When Sarah Hegazi was imprisoned, tortured, and eventually exiled from Egypt because she raised the LGBTQ pride flag at a concert in 2017, her courage sparked controversy and inspired many.
Hegazi is one of the reasons I dared to take rainbow LGBTQ+ gear while visiting my family in Egypt this winter break. It was subtle enough with a rainbow hat, which was quite a bad idea in Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s military state in hindsight. Yet, I couldn’t help but think of the power a rainbow could have — the fact that activists like Hegazi have fought for it, lost everything because of it, but still kept their voice loud about the urgency of equality. It’s why we must normalize expressing pride, safely, on any country’s soil.
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