Berlin trans woman not allowed to enter Egypt
Actually, Trans woman Valery Maria Lehner wanted to go on vacation to the Red Sea. However, at the airport in Egypt she was refused entry. Instead, she was detained for several hours and without being informed about the exact reason. The special thing: The man who accompanied her was allowed to enter without even the slightest inquiry being made. Was it because he is a cis man?
What happened at the airport in Egypt?
According to Valery Maria Lehner, the officials at the airport spent a comparatively long time with her passport. After that, she was asked to wait. She was not told why she was not allowed to pass. One of the officials took her passport and disappeared with it.
In the end, the trans woman had to justify herself to the officials. She had been asked again and again why she had come to Egypt and how long she planned to stay in the country. At the same time, Valery Maria Lehner was not given the right to ask what SHE wanted to know. In addition, she was not allowed to contact the German Embassy.
The whole procedure lasted six hours
After a total of six hours, during which the trans woman was not even offered water, the procedure was over. The result: she was not allowed to enter the country. Again, there was no justification. Instead, she was to stay at the airport for three days and then fly back to Germany free of charge.
However, she did not want to wait that long. Therefore, she managed to get a flight for the same night at a travel agency away from the area where she was being held. However, up until the time she boarded the plane, she continued to be supervised to rule out the possibility that she would still make it into the country.
Valery Maria Lehner describes the complete experience as "humiliating and deeply disturbing."
How is the community in Egypt doing?
The incidents at the airport in Egypt, reported by a trans woman who actually just wanted to spend the "best weeks of the year" in the country, shows the problems the queer community has to deal with there.
Again and again there is criticism - also internationally - about how people in Egypt deal with queers in the country. Again and again, there is talk of people who do not conform to the cis norm being arrested for seemingly no reason at all. Among other things, there is also repeated talk of terrible prison conditions and even torture in this context.
Many practices are even covered by the law. For example, it is officially legal to expel queer people from the country. This is to ensure that Egypt's social values can continue to be lived and protected.
Meanwhile, there are many associations and action alliances in Germany that warn homosexual people not to travel to Egypt or at least ask them to be very careful. Because: The experience and also the experience around the trans woman from Berlin show that the local authorities seem to make no distinction between locals and tourists. Shockingly, it can be assumed that Valery Maria Lehner was lucky that she was "only" told to fly home. Possibly she was closer to an arrest than one would like to imagine.
Have you heard Archbishop Haas criticize "marriage for all"?