
PhotoGRAPHED by
Mohamad Lazakani
Mohamad is an artist and photographer with a special interest in street photography. Originally from Syria he arrived in Toronto with his family in 2016.