The following piece was written by a good friend who wants to remain anonymous for the time being. You may remember that a couple years back he wrote Young, Muslim, & Halfway Out of the Closet
Stop and think for a second about how many gay people you know. Now, of those people count on your hands how many would also call themselves Muslim? I would be surprised If you could hold more than one finger up. I am a gay cisgender man who comes from a Muslim background and I’m here to try to explain why we almost cease to exist in society.
I was born and raised in a fairly moderate Muslim household in the UK. I went to Arabic school every Saturday for the best part of a decade in an attempt to learn the language and hear the whimsical fables of the many prophets. As a child, I developed an irrational fear of death after hearing stories of heaven and hell foretold by my mother. This fear and the fact that I hadn’t yet developed critical thinking skills to question what I was doing meant I continued to keep up appearances of being faithful. Praying tended to feel more like a chore and I would rarely complete my ‘5 a day’. With the hormones of puberty came my sexual awakening. Pornography was bittersweet at first as it came with a lot of guilt. However, as I began to tepidly explore my sexuality further through chatting to likeminded people on social media, the guilt waned whilst the questions arose.
In the summer before I started university I came out to my sisters and friends who all took it well and with the dawn of university came a number of different ‘sinful’ experiences including drinking – even if it was very weak cider. I had held out until university to be free and I didn’t even feel guilty anymore. I mean why should I feel guilty about being myself? At the freshers’ fair I remember sheepishly signing up to the LGBT+ society after the guy on the stand spotted that glimmer in my eye and I’m proud to say that 2 years on I have represented my society as the BAME representative, despite not being out to my parents!
Homosexuality in Islam is very much still a taboo subject, we are elephants in the room, seen but not heard. This is why I wanted to take on the role to provide us, and other queer people of colour with a voice – think ‘The Little Mermaid’. Since, the subject is rarely discussed, many backwards beliefs remain. For example, many including my father still believe it is a ‘choice’ and you are allowed to be gay as long as you’re essentially celibate your whole life – because we all want to be monks right? In some Muslim countries you can be killed for ‘practising’ your sexuality and honour killings within British Asian communities are not uncommon. This fear has driven an increase in marriages of convenience between gay men and women or arranged marriages where the spouse is being deceived in plain sight.
Our university recently had its annual ‘Islam awareness week’ where the Islamic society held a marquee on campus containing a myriad of information about the religion, beautiful Arabic calligraphy and free samosas. Anyone would be a fool not to at least be curious. The more I have discovered my sexuality, the more I have lost touch with my faith so stepping into this space felt strange yet familiar. After exchanging my coupon for some free food I sat down and began chatting with some friendly hijabi girls. I surprised myself as I began to open up to them about why I had lost faith. None of them reacted badly to my confession and I left questioning whether I was doing the right thing again. However, ultimately they retorted the same celibacy spiel that airs from the mouths of the majority of imams (mosque leaders) in this country.
There is also a severe lack of media representation when it comes to queer Muslims. Once in a blue moon there will be a low-profile documentary putting us under the microscope but this can lead people to believe that we are just that, a microscopic problem that is hidden away. Putting us side by side with major characters in films, books and television is how we can truly become visible as invisibility in popular culture means invisibility in real life.
At the start of the year the roles reversed and I became the guy on the LGBT stand at the freshers fair seeking out shy baby gays. One of them being a wee Scottish girl who told me she, ‘can either be a proud, out lesbian or a happy Pakistani Muslim girl but cannot ever be both’. Over the year I have watched this once timid girl disprove her own beliefs by discovering the pride in her sexuality whilst maintaining her religious sobriety in gay clubs and she has now succeeded my role as BAME and Faith and Belief rep for the LGBT+ society. If a girl who struggles to make 5 foot can make herself seen, so can you! If you ever want to see you parents smile rather than tut when a gay couple comes on ‘First Dates’ you have to show yourself. It will not be easy but change in them will only come from a change within you…
Be brave,
from someone like you.