I get a lot of comments across various social media platforms that go something like this:
“Why do you defend Muslims? They would kill you for being transgender!”
“Try going to Saudi Arabia! They would stone you for being gay!”
“You’re defending people who would use Sharia Law to murder you!”
“If Muslims are so great, why don’t you move to the Middle East? Oh right, cause they’d behead you!”
These comments are frustrating because, for one, they show a deep misunderstanding of Islam, but also, they try to use queer people as an excuse to discriminate against Muslims.
And I’m not here for that.
I’m a queer, trans, gay person, and I will happily support and defend all of my Muslim siblings. I refuse to be used an excuse for people to discriminate against Muslims.
So let’s start at the beginning: Why do people believe this? Why do people think that all Muslims hate queer people?
I would argue that it’s because that’s the only way they’re portrayed in our media.
Muslims are never main characters, and they’re rarely protagonists. If you see a Muslim in a TV show or movie, they’re probably a terrorist. And if you don’t know any Muslims in your everyday life, you probably only hear about them when there’s a terrorist attack.
But there are 1.6 billion Muslims in this world. That’s a lot of people – way too many for them to all share the same exact beliefs and principles.
For instance, just like there are different denominations of Christianity, there are various sects of Islam. The main ones are Sunni and Shia, but even within those, there are tons of further divisions.
Thinking of Islam as a monolith would be like saying that all Catholics, Protestants, Lutherans, Baptists, and Episcopalians believe the same thing – but that would be ridiculous.
Plus, even though people generally associate Muslims with the Middle East, the majority of them, about 62%, live in the Asia-Pacific region. Indonesia is the country with the largest Muslim population. But when people try to talk about what all Muslims believe, they usually reference the laws of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, or Afghanistan.
The fact is, oppressive governments can use any excuse to impose their will.
In Saudi Arabia, for instance, you can be jailed, tortured, or even executed for being gay or transgender. That doesn’t mean that this is a Muslim law that all Muslims support. It’s a horrible law, but it’s a law put in place by the Saudi Arabian government, not the religion of Islam.
It’d be kind of like if we had no separation of church and state, and the Westboro Baptist Church was in charge. Do you think they’d be very kind to gay people? Of course not, but that wouldn’t represent all Christians across the globe.
That’s because Saudi Arabia’s laws are largely based on Wahhabism, which is a specific sect of Islam, just like the Westboro Baptist Church’s version of Baptism is a sect of Christianity. And just like most Christians disagree with the Westboro Baptist Church, most Muslims disagree with Wahhabism.
And like with all things, it’s complicated and nuanced and not one-sided. In Iran, for instance, homosexuality is illegal and you can be executed for it.
But since the 1980s, the Iranian government has partially funded sex change operations for transgender people. And since 2012, the government requires health insurance companies to fully cover the cost of those operations.
But as proof that anti-queer laws are straight from Islam, people love to point to Sharia Law, which they tend to think is one list of rules set forth in the Quran that all Muslims follow.
However, Sharia Law is different depending on who you ask, and it draws from both the Quran and the Sunna, which consists of a bunch of different texts.
Because of this, different sects have different definitions of Sharia Law. For some, it’s praying five times a day and not drinking alcohol – but for others, it’s stoning gay people to death.
There are several passages in the Quran that people use to justify that (7:80-84, 26:165-166, and 4:15-16), but none of them explicitly say that you have to kill gay people. They’re kind of vague and open to interpretation, especially depending on how you translate them.
However, nothing is vague about homosexuality in the Christian Bible. Leviticus 18:22 says that it’s an abomination, and Leviticus 20:13 says that if a man has sex with a man, you have to put him to death.
That’s pretty direct. And, yet, we’re not saying that all Christians believe in Leviticus Law and want to kill all the gay people they see.
That’s because there are many different interpretations of the Bible in Christianity, and many of them are peaceful and accepting of homosexuality.
The same can be said for Islam.
There are plenty of Muslims who have no problem with gay people, and in fact, there are gay and queer Muslims. And just as some Christians believe that homosexuality is a sin but you shouldn’t be killed for it, the same is true for some Muslims.
Islam is not anti-queer any more than Christianity is.
And look, if you’re an atheist right now and you’re sitting there thinking that all these religions are horrible and we can’t tolerate any of them, I want you to reconsider that. I’m an atheist myself, which means I’m not a huge fan of the Bible or the Quran, but I do recognize that there are many good Christians and many good Muslims.
In my experience, I’ve found that your religion, or lack thereof, is a very bad indicator of how compassionate of a person you are.
I get messages and comments every day telling me to kill myself and calling me all sorts of anti-trans and anti-queer garbage. The majority of these seem to come from online atheist communities, and I get a good amount of hate from Christians who think I’m going to hell.
But most of the time I hear from Muslims, it’s a message of support and acceptance.
So why do I support Muslims? Because I can recognize that the laws of a few Middle Eastern countries do not represent the views of all 1.6 billion Muslims.
Because I know that being a Muslim doesn’t automatically mean being against queer or trans people. Because there are queer and trans Muslims. And because Muslims face a huge amount of discrimination in the US and Western Europe because of the actions of a militant group in the Middle East that they have nothing to do with.
When we’re fighting for social justice, I think it’s important to not leave Muslims behind. Hate crimes against Muslims are a real problem. It’s now a pretty regular occurrence for mosques to be burnt down, and on January 29th, a white nationalist shot and killed six Muslims at a mosque in Quebec, and injured nineteen others.
Anti-Muslim violence is real, and our feminism has to recognize that.
I try to make sure that my feminism is as intersectional as possible because people can have a lot of different marginalized identities, and that means supporting Muslim rights as well.
It’s important to remember that intersectional feminism means fighting for the rights of all people, not just whatever group you belong to. It’s like that one saying, “Nobody is free while others are oppressed.”
Thanks for watching this episode of Feminism with Riley, which I’m doing in collaboration with Everyday Feminism, a website dedicated to helping you stand up to and break down everyday oppression.
Remember to subscribe and share this video if you liked it, and I will see you next time.
