A Letter to Myself During the Ages
presented at Connecting Generations: LGBT+ People of Faith, 12 Nov 2018, during Scottish Interfaith Week
Letter from 15 years old me 7 years old
Dear Me,
I know you feel a bit rubbish. A bit awkward in corduroy trousers pretending to be a little Dad in the playground because everyone can tell, you’re the tomboyish one. You hate it but not as much as you hate playing Mummies and Daddies. You would rather play Dungeons and Dragons, not football because the boys would think you fancy them if you went near them. Yuck. You want to be She Ra but instead watch it on the telly.
Mum and dad say you’re ready to fast for Ramadan. You think it’s exciting because it means you’re growing up. I will tell you now, despite being really skinny you will not like fasting and will not pray as much as Mum and Dad do. You will wonder why it takes so much work to follow a religion Mum and Dad will try to make you understand. Five years later you will ask Grandma what hernias are while she teaches you the Qur’an. She will promptly tell you and carry on, because Grandma Is honest to the boot and kickass.
It’s not your fault. You read too much Garfield. He said he always had hernias.
Letter from 18 years old me to 16 years old
Dear Me,
It’s only been 2 years that I’m writing to you but quite a bit has changed. You’ve got some weird attitude to sexuality right now. You started off by thinking ‘I’m not gay, I’m just a supporter’ like some pink scarved football fan. Then you think, ‘I’m not gay, I‘m bisexual’. There’s nothing mentioned about bisexuals that you can turn to. So then you say ‘I’m not bisexual, I’m a lesbian’. Right now you’re lusting over the neighbourhood androgynous tomboy and wishing she could whisk you away in her four wheel drive jeep.
You’re going gaga over queer lesbian singers except for KD Lang who just doesn’t rock your world. You’re fighting your feelings for that fella in your class who you can’t figure out their gender, as you don’t want to betray your emerging lesbian side. You’re pouring over every lesbian related article and book you can find in the library and reaching for help from different counsellors and pen pals. One of your pen pals, the same age as you describes the pains of growing up queer down to her embarrassing fantasies involving her crushes. You, like the agony aunt you are, write back the same. She cuts you off, signing off in her last letter that she is now dreaming of being married to a boyband member. You have a feeling her mum has read your letters.
You attend your first Pride march and your parents scream that you are going straight to hell when they see you on TV. Being gay is not accepted in Islam. Still you look far and wide for support. There are Christian gay groups but there are none for Muslims. Your best school friend’s family find out that you’re attracted to women and ban her from seeing you. The only gay voices you hear are the ones you tune into after midnight on a gay radio show and give you some hope as the DJ himself is Jewish.
But you are used to being alone, even though the pain is quite numbing.
Letter from 21 years old to 18 years old
Dear Me,
You have your first girlfriend. I am telling you now, hold her dear all you want but she is so much better left in the past aswell as the next one. You’re going to keep it schtum that you are also attracted to men and will constantly hang out in every queer venue because you’re now allowed in them as you’re over eighteen. You have moved to a Muslim country of late and you have managed to reconcile both your faith and sexuality which you still keep under wraps. Perhaps it’s the strong network you have now become a part of, which is prevalent in Muslim countries for their queer community. Strangely no one looks weirdly or screams lezzie or faggot at the camp gay man or butch tomboy, not even in the rural villages. Sometimes, there’s the odd account of trying to ‘cure’ homosexuals but overall you and your friends, including your girlfriend don’t seem worried. Even the teenage girls in sixth form in the local secondary schools have girlfriends.
But love isn’t all it’s mapped out to be. Your first girlfriend, who isn’t Muslim is inherently Islamaphobic, always encouraging you to drink alcohol in social events as you’re a sinner for being a lesbian anyway. She makes snidy comments about the Azaan and other Muslims and as she’s your first girlfriend, you don’t dare say anything back even though you refuse the alcohol. She tells you that she hopes you’re not bisexual. Your support group echoes the same sentiment. You attend a short college course in an Islamic university that your dearest parents have fought tooth and nail to secure for you. In the opening ceremony, you’re looking forward to regaining some spirituality until the sermon covers the sins of homosexuality in the West, for no apparent reason.
