User:Quinn.Jones22/sandbox

Although many Middle Eastern countries have penal codes against homosexual acts, these are seldom enforced due to the difficulty to prove unless caught in the act. In the Middle East today many countries still do not have codification of homosexuality or queerness as an identification of sexual orientation. Since there isn't an official identity for people with a sexual orientation that is geared towards people of the same sex, people often hide their sexual orientation or reject their sexual orientation and instead accept homosexual interactions as occurrences rather than an identity. In many countries there are secret interactions of homosexuality because there are significant boundaries according to gender in public spaces. One such country is Saudi Arabia, which is one of the most conservative countries in the middle east as the government practices Wahhabism which is a system of code that adheres to the Koran strictly, and is defined by strict enforcement of the law. In Saudi Arabia gender segregation is practiced to uphold the purity of women, because this separation exists many women and men will openly seek homosexual companionship in open spaces like coffee shops, public bathrooms, their cars, and their households. To navigate their own sexuality many men who engage in homosexual acts in Saudi Arabia do not deem the acts to be homosexual unless they are a bottom, which is a sexual position deemed to be more feminine while a top is deemed to be masculine. Women in Saudi Arabia navigate their homosexuality by not participating in acts of penetration with other women, as penetration is deemed to be sex which means if they do not penetrate each other they're not participating in homosexual sex.

In Iran there is a strict gender binary. The government enforces the gender binary by suppressing information about homosexuality and encouraging people questioning their sexuality to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Since the sex reassignment surgery is accepted by the government and religious institutions along with obtaining funding from the government for the surgery many Iranians who are attracted to the same sex see this as a way to be public about their sexual orientation without being persecuted by the government. Since being homosexual is not an option presented to Iranians there has been a surge in the amount of Iranians who undergo gender reassignment surgery when their sexual orientation is towards the same sex. Sex reassignment surgery is encouraged by clerics,psychologists, and the government as homosexuality is illegal and punishable by lashing or execution. This has led to a bolstering Transsexual community in Iran as homosexuality has been removed from society as an identity leading homosexuals and transsexuals to all seek gender reassignment surgery. The people who undergo these surgeries are fully accepted by the government but, their families still often reject them, which is the main resource for job acquisition in the middle east and they are discriminated against in society and the workforce  forcing them into sex work. .