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Hello. Thank you for joining us. We are proud to welcome you to our special series, Across the Rainbow, brought to you by Brill, where we talk about gender equality, its past, its present, and its future. On your host, Lee John Greco.
Today we're speaking with Dr. Shen and Shaw. He's a visiting research fellow in theology and religious studies at King's College London. His article is Ethnicity, Gender, and Class and the Experience of Gay Muslims.
Dr. Shaw, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. So just to start off, when Sadie Khan and other Muslim MPs voted in favor of same-sex marriage, what did that reveal about Islam in Britain?
Well, I think that was a real moment that went to remark in some circles, but not others, because up to that point, the debate around the kind of responses towards, you know, LGBT rights and gender equality that people assumed that religious groups had was antagonistic. People just assumed that if you were a person of faith, if you were someone who was religious, you would oppose LGBT rights. And a lot of that had come from the opposition that the mainstream churches, especially the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church in the UK had towards same-sex legislation. And the assumption was that, you know, Muslims, Islam would be equally hostile as well.
And to be fair, those were the sorts of statements that we saw coming out in the media from lots of spokespersons from these religious traditions. But I think what the vote from the Muslim MPs and most of them were from the Labour Party in the UK, the fact that they voted in favor of same-sex legislation shows you that actually the debates are so much more complicated. And it also shows you the kind of bias that is there in countries like the UK. So when we talk about religion, what religion are we assuming?
You know, what does this religion look like? It probably looks like the establishment, white, patriarchal, male-led church, the Church of England or the Anglican Church, there's very little room to think about, you know, A, the diversity within Christian denominations and also what's happening in other faiths, other religious communities in the UK. So to summarize, I think what was significant when this group of MPs voted in favor of same-sex legislation, it showed that from a Muslim perspective, they were able to separate what they saw as a religious realm or a religious, you know, the religious sin of homosexuality in Islam. Let's just say that.
They were able to separate that and their feelings about it with their belief in equality and social justice. And what is the civil right? And, you know, the corollary to that, can you criminalize something that someone sees as a personal sin? So they were able to make that move, like I as a Muslim, I might still have doubts about whether it's OK to be gay, to have gay marriage, but as a citizen of this country, of course, I believe in everyone's equal right to marriage, right?
So that's what they were saying. But this doesn't come out of thin air. It's also related to where they are in the political spectrum. These are Muslim ethnic minority MPs within the Labour Party, which has, you know, by and by the social progressive agenda.
So this is how this is how they're situating their response to same sex marriage and gender equality as, you know, people of a minority faith and ethnicity within this political party. So this interplay between religion and politics is really interesting. And finally, it just shows you that these, you know, we can't ignore the majority of minority dynamics, Islam is a minority faith in the UK. They are minority MPs within, you know, a major political party in the UK.
This sort of vote could happen here. I don't know if it could happen, say, in a similar parliamentary setting in a Muslim minority country, let's just say, under similar circumstances. Can you elaborate on that last point exactly? What do you think is able to happen in the UK, not somewhere else?
I think specific to the UK context before this bill went through Parliament, this country had already been through debates about the Equality Act. So it's the Equality Act of 2010, which was preceded by the Equality Act of 2006, which, you know, it does what it says on the tin. It's about equality and non-discrimination. It's about protecting, you know, certain characteristics or group identities that have been marginalized or discriminated against in the past.
And I think there were difficult discussions that had to be had even then. So thinking about discrimination against religious minorities, for example, putting that alongside, talking about discrimination on the basis of sexuality. You know, in the crafting of the Equality Act and all the discussions leading up to it, you had spokespersons who were lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, having to work alongside, spokespersons from Muslim communities, trying to think of a way to make this act workable for everyone. So they had had those discussions beforehand within the context of a liberal democracy.
So these different minorities, religious minorities, I think minorities, sexual minorities were already sitting at the same table. So by the time the same-sex marriage legislation was tabled, you know, a lot of that work was already done. So people like Sadikhan, I think, were part of that previous discussion, saying a shorter distance to travel then to make that, you know, that logical leap that Sadikhan has said publicly, you know, I, as a Muslim, I have my religious use about this. You know, as a human rights activist, as a label politician, as a citizen of this country, I believe in equality, right?
