“I am scared. I am scared a lot.”
Ester Wamgui sits on a dirt-stained mattress lying on the street outside the Kenyan Consulate of Beirut. She cradles her son Jame in her arms while she seeks shelter from the August sun in the shade of a nearby building. Her daughter Judy sits next to her drawing on a scrap of paper with a yellow highlighter.

So what happens now for President Erdogan and his ‘new Turkey’. In terms of the new US President, they are left in a tricky situation. Criticized and praised in roughly equal measure by the previous President, they cannot rely on the old ‘enemy-of-my-enemy’ tactic.

Both sexual minorities and sexual health are taboos in Middle Eastern societies. For religious, social, and cultural reasons, sexual minorities feel pressured to hide their sexual orientation from their families and friends. Moreover, they are often expected to have a heterosexual marriage and to produce children. This can put them at higher risk of suffering poor mental health outcomes such as depression and anxiety, write Ismaël Maatouk, Moubadda Assi and Rusi Jaspal.