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ABSTRACT
Many have described the cultural and political opposition between LGBT rights and identities and Muslim cultures. Rahman (2014) has argued that one important way to challenge this perceived enmity is to produce further knowledge about the experiences and identities of LGBT Muslims because they exist at the intersections of this political opposition and disrupt the assumptions underlying it. Drawing on Rahman’s framework of Muslim LGBT as “LGBT Intersectional Identities”, we provide initial evidence from on-going research into the experiences of LGBT Muslims in Canada, based on six in-depth qualitative interviews. Focusing on the tensions between living an LGBT life and being Muslim, we demonstrate that there are strategies for reconciling the two that undermine assumptions about the mutual exclusivity of Muslim cultures and homosexualities. These strategies both confirm the extant evidence of identity processes for LGBT Muslims and provide some new evidence of the awareness of negotiating Islamophobia, racialization and Muslim homophobia as part of the development of an LGBT Muslim identity, and the need to understand Muslim identity in a broader frame than simply religious. In this sense, the experiences of LGBT Muslims present an LGBT intersectional challenge, both to western assumptions about the coherence of LGBT identity and the coming out process, and to assumptions in Muslim culture that tend to position individuals who identify as LGBT outside of their traditions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Momin Rahman is a Professor of Sociology at Trent University and a Fellow of the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto, both in Canada. His current research is on the conflicts between LGBT identities and Muslim cultures, including a funded research project on LGBT Muslims in Canada. He has published over 20 chapters and articles and three books, Homosexualities, Muslim Cultures and Modernity (2014, Palgrave Macmillan), Gender and Sexuality (2010, with Stevi Jackson, Polity) and Sexuality and Democracy (2000, Edinburgh University Press).
Ayesha Valliani is a Master’s Candidate at the Department of the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto, Canada. She is particularly interested in questions of religious diversity and identity formation and how religious freedoms and rights are understood in different legal contexts.
Notes
1 We use LGBT as the common term for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered identities and politics.
2 Rahman, Homosexualities, Muslim Cultures and Modernity.
3 Haritaworn, “Women's Rights, Gay Rights,” 73–8; Mepschen et al., “Sexual Politics,” 962–80; and Rahman, Homosexualities, Muslim Cultures and Modernity.
4 Abraham, “Out to Get Us,” 79–97.
5 See Rahman, “Queer as Intersectionality,” 1–18; and Homosexualities, Muslim Cultures and Modernity.
6 Our study is funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, award no. 435 2013 0847, “Muslims and LGBT Visibility in Canada and the United States”, 2013–2017. The research was conducted under standard ethics protocols, approved by the Research Ethics Board at Trent University, Canada, file no. 23044.
7 Lennox and Waites, Human Rights, Sexual Orientation.
8 Haritaworn, “Women's Rights, Gay Rights,” 73–8.
9 Mepschen et al., “Sexual Politics,” 962–80.
10 Rahman, Homosexualities, Muslim Cultures and Modernity; see also Puar, Terrorist Assemblages.
11 See Rahman, “Queer as Intersectionality,” 1–18; and Homosexualities, Muslim Cultures and Modernity.
12 Collins, Black Feminist Thought.
13 Rahman, “Queer as Intersectionality,” 952.
14 Blackwood, “Transnational Sexualities,” 221–42; “Regulation of Sexuality in Indonesian Discourse,” 293–307.
15 Boellstorff, “Between Religion and Desire,” 575–85.
16 Bereket and Adam, “The Emergence of Gay Identities in Contemporary Turkey,” 131–51; and “Navigating Islam and Same-Sex Liasions,” 204–22.
17 Gandhi, “Siraat-e-Mustaqeem or the Straight Path,” 468–84.
18 Yip, “Embracing Allah and Sexuality?”; “Changing Religion, Changing Faith”; “The Quest for Intimate/Sexual Citizenship”; and “Researching Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Christians and Muslims.”
