ESEAly Muslim and Queer

Joy Muhammad Arrow is a mixed Asian-British bisexual Muslim intersectional activist and writer of ESEA heritage. She shares an insight into her life with besea.n

I’m not speaking from a point of privilege that some people think I’m swimming in when I write this as a Bisexual Muslim woman. Neither is my ex girlfriend, the Muslim security guard; or my former gang of tomboys who used to hold 150cc scooter races on suburban roads after their shift at the local shopping arcade.  

But if you’re going to ask me for a dramatic, action packed, tear jerking story about life as a LGBTQIA Muslim, then that’s something you’ll have to find elsewhere. I can tell you that like many other queerfolk, we do have a journey that is different from heterosexual people. 

I can only speak from my point of view on what it’s like as a Muslim Queer of part South East Asian heritage. We have a lot to be proud of and we don’t need pity. We deserve to be heard in our own voices as people, not statistics. Amidst the tabloids, charity gigs and screaming headlines showing faceless victims of state homophobia in South East Asia, there is another story that doesn’t get told.

I’m a practicing Muslim. I fast, pray, have never been tempted by alcohol and know enough Arabic to check for Halal ingredients on a bag of imported marshmallows. I quite like wearing that famous face veil called the niqab (no, it’s not a burka). Most people are surprised on my veil/hijab free days to find out I am Muslim, especially being Chinese passing (face it, those Hakka genes are strong).

“Despite Islam being the most followed religion of South East Asia, especially in Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, general populations elsewhere seem to think that monolids and Muslims don’t match - prime example being those camps in China.”

I was raised in the ‘burbs of London, where the words ‘Battyman’, ‘Poofter’ and ‘Lezzie’ were used to win cuss fights. Like my straight peers I developed crushes in my teens at school, the difference was I wasn’t allowed to talk about them, especially under the rules of Section.28 which pretty much kept queer students and teachers in the closet. For those unfamiliar with this rule, Section.28 was implemented from the 1980s to early 2000s which prevented the acknowledgment or acceptance of homosexuality within the educational system. This resulted in a few generations of LGBTQI folk with unpleasant memories from school and gave disgruntled homophobes of a similar age a subconscious motivation to stand outside schools all day chanting against inclusive education. As a teen, there were no bisexual role models at the time that I knew of. I identified as lesbian and tried to push away any feelings I had for guys. The area I lived in was secular so those who identified as queer would be spared from religious sermons but we got threatened with queerbashing or isolation from friends. However hearing media stories of fellow Muslim queers being kidnapped or abused kept me in a closet within a closet. All I had for support on my queer journey were unreachable crushes, secret queer radio shows and newspapers advertising clubs I was too young to go to, and the stroppiness of teenage angst that allowed me to bellow I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU ALL THINK OF ME (when secretly I really did).

Years later I worked overseas in a Muslim South East Asian country, which to protect identities, I will not name. As soon as I stopped off the plane I was surprised by the amount of butch tomboys I saw: they were EVERYWHERE. They were guarding the security gates at the airports, serving Halal Big Macs and driving taxi cabs, while back in London seeing a suburban queer was like a good luck charm. Some of the top celebrities in the SEA country I worked in were camp gay men, bisexual, butch women or trans and nobody cared. What mattered the most was what people brought to society and how they contributed. When I finally started dating my girlfriend, which I could never even dream of while living in London, I brought her to office events and no one batted an eyelid. My closest office pal was a trans woman and prayed in female Muslim prayer rooms without hassle. My favourite movies were directed by a local trans woman and not even one soul bothered to mention her gender identity. The group of butches I hung out with, had all met at secondary school, where they were spending their pocket money on expensive presents for their girlfriends they met in class. What their journeys were, I wouldn’t know, but they were able to express their identities more than I ever could. Barely a couple of years before the job in SE Asia I was telling fibs to sneak out to a queer youth group in Middlesex.

This is not to say that homophobia didn’t exist. Throughout my working assignment overseas, I encountered the ‘lesbian’ sneer only once. When I came back home to London, sporting my short haircut and comfortable clothing, there were now posters of gay couples in the London suburb where I grew up in. I felt that things had got better until someone yelled ‘BoyGirl,’ and an elderly woman spat at me. Now more comfortable to find myself a girlfriend here, we had to stop holding hands as soon as public transport travelled towards my home - luckily she had a car most of the time.

