Too Muslim to Be Homosexual or Too Homosexual to Be Muslim: Belonging Experiences of British Homosexual Muslims

Abstract

This article shows that British homosexual Muslims face rejection and identity conflict between their homosexuality and their Muslimness. The opposition between Islam and homosexuality has created a feeling of exclusion, illustrating the assumed incompatibility between being Muslim and being homosexual. Homosexual Muslims face a religiously motivated homophobia rooted in the heteronormative precepts of Islam. In parallel, they face Islamophobic attitudes in which Islam is now used as a form of civilisational opposition to the British values of tolerance and inclusion and the wider homosexual community see it as a threat to their very existence. Nevertheless, the results show that the hostility of Muslims toward homosexuality is evolving, and the heteronormative discourses are now coexisting with more neutral and even homo-friendly approaches. A new bicultural belonging among homosexual Muslims is being constructed to address individual strategies of managing both identities and is fostering new interpretations of acceptance of different sexualities within Islam.