Cracks

My name is Samir. I’m thirty-two years old. I’m gay. And I’m learning not to apologize for existing.

It’s harder than it sounds.

I was born in Lyon, to a traditional Moroccan family. I was taught early on what it took to be loved: keep your head down, greet your elders, hide your anger, hide your fear. Be discreet. Respectable. A good boy. As a child, I was good at that. I slipped into people’s expectations the way someone disappears into a crowd.

But no one ever taught me what to do with the fire that rose in my chest every time a boy looked at me too long in the locker room. Or with that strange pull away from the life that had been drawn for me, sharp and straight like a cut.

For a long time, I pretended. I dove into my studies like armor. Prep school. Top-tier engineering school. Full-time contract. I became a telecom engineer, solid career, solid reputation. I became my parents’ dream. But each success rang hollower than the last. I smiled in family photos and cried on the subway.

I used to look at myself in the mirror and try to see what other people saw. A clean-cut man with neutral clothes, a trimmed beard, eyes that didn't betray too much. I trained myself not to linger in the locker room. I trained my voice to stay level. I filtered every sentence, every gesture. Being good at hiding became second nature. Survival skill.

But the truth is: I’m tired.

Tired of living at the crossroads of too many identities people say can’t coexist. Too Arab for some gay spaces. Too gay for my community. Too religious for one group, not devout enough for another. I’m a walking border, and I’ve been at war with myself for years.

Lately, the war has moved.

It’s outside now, in the streets, on the news, in political debates. In 2025, the things that used to be whispered about people like me are now shouted into microphones. The politicians who once blamed us in veiled terms now point fingers on live TV. The government talks about “values,” “traditions,” “national identity.” They want familiar faces, heteronormative families, quiet love, conformity.

They want me gone. Or bent.

But I can’t bend anymore.

I met Mehdi at an art opening, in a small gallery in Croix-Rousse. He had a camera slung around his neck and a defiant grin. He asked if he could take my portrait, right there, in the moment. I said yes, and he looked at me with a kind of intensity that made me want to exist fully.

“What are you hiding behind that look?” he asked.

“The rest of the world,” I replied. He laughed. We’ve been inseparable since.

With him, I live without fear for the first time. Almost. Because fear is still there, lurking. When we hold hands in the street. When he kisses me at a café table. When my mother calls and I lower the volume so he can’t hear her voice.

He understands. He doesn’t judge. But I can feel the ache in him when he sees me still choosing silence.

He’s braver than me, in many ways. He grew up in a house where his parents, both Algerian, both Muslim, chose love over shame. They cried when he came out, sure—but they stayed. They included his partners in family dinners. They posted about Pride Month on Instagram. They even came to a march with him once, wrapped in the Algerian flag and a rainbow scarf. Mehdi told me that day, "Resistance doesn’t have to be loud. But it has to be visible."

Sometimes I envy him.

But most days, I just try to keep up.

Last week, a video went viral of a gay couple getting beaten in broad daylight in Paris. The comments were worse than the footage. Slurs. “Serves them right.” “Don’t provoke.” And while reading them, I caught myself thinking: I would’ve done the same. I wouldn’t have held hands in public either.

That’s when I realized.

The pressure is no longer outside. It’s inside me. It bends me from within. It’s colonized my voice, my body, my gestures. It makes me believe that to survive, I must shrink.

But something in me refuses.

It’s new. It’s fragile. But it’s there.

The first person I came out to was my little brother. He’s ten years younger than me. He’s loud, cheeky, listens to rap at full volume, and pretends to fast during Ramadan while secretly eating Twix bars. I love him with a fierce, uncomplicated love.

I told him I was in love with a man. He went pale. He panicked. Then he hugged me.

“I don’t know how to react,” he said, “but I love you, bro.”

It was clumsy. Imperfect. And it was everything I needed.

I still haven’t told my parents. Every time I sit across from them, I calculate the moment. Is this the time? Will it be better now? Safer? They talk about me getting married. They talk about the future. About children. About God.

My mother lights candles for my well-being. I wonder if she’d still do it if she knew I kissed a man goodbye that morning.

I’ve written the letter a hundred times in my head. I never send it. I fear the silence more than the shouting. I fear the look in her eyes—the one that might say, you broke everything we gave you.

I’m no hero. I’m no activist. I’m a man trying to live without shame. To love without fear. To pray without contradiction. To exist without carving myself into parts.

Every day, I fight not to give in to the pressure: be invisible, be straight, be silent. And every day, I reclaim a little piece of ground.

I decided to hold Mehdi’s hand on the metro. Just for a moment. I decided to say “my boyfriend” to a colleague. I decided to write this.

These aren’t revolutions. But they are my acts of resistance.

When I walk down the street now, I look people in the eye a little more often. Not always. But sometimes. When I pass by posters calling for “the return to order,” I breathe slowly, and I remind myself: my existence is not chaos. When someone makes a joke at work, I don’t always laugh.

Sometimes I ask, “Why is that funny?”

Small cracks in the walls of expectation.

Sometimes I think of the boy I was. Fifteen, curled up in bed, scrolling through anonymous forums, typing: I think I might be gay. Is that haram? Will God still love me?

No one gave me a clear answer. But I found people. I found voices. And now, I try to be one of them.

In 2025, being queer isn’t a choice. But living openly, loving freely, telling our stories… that has become a political act. A risk. A necessity.

I don’t want my identity to be a scar. I want it to be a constellation—something that guides me, even in the dark.

There are still dark days. There are silences, tears, doubts. But there’s also Mehdi. My brother. My reflection in the mirror, no longer looking away.

And there is me.

Standing.

Cracked, but whole.