Mohamad knew too well the risks of being a gay man in Iran. Physical abuse? Yes, he had friends who had been beaten by police. Imprisoned? Yep, people he knew were thrown in jail for months because of their sexual orientation. Execution? It wasn't out of the question.

"I have a very (big) problem in Iran," Mohamad said recently from the safety and serenity of the San Damiano Franciscan retreat in the tree-covered hills of Danville. "I cannot very easily be (gay) in Iran. I have to hide to live in Iran."

Mohamad, 33, who entered the United States on July 22 with official refugee status, spoke on the condition that his last name not be published. He fears reprisals against his family if it becomes widely known that he is gay. Understandably so -- according to a recent opinion piece on The Jerusalem Post website, at least 146 gays or suspected gays have been executed in Iran since 1979.

With the comprehensive assistance of the nonprofit Jewish Families & Children's Services of the East Bay -- founded in 1877, it resettled homeless displaced by the 1906 earthquake and Jews driven from Europe during the Holocaust -- Mohamad is receiving vocational services, English lessons, transitional housing, and medical and mental health services as he prepares for a new life in a more accepting environment. Sunday he was scheduled to move to San Francisco.

He has taken quickly to his new surroundings. "He's actually needed very little from us," said Brother Mike Minton, director at San Damiano. "The first day here we showed him his room, gave him the menu and food, and he's fit in perfectly."
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But Mohamad's journey halfway across the world, and from one end of the gay rights spectrum to the other, was neither simple nor seamless. Early in 2013 he decided he needed to flee his homeland for Turkey. Before he left, he told a few confidants his secret. One was his manager at work, where Mohamad was an accountant.

"He didn't know, what's gay?" Mohamad said in his expressively imperfect English. "(I said), 'Gay is free. It's love. It's not only sex. He said, 'Oh, very good.' I changed his mind."

His mother took a little longer to come around.

"She don't like it. 'No I don't like (that) you're gay,' " Mohamad said. "She's very upset. After one or two years, we are better."

His mother was similarly distressed when her son informed her he was moving to Turkey for a better life, as one of his friends had done. "She told me, 'Go to another country. I don't like you,' " Mohamad said. Eventually his mother visited him in Turkey, even accompanying him to a gay pride parade in Izmir.

The better life Mohamad sought, however, never came about. He lived in a rental home in Iran. His first week in Turkey -- he settled in Eskisehir -- he lived in a cellar without power or water. He had to visit a nearby shopping center to use a bathroom.

Though he finally found employment as manager of a clothing store, he found jobs to be low-paying. He had to wait 30 months for the United Nation's High Commission for Refugees to process his request for official refugee status. Though he found that gays are more accepted in Turkey than in Iran, he also found that Turks aren't fond of refugees.

"For any refugee, it's very (big) problem in Turkey," he said.

He left that problem behind in July when he left Turkey. Mohamad was assigned to the United States by the United Nations, and to JFCS, one of nine national resettlement agencies, by the State Department. He flew to Los Angeles, then to San Francisco where he was met by JFCS volunteers and staff members. He was the first refugee ever placed at San Damiano by the nonprofit. Brother Mike had seen its request for sponsors in an interfaith newsletter.

"I thought, I have 80 bedrooms that aren't always busy," he said. "So we called them."

Mohamad knew he was in a better place. But he was apprehensive of the unknown.

"I know that gay in the United States and Canada is free," he said. "But before I came here, I'm afraid. What's my home, my job, my language?"

He confided his uncertainty to Yasamin Taher, an Afghan refugee who now is a settlement case manager for JFCS and traveled with Mohamad to his first visit to the retreat.

"He asked me, 'Did you tell them I'm gay? Do you think they'll take me?' " she said.

Brother Mike chuckled at the anecdote. "Being Franciscans, we welcome anybody who would want to come," he said.

Mohamad has done a lot of sightseeing in a short time. He has visited Coit Tower, Alcatraz and the San Francisco Zoo, and seen the Golden Gate Bridge. Two weeks ago he visited the Castro District.

"I travel to Dubai and Thailand, I see gays is the normal," he said. "But the first time (in) the Castro, this is very surprising for me. Wow. It is very different."

When Mohamad completes his English lessons (he's also learning Spanish), he hopes to work at a clothing store as he did in Turkey. "I think after two months, I'm manager in the shop," he said laughing.

But first, one more move -- to a place and climate he has been seeking his entire adult life.

"I'm happy and I'm opposite," he said. "Opposite (because) I like (San Damiano). And happy that I'm started for a new life in (the) United States for jobs, for study, for life."