QUEERING THE GAME OF LIFE

(via autoerotics)

A Brief History of White Androgynous Radical Queerness

crankyskirt:

myintersection:

In the beginning, while people pillaged the world through imperialism, colonialism, slavery, genocide, Manifest Destiny, occupation and subjugation of people of color. They take what they want for capital gain. These practices continue to this day.

Next, white people use more violence to continue their hold over the world by suppressing the cultures of global indigenous peoples. This includes physical and psychological warfare. Indigenous people are tortured and killed for practicing aspects of their culture that don’t benefit whiteness. This includes matriarchy and gender fluidity (i.e. “third” genders and what would be called today “queerness”).

White heteropatriarchy, including the gender binary, is forced upon these cultures. People who resist are brutalized. This goes on for generations, until it is fearfully instilled into the people.

But, there are always people of color resisting along the way.

Flash forward to the 20th century, where anti-assimilation queer people of color organize, riot and refuse to be silenced. Some white people are there, but for the most part they are too busy trying to expand the limits of white patriarchy to include themselves.

When more white people begin to realize their efforts are futile. They take a cue from their forefathers, and begin to takeover the queer movement. They become the poster children for the movement. They accuse people of color of derailing the movement by talking about racism. Many even accuse people of color for being responsible for the cissexist heteropatriarchy that oppresses them in the first place.

The white queers believe in the ideals of second-wave feminism that views femininity as intrinsically weak, and masculinity as inherently oppressive and adopt androgyny, claiming it to be truly radical. These same radical queers mock queer people of color for being to rigid in their gender presentations.

They continue to silence queer people of color through academicizing their struggle and appropriating it to no end. Take a look at Paris Is Burning and tell me what you see.

Today, queer spaces are white, rank androgyny as most desirable, and when we’re lucky will pay lip-service to the anti-racist movement that once was the cornerstone of queer liberation, conveniently forgetting that it was whiteness that put us in the place we are in today.

Damn right.

(via fivelettered)

(Source: esmeraldanacho1776)

queermuslims:

TW: violence, abuse

A Muslim who became the first French man to marry his same sex partner in an Islamic religious ceremony has said that if the prophet Mohamed were alive today he would be happy to marry same sex couples.

Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed was born in Algeria in 1977 and moved to Paris as a child. 

He told The Local about his difficult upbringing in a religious family.

“I was an effeminate child and that is not seen as a good thing in men so I had to make myself more masculine,” he said. 

“At first my father thought it was an illness, then he thought it was just a phase.”

He suffered physical as well as verbal abuse.

“My brother often beat me up, so it was quite violent and complicated.”

His experiences forced him to question his identity and his religion.

In his new book, The Koran and The Flesh (Le Coran et la Chair), Zahed recounts in detail the story of growing up as a gay Muslim.

“It started as a personal diary,” he said. “Eventually it grew to become a book.”

In the book he traces the journey that helped him reconcile his sexuality and his religious beliefs.

“At age 18, when I finally accepted being gay, I felt I had to choose between my sexuality and Islam. I didn’t understand at the time that there are different types of Islam.”

In his confusion he turned away from his faith for ten years.

“It was traumatising for me. I couldn’t really understand how homosexuality could be so violently rejected despite the fact I had done nothing wrong and was trying to live a good life.”

“Eventually, I realised there was a big hole in my life so I investigated buddhism, but discovered there are also buddhists who are homophobic.”

Zahed then decided to return to Islam and to explore its teachings in more depth.

His research led him to believe that homosexuality and Islam are compatible.

“There is nothing about homosexuality that ‘goes against nature’ according to one interpretation of Islam. Quite the opposite,” he argues in his book.

He says there are many associations supporting gay Muslims and that English-speaking countries tend to be more advanced.

Zahed is now completing a doctorate on the subject of Islam and homosexuality at Paris’ prestigious School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences.

During his studies Zahed found personal happiness when he met his partner.

Qiyaammudeen Jantjies-Zahed, also a Muslim, met Zahed at a conference in South Africa in 2011.

The couple decided to get married in South Africa, where same sex marriage is legal.

Back in France, where the couple now live, the marriage is not recognised as France has a ban on same sex marriages.

Gay marriage has become an issue in the current French presidential campaign, with Socialist candidate François Hollande promising to introduce it while current president Nicolas Sarkozy is firmly against.

Zahed believes that some parts of the political class needs to catch up with French society on the issue.

“There have been MPs who have said that if we allow same sex marriage, why not marriage with animals or paedophilia,” he said. “The political class can be very conservative. Normal society evolves much more quickly than politicians.”

The couple had a religious ceremony in February to celebrate their marriage in the Parisian suburb of Sevres.

On the whole, they received positive responses to the event, although inevitably there were negative reactions as well. 

His family is now fully supportive of him and his marriage.

“After a few years my mother told me they understood and that my sexuality was normal and a part of nature. They just wanted me to be happy and to meet someone.”

Zahed plans to continue his struggle to convince others that homosexuality and Islam are compatible.

He thinks that the prophet Mohamed, if he were alive today, would support same sex marriage.

“He defended men who were effeminate and who were not attracted to women. He banned any violence against them,” said Zahed. 

“He was a believer in social justice and a revolutionary, like all prophets. Giving the same rights to homosexuals and opening marriage to everyone is a part of social justice.”

“[A] very human need for companionship will find many a young, gay Asian playing up stereotypes and pursuing white men like they are made of gold. You see them buying into the notion that whiteness is the most attractive, most manly, the most everything. This process of self-orientalizing (constructing yourself as the opposite of everything western) is incredibly damaging because it means both buying into the values of whiteness and, in turn, embodying all the values you’ve been told are bad/not desirable.

In addition, the Asian men I’ve known who refuse to participate in this process are the ones who end up single and incredibly frustrated with the very limited dating opportunities available to an Asian who does not want to be colonized and who refuses to mold themselves into what white people think is attractive.”

“Though February has passed, there is never a bad time to get reacquainted with African American history makers- the events that shaped our lives, our heroes and “sheroes.” Over the last few years we’ve been paying closer attention to the accomplishments of Black gay and lesbian people such as Bayard Rustin. But there is another group of African Americans who have shaped our people’s history: transgender people.

Transgender African Americans have been active contributors to history, even though they have often been overlooked. Their presence and contributions are not a recent development, but can be traced back through the centuries. ”