Homosexuals and male-to-female transgender persons were visible and widely known to be part of Baghdad society at the time. Ali al-Hilli, an activist in the organization Iraqi LGBT,who left Iraq in 2000, remembers that the regime “allowed a measure of liberation” between the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988 and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. There was increased visibility of male homosexual scenes in more affluent parts of Baghdad: “There were so many guys, from Kuwait, from Saudi Arabia, guys in the streets with makeup” (Buckley 2007). The conversation between Hussein and the tribal leaders indicates that such communities also existed in poor neighborhoods. Dhia al-Saray (2009) mentions that in the late Baʿthist period, female hormones were freely available in Iraqi pharmacies. In a 2007 interview, al-Hilli mentions an old friend named Haidar “Dina” Fayek who was murdered shortly before the interview. Haidar/Dina “worked in the prostitution industry as a transsexual madam, was a fixture in Baghdadi gay circles, [and was] always loud and fun and quick with a laugh. She never hid her orientation and indeed lived openly as a woman” (France 2007; see also Ireland 2006). But as al-Hilli’s account of his own experience demonstrates, the regime’s intelligence services exploited the vulnerability of gay men in Iraqi society by attempting to blackmail them into becoming spies, particularly if they were in contact with foreigners (France 2007). Nevertheless, the situation was not desperate in the 1990s for most men with nonnormative gender and sexual embodiments and identities or for those who engaged in same-sex relations.

Despite Saddam Hussein’s declared aversion, the regime did not conduct organized assaults on gay men, and queer life continued. An Iraqi gay man (“Kemal”) described in an account by Afdhere Jama (2008, 49–53) reports moving from his native Najaf to Baghdad in the 1990s, where he eventually lived in a romantic relationship with a wealthy older man in the upscale Mansour district. Both participated openly in social life in the permissive enclaves of well-to-do Baghdadis. Later in the 1990s, after they had split up, Kemal worked for international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and charities and lived “a good, stable life” in the Zaytouna neighborhood. Of this period, he says: “It was work, have fun, and [I] lived my life without any stress. I met various guys as lovers and although none of them worked out, I was still happy with my life”(Jama 2008, 52). Of course, Kemal’s account does not reflect the experiences of most Iraqis, who suffered greatly under UN sanctions, and it might be inflected by a degree of nostalgia, given the deterioration that occurred after 2003. Still, by all available accounts, popular nightclubs known to be frequented by gays remained in 1990s Baghdad, including in upscale hotels, “gay cafés and cruising points on Abu Nuwas Street . . . , among other gathering spots” (Luongo 2010, 99–100; see also Buckley 2007)

"'Gays, Cross-Dressers and Emos: Non-Normative Masculinities in Militarized Iraq", Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 12, 3 (2016): 433-449
Achim Rohde, December 2016