"Yes, it’s possible to be queer and Muslim"

"we spot each other at the same time, exchange shy glances and quick hellos before ordering, sit down with our ice creams, and her second question to me is: “So. Tell me, Lamya. How are you queer and Muslim at the same time?”

Always, the except.

This happens often enough that I have a strategy. For basic white girls with no subtlety, for women at lesbian bars making small talk, for those who have taken no time to get to know me and are obviously not invested in my answers. For quick dismissals, for moving on.

The script goes something like this. First, an indulgence: a small, private eye roll. Then, the stock answer. That queerness and Muslimness are not mutually exclusive, that Islam is not a monolith, that my Islam is expansive and my God, capacious. That queer too, is not a monolith, there are different ways to be queer, different narratives that do not fit neatly into Western models of coming out and nesting in nuclear families that replicate straightness. That people need to stop fetishizing those of us who live at these seemingly impossible intersections, that my queerness and Muslimness do not need to be reconciled because they’re so deeply enmeshed, so deeply party of who I am...

Instead, what I need, what I find I cannot live without is community. Queer Muslim community, specifically: chosen families comprising people who eat together and protest together, whom I can be queer around and Muslim around without having to defend, explain, justify."

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/19/yes_its_possible_to_be_queer_and_muslim/

This essay is so well written, and so well structured. It feels a little like she's writing to be the educator for a non-queer/non-Muslim audience, but it also really feels like she's writing a little bit of her own story for herself. What she says about the idea of answers! 

And also, thank you for calling out all the times basic people ask questions and are not invested in the answers. Stop asking questions, basics. Or stop being basic and start being genuinely interested in things outside your set of experiences.