Voices of Resistance and Agency: LBTQ Muslim Women Living Out Intersectional Lives in North America

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study critically examined, from an interpretive perspective, 14 life stories of LBTQ Muslim women across North America. This paper explored how LBTQ Muslim women navigated Muslim and LGBTQ hegemonic norms and exclusions as they negotiated and lived out identity intersections. Transnational and critical race feminisms, intersectionality, and critical Islamic liberationist approaches to gender and sexuality framed the project. The study findings suggested that LBTQ Muslim women resisted hegemonic norms by mapping out alternative paths grounded in Islam, and in living out lives in LGBTQ communities. Participants discussed their experiences of being “othered” within LGBTQ communities, how they challenged the notion of a monolithic Islam, how they expanded coming-out frameworks to include their own experiences, as well as how they asserted their own religious agency and resistance. Participants demonstrated that living out an intersectional identity was a complex task where constant negotiations of positionality were transpiring concurrently.

KEYWORDS:

• LBTQ Muslims
• women
• Islam
• resistance and Global North

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We have opted to use ‘live out’ or ‘living out’ when referring to the diverse, multiple and nuanced ways in which LBTQ Muslim women live and mitigate non-normative gender and sexual diversity amongst the hegemonic norms that exist in the many communities of belonging (Hendricks, 2009; Kugle, 2014). Each LBTQ Muslim life is unique and needs to be celebrated for its non-normative existence (even by applying the identity label). Most of the participants were ‘out’ in their communities of belonging. 

2. This term refers to countries and continents situated in Northern parts of the globe, i.e., North America (i.e. Canada, U.S.), U.K. (i.e. Britain), Europe, (i.e. the Netherlands). Our use of the term recognizes that there are cultural, political and economic differences within these countries. From an anti-colonial perspective, in our view, what unifies these nation states in many ways are the historical, cultural and political othering of bodies and identities perceived and/or associated with Islam. Further information can be located in the works of El-Tayeb (2012); Haritaworn (2015) and Puar (2007) which examine how nation states in the Northern hemisphere form national identities grounded in the othering of Islam and those associated with the tradition. Any references to mainstream, normative and contemporary persons, communities and societies refers to the North American and European contexts.

3. Discourses which create and maintain stable entities of identities, people and places; and polarize differences, i.e. good vs. evil. For example, see Puar (2007) and Razack (2008) on how Muslims and Islam are often constructed as opposed to the values of freedom and tolerance (the values of which are good) due to inherent “cultural” and “civilizational” (which is evil and bad) differences between these categories.

4. Orientalism refers to Edward Said’s (1978) classic work which has been applied by contemporary theorists like Puar (2007). Said (1978) explained that the orient was invented by Europe as “a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences” (p. 1). The orient was invented to identify regions and countries that sit east of the occident (Christian Europe) for colonial and imperial expansion purposes.

5. Following Babayan and Najmabadi (2008) work, we have opted to use Islamicate as an umbrella term that refers to understanding Islam, Islamic societies (colonial and contemporary), the larger Islamic world, and elements of Islamic culture that are not necessarily grounded in religious doctrine, but also through literary, linguistic, and cultural expressions and contributions. This term was originally coined by Hodgson (1974).

6. In this context, orientalist sphere refers to how Muslim women are constructed and reduced to objects that need saving from oppressive culture(s). See Abu-Lughod (2013) and Said (1978).

7. The use of italics denotes emphasis placed by the participant in the narratives.

8. Tawhid is an important concept which speaks to Creator’s oneness. Tawhid considers that everything (earth, people, animals, universe etc.) is in sync with the Creator and vice versa. Also, this concept refers to everything being interdependent and interconnected with each other. See Wadud (1999).

9. Jihad is an Islamicate principle, which speaks to struggling within oneself to become a better person. See Khan (2016b) and Kugle (2014).

10. Sufi approaches to Islam have been adopted by many LGBTQ Muslims across the globe (Safi, 2003). This is since Sufism offers multidimensional ways of practicing and living out Islam. Jamal (2015) pointed out that in addition to the scripture and the traditions of the prophet Sufism upholds “multifarious modes of embodiment, bodily practices, dress, and so on. Yet Sufism is ultimately devoted to spiritual cultivation and eschews any straightforward association of piety with ritualistic practices, bodily expression or sartorial appearance” (p. 57). There is diversity in how Sufis practice Islam without one “right” way being emphasized (Jamal, 2015; Safi, 2003).