So that's the context of the UK. So for your research, you spoke with men and women who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, but you didn't cover transgender Muslims. Why is that? Well, to preface my answer, I really have to say that before I embarked on an academic career, I was also an independent journalist in Malaysia and was involved in lots of human rights and social justice activism there.
And in my work in that field, I, of course, was in touch with trans communities and trans activists, especially in my work on HIV and AIDS and human rights and abuses by law enforcement, which included the police and the religious authorities in Malaysia in what were called, you know, moral rates, you know, they'd rate people or, you know, public spaces, police, public spaces or infringements on morality laws that apply to Muslims. So in that sense, I have already been in touch with trans communities in Malaysia. But there are differences, because this was a study on how Muslims who are regarded in a certain way under Islamic legislation respond to that kind of Islamic legislation. And there's a difference between how same sex relations are treated in some Muslim communities compared to the issue of gender variants or trans identity or being genderqueer.
So the sorts of religious rulings that cover issues that we see having to do with trans communities are slightly different and they have a different history in Muslim contexts. So the clearest example I can think of is the Islamic Republic of Iran, which still has the death sentence for homosexual relations, same sex relations, but where sex reassignment for trans people is legal, you know, it's still classified as a sort of mental disorder, but it is legal for someone who is trans in Iran to seek sex reassignment. And we see that Iran is Shia majority country, which is a kind of minority strand of Islam globally. But we see that even within Sunni majority countries, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, where there is recognition of something called the third gender, even while there are laws that are stringently anti-homosexual.
So this is the historical context that we can see in different Muslim countries and the country where I come from Malaysia. I mean, once upon a time in the 80s, there was recognition as well of this kind of, you know, the vocabulary that was used wasn't that they were the gender or trans, but there was a recognition of this kind of gender identity and even some sort of legal status. But that's been rolled back over the decades. But you know, the same sex quote unquote homosexual self has a different legacy.
And that's tied to British colonialism as well and how sexuality was regulated under, you know, British administration and then post independence as well. So yeah, so there are differences and I didn't want to mix everything up and just regard everything as the same. And you know, this was one research project. So this is what I decided to focus on first.
Yeah, that makes sense because that's a lot to unpack. It seems, I guess, that the distinction that those countries make, whether it's Malaysia or Iran is one issue has to do with gender and another has to do with sexual orientation. And so I guess that's how those cultures make those separations. Yes, I think that's one.
And what maybe my work addresses possibly indirectly is how, you know, the concept of, you know, the way we conceive of same sex relations now is that it's people of the same gender. And, you know, same sex assigned at birth, kind of having a relationship with each other. And, you know, the stereotype, for example, in countries like Malaysia is that, you know, this is a masculine man having a relationship with another masculine man, which suddenly seems like a Western import. I'm sure it's not, but that's how it's portrayed now.
Whereas traditionally in those sorts of societies, there have been same sex relations, but they sort of had a bit of gender variance in them as well. So if two men or two women were together, traditionally, people would still identify a kind of gender binary, like who's the more masculine one, who's the more feminine one. And that's how it would make sense, you know, in a more traditional setting, let's say, it might have not been universally accepted, but that's the prism through which people would see it. And I think there is still a kind of acceptance.
It's quite rare now, just because of the political developments in these countries in the last few decades. But I did find situations like that, even when I was in Malaysia, like same sex couples where one is identifiably more masculine than others, you know, suddenly becomes a bit more acceptable. And that's even like what some of my participants in Malaysia would say to me, they're like, yeah, we're fine, we're both men, but we both know that, you know, like I'm masculine on I'm the husband, right? So they'd say things like that.
And yeah, and I think that's not how the frame of LGBT rights, you know, that's not how we're framing it in say Western liberal democracies. It means something else here now, right? So I think that's that kind of baggage as well. How does intersectional subordination describe the experiences of several of the gay Muslims you interviewed for your study?
I think to answer that question, I have to talk about maybe what was the dominant assumption I was trying to address? What were the stereotypes I was trying to challenge? And there are several to do with LGBT people to deal with, you know, Muslims, Islam religious minorities, but I guess the dominant stereotype I was trying to challenge is that Islam is inherently and monolithically opposed to LGBT inclusion and LGBT rights. And that, you know, the assumption is that therefore all LGBT Muslims are victims, right?
