My sexuality had to be hidden from my friends, my parents, not to mention the authorities. Then I found freedom at house parties and one song that sums up me finally being able to be myself
I
was raised in Tehran, under the Ayatollah’s sharia law and daily watch of Basij – the “morality police”. My parents fell in love with the Islamic Revolution when I was a baby and welcomed life under its strict religious rules. The Ayatollah’s face stared down from the walls at home, a daily reminder of what was expected and what was forbidden. This included being gay, but by my teenage years I knew I was different from my peers, and began hiding my sexuality from my parents and the world outside.
The other side of life under the regime was that there was little room for celebration: happy events, even religious ones, came with inherent guilt while frivolous outside influences, including western music, were considered dangerous. And so I was in my mid-20s before I went to my first real party: an underground gathering that would become my gateway to a hidden, gay Tehran.
At university, I had three gay friends who understood one another’s predicament and the intricate lies required to keep our secret. They told me about these parties, in the apartments of other gay men and trans women who transformed their homes with sound systems, lights and homemade alcohol into club nights behind closed doors. I longed for and dreaded an invite, wondering if I was ready to be let loose with the biggest circle of gay men I’d been among, worrying I’d see someone I knew, afraid of the morality police and, more so, my parents finding out. There were so many layers of haram – forbidden behaviour – what would I tell them?
