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Article speaks generally about the beliefs the majority of Muslims hold surrounding different issues such as reassignment surgery, same-sex relationships and marriage, gender equality, and discrimination in the context of Islamic law based on the Qur’an. Mentions specific statistics about Muslim beliefs gathered from surveys and several specific mosques that openly accept and involve LGBTQ members. Provided by the Human rights Campaign.

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Stances of Faiths on LGBTQ+ Issues: Islam - Sunni and Shi’a

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More than a billion Muslims inhabit this planet, and they inhabit geographic, linguistic and cultural spaces that are enormously diverse. As a result,…

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Homosexuality in Islam: A Difficult Paradox

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Homosexuality in Islam: A Difficult Paradox

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This article suggests the ways in which homosexuality is seen as a Western influence and analyzes the ways in which Qur’anic text explores the notion of sexuality. They suggest that change within the Muslims community will only come once there is a significant change world wide due to gay Muslims being in a precarious space of the social and political realm.

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The purpose of this article is to argue the ways that gay Muslims suffer oppression through occupying a space of intersectionality and liminality between the political and social identities of ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’. The article suggests that gay Muslims must challenge the idea that the LGBT+ community is a western identity and there needs to be a better understanding of intersectionality.

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Sabah Choudrey on being proudly Trans, Queer, and Muslim

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Sabah Choudrey on being proudly Trans, Queer, and Muslim

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Sabah Choudrey is a Pakistani queer activist based in the U.K. They gave this TEDx Talk in 2015 which outlines their life as a brown, trans, queer, and muslim person, and the intersection of these identities. They describe the struggle of not being seen as trans enough because they are brown enough, and being seen as too queer to be muslim by society. They also describe the journey of their reclamation of those terms.

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Brown, trans, queer, Muslim and proud | Sabah Choudrey | TEDxBrixton

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In an Interview with a transgender Muslim woman, she tells how her faith in Islam helped her find her true self. Which is different than the usual experience for transgender people in Islam, who more often struggle to combine their religious practice with their gender identity. Also discusses how under Islamic law, gender reassignment surgery is legal, and trans people are more likely to be accepted than gays.

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A Brief Understanding of Transgender Rights in Islam

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Transgender is an umbrella term, describing when a person's gender identity is different than what society expects based...

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A Queer Muslim Photo Project By Samra Habib

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A Queer Muslim Photo Project By Samra Habib

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Published in 2018, this is blog created by Samra Habib - a queer Muslim writer, photographer and activist. It showcases several photos and interviews with Muslims who identify as queer, detailing their stories surrounding faith and sexuality. These interviews describe different hardships and obstacles, ultimately showing that queer Muslim individuals can found common ground between practicing Muslim traditions and expressing their queer identity.

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Just Me and Allah: A Queer Muslim Photo Project

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A few years ago, when I launched this photo project, I had no idea how it would transform my own life. What I didn't realize at the time was that through listening to other queer Muslims' stories and asking questions, I was trying to find the courage to share my own.

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This news article features several LGBTQ inclusive mosques, explaining their visions, values, and experiences of queer Muslims. It describes their unique approach of promoting a progressive form of Islam: one that provides a space to grow a deeper connection to Islamic faith without fearing discrimination. Overall, Toesland asserts that mosques like Unity Mosque, Ibn Rushd-Goethe, and Masjid Ul-Umam have helped many queer Muslims gain a sense of belonging and ability to accept themselves.

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Imam El-Farouk Khaki co-founded Toronto's first LGBTQ-friendly mosque, Unity Mosque, 10 years ago to allow lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Muslims to attend prayers without having to hide their sexual orientation or gender identity for fear of discrimination.

"I wanted a Muslim space that welcomed all humans and celebrated human diversity, including gender and sexual diversity," Khaki told NBC News. "I used to get angry going to the mosque, because I would often have to listen to irrelevant or ignorant sermons. When I go to Unity Mosque, I am happy."