Of this tyrannical religion that will just never change, etc, etc. So I guess that's the premise I was working from and I was trying to find data, you know, qualitative, lived experience data that spoke to this, you know, and perhaps challenged it. So what I did find was yes, there is this dominant understanding of Islam that says, you know, homosexual relations are not allowed. It's a sin, you know, you can't condone same sex marriage and so on.
So that's one issue. That's the doctrinal issue. The layer underneath that is that doesn't affect all gay Muslims in the same way. It depends whether you are to put it crudely a cisgender man or a cisgender woman.
If you're a woman, you suffer from the same kinds of, you know, patriarchal discrimination that other women would face as well in your society. I don't care whether that's the UK or Malaysia, there is still that element. You know, you get police for the way you dress, you know, where you hang out. You might experience different opportunities in the job market and so on.
So that's the gender stuff. So it doesn't affect gay Muslim men and women in the same way. I mean, I've already talked to you about the trans element that was different in my research. And it's also social class.
So do you have access to higher education and after you have access to higher education, what sort of job opportunities do you have? What sort of employment opportunities, financial security? Do you have a place of your own, you know, that you can feel safe in? Do you have access to online communities?
Do you have your own mode of transport, you know, so all these things affect how visible you are either within your community or when you step out of your community? Also your vulnerability to, you know, policing, whether it's official state sanctioned policing or whether it's community policing, you know, it doesn't hit everyone in the same way. And on the face of it, it seems like, well, you know, gay Muslims, gay Muslim men and women in Malaysia might have more difficult in Malaysia because there are laws that are explicitly homophobic and transphobic there. And that's true, but they find ways to navigate that.
And because a lot of the people I interviewed in Malaysia are part of the ethnic majority and a lot of them are middle class and professional, they find ways to, you know, sort of navigate the system more effectively, right? And they try not to rock the boat, many of them. In the UK, on the other hand, the people I met were minorities within a minority, often from quite working class backgrounds. And so they, in addition to being exposed to, say, homophobia from their own communities, they were also subject to racism, you know, within wider British society.
And, you know, the counter-terrorism legislation, they became exposed as brown-skinned Muslims, sometimes with visible markers of being Muslim, if they were women and they were hijab or if they were men and had beards, you know, that the state couldn't see that these LGBT Muslims, they were still Muslim. And in some spaces, you know, that was the identity that was threatened. So this is what I mean by intersectional subordination. It's not one size fits all.
People face risks differently depending on where they are and what other characteristics are, you know, interacting with their sexual identity. So you obviously talked already about some of the questions that the people that you interviewed grappled with. I'm wondering if you can elaborate on those a little bit more. But also talk about how you grappled with those in questions.
I think this is where a disclosure of who I am becomes important as well. And it's especially important because the kind of research I did was qualitative. It was ethnographic. It involves living with people, living amongst them, forming relationships with them and in learning about their stories, also sharing my story with them and why I was interested in this.
And why I am interested in this is that I identify as gay and Muslim myself. And I was born and raised in Malaysia. And I have moved to the UK. I started my doctoral research on this a year or two after I had moved to the UK.
So I've experienced being a gay Muslim in Malaysia and being a gay Muslim in the UK. And so that's been a process for me, even coming to name myself as a gay, coming to apply that label to myself and understand what it means to me and my own relationship with Islam, the kind of dominant view of Islam I grew up with, you know, the bits that I internalized, the bits that I rebelled against, the bits that I rejected. Those were things that I was asking the different gay Muslims I met to share with me, to expose to me, you know, it was basically putting them under the spotlight. But I thought that it was only fair then to put myself under the spotlight as well.
So every time I asked them, well, how did you come to identify as gay? I mean, that's a loaded question. So I had to think about that myself as well. I had to think, well, did this term always make sense to me?
What kind of baggage does it have to me? Do I still like this label? You know, so every time I asked them those questions in interviews, it was less a question and answer, you know, sometimes they started interviewing me back. You know, we'd have a chat and them knowing that I also identify as gay Muslims.
