NEWS… BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
Waiting outside a charming little restaurant in Elephant and Castle on a damp and dark Thursday evening, I was excited but nervous to meet Khalid*.
He was a young man in his mid-thirties who had reached out to me on Twitter just a few weeks before.
This wasn’t a random blind date, but rather a much-overdue catch up – Khalid had got in touch, as I was his teacher 25 years ago when I did a stint as an expat in Doha, Qatar.
This story isn’t one about an educator and his pupil, but rather a comment on how this young man’s life has panned out, and how the upcoming World Cup in Qatar should provoke a seismic change in the way the country treats its LGBTQ+ citizens.