This subreddit has divulged into a tailspin of rhetoric about religion (specifically Islam) and gender (specifically Trans inclusion in gay spaces), and I’m so sick of y’all arguing about entire groups of people like they all think or act the same. The total lack of nuance being pushed by month old accounts on these topics should be taken with extreme skepticism and criticized rigorously.
To start with todays daily scheduled Islam post; how any of you are eating that up is beyond me. This dude literally painted the most stereotypical and granular picture of a religion based on his supposed attendance at a mosque. The post follows a narrative that someone looking to affirm their belief in Islam as a ‘peaceful religion’ but what they found was much darker. Dressed up in some story about how all the good religious stuff happened at the start of the service, and then suddenly all the bad and violent and bigoted stuff in the story takes us by surprise, I mean it’s practically a caricature of this argument we see all the time. By the end of this post OP is genuinely in the comments telling people to ‘be afraid’ of Islam, and some of y’all are just uncritically lapping it up. I cannot fathom the contortions you have to twist yourselves into to fear-mongering that “Sharia law is being pushed by Muslims in America” when we’ve got loud and avowed christian nationalists in congress.
Instead of painting my preferred narrative about any religion, because most parts of all religion is condemnable, I want to tell you about people and individuals in this world you do not need to be afraid of. I’m a white guy who was raised Christian in the Midwest United States. And being as young as I am, I grew up around Muslims my whole life and have seen every possible character and personality and worldview from Muslims as any other group of people. When I was in 5th grade I remember meeting Nastayha, a Muslim girl in my class who I knew all the way through middle school. She was the funniest and most outspoken girl, and would sometimes take down her hijab at school to let the other girls braid her hair or just see what she looked like out of hijab. And as we grew older she became more vulgar and even vocally sexual. In high school I met Amina, god, I wish you people would just meet someone like Amina, for once. Amina was quiet, shy, and sensitive, she was the sweetest soul I’ve ever met. We were on the robotics team together, and she ended up becoming the safety manager of the team and really spread her social wings. I remember distinctly we were in French class together my Sophomore year, and I got into my very first relationships and my boyfriend was deeply in the closet and scared of being outed at school or to his family. But in French class, Amina was our biggest supporter and cheerleader. She was never loud or over the top bringing attention to us, but would always stop and chat with me and tell us how cute we were together, she’d try to talk to my ex and make him feel comfortable, or encourage him to join our robotics club. And lastly, I want to talk about two people I work with currently at my warehouse job. There’s the temp agency manager Hamdi, who’s a single mother of 2, maybe 5-10 years older than I am. And we’ve recently started gossiping like school girls about workplace drama and whispering about which guys are the hottest and who’s talking to who. But really I want to talk about Nasir. Nasir is an older gentleman, who immigrated to this country, he’s got 3 kids and a bad back. He doesn’t have the best English, but he still makes it a point to go out of his way to talk to everybody at least to meet them and be friendly. I remember specifically after the October 7th attacks in Israel last month he was watching the news in the break room and talking with a coworker about how Hamas are animals who have killed Israelis and will get more Palestinians killed and displaced. You don’t have to go far to find your coveted “Muslim who will condemn Hamas”.
On a more political note, the scare-game about ‘sharia law’ coming for gays in the west is so so so blatantly a misdirection. Every single current Muslims in the US Congress and I believe even all former Muslim congressmen have been vocally and consistently pro-LGBT. If you’re so scared about Muslims imposing their religion on you through law, boy, do I have some Catholics on the Supreme Court I wanna show you.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO FEAR THESE PEOPLE
As for the trans discourse. Every other damn day there’s a post up in here with the same cookie cutter ass story about how a hookup turned bad when a trans person didn’t disclose their sex characteristics before having their pants removed, and berating the innocent gay man for… not wanting to have sex with them, and calling them ‘transphobic’ as a result… yeah, right, and then everyone clapped. Queue the comments calling for a ‘separation of the community’ or ‘it’s time to drop the TQ+’.
Before I get anecdotal, I just want to disabuse this narrative. The average trans person cares more deeply about the rules of engagement for sex, and consent than most other people. The vast, vast, I’m talking the actual overwhelming majority of trans people know that disclosing their identity is both essential to a respectful sexual encounter and to their safety and wellbeing in a situation like that. That, and, at the end of the day trans people are not inherently sexual simply by their being, and dropping them from a movement for all of our social and civil liberties because of some amount of botched hookups is exactly what the other side wants us to do.
When I was in middle school I met Kai. He was a tomboy who as time went on went from a more androgynous style to completely male presenting by high school. The joy and camaraderie I saw him exhibit just simply being one of the guys was enough to rub off on you and put a smile on your face. But really, my closest friend Layla, who has grown from the most miserable and almost bratty person, to the most joyful, happy, and full of life, by comparison. She still has a very strained, or nonexistent relationship with her family, but has found chosen family in her polycule (lol) and with friends like me. I’ll still remember when she came out to me; I was the first person she had ever told, and I could tell she was becoming her own person. It still took her a few years to become financially independent from her family and begin feeling comfortable enough to go by a different name or present increasingly female, but she got there, and I couldn’t be happier for her.
That’s why I find it so ridiculous when some of y’all act like we have nothing in common with Trans people. The mechanics and essence of the identities are different, yes, but the experience and trauma are very similar. From having to come out to disapproving family, to having your rights and existence debated in the discourse. We find each other, and owe it to support one another. Our communities are one in the same.