Letter from 35 years old to 21 years old
Dear Me,
You’re in a very dark place after managing to split up with your current girlfriend, who practically handed you the keys to her flat on the second date. Well, some things need to be kept traditional don’t they. The relationship is a turbulent one, bringing out the worst in the both of you. I can tell you now, your taste in woman doesn’t change and you will always be waiting for some butch to sweep you off your feet.
To get over it, you don on some ultra feminine clothes and makeup and decide to give men a whirl. Turns out you actually like being with them too.
Your family are happy that you’ve changed your image to a more conventionally feminine one. They bypass the attraction you are gaining from men, relieved that you have seemingly got over your tomboy phase.
You tell your lesbian friends to shove it when they start going on their biphobic spiel again. You attend your first Pride in the country, which is a concert on the top of a high class shopping mall. You bump into your ex-girlfriend. Not good.
Your best friend is a transwoman who went to the same Islamic college you did and has done exceptionally well for herself as an office executive and your manager. You pray together in the Muslim women’s prayer rooms and no one has any issue. You begin to read the Qur’an, appreciating what certain passages mean and becoming prouder of your religion. Other Muslims either tease or look at you in curiosity-you don’t wear the headscarf or ‘look’ Muslim. This makes you even more determined to study the Good Book and you finish both the translation and Arabic script though of course, no one believes that you did.
From 40 years old to 35 years old
Dear Me,
Sorry it’s been a while but what can I say, we’ve been really busy haven’t we.
You went through a straight-ish sort of phase, despite acknowledging you were bisexual. It worked for a while even when you moved countries, because the lads back in the West like a bit of exotic Asian flesh. Some relationships worked out, most didn’t but that was fine because you were in no rush.
The suburbs suck don’t they? You fall in love with some of your boyfriends, ready to hit the life of living in semi detached houses with plain manicured lawns, pebble dashed drives and furnished with cheap plastic chairs and tables. There’s only one little gay pub down the road from where you live and the female customers ignore you for being too straight looking in your heels and long hair. You try and fit in with the straight crowd but they can tell you’re putting on a mask and you still feel that you don’t fit anywhere. You stumble across a bisexual group and finally, a Gay Muslim group during Pride. You attend their meetings. It’s like coming home and learning about some wonderful long lost relatives over a cup of chai and vegan cookies. The environment in both groups is very diverse.
And that’s where you have been for the past few years. It hasn’t been easy going on a journey to accept yourself. There are still things you could do better. Your faith is still unshakeable as you pour over scriptures and Islamic history from time to time, enthralled at how lots of details of your religion have applied to a progressive society, including kick ass female role models and looking after marginalised folk. You still suck at prayers. You still get hangry during Ramadan. Sometimes you even speak out of turn, throwing your toys out of the pram when Allah swt doesn’t let you get your own way.
But that’s because you always know God is closer to you than anyone else. You hear reports of rising homophobic hate crimes in Muslim countries with members of their public saying that LGBTQI communities never existed in a Muslim society. They don’t represent you. Online you’re shown pictures of fifteen year olds being thrown off a roof by Isis. The poor young victims have not one name to be remembered by. The people posting such pictures are usually queer and constantly label your faith as dangerous to women and queers. Again, they don’t represent you. You’re told that you’re trapped in the faith of your parents and that you are too scared to change your religion. That’s about as truthful as saying that your favourite film is The Rocky Horror Picture Show (you literally can’t stand it, though Richard O’Brien is legend) and that your ideal spouse is a cross between Pol Pot and Katie Hopkins. You also find out that bi phobia exists in the form of people telling you that you don’t exist and that it’s impossible for you to remain monogamous. Funny that, you’re not keen on sharing or threesomes. Did you miss the memo somewhere? A large portion of your straight friends don’t attend your birthday parties or events, as they think you’re going to trap them into a masked orgy. And yes, even in the West the lesbians don’t like bisexuals, except a lovely ex girlfriend who, you’ve guessed it, didn’t work out. Not to worry, though, because you found your way and gender was never relevant. Eventually you give up caring and kick back. Too Asian, too Muslim, too Western, too gay, too straight, too feminine, too masculine, whatever.
Toodle Pip, I couldn’t give a shit.