"Why is it the norm that every time a queer Muslim person exists, it's a shock?"
Queer Muslim influencers are taking the internet by storm by making a space for themselves on social media …
Queer Muslim influencers are taking the internet by storm by making a space for themselves on social media …
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00:00Why is it the norm every time a queer Muslim person exists?
00:03It's a shock.
00:04Being confident in my queer and trans self,
00:06that is something that I was never able to do.
00:10Doing that on TikTok is so empowering
00:18because it's so in your face.
00:19And if you want to comment hate, do that.
00:21But my video is still up.
00:30I love the queer and trans Muslim community on TikTok because it feels like we radically
00:47and unapologetically accept and love and celebrate each other.
00:53And in trying to figure out our space, we are revolutionizing the way that people talk
00:57about us and talk about Islam and talk about queerness and transness.
01:11Also, I've seen the hashtags and one hashtag is Queer Muslims.
01:16If you scroll through that, you could scroll through that for a day.
01:20And I was like, yo, we're really out here.
01:23I think that TikTok itself invites this very playful, creative side of people.
01:30The way that it connects people, I think, is actually really incredible.
01:34And that's been the part that has been super meaningful, is to be able to connect with
01:39people from across the globe and realize that we are having parallel experiences.
01:45So I'm not going to lie, at first it was just like, I've not seen a lot of Black queer Muslims.
01:59And I was like, hold on, what's going on?
02:02And I think I did address it at one of my TikToks.
02:04I think TikTok is inclusive to the happy-go-lucky queer and trans Muslims, and they are not
02:15inclusive to queer and trans Muslims who are angry, who are responding to the hate in the
02:21community.
02:22How are you so fast?
02:24It's been 45 minutes.
02:27You're queer.
02:35Haram is an Arabic term, but it is used in Muslim communities to define something as
02:43sinful, something that is not allowed in the Islamic faith.
02:47Quite a few times.
02:4850 times?
02:49More.
02:50100 times?
02:51More.
02:52200 times?
02:53More.
02:54500 times?
02:55Probably.
02:56Police, I would say, are folks that almost operate as, like, police within our own community
03:06to police others.
03:09I'm not trying to trigger y'all, trigger warning before y'all go into this conversation.
03:12People say the most out-of-pocket, binary things to us.
03:16My favorite line is, like, there's no such thing as a queer and Muslim person or a trans
03:21and Muslim person, even though there are people literally having this embodied experience.
03:27And then I said,
03:28Haram!
03:29Haram!
03:30Haram!
03:31Haram!
03:32Haram!
03:33Haram!
03:34Haram!
03:35Haram!
03:36Haram!
03:37Haram!
03:38Haram!
03:39So they start with a compliment, like saying, oh, live your best life, but I'll be praying
03:43for you.
03:44I can't feed my sister.
03:45I can't feed my brother.
03:46And it's like, no.
03:47You're being hateful.
03:48You're being negative.
03:49Like, there's no love in this interaction.
03:59We don't give a f**k, we are Somalis, we are gays, and we don't live in our own truth.
04:06So why worry about us, worry about the business I pay y'all.
04:10I think Haram police have a very particular version of Islam in their mind.
04:16And when people don't adhere to that version of Islam, then automatically that person gets
04:22canceled.
04:23At the same time, it's hard to have this conversation with people outside of the Muslim community
04:28because we don't want to invite Islamophobia.
04:29When I call out straight Muslim men on being homophobic, the keywords there are straight
04:34and man.
04:35It's misogyny, patriarchy, and heteronormativity.
04:38Homophobia and transphobia at the level that it exists today in Muslim majority communities
04:43did not come out of Muslim majority communities.
04:45It came out of colonizers coming into our lands and imposing their own extreme homophobic
04:52and transphobic views into our communities.
04:55Whether it's the Haram police, whether it's a white supremacist, like whatever, whoever
04:59it is that has an issue with what they see as a contradiction is actually more a reflection
05:06of how they feel internally about sexuality and gender than it has to do with me.
05:15Being a queer and trans Muslim creator on TikTok opens you up to the possibility of
05:35blackmail, to the possibility of your videos going around and being circulated and reaching
05:40your parents, reaching your family, reaching people in your origin country.
05:44So I run the risk of being targeted by governments, by the Jordanian government for my opinions.
05:50And I run that risk every single day, but choose to ignore that risk.
05:55On one hand, it can be scary and I worry about folks.
06:00And at the same time, I know that the more of us that become visible on that app, the
06:05stronger that we are as a community.
06:15I realized, hey, people are following me because they actually want to listen to the thoughts
06:20that I have, these critical opinions that I have of the Muslim community at large.
06:26I might as well hold my ground.
06:28I have literally nothing to lose.
06:30I just lost my family.
06:31I just lost my home.
06:32There's nothing else going for me at this point.
06:35Let's talk about it.
06:37Being Somali and queer, like the one thing I always felt was loneliness, like from a
06:41very young age, I always felt lonely.
06:43And I don't know, even though I am 26, I'm going to just to see, OK, like, hold up.
06:49Like it is like killing my inner child.
06:51With all the hate and with all the threats and with all the dangers that come with being
06:56on this platform, there are countless queer and trans Muslims that leave comments that
07:02are beautiful, that send me messages.
07:05Being on there in community with other, you know, folks that had similar experiences to
07:10me was so igniting and it was so full of life that all of the hate, all of that stuff
07:18really didn't it didn't land in the in the same way.
07:21Being confident in my queer and trans self, that is something that I was never able to
07:26do.
07:27Doing that on TikTok is so empowering because it's so in your face.
07:31And if you want to comment, hey, do that.
07:33But my video is still up.
07:34Someone who doesn't necessarily feel that way still about their queer and transness
07:39and their Islam.
07:40They look at that and they see, oh, like there is a world where I can feel confident in myself
07:46and there is a world where I can be queer and trans and Muslim and be incredibly loud
07:52about it.
07:53That is an option for people if they're safe and if they're able to to do that.
07:58My hope is that we become part within the larger Muslim community, like very visibly
08:05known and very visibly able to be pointed out that like, you know, queer and trans Muslims
08:12are well alive, thriving within our community and they're creating, you know, their own
08:19like subgroup within within the Ummah.