Okay, I’m gonna go on a rant about LGBT Muslim rep in media and this is super important so please spread and reblog this:
Obviously, it’s well known that there’s barely any rep for Muslims, and EVEN LESS rep for us Muslims who are also a part of the LGBT community. For obvious reasons (cough homophobia cough cough islamophobia) the media just doesn’t want to include us.
But I’m not here to rant about that, not only because there are plenty of other explanations on why that rep is important to us, but also because the people who are giving us rep are usually misinformed and giving it to us wrong. No, I’m here to rant about the terrible type of representation we ARE getting, because really it’s awful:
In every single piece of media I’ve seen that has included LGBT Muslims, the writers always have to go out of their way to show how they break Muslim ‘traditions’. The character always drinks, eats pork, does drugs, has a lot of sex, or just blatantly doesn’t give a fuck about Muslim rules, traditions,or cultures.
Now of course, there’s really nothing wrong with what I’ve stated above. Not all Muslims follow the restrictions exactly and that doesn’t make them any less Muslim, or human. Its the fact that EVERY SINGLE LGBT Muslims in media acts like. That all of the characters I’m supposed to see myself in quite clearly have had no research or effort put into the Muslim part of their Identity.
Its the fact that whenever I try to watch a show with LGBT Muslim characters I have to shut it off because it’s so blatantly obvious the creators think that to be LGBT is to sacrifice parts of what makes us Muslim, that it’s impossible for us to be both fully and unapologetically. It’s the fact that they think who we are, or who we’re attracted to, changes the way we see our faith. It’s the fact that at the beginning these characters are always considered ‘repressed’ and ‘in need of help’ until some white gay decides to show them what ‘true freedom’ is, as if our religion is holding us back, as if we need someone who disrespects our religion to save us, and as if Islam in itself isn’t freedom for us.
Not only does it make us feel horrible and wrong; as if what we’re shown is confirming that we cannot, in fact, have both - And that following Muslim culture makes us less LGBT, or that being LGBT means that all our actions as Muslims are worthless. It also contributes to huge amounts of Islamophobia in the LGBT community and Homophobia in the Muslim one.
It isolates us, shows us our worst fears, and tells us “There is no place where you can ever truly be yourself, because who you are is wrong and broken.”
It is super fucking important to create LGBT Muslim characters, we are in desperate need of that rep and it’s really important to us. But when you create that rep, you can’t just slap a hijab on an LGBT character and say “Wow that’s perfect!”, actual thought and research needs to be put in or else you could cause serious harm to our small community. Please stop making your LGBT Muslim characters hate their religion and not give a fuck about spirituality and that part of them just because their LGBT, that’s not how it works and If you do that shit your fucking Islamophobic and I hate you.
If you don’t stop I will personally come to your house and scream at you for hurting me and my community.
