Both male and female kinds of same-sex sexual activity are illegal in the country. According to the United States Department of State 's report on human rights in Tunisia, "authorities occasionally use [the anti-sodomy law] to detain and question persons about their sexual activities and orientation, reportedly at times based on appearance alone.
Reports of family rejection, violence in public spaces, violence within families and suicides are quite common. From the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century , despite facing ongoing stigmatization, gay men managed to have social roles in Tunisia similar to those in the rest of the Arab Muslim world. Specifically, they served as intermediaries between masculine and feminine spaces in wedding celebrations, were invited to men's homes in the presence of their wives, and were permitted to enter women's private spaces in a similar manner to blind people.
For the middle and poor classes , meetings took place in all possible private and public places, such as bathhouses , barber shops, zawiyas , but especially places accessible to travelers such as fondouks , hammams, and pensions. Indeed, for centuries it constituted one of the rare instances where Tunisian Muslim women had the right to request a divorce. Homosexuality, whether male or female, had always been considered a taboo that Tunisians avoided discussing openly.
For Tunisian Muslims, concerning regulation, homosexuality was governed in accordance to sharia law, with the judges in the country's different cities applying either the Maliki school primarily used for native Tunisians or the Hanafi school primarily used for Tunisians of Turkish origin of jurisprudence in their decisions.
In both schools of thought, homosexuality was theoretically punished because it was classified as a form of disobedience to Allah 's commandments fasiq , but not as an act of apostasy kafir. In the Malikite school, homosexuality was punishable by stoning. One of the most important documentations of this rule in Tunisian Muslim society dates back to the 14th century in Handbook of Sidi Khalil , a book written by Egyptian jurist Khalil ibn Ishaq al-Jundi , and which is addressed to Muslims of the Malikite rite in general, but especially those of Africa.