They say, well, what do you think about this? What do you believe? And instead of being, you know, supposedly neutral and completely objective and unmarked researcher, I did share with them what I thought. But I was also really clear to say that, you know, I didn't want to impose my ideas on anyone.
Like, they wanted to know what my feelings about certain things were, I would tell them. But I was really transparent about being a researcher and wanting to, you know, censor their experiences and give them voice in my research. So that's what I mean. Yeah, when I say that, I was grappling with the same questions that my participants, that I post to my participants as well.
Did you find it difficult at all to gain people's trust? I felt reading through this article that you mentioned sort of the time that it took to get inside these communities. Yes. I think in some ways it was really easy because, you know, just having lived as a gay Muslim in Malaysia, I, of course, knew other gay Muslims as well.
Men, women, and as I said before, you know, lots of trans friends and trans activists as well in Malaysia. But those were maybe people who were more likely already, you know, who had grappled with the same questions that I had grappled with. We sort of had a conflict with each other in Malaysia in that we were middle class and we spoke English. You know, those were the sorts of people I knew and hung out with.
So they were really easy to get in touch with. The people who were difficult to get in touch with, the people who were less likely, you know, who didn't speak English as their first language, who maybe came from working class backgrounds. And especially there was a gender barrier. So with the women I wanted to reach out to, you know, that there are kind of, I hesitate to call them lesbian communities in Malaysia, but I'll just use that as shorthand.
But more working class in the last speaking, lesbian communities in Malaysia that I just had more trouble with connecting with. And it was difficult to gain trust because people were like, you know, you might be Malaysian, you might be gay, you might be Muslim, but you're still doing a PhD in London. What is this for? What are you going to say about us?
Right? And the way that I bridge that was through the women are, I already didn't know who were my friends before, who had connections with them. So it's a lot more like, you know, it was a bit of, you know, snowball research, going through friends, going through acquaintances and asking them, who did you know? Who do you know that I could speak to?
In the UK it was slightly easier because I got in touch with an LGBTQ Muslim organization here called Iman at that time. And it was easier to gain the trust of the inner circle of our group because I started volunteering at their events and they knew my story, they knew who I was. So that active circle of volunteers was really open to speaking to me. But even then it was difficult to find the outer reaches of that community, the people who say maybe only existed online and didn't come to in-person events, right?
So yeah, there were easy bits in both countries and there were hindrins to the single countries as well. So I guess going back to our earlier conversation about intersectionalism, the biggest barrier that you faced was class, it seems. Yeah. So class is huge and I think there was a generational barrier as well.
In the UK it was slightly easier to meet people who were younger than me because of this association with Iman and how it was attracting younger LGBT Muslims into its fold. In Malaysia by and large, it was class but it was also age. I ended up meeting lots of people who were kind of in my age group. So I want to talk about one of the women that you interviewed.
Her name is Ayeh. She was a lesbian in her early 30s and she actually opposed same-sex marriage. Can you elaborate on that interview? Yeah, I guess to elaborate on that interview, maybe let me tell you a bit about her and how I got to know her.
So she's one of those people who wasn't the previous acquaintance of mine and I got to know her through a friend. So a friend of mine is a bisexual Muslim woman in Malaysia and she features in my research. So she was really keen to talk to me and she was really supportive. So when I asked her, right, so who else do you think I can speak to?
She said, why don't you come and play footsal with us, which is indorforable? And this is a bit of a craze in Malaysia. It has been for a while and it certainly was when I was doing my research. So these young professionals work in the daytime and in the evening they just book these pictures and just go and play indorforable and just hang out after that.
So she belonged to a women's football community, indorforable community. She was like, yeah, we meet regularly and quite a few of them are women who love the women. So why don't you come and just hang out and see if they're willing to talk to you? So I did.
And that's how I got in touch with IE because IE was there and she was she knew my friend. And when my friend said, oh, this is Shannon, my friend, he's doing a PhD in the UK, does anyone want to talk to him? So IE wanted to talk and I thought great. And IE is very masculine presenting and had a girlfriend at the time was very feminine presenting.