With no dress code for women, no gender segregation and women regularly leading Friday prayers, Unity Mosque's progressive approach is a far cry from how many mainstream mosques operate.

"We welcome all peoples, of all genders, sexualities, gender expressions, abilities and faiths," Khaki stressed.

While Khaki said Unity Mosque was one of the only explicitly LGBTQ-inclusive spaces he had heard of when it opened in 2009, he noted things are starting to change.

"More and more groups, communities and mosques that celebrate and embrace inclusion and diversity are forming," he explained.

Khaki and other LGBTQ Muslims said these affirming outlets, which are sprinkled around the globe, are helping sexual and gender minorities reconcile their religion and their identity.

SCRIPTURE VS. INTERPRETATION

Gay Muslim scholar Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle has spent two decades researching LGBTQ issues in the Islamic faith and said many people are surprised to discover that Islam is not inherently condemning of LGBTQ people.

"The religion has been interpreted that way, but its scriptural sources are open to other interpretations," Kugle, a professor of Middle East and South Asian studies at Emory University, told NBC News.

"The details are important," he added. "In the Quran, there is no word that explicitly describes homosexual or transgender persons; the Arabic terms were invented after the Quran's revelation, by medieval jurists and contemporary journalists, doctors and social critics."

As there is no formal organized movement that represents all liberal or progressive Muslims and no network of liberal mosques across the U.S., Kugle believes the efforts of the smaller, more localized groups of progressive Muslims are often not fully considered in the conversation about LGBTQ rights and Islam.

"This often falls beneath the radar of journalists and social commentators, who are looking for formal movements that are equivalent to Protestant denominations or the Catholic Church," Kugle explained.

"Liberal or progressive Muslims act in society mainly as individuals, not as a formal movement," Kugle added. "For that reason, their effect is gradual and decentralized, impacting mainly their circle of friends, family and professional activities."

Taylor Amari Little, now 20, said she had just started high school when she began to learn more about the Muslim community in the Detroit area.

"I just kept getting drawn to being around them and being close to anything that resembled Islam," she said.

As a black, queer Muslim, Little said she initially felt that her queerness could disqualify her from practicing Islam.

"I didn't think that God didn't love me," she explained. "It was the mainstream Muslim community's projections upon me that sparked that anxiety and panic. I know I am supported by God, but am I supported by the Islamic community?"

Little, who is still in the Detroit area, is part of Advocates for Youth's Muslim Youth Leadership Council, a group of Muslim-identifying young people from across the country working to advance progressive issues. She said participation in this group and conversations with progressive Muslim elders have helped her on her faith journey and to understand there are many different interpretations of Islam.

"Because of our different cultural backgrounds, traditions and experiences, there are many ways to practice Islam, but it's really important to get a balance between searching for the things that unite us and the aspects that make us different," she added.

FINDING 'A MIDDLE GROUND'

Tugay Sarac was 13 when his father died eight years ago. In order to cope with his loss, he turned to his faith. But he said he struggled in balancing Islam and his sexuality.

"I thought I can't be Muslim and gay at the same time," he said. "This went on for a few years until I went to the Ibn Rushd-Goethe Mosque, where I realized that it is actually possible to be Muslim and gay."

Ibn Rushd-Goethe Mosque is the only self-described liberal mosque in Germany. Sarac, who now serves as the mosque's LGBTQ coordinator, said it helped him "find a middle ground" between his religion and sexuality.

Founded in 2017 by Seyran Ateş, a lawyer and feminist activist, Ibn Rushd-Goethe Mosque not only permits women and men to pray together, but it also bans full-face veils, including the burqa and niqab.

Despite receiving a fatwa, or Islamic religious ruling, that condemned the mosque's practice of men and women praying together, from the legal department of Egypt's al-Azhar University, and hundreds of death threats since opening, Ibn Rushd-Goethe continues to champion its progressive form of Islam.

For Sarac, now 21, the mosque opened when he needed it most. As a closeted teenager he had flirted with extremist Islamic ideas, primarily as a means of diverting attention away from his sexuality. But the inclusive message he found at Ibn Rushd-Goethe helped him learn to accept himself.

