Sarah Hegazi
Egyptian LGBT activist
Sarah Hegazi (Arabic: سارة حجازي; 1 October 1989 – 14 June 2020; also rendered Hegazy or Higazy) was an Egyptian writer, LGBTQ activist, and socialist. She was arrested and imprisoned in Egypt for three months after waving a rainbow flag at a Mashrou' Leila concert in 2017 in Cairo. Hegazi subsequently suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of the torture she endured in prison. She died by suicide in June 2020.
Early life and education
Hegazi was born on 1 October 1989 to an Egyptian conservative middle-class family; she was the eldest of four siblings. She helped her mother take care of her siblings after her father, a high school science teacher, died. Pictures of a young Hegazi in conservative Islamic garb, including a hijab, surfaced after her death. Hegazi wore the hijab until she came out as a lesbian in 2016.
In 2010, Hegazi graduated from Thebas Academy with a bachelor's degree in information systems and the American University in Cairo Continuing Education Center in 2016. Through distance learning, Hegazi completed certificates in "Fighting for Equality: 1950–2018", "Feminism and Social Justice", "Research Methods", "Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace", and "Understanding Violence" at Columbia University, University of California Santa Cruz, SOAS University of London, the University of Pittsburgh, and Emory University.
The public source identifies “Sarah Hegazi” as egyptian LGBT activist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sarah, Hegazi and Egyptian.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q96278781. VIAF identifies the subject as 1453159279136908160006. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989, 2020, 2017 and 2016.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sarah Hegazi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.