I’ve written for DIVA before about what it was like for me growing up Muslim and coming to terms with the fact that I was a queer woman, and about how I live my life half-in, half-out of the closet in part because of this. But I knew that my experience wasn’t the norm, and what’s more, it wasn’t even the norm for Queer Muslim women. Which got me to thinking – what is the norm for women and non-binary folks who grew up Muslim and realised they were queer? Is there even a “norm” for us?
There was a distinct lack of Queer Muslim voices around me growing up. I didn’t discover the work done by Imaan, a fantastic charity that has been supporting LGBTQI Muslims since 1999, for years after I came out. On the off chance that I ever came across another LGBTQI person with a Muslim name, or background, they were most likely male, and didn’t really identify with the faith they’d grown up with, convincing me that people like me – who are proudly both Muslim and queer – didn’t exist, or couldn’t. Things are changing, though.