19 Jaspal, “Coping with Religious and Cultural Homophobia,” 71–90; and Jaspal and Cinnirella, “Identity Processes, Threat, and Interpersonal Relations,” 215–40.
20 Abraham, “Out to Get Us,” 79–97; and “Everywhere You Turn You Have to Jump into Another Closet,” 395–418.
21 Minwalla et al., “Identity Experience among Progressive Gay Muslims,” 113–28.
22 Al-Fatiha is “dedicated to Muslims of all cultural and ethnic backgrounds who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, LGBT, and questioning or exploring their sexual orientation and/or gender identity (LGBTIQQ), and their families, friends and allies.” See http://www.al-fatiha.org/.
23 Saed, “On the Edge of Belonging,” 86.
24 Khayatt, “Toward a Queer Identity,” 487–501; Khan, “Not-So-Gay Life in Pakistan,” 275–96.
25 Al-Sayyad, “You’re What?” 373–94.
26 Abraham, “Out to Get Us,” 79–97.
27 Siraj, “On Being Homosexual and Muslim,” 202–16; and “The Construction of the Homosexual ‘Other’,” 41–57; Jaspal and Siraj, “Perceptions of ‘Coming Out’,” 183–97; Yip, “Embracing Allah and Sexuality?” 294–310; and “Religion and the Politics of Spirituality/Sexuality,” 271–89.
28 Al-Sayyad, “You’re What?” 373–94.
29 Abraham, “Everywhere You Turn You Have to Jump into Another Closet,” 395–418; Minwalla et al., “Identity Experience among Progressive Gay Muslims,” 113–28.
30 Khan, “Longing, Not Belonging, and Living in Fear,” 23–36; Rahman, Rahman, Homosexualities, Muslim Cultures and Modernity.
31 Jaspal, “Coping with Religious and Cultural Homophobia,” 71–90; and Jaspal and Cinnirella, “Identity Processes, Threat, and Interpersonal Relations,” 215–40; Yip, “Embracing Allah and Sexuality?” 294–310; and “Religion and the Politics of Spirituality/Sexuality,” 271–89.
32 Yip, “Embracing Allah and Sexuality?” 294–310; and “Religion and the Politics of Spirituality/Sexuality,” 271–89.
33 Grant Kelly, “The Social Construction of Religious Realities,” 223–46; Siraj, “On Being Homosexual and Muslim,” 202–16; and “I Don’t Want to Taint the Name of Islam,” 449–67.
34 Hildebrandt, “Routes to Decriminalization,” 230–53.
35 Tremblay, Queer Mobilizations.
36 Walcott, “Outside in Black Studies,” 90–105.
37 Cannon, “The Regulation of First Nations Sexuality,” 1–18.
38 Pew, The Global Divide on Homosexuality, 1.
39 Leung, “Canadian Multiculturalism in the 21st Century,” 19–33.
40 Bannerji, The Dark Side of the Nation; Haque, Multiculturalism in a Bilingual Framework.
41 Environics, Survey of Muslims in Canada, 33.
42 Meer, Citizenship, Identity and the Politics of Multiculturalism.
43 Yip, “Embracing Allah and Sexuality?”; and “Changing Religion, Changing Faith.”
44 Kugle, Homosexuality in Islam; and Living Out Islam.
45 In the following sections, pseudonyms are used to protect the identity of participants.
46 Meer, Citizenship, Identity and the Politics of Multiculturalism.
47 In other parts of this study, we are looking at the existence of support groups for LGBT Muslims. Thus far, we can say that some small community organizations and support groups are emerging that place emphasis on self-care, recognizing that disclosing one's homosexual identity need not serve as the primary marker of personal stability or as a test of trust between family members. Many of these groups are, however, very small scale and do not seem to have a stable organizational existence.
48 Mahdavi, “The Personal Is Political.”
49 Rayside and Wilcox, Faith, Politics and Sexual Diversity.
50 Taylor and Snowden, Queering Religion: Religious Queers; Wilcox, Coming Out in Christianity.
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