Qatar: What's (Really) Going On (In Kuwait)?

I first noticed it yesterday on Pink News, the UK’s G-and-sometimes-LBT news website: a new horror from the Persian Gulf. “It was revealed that Gulf Cooperative Countries introduced new rules to ‘detect’ and ban gay people from entering the country.” 

It doesn’t take long for any story about Arabs and sex to go viral. In this case, given that Qatar is hosting the 2022 World Cup, the headlines hitched a ride with anxieties over the Sochi Olympics, and turned into warnings about threats to sports. 

Peter Tatchell leapt in headfirst, proclaiming that “FIFA now has no option but to cancel the world cup,” because “gay players and spectators will be banned from attending.” The story was soon in the Daily Mail: “Gulf states to introduce medical testing on travellers to ‘detect’ gay people.” Russia Today picked it up (probably hoping that they could lure Jamie Kirchick to move his strip show to Al Jazeera). Of course it spread all over Twitter...

Scott Long, Kuwait’s “medical screening for gays”: Truth, fiction, and why it’s not a “gay” issue.

Things are once again a bit more complicated and very different from the usual screaming from certain queer quarters.
Forgive my clumsy summary, but in fine; there is no new law, someone from the Kuwait health department mentioned in an interview the already existing medical screenings of new foreign workers, and proposed these could also check for "the third sex" - this is about ongoing moral panics about migrant labour, and transphobia (it is unclear what, if anything, he proposes doing about "tests" for homosexuality, if that were possible).
This story's distortion and over-excitable transmission, as ever, says much about our own Islamophobia and Orientalism.

"So let’s be clear: this is a matter of employment screening – of people coming into the Gulf to live and work, people who already have to undergo medical testing on arrival. It’s not a screening for every arrival at the airport. It does not mean, as Tatchell claimed, “that gay players and spectators will be banned from attending the football world cup.” Whatever Dr. Mindkar has in mind, the sacred anuses of fans and footballers will be exempt, unless they plan to settle down and get jobs as gardeners or drivers in the Gulf after the games are through..."

The idea that the bottom inspectors will be examining every man entering the Gulf states is a ludicrous fiction.

Update: Scott Long updates this story...

"The Kuwait Ministry of Health has proposed tightening genetic tests for immigrant workers in order to prevent transgender migrants from entering the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] job market."