A Queer Guide to Islamic Modesty

Note: If you're just joining the parade of ultra-cool awesome that is my blog, I'm queer-friendly. LGBTQIA all up in this bizniz. I'm asexual, possibly demisexual - it takes a deep emotion connection before I'm anywhere near comfortable having sex, but I'd just as soon not have it. I'm panromantic - I can, and do, fall in love regardless of gender or sex. I identify as queer, and I reject what mainstream interpretations of Islam say about same-sex relationships and non-gender binary people.

I'm not going to argue this. I don't need a lecture. I don't need it pointed out that mainstream interpretations of Islam hold that it's a sin to be anything but heterosexual. I'll go into detail later, but don't bother commenting if you're just going to concern-troll about my soul or tell me I can't be non-heterosexual and Muslim (sexuality and faith aren't mutually exclusive, I mean really, that's ridiculous) or just squeal that I'm wrong. Just ... just don't.

So, you're queer and you're Muslim. Awesome! Welcome to the club! Your secret decoder ring is in the mail, along with an illustrated guide to the secret handshake - it's complicated.

Or maybe you're not one, the other, or both, and you just want to know how to navigate our super-gay modern world successfully.

If you're wondering if it's possible to be both queer and Muslim, and maybe thinking that Sodom and Gomorra (the most popular citation for gay-is-a-sin ridiculousness) were destroyed for having a gay population, let me just ask you this: is it more likely that God lobbed an asteroid at them for allowing consenting, adult, loving same-sex relationships, or because they were an inhospitable bunch of completely immoral people who were trying to rape angels? Does God get pissier at consensual relationships or rape?

It's up to you to decide for yourself, but my money's on rape being considered more asteroid-worthy than consenting sex. And if anyone thinks that rape is less heinous than being gay, go jump off a cliff because you're a terrible human being.

Another theory is that if you look at the original translations of the old religous documents, it wasn't rape that pissed God off about Sodom and Gomorra, it's that men were having unprotected anal sex with other men, then then bringing diseases home to their wives. God wanted to stop the epidemic that this was causing, and pretty much killing all the disease vectors was the most efficient way of doing that.

Which is not to say that God was against gay sex - God was against unprotected gay sex while pretending to be straight and infecting unknowing partners, and the monks who transcribed all this didn't understand that God was talking about STDs being spread by unsafe sexual practices.

Anyway, presenting:

Larissa's Queer Guide to Islamic Modesty

First, let me define some terms for those readers not familiar with LGBT*QIA vernacular.

The alphabet soup just mentioned: Stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans(gender/sexual), Queer/Questioning, Intersexed, Asexual. Basically, anything not heterosexual or cisgendered.

Cisgendered: Also cissexual. When one's physical sex is the same as one's mental gender.

Sex: The genetic identification of sex - breasts/vagina for women, penis/testicles for men, variations thereof for intersexed people.

Gender: One's mental sex; the self-identification of being male, female, both, or neither.

Intersexed: Also hermaphrodite, but that's an outdated term so don't use it. Physical characteristics of both sexes.

Trans: Transgender or transexual. When one's gender doesn't match one's sex, i.e., physically and genetically female but mentally male.

Queer: Somewhat controversial umbrella term for anyone not heterosexual or cisgendered.

Asexual: Having a natural lack of sexual attraction to others, with varying degrees of libido. Not to be confused with celibacy or being abstinent - which involve not acting on a present desire for sex, as opposed to not having that desire in the first place.

My childhood © NBC and the early 90s

The Qur'an assumes that, in general, people are going to be attracted to the opposite sex  - which most people are.

How do the modesty rules apply when dealing with queer and trans people, then? Technically, because the Qur'an doesn't mention having to cover my sexy bits around women but having to cover them around men, I don't have to cover around lesbians/bi/pan/poly women, who will find me sexually attractive 'cause I'm totes hawt, but I do have to cover around gay men, who will not find me sexually attractive because I present as female, both physically and mentally. With trans folk, it can be more confusing.

But, if read more generally as the Qur'an saying cover up around people who will find you sexually attractive, then you should cover as much as is required for being around the opposite gender.

Men and women both should ideally wear loose clothing. Sorry, dudes, those super-tight muscle shirts just don't make the cut.

For shame. Cover yourselves!

Public shaming © 141characters

For men, their awrah (the parts they have to cover when in public) is the same no matter what setting - from the navel to knee. Most societies - Muslim-run and not - have extended this to encompass the torso as well.

For women, their private (amongst family and other women) awrah is the same as men's awrah, but their public one is generally said to consist of everything except for their hands and faces, and for some scholars, their feet. There is much lively debate on this, but that's the general consensus so let's go with that to start with, and y'all can adjust it as you see fit.

Navigating modesty requirements in a queer setting also poses unique issues - do I cover if they're bisexual? What if they're a woman, but transitioned from a man (a transwoman)? What if they're a transwoman but are attracted to women? A transwoman who is attracted to men? A transman attracted to women, or a transman attracted to men? What if they're asexual? What do you do about romantic attraction?

