An Instagram influencer named Naoufal Moussa has sparked a dangerous trend of people outing gay men in Morocco, where homosexuality is illegal, after encouraging her Instagram followers to make fake accounts on gay dating apps, Insider and PinkNews report.
Moussa, a trans woman also known as Sofia Talouni who used to live in Morocco and is now based in Turkey, told her followers April 13 to seek out gay men in an Instagram Live broadcast. Speaking in Moroccan Arabic, she suggested that women should download gay dating apps β including Grindr, PlanetRomeo, and Hornet β and then create fake profiles using pictures of men.
Any form of same-sex intimacy, including kissing, is illegal in Morocco and punishable by up to three years in prison. There is also no law against harassment or discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Several gay men, many of whom chose to remain anonymous in order to speak frankly, told Insider and PinkNews they were living in constant fear of being outed through their dating app profile, knowing that it could lead to them being harrassed, assaulted, or kicked out of their own homes in the middle of the COVID pandemic.
One gay Moroccan man who chose to go by the alias Nassim believes that up to 40 men have been outed and kicked out of their homes in Casablanca alone, he told PinkNews.
He claimed that she was directing her comments to people who had insulted her for her queer identity and encouraged them to realize how many people they know were actually gay. Hamza Makhchoune, an openly gay Moroccan photographer, offered a different theory. She was angry and she did what she did. Maybe she wanted not to be the only one rejected and kicked out. Read the full reports on Insider and PinkNews. Get the best of what's queer.
