A Lebanese judge made a historic ruling for the under-fire Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender (LGBT) community in the country when he acquitted an unidentified transgender woman accused of having sexual relations with men.
“People living with a disorder regarding their sexual identity, even if they stray away from the rules and the familiar, will remain part of nature which they have come from,” Judge Naji al-Dahdah of the Jdeideh Court said in a January 28 ruling published earlier in March in Al-Moufakkira al-Qanouniya NGO’s monthly magazine.
In his ruling, Dahdah added that “doing something out of the ordinary does not mean that it is an abnormality. And nature is not defined by the behavior of its majority.”
In 2009, the sole criminal judge in Batroun made a similar ruling, which reads: “Man is part of nature and one of its elements; therefore, we cannot say that any of his practices or behavior is against nature even if it was a criminal behavior because it is a result of nature’s arbitration.”
NOW spoke Wednesday with Nizar Saghiyeh, a lawyer and founder of Al-Moufakkira al-Qanouniya, who said that “the Lebanese judiciary has shown that it is capable of developing legal texts.”
He also said that “they are capable of applying them in a way that is in harmony with respecting personal freedom and the general principles of human rights.”
“If a third ruling, similar to the previous two, is issued, then we can start speaking of an important movement within the Lebanese judicial system because a large number of judges tend to explain the text of article 543.”
Article 543 of the Lebanese criminal code penalizes the act of intercourse which is “against the laws of nature,” and is usually used to punish homosexual relations.
Doctor in General Law Antoine Saad also told NOW that “this article is subject to alteration or cancelation, but our society and religion in Lebanon are still standing against homosexuality.”
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