My basic rule for sexual attraction is: if you know they're attracted to your gender, then cover your public awrah around them. If you don't know for absolute sure, then don't, unless you can find a non-rude way of asking, and every way I can think of right now is rude.

Romantic attraction is trickier. Personally, I'm never going to want to have sex with you, but I might fall in love with your during the course of our friendship. Do I always cover around everyone, or do the rules for modesty only apply to sexual attraction?

I'm inclined to think the latter. From what I know, the modesty rules are meant to keep sexual attraction at a minimum, so that mutual respect and solid relationships can be fostered without the urge to hump like rabbits clouding people's judgements.

Awww, bunnies!

Adorable bunnies who don't want to see your sexin's © portraitspatates

Another thing to consider is if you have to cover because you are attracted to their gender, regardless of their attraction to you. Let us consider the following hadith:

Once a blind man came into the house of Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam). The Prophet (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) told Ummul Mumineen Aisha (radi Allahu anha) to go behind a curtain. She replied, “O Prophet of Allah, he is blind. How can he see us?” The Prophet (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) replied: “He may be blind, but you are not blind.” [Ahmad]

Full disclosure: I am very suspicious about ahadith. There are a lot of fabricated ones, and people mix up ones meant for a particular time/place/situation/person with ones meant to apply to all times/places/situations/people, and often don't include the cultural context - and sometimes there's a mistranslation that screws up the hadith (the whole siwak/shirak thing in regards to allegedly being able to beat one's wife {it starts at 16:50, but the whole thing is worth watching} comes to mind).

That said, this hadith - while talking to one of the Prophet's wives (who were under different rules than other women on account of being the wives of the Prophet of God) and refers to an actual barrier and not a piece of clothing - has been interpreted as forbidding all visual contact with non-related men, but can also be read as reminding people that they need to be modest not only because of the attraction they may provoke in others, but also to limit their own personal temptations.

By limiting your own temptations, you remind yourself that modesty begins inside you, and is a projection of not only how others see you, but of how you see yourself.

Or, you know, it could just be something that was directed at the Prophet's wives and only the Prophet's wives.

So that's it. That's my long-winded post. I hope you enjoyed it - and if you're queer and Muslim or considering converting, and you need someone to talk to about it, feel free to contact me for resources and no-judgement support.

Oppressing the "oppressed."

I read a lot of comments online (I shouldn't, I know), and the people that I should be ignoring often make comments such as this:


"Free liberated women should be just that. Wherever they are. They shouldn’t hide from being photographed with backward burqa shrouded shadows, instead they should proudly present themselves as women, free, liberated and capable." (In reference to a picture of the-First Lady Laura Bush posing with three Saudi women; one in hijab, one in niqab, and one a burka)


So ... you who make these comments think that my religious attire is oppressive, yet instead of worrying about my education or health or even, at the bare minimum, asking my opinions on my religion, you do exactly what you claim my garb incites people to do, namely treat me like a non-entity?  Instead of proving that you think higher of me than you claim the men of my religion do, you use my attire as an excuse to treat me exactly like they supposedly do.


Instead of showing me through your actions that you think of me differently, that you think I'm a worthwhile human being and deserve to be treated as such, you treat me the same.  You call me backward, a shadow, assume that I'm uneducated because my face and hands are the most ok,f my flesh that you can see, and sometimes you can't even see that.  I wonder, then, would you treat me like a super-genius queen if I were to walk around naked, since you seem to think that my worth is related to how much skin you can see?  No, you would treat me like a piece of meat that you can bang however, whenever you want, regardless of my feelings on the matter.  You would call me cheap, a slut, a tramp.

The most exclusive club.

Wearing hijab makes me feel like I'm in the most exclusive club in the world.  It's like a signal; a secret handshake, letting people know that I'm in the know.  Men walk into my Restaurant of Awesome and the first words out of their mouths are, "Assalamu alaikum," and it tickles me polka-dotted.

It tickles me purple when I'm referred to as "sister" on the streets, when I walk into a store and I'm greeted almost like I'm family, simply for the scarf on my head.  I feel famous, like at any moment the paparazzi are going to start snapping pictures, like I'm going to be mobbed for my autograph.

Rather than ignoring and being ignored by all the other motorists on the roads, when I drive past another hijabi, we smile and wave at each other.  I pass a hijabi or niqabi in the store and we greet each other, most often warmly, and that simple, friendly acknowledgement from a complete stranger warms me throughout the day.

Granted, being warmly greeted by strangers will always make my day.  When someone you've never met and will probably never meet again takes an interest in you, shares a grin like you're their best friend ... Even if no words are exchanged, it's one of the most wonderful feelings in the world, for me, and that makes me kind of sad at times.

It makes me sad because I firmly believe that everyone you meet should be greeted with a warm smile, that if we took two seconds out of our days to actually acknowledge others as fellow human beings, fellow human beings who may be in dire need of the heart-warming pick-me-up that a simple genuine smile can bring, then the transformations within ourselves and other people would be more drastic and life-altering than the latest cosmic shift in our collective consciousness the New Agers are screaming about (God bless you, you crazy New Agers; I do love you).