So yeah, so we had a chat one day and I barely knew them. And IE was quite outspoken. She was like, take it or leave it, this is who I am. I don't care what people think of me.
So I thought, okay, very assertive and confident in her identity. But then when we started talking about LGBT rights, she was like, no, I don't like LGBT rights. I don't agree with them. And I don't agree with sex marriage.
And so we got into a conversation about why not. And she said, look, you know, I am what I am, but I know that Islam says it's wrong. And I don't want to challenge my religion. How I do think about this is that, you know, what what I am might be wrong, what I'm doing might be wrong.
But I answer to God and no one else. If anyone was to change me, it would be God and no one else. And that's where her kind of take no prisoners attitude comes from. Right?
She said, yes, you know, you might see what I'm doing as a sin, but it's my business. It's no one else's business. So in the context of Malaysia, she was very outspoken about, you know, hate crimes and hate speech. She said, of course, this is wrong.
Like this should never happen. Right? But then when you start framing LGBT activism as being about same sex marriage, then she's like, no, but this is so irrelevant in my context. And it's really unsafe.
You know, so there's a pragmatic reason for why she doesn't like that sort of activism, because it puts her at risk. It puts her partner at risk. And also then there's the belief element in what the religion actually says. And so she was unwilling to challenge the basis of religious, you know, dominant religious rulings on homosexuality, but she would use other elements within the religious tradition.
Like, you know, there's a strong tradition within Islam that you don't shame someone. You don't publicly humiliate them. You know, that's wrong. If people are minding their own business, a personal sin is no one else's business.
So drinking alcohol might be wrong in Islam. And if someone is drinking alcohol in public, then maybe, you know, you have to do something about that. But if they're drinking in private, like, you know, that there's a strand of thinking that says, then you don't budge in like they're doing it in private. It's not up to you to expose them.
So she's very much, you know, she takes that line in defending herself. And also she's part of the ethnic majority. She's an ethnic Malay. So that comes with some privileges as well, political and economic privileges.
You know, this was less explicitly stated, but she wasn't going to rock the boat in that way, you know. So she was doing this balancing act of being visibly who she was and giving people attitude if they didn't like it. But at the same time, she had some elements of conforming to the majority's values as well, in terms of just not wanting to say anything about same sex marriage. I think that's just such a fascinating interview because it illustrates so much of the nuance that you found through your entire research here.
Yeah. And it was a learning experience for me as well. She's not the only interesting one I met that I met another lesbian Muslim was my friend before. And I think still is, even though we haven't been in touch for a while, but she'd been on the journey as well.
So when I'd met her, like all those years ago in Malaysia, it felt like she was on the way to really reclaiming her identity, open the as a lesbian woman and as a Muslim and as a feminist. And by the time I met her for this piece of research, she has started wearing the hijab and she started being conventionally more religious. And she said that she'd actually changed her mind about a few things. Like the more quote unquote liberal or progressive views, she held as a Muslim.
Before that, she was on the way to changing her mind. She was like, no, it's a lesbian. No, of course I believe I should be celibate. I shouldn't have sex with another woman.
That's wrong. I'm not going to do that. But again, the difference was, I asked her, I was like, but what do you think the state should be doing about this? Should this be something that is imposed on everyone?
Should it be a crime then for people to have same sex relations? And she said, of course not. I would never believe that. This is my journey and everyone deserves to have their own journey.
So if someone else were to believe, no, as a Muslim, I have a right to have sexual relations with my romantic partner who is also of the same gender. What she was saying was, I'm not going to interfere with that. That's up to them. It's not my job.
This is more for me. This is my, well, I'm comfortable with personally. So that was a really interesting experience as well, having that discussion with her and the journey that she's been on and how she sort of navigates her personal moral convictions with her view of what a good citizen is. Like, you don't barge into other people's business.
That's really up to them. Right? Well, Dr. Shah, thank you so much for sharing all these stories and for sharing your personal story with us today.
It's been really interesting. Thank you so much. It's been a wonderful conversation. I had a really good time.
Thank you. Dr. Shannon Shah, he's a visiting research fellow in theology and religious studies at King's College in London. His article is ethnicity, gender, and class and the experiences of gay Muslims.
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