Born in Toronto. Building across borders. (Since 2020)
Muslim Pride
Muslim Pride puts queer and trans Muslim artists center stage. Paid, celebrated, and connected across borders.
MUSLIM. PRIDE.
Two words that millions of people have been taught do not belong beside one another.
We put them together anyway.
Muslim Pride exists because queer and trans Muslims should never have to divide ourselves into acceptable pieces just to belong.
We should not have to become less queer to enter Muslim spaces. Less Muslim to enter queer spaces. Less complicated to make other people comfortable.
Some of us pray five times a day. Some of us haven’t prayed in years.
Some of us are culturally Muslim, spiritually Muslim, practicing, questioning, searching, angry, devoted, complicated; or still figuring the whole damn thing out.
There is no single way to be queer and Muslim
That’s the point.
WE WERE ALWAYS HERE.
Queer and trans Muslims did not suddenly appear when Muslim Pride began in 2020.
We have always existed.
We have made art, built communities, fallen in love, practiced faith, questioned faith, challenged traditions, created chosen families, organized, performed and survived.
Muslim Pride did not invent queer Muslim pride.
We don’t own it.
We don’t speak for every queer or trans Muslim.
And nobody who steps onto our stage is expected to either.
We are part of a much longer story built by queer and trans Muslims, artists, organizers, elders and affirming communities who came before us and those doing the work beside us today.
Our contribution is different.
We build the stage.
GIVE US THE MICROPHONE.
Queer and trans Muslims are constantly being talked about.
Politically. Religiously.
Academically. In the media.
At conferences.
Around dinner tables.
Sometimes even in rooms where none of us are present.
We’re interested in something else.
We don’t want another conversation about queer Muslims without queer Muslims in the room.
We want to see what happens when they run the fucking show.
Give us the microphone.
Give us the lights.
Give us the stage.
Then get out of the way.
LET ARTISTS BE ARTISTS.
LET ARTISTS BE ARTISTS.
LET ARTISTS BE ARTISTS.
A queer Muslim artist should not have to arrive carrying an entire community on their back.
A trans Muslim drag performer does not owe you an explanation of Islam.
A Muslim musician does not have to resolve the relationship between religion and sexuality before playing a song.
A poet doesn’t have to turn their life into a lesson.
Sometimes the work will be political.
Sometimes spiritual.
Sometimes furious.
Sometimes hilarious.
Sometimes sexy.
Sometimes strange.
Sometimes it will have absolutely nothing to do with being queer or Muslim.
You are allowed to be an artist before you are somebody else’s representation.
You are allowed to experiment.
You are allowed to fuck up.
You are allowed to change.
You are allowed to be unfinished.
You are allowed to be fucking fabulous.
WE ARE NOT ONE STORY.
LET ARTISTS BE ARTISTS.
LET ARTISTS BE ARTISTS.
We are Black, Brown, white, Arab, South Asian, African, Asian, mixed and everything in between.
Immigrants and children of immigrants.
Believers and skeptics.
Drag queens and musicians.
Poets and filmmakers.
Performers and storytellers.
People who have found exactly the words for who they are and people who haven’t figured out what the hell they are yet.
Our relationships with gender are different.
Our relationships with sexuality are different.
Our relationships with Islam are different.
Our politics, cultures, families, languages and histories are different.
There is no single queer Muslim story.
So we’re going to need a lot of stages.
THE ARTISTS GET PAID.
BUILD THE ROOM YOU WISH YOU HAD.
BUILD THE ROOM YOU WISH YOU HAD.
This part isn’t complicated.
Artists work. Artists get paid.
Marginalized artists are constantly asked to donate their labour in exchange for “exposure,” “community,” “visibility” or “a good cause.”
We know those words.
We also know they don’t pay rent.
If we ask somebody to bring their music, poetry, drag, film, story, body, talent or vulnerability onto a Muslim Pride stage, we believe that contribution has value.
Representation without respect isn’t enough.
Visibility without compensation isn’t enough.
We will never pretend we’re supporting marginalized artists while expecting those same artists to subsidize the event with their unpaid labour.
Their art isn’t charity.
It’s work.
And it matters.
BUILD THE ROOM YOU WISH YOU HAD.
BUILD THE ROOM YOU WISH YOU HAD.
BUILD THE ROOM YOU WISH YOU HAD.
Muslim Pride began because there were rooms we wished existed when we were younger.
Rooms where queer Muslims could see trans Muslims.
Where Muslim artists could discover other Muslim artists.
Where believers could stand beside skeptics.
Where somebody in hijab could be standing beside somebody in six-inch heels and neither person had to explain why they belonged there.
Rooms where emerging performers could meet established artists.
Where collaborations could begin.
Where friendships could form.
Where somebody could walk in alone and leave knowing they weren’t.
That’s what we’re building.
Not one perfect image of what a queer Muslim should look like.
A thousand possibilities.
FOR THE KID AT 2 A.M.
A note from the curator
Maybe the most important person who will ever find Muslim Pride will never buy a ticket.
Maybe you’re fifteen.
Maybe you’re alone in your bedroom at two in the morning, quietly searching two words you rarely see standing beside each other:
Muslim Pride.
I want you to look at the artists here and think:
Holy shit. They’re like me.
They’re here. They’re making art. They’re taking up space. They’re living lives you may not have known were possible.
Queer and trans Muslims have always existed.
Muslim Pride didn’t create us.
We just turn on the lights.
So you can see us.
And maybe one day, we’ll see you onstage.