No, not every hijabi I meet or see will greet me, or smile at me.  But I'll greet them, smile at them, and even being greeted 95% of the time is still much better than my chances of a non-Muslim stranger greeting me.  I'm almost guaranteed at least a smile from my hijabi sisters; it's sunnah, after all.

So I'll keep my club, and feel like a rock star every time I step out, and hold my head high ... and someday I'll get around to making a secret hand signal to make everyone think I'm part of the Illuminati or something, because that just makes me laugh, and laughter cures everything except stupidity.

Of licences and hijabs.

As mentioned in this post, I recently renewed my drivers licence and got a new picture taken, in hijab. There was a hijabi girl there taking her initial test; we waved and grinned at each other.

What I want to address in this post is the issue of hijabis and their driver licence photos.  I was at Dad's tonight (last night; whatever --- Monday night) and my licence had come in the mail.  I squee'd and showed it off.  My stepmom expressed surprised that they'd let me keep my hijab on for it.  I pointed out to my stepmom, when she noted that I could change my hair and look different, that I could go out and get a buzz-cut and look different.  I also noted that you're not required to get a new licence photo taken, and that I've seen plenty of licences that look almost nothing like the people showing them to me.  A new hair cut, extreme weight loss or gain, a new hair colour, lack or appearance of makeup ... heck, even simple ageing can make one look drastically different than one's licence photo.  Me wearing hijab isn't any different.  I'll be wearing it when I show it to people, too, and my basic facial structure is still the same.

She agreed with me, and the whole exchange got me thinking about licence photos in general, and licences as a hijabi in particular.



Going further, until they create a licence photo that changes in real-time with your appearance, a drivers licence photograph is just a point of reference, something to go off of.  A police officer isn't going to be suspicious of someone with brown hair giving them a blonde-haired licence, nor of someone with an obviously obese picture being much thinner, or vice-versa.  When I check ID's, I look for similar facial structures, things that makeup and weight can't change unless it's an extreme circumstance.

I'm comparing my old licence and my new licence right now.  Other than the hijab, the differences that I note are that my eyebrows are thicker now, I'm tilting my head up more, I'm wearing lipstick, and I'm smiling wider, which narrows my eyes just a tad.  Yes, I do look different, but there's honestly no mistaking the two licences as belonging to different people.  Also, I chewed on the upper left corner of my old licence.  Yum.

Now, there is the issue of niqabis and women wearing the traditional Afghani burka when they get their licences.  I understand freedom of religion; believe me, I do.  I fought for it when I was pagan, I fought for it when I was agnostic/atheist, and I fight for it now that I'm Muslim.  There needs, however, to be an understanding of when religious practices are harmful to the person practising them, and when they're just an irritation to some other people in society.  Take the following two images:

There is an inherent problem with covering that much of one's face in a document meant to provide visual identification of a person.  If the licence is stolen, all the thief has to do is put on a niqab or, even better, a burka, and chances are no one will be able to tell the difference --- taking into account the relative heights and weights of the two people, and skin/eye colourings in the case of the niqabi.  This is dangerous to the niqabi.  If a niqabi (and here I'm also referring to women wearing the burka, as in the picture on the bottom) is in a situation where her niqab/burka is removed, she has no way of assuring authorities that she is who she claims to be, as they don't have the visual identification meant to be provided by her licence.  Worse, in the case that the niqabi is the victim of a fire, or has been murdered and mutilated, as her ID is all the authorities have to go by, there's no way to know that she is who her ID says.  Yes, police can go to her home and look at pictures, but again, is the niqab or burka-clad woman in the licence photo the woman in the photos at the apartment or house?

Yes, I do know that family members and spouses could ID the body.  I don't mean to fear-monger, either, and you'll notice that I'm staying away from the whole "the niqab and burka are dangerous to America and its citizens" argument.  I don't think they are.  I think what's dangerous are people who are going to treat others as non-entities simply because they can't see a person's eyes/face/hair.

Regardless, my main concern with wearing niqab or the burka in licence photos is the safety of the woman.  Our religion requires a woman to guard her most alluring parts from the gazes of men.  Trust me, hair is a very alluring part of a woman --- complete strangers used to come up to me and, just as people think it's completely fine to touch a pregnant stranger, found no issue with invading my personal space to fondle my hair.  However, Islam has, from the start, relaxed the rules when following the rules will do more harm than good.  Broken leg?  Pray sitting down.  Throwing-up sick?  Pray laying down.  On the verge of starvation?  Eat all the pork you need.  Can't make Hajj to Mecca?  Donate money or pay someone else to go.  Poor?  Don't worry about zakat, or giving to charity.  Muslim Mongol soldiers a few centuries ago drinking alcohol?  Give them more, because a drunken, passed-out soldier is better than a rampaging, raping, and murdering one.  The only help available to you is of the opposite gender, and you can't move without their help?  They're permitted to help you as much as possible.

In this situation, I think that Muslim women need to realise that wearing their niqab or burka in their license photo does them more harm than good.  And unless it's an emergency, it's perfectly all right to ask to be able to show your photo to a female employee or officer.  There are few things so important as to interfere with your safety and security, and this is a matter of safety and security --- the safety and security of Islam's niqabis and burka-wearing sisters.