BEIRUT — The loss of homes and jobs caused by the Beirut port explosion has had a particularly devastating impact on queer communities, a newly released report by the NGO Oxfam found.

In a survey of 101 people identifying as LGBTQI who had been living or working in the explosion-impacted neighborhoods prior to the Aug. 4 blast, 40 percent reported that their living situations had been “negatively impacted” by the blast, the organization found.

Some 35 percent of the respondents said they had been forced to relocate as a result of the blast; 11 percent had moved in with relatives, “where many said they faced abusive, unsafe or unaccepting environments,” Oxfam noted. Another 10 percent of respondents said they had no permanent living space.

The blast compounded the economic impacts of the COVID-19 lockdowns and the country’s financial crisis on members of the queer community, the report states. It “destroyed, and in some cases caused permanent closure of many businesses in the food and beverage and nightlife industries that employed many of them.”

Two-thirds of those surveyed said they were out of work, of whom 70 percent had lost their jobs in the past year. As a result of the economic pressures and rising rents, the report notes, “many have ventured to more affordable areas outside Beirut and Mount Lebanon where their sexual orientation and gender identity may expose them to violence and discrimination.”

With the explosion, some lost both shelter and work in one fell swoop, like Mohammed Ali, who used to work at Gemmayzeh’s Saifi Urban Gardens hostel and often slept there because he was unable to stay either with his own family or full-time at the home of his partner, who lived with his parents and had not come out to them.

“I didn’t have a place, and I was basically homeless for a really long time,” Mohammed Ali told L’Orient Today. “I took most of my valuables, like papers, and placed them in my desk [at work].”

On the evening of Aug. 4, Mohammed Ali left work shortly before 6 p.m. and headed to his partner’s house in Sin al-Fil, planning to drop off some laundry and stay for a bit before heading back to work to sleep. He arrived at his partner’s doorstep just as the explosion hit. Had he been in his office at the time, the ceiling would have collapsed on his head.

When he finally made his way back to Saifi Urban Gardens three days later, Mohammed Ali said, “I stood at the door of my office, and I looked at it and I couldn’t even enter.” Along with his livelihood, all the documents he had stored there were gone.

Post-explosion, Mohammed Ali was able to stay with his partner’s family, and the couple has since managed to leave Lebanon. Others were less fortunate.

Mohammed Ali’s partner, Marwan, who is active with the civil society organization Proud Lebanon, said the group had seen many hard luck cases in the explosion aftermath.

“There were a lot of trans people who lived in Mar Mikhael and Gemmayzeh, because it’s the most liberal area, so there were a lot of trans people who lost their homes,” he said.

The Oxfam report notes that community organizations working with queer people had reported that they “witnessed an exponential increase in demand for basic assistance services, such as nutrition, medicine and basic cash assistance” in the aftermath of the explosion. It also notes that many survey respondents had reported difficulties in accessing health care and other services.

Apart from the loss of homes and jobs, the report states that the blast impacted the LGBTQI community in less tangible ways. The blast temporarily or permanently shuttered a number of businesses that had served as “safe spaces” for members of the queer community in areas including Mar Mikhael, Gemmayzeh and Geitawi, which the report notes “were known for their reputation as the most queer-friendly neighborhoods in Beirut.”

Nizar Aouad, Oxfam’s gender advisor in Lebanon, said in a statement, “The blast has been the final straw for LGBTQ people in Beirut. It destroyed whatever safe spaces were left in the city. The city’s reconstruction efforts will likely lead to gentrification, making the areas unaffordable to its current residents.”

The NGO called on Lebanese authorities to decriminalize homosexuality by repealing Article 534 from the Lebanese penal code, which prohibits having sexual relations that “contradict the laws of nature.” The article has been used to prosecute people for same-sex relations, although in recent years, courts have held that it does not apply to same-sex acts practiced in private between consenting adults.

The report also calls on the government to “prioritize inclusive spaces in their reconstruction plans, ensuring that the historic characteristics of the areas of Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhael are preserved, and that the area remains accessible to the population that once called it home,” to develop housing policies that protect people from evictions based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, and to ensure that LGBTQI people “have access to social protection, including health care, shelter and job opportunities.”

Likewise, it calls on international organizations to “prioritize tailored relief programming for the members of the LGBTQI community who sometimes do not qualify for aid targeted at other minorities” and to support the establishment of community centers that can serve as safe spaces.