"I know that many gay Muslims turn to radical ideas because they want to cure themselves from homosexuality," Sarac explained. "Mosques like Ibn Rushd-Goethe can give people a place to be gay and Muslim."

While many Muslim-majority nations have anti-LGBTQ laws on the books - where punishment could include imprisonment, caning or even death - attitudes toward LGBTQ people are progressing among Muslims in some Western countries.

According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey of American Muslims, a majority (52 percent) believe society should accept homosexuality, compared with just 27 percent in 2007. And a new poll released in March by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 60 percent of American Muslims are in favor of laws that would protect LGBTQ people against discrimination in jobs, public accommodations and housing.

In the U.K., however, Muslims are less accepting of homosexuality. A 2016 ICM Unlimited survey found only 18 percent of British Muslims agreed that homosexuality should be legal in Britain.

'INCLUSIVE AND RELEVANT'

Like Kugle, Imam Daayiee Abdullah, one of the first openly gay imams in the U.S., believes the prevalent view of homosexuality as a sin in current Islamic teaching is rooted in tradition, rather than scripture.

"Many traditions are locked into a particular time, place and culture - they're not necessarily appropriate for us today or for people who will be worshipping in 50 years from now," Abdullah said.

In 2011, Abdullah created the LGBTQ-inclusive Masjid Nur Al-Isslaah, or Light of Reform Mosque, which was housed in a public library in Washington. Over the years, Abdullah has performed same-sex marriages, as well as interfaith marriages, and conducted an Islamic funeral ritual for a Muslim who died of AIDS complications.

"I went down to the morgue where the body was being held and performed the washing ritual, used a makeshift wrap and prayed," Abdullah explained. "I didn't have the money to bury them, but I felt that every Muslim has the right to this spiritual service."

After operating Masjid Nur Al-Isslaah for four years, Abdullah decided to focus on a more ambitious endeavor. In 2015, he opened the Mecca Institute, a progressive Islamic institute and online chaplaincy program. He hopes the institute will be operating 50 LGBTQ-inclusive mosques across North America by 2030.

"We have three students who are studying part-time, and we are training them to understand a Quranic interpretation that is inclusive and relevant for modern times," Abdullah explained. "We strip out the cultural aspects and concentrate more on the spirit within the Quranic teachings."

In addition to LGBTQ-inclusive mosques - like Toronto's Unity Mosque, Berlin's Ibn Rushd-Goethe and South Africa's Masjid Ul-Umam - there are a handful of inclusive institutes and centers around the globe, like the Mecca Institute, that are working to expand mainstream Islamic theory to fully recognize LGBTQ worshipers, through advocacy and education. Chicago's Masjid al-Rabia, which was found in 2016, is another such example.

Imam Khaki of Toronto's Unity Mosque applauded these affirming places of worship and community-building for broadening the conversation around what it means to be LGBTQ and Muslim.

"Chapter 49:13 of the Quran tells us that diversity and difference are part of God's plan and should be celebrated," he said. "We are trying to live it."

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Affirming mosques help gay Muslims reconcile faith, sexuality

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From Toronto's Unity Mosque to Berlin's Ibn Rushd-Goethe, several LGBTQ-inclusive places of worship are proving "there are many ways to practice Islam."

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School for Transgender Muslims in Bangladesh is the First of its Kind

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School for Transgender Muslims in Bangladesh is the First of its Kind

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This video explores the first school for Muslim Hijra people in Bangladesh. One person in the video says “Hijras of other countries lead a good life. But in Bangladesh we live in poverty. What can we do?” Hijra is what trans people are called in Bangladesh, and is the legal and state recognized ‘third gender’. A teacher at the school says “I want to send a message to everyone that Hijras are like everyone else. Allah created them as human beings, so that they can live and be respected like any other person. For this reason, we should bring them closer to us and not push them away. And I urge that they should be included in mainstream society.”

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First school for transgender Muslim students opens in Bangladesh l GMA Digital