Queering Islam? QTMuslims in Toronto, Canada

Previous research on Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer (LGBTQ) and religious identity has generally focused on psychological conflict and reconciliation. Social scientific studies have examined why queer and trans religious individuals experience identity conflict and how they reconcile it. In both qualitative and quantitative analyses, religion has been identified as the major source of identity conflict, while religious individualism and membership in Queer and Trans Religious Organizations (QTROs) have been shown to foster identity reconciliation. Although these findings have been important, they have relied on the assumption that faith-based and LGBTQ identities are fundamentally irreconcilable. Accordingly, existing scholarship has neglected to account for the non-religious factors impacting queer and trans religious individuals and has failed to consider their processes of group engagement. This dissertation therefore shifts the analysis away from individual/psychological conflict and examines the experiences of Queer and Trans Muslims (QTMuslims) in mainstream Muslim and queer organizations. The research draws on a two-year ethnography and a total of seventy interviews with leaders of Queer and Trans Muslim Organizations (QTMOs), mainstream Muslim organizations, mainstream queer organizations, and a counter-to-mainstream queer organization in Toronto, Canada. I also rely on participant observation, content analysis, and archival research. The dissertation includes three standalone chapters, which collectively analyze QTMuslims’ social positions and institutional relationships. In Chapter 1, I show that religion does not necessarily prevent LGBTQ acceptance, although QTMuslims still encounter barriers in religious organizations. In speaking to leaders of mainstream Muslim organizations from various sects (e.g. Sunni, Shia, Isma’ili, and Sufi), I broaden the criteria through which to define measures of both religion and LGBTQ acceptance: I account for individuals’ complex and multifaceted relationships with Islam and consider both attitudes and actions as forms of LGBTQ acceptance. Resultingly, I find a range of acceptance levels that are rooted in both religious and non-religious factors.Chapter 2 challenges the assumption that QTMuslims have an unproblematic or non-existent relationship to mainstream queer organizations. My archival and interview data show that the diversity mandates of Toronto’s mainstream queer organizations are inadequate for including QTMuslims. Such diversity initiatives are based on an inclusion model that consolidates all minority LGBTQ identities under a master sexual identity. The premise of queer universality in this model perpetuates the assumption that queerness and Islam are irreconcilable and fails to account for the intersectional identities of QTMuslims. Additionally, the positive appearance of diversity initiatives conceals the structural biases embedded in mainstream queer organizations. In Chapter 3, I examine the ways that QTMuslims’ respond to exclusion from mainstream Muslim and queer organizations. I find that rather than seeking mainstream integration, they form their own sectarian QTMOs. In this sense, QTMOs can be analyzed as alternative-to-mainstream “safe spaces,” in which collective oppositional identities are cultivated. By challenging mainstream sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and racism, QTMOs cultivate the intersectional character of their members’ identities.Overall, the dissertation shows that QTMuslims’ experiences reflect more than a psychological conflict between their religious and sexual/gender identities. Rather, my research looks at the ways that QTMuslims, as a social group, can encounter and resist institutional barriers in their daily lives. In conclusion, I reframe QTMuslim group engagement within the context of social movements

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