By Sanaa Mirz

Growing up, I always felt like a fish out of water wherever I went. Even when around those who were a part of one of the marginalized groups I am a part of. I felt like the puzzle piece that didn’t fit into the whole picture. I have never looked like the stereotypical Muslim woman nor do I look like the stereotypical queer woman. Being Muslim, Black, and queer I always felt as if I was being torn in three different directions. Many of the older Muslim folks I grew up around never spoke of the gay community. Or if they did, they did so to warn me that while others were free to express themselves, I as a Muslim would burn in Hell if I became ‘like them’. Therefore I, like many closeted,2p queer Muslim kids, grew up in a highly homophobic household. I grew up repressing my sexuality because I thought that I could fake my way into being heterosexual. I smiled my way through everything and tried to be the best Muslim girl I could be even though I was in agony. 

What most homophobic people don’t know is that the one person who hates a gay person the most is that gay person themself once they first find out who they are and what that means. I hated myself from the moment I found out about my sexuality because of the world around me. I thought I would burn in Hell and tried anything and everything I could do to be ‘normal’. Being at the intersection of so many marginalized groups can feel both extremely isolating and like too heavy of a burden. I tried to ‘pray the gay away’ but to no avail. Looking back, that was the lowest I have ever been. 

Growing up as I did, I felt like a living taboo. Like I was wearing clothes that used to fit but I had grown too big for. The clothes that were who I thought I was before coming out to myself felt too tight and restrictive. I knew once I came out to myself that I could no longer go back to the person I believed I was. Growing up Muslim and queer I felt as if I had done something wrong to make myself gay. It has only been through growing older that I have realized the sheer amount of pain I was going through at such a young age. 

Even writing this, I can still feel the pain I used to feel and the ghosts of my former selves. I write this with the hope that this may reach someone like me and show them that they are not the only one. Being a young gay Muslim, I felt as if I was the only one. I grew up ashamed and angry with myself because I thought I was the one who had chosen to become this living taboo. I used to and sometimes still sit in the amazement that someone as intersectional as me exists as there is so little accurate and positive representation of the Muslim, Black, and gay community. Being Muslim in a world so highly Islamaphobic already feels like a heavy enough burden but adding on the burdens given due to being Black and also being queer creates an experience where what you do always feels political because your right to exist in peace is always a subject of debate. 

Sexuality is something we need to talk about within all religious communities so young queer kids never feel like ‘living taboos’. Feeling like a ‘living taboo’ takes up so much space in a person who could have been filled with joy but is instead filled with self-hate. Being Muslim and queer has been a constant struggle, in that you get criticism from both the Muslim community and Western society. Many within the Muslim community think that it is impossible to be both Muslim and gay. That somehow you have to choose between the two and that being gay is a sin punishable by the fires of Hell. Others in the Muslim coummunity critisize and ostrasize LGBTQ+ folks for who they are. Western society, however, questions my agency as a Muslim woman, seeing my faith as ‘primitive’ and ‘old timey’, at best. At worst, many assume that I am oppressed because of my faith. What many fail to understand is that my faith is not the problem. What I chose to believe in is no one’s business but mine but the tension of being a ‘living taboo’ comes from my refusal to tick a single box created for me. In being Muslim, Black, queer, and a woman, my existence is a constant state of defiance. Each breath I take, I take with the knowledge of the many reasons I could be killed for being who I am.