“Meanwhile, going to LGBTQIA support groups and introducing myself as Muslim meant awkward silences or being expected to explain my identity to those who already made their minds up on what they saw as a suppressive religion.”

Other Muslim queers and I are seen as part of the problem. In our identities we are expected to ‘choose only one’. Where have I heard that before? Ah.

The aspect of being bisexual and ESEA is one that society tends to deliberately overlook. Although my time in a SEA country was easier as a queer Muslim back then, compared to being raised in a London area where the unofficial anthem was about gunning down gay men, biphobia has always been the unaddressed elephant in the room wherever I went. In a SE Asian queer woman’s support group I attended, biphobic sentiment was freely expressed by its core members, especially in front of women questioning their sexuality, which is a dangerous move. Over here in the UK, queer support groups who decide to cover racial inclusion talks rarely include ESEA speakers on the board. Again this is harmful, considering mental health issues affect a large portion of the bisexual community due to the erasure of our existence, especially from our fellow queer peers. Being of two identities, varying from being either extremely hypersexualised or invisible due to sexual orientation and race, should get us a seat at the table but is often seen as a way to leave us out of the conversation instead. Again this is unhelpful, and is worse when it is seen as something that we are supposed to be used to. Even the updated Pride flag, which includes black and brown stripes to represent communities of colour have failed to include one shade, which is gold to represent ESEA people. (Please see picture for my updated flag on this - sometimes we just have to do the damn job ourselves).

ESEA inclusive pride flag by JM Arrow

ESEA inclusive bi pride flag by JM Arrow

That being said, ignorance exists everywhere and manifests into what we see now in Muslim South East Asia. Gone are the madrasahs  a college for Islamic instruction) led by trans communities. ‘Religious Punishments’ are carried out in redneck localities not only on kissing straight couples and single mums trying to make a living through sex work but also on same sex couples, and they have the cane marks to prove that life is different to how it was before, barely decades ago when Islam was still just as widely practiced. What was once the hub of gay venues in neon lit cities has now been replaced by empty buildings after so called religious raids. The rich culture where gender fluidity was commonplace has now been subdued, despite a traditionally prestige status and influence towards Islamic societies in South East Asia.

How did we get this way? 

Despite the protests we see in the news of conservative South East Asians chanting ‘No to LGBT’ and attempting to shut down the little remaining resources the queer South East Asian community has, there is still a sense of pride. We’ve always had it and I’m glad that before the rise of social media, I was witness to a culture that was generally more inclusive of its queers than it was back home in London. There are so many non-Western civilisations that have queer rich histories, yet the only ones that are taught in societies across the world are about struggles in Europe and America. There is space to learn about not just negative, but more importantly positive queer history, and celebrate queer figures that don’t necessarily come from countries that claim to spearhead the LGBTQIA movement. However, changing society’s perceptions is a massive challenge, including within SEA countries where we are still taught to look up to the West. There is still a massive colonial mindset that hangs over populations more than they subconsciously know. So what can we do about it?  The term LGBTQI wasn’t one that was used in South East Asia, words like Ahgua, Calibai, Calalai, Bissu, Pengkid and Mak Nya were. And they lived peacefully until Western societies barged their way in telling Muslim countries how they should run their citizens before labelling them as barbaric and backward, shrugging off queer Muslim history and choosing to ignore queer Muslims unless they were a statistic of violent homophobia. This not only invalidates queer Muslim SEA identities but encourages the ignorances we face from different communities that we are supposed to be a part of. 

The queer communities in Muslim countries didn’t need a rainbow flag. They didn’t need Pride marches or a popularised visual of partying culture; yet this is what homophobic South East Asians see when they hear the words LGBTQI instead of the people that have always lived amongst them and who Western society chooses to forget. We need to make it clear that LGBTQIA communities have always existed in SEA Muslim countries not as victims but as people. And those people have a voice and presence which we need to celebrate, and include in our queer histories and cultures - they are beautiful and deserve to be heard out, loud and proud.

Joy is a mixed Asian-British bisexual Muslim intersectional activist and writer of ESEA heritage. You can find her on Twitter or on read more of her work on her website.