‘i am QUEER in BROOKLYN’ Season 1, Ep 1 via @GravyCakeTV
Mosquita y Mari is a coming of age story that focuses on a tender love between two young Chicanas that struggles to find its place in their lives and in today’s world. Yolanda and Mari are growing up in Huntington Park, Los Angeles and have only known loyalty to one thing: family. Growing up in immigrant households, both girls are expected to prioritize the well-being of their families. Yolanda, an only child, delivers straight A’s and the hope of the American Dream while Mari, the eldest, shares economic responsibilities with her undocumented mother who scrambles to make ends meet. When Mari moves in across the street from Yolanda, they maintain their usual life routine, until an incident at school thrusts them into a friendship and into unknown territory. As their friendship grows, a yearning to explore their strange yet beautiful connection surfaces. Lost in their private world of unspoken affection, lingering gazes, and heart-felt confessions of uncertain futures, Yolanda’s grades begin to slip while Mari’s focus drifts away from her duties at a new job. Mounting pressures at home collide with their new-found desires thus driving Yolanda and Mari’s relationship to the edge, forcing them to choose between their obligations to others and staying true to each other.
For more info: www.mosquitaymari.com
(via ancestryinprogress)
underneath.
bc i dressed like a boy today to see how it feels when the only thing strangers know about me is that i’m queer. people are not as kind. paying homage to the studs/ag’s who wrap, tape and layer to hide their figures every single day.
(via somethingiwrotejustnow)
Queer people do not need to offer excuses or defend their own existence. If one could become queer by simply waking up one morning and deciding to become queer, for a day, for an hour, it wouldn’t change the fact that being queer is just as good, as valid, as worthy, as being straight. Providing straight people with reasons or excuses for our queerness simply confirms their suspicions that our sexuality really is their business and that we need to justify our existence to them. This allows heterosexists to continue to believe there is something superior about heterosexuality, and that being queer is a deviation from some kind of normal or default sexuality. There isn’t and it’s not.
We don’t need to justify ourselves to anyone. We don’t need a reason to be queer. Maybe we were born this way, maybe we weren’t. Maybe sexuality is fluid for some people and not for others. It’s totally irrelevant either way. The message we need to send to heterosexists is not that our sexuality was foisted upon us and that they should be “tolerant” and “understanding”. The message is: our sexuality is perfectly valid and none of your business, we offer you no excuses, and we are never going away.
Photography series “Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom” by Mei Xian Qiu
“Allah makes Muslims. Allah makes queers.” Many people live at the intersection of their Muslim and queer identities. That includes Terna Tilley-Gyado and Wazina Zondon, organizers and performers who are using art to combat rampant anti-Muslim and anti-queer bigotry and to grow the visibility, support and love for queer Muslims.
Coming Out Muslim: Radical Acts of Love is a powerful collection of multi-genre performance that showcases voices, stories and experiences of the intersections between queerness and Islam. The performance is the continuation of the Tilley-Gyado and Zondon’s joint effort to make visible public spaces for lives they love. The project began with facilitated community discussions with the goal to address Islamophobia, which fueled a gallery art show the duo developed in June, and then grew into the performance that opened Thursday.
Terna explained that the need for increased visibility was evident. “A lot of people have said, ‘You can be gay and Muslim?’ I know a good number of people who felt that they had to choose [between queerness and Islam], and I hope this performance and process shows the possibility that they don’t have to—that they can be both.”
via Today’s Love: Taking the Stage for Queer Muslims - COLORLINES
(via kusamapyjamas)
New issue of the STUD MAGAZINE hot off the presses featuring SIYA, Kate Ross and May. Go check it out..
The story of Imam Daiyee Abdullah - a gay Imam in Washington D.C.
WHAT’S THE STORY?
He goes by Imam Daiyee Abdullah and lives in Washington D.C. He is known as the gay Imam because many queer Muslims come to him for advice on how to live a balanced and spiritual life. He is a large man that towered over both Aman and I. He also has a mean handshake.
WHERE’S THE MOSQUE?
For now, it is a makeshift mosque. They meet at a public library in Washington DC for Friday prayers.
HOW DID HE KNOW HE WAS GAY?
Imam Daiyee grew up in a very loving family and always knew that he was gay. He finally came out to his parents when he left for college at the age of 15. At the time, his name was Sidney and he wasn’t Muslim. His family had always instilled in him the importance of believing in God. They themselves are Southern Baptists, but accepted their son when he came out.
WHY IS THIS RELEVANT?
We are afraid as a community to touch this subject because we feel the religion doesn’t accept it as a lifestyle. Many muslims right now see homosexuality as a phenomena that doesn’t effect Muslims. We take the Ahmedenejad “there are no homosexuals in Iran.” But what will we do if one of our siblings comes out? If our child tells us they are gay? Or a close friend? Will you still love them? Will you shun them? Beat them?
Click the dots above to read more.
Also, the heated commentary that ensues as a result of the article…thoughts?


![“Allah makes Muslims. Allah makes queers.” Many people live at the intersection of their Muslim and queer identities. That includes Terna Tilley-Gyado and Wazina Zondon, organizers and performers who are using art to combat rampant anti-Muslim and anti-queer bigotry and to grow the visibility, support and love for queer Muslims.
Coming Out Muslim: Radical Acts of Love is a powerful collection of multi-genre performance that showcases voices, stories and experiences of the intersections between queerness and Islam. The performance is the continuation of the Tilley-Gyado and Zondon’s joint effort to make visible public spaces for lives they love. The project began with facilitated community discussions with the goal to address Islamophobia, which fueled a gallery art show the duo developed in June, and then grew into the performance that opened Thursday.
Terna explained that the need for increased visibility was evident. “A lot of people have said, ‘You can be gay and Muslim?’ I know a good number of people who felt that they had to choose [between queerness and Islam], and I hope this performance and process shows the possibility that they don’t have to—that they can be both.”
via Today’s Love: Taking the Stage for Queer Muslims - COLORLINES
(via kusamapyjamas)](http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lttnauIo1K1qaqhqdo1_500.jpg)

![The story of Imam Daiyee Abdullah - a gay Imam in Washington D.C.
WHAT’S THE STORY?
He goes by Imam Daiyee Abdullah and lives in Washington D.C. He is known as the gay Imam because many queer Muslims come to him for advice on how to live a balanced and spiritual life. He is a large man that towered over both Aman and I. He also has a mean handshake.
WHERE’S THE MOSQUE?
For now, it is a makeshift mosque. They meet at a public library in Washington DC for Friday prayers.
HOW DID HE KNOW HE WAS GAY?
Imam Daiyee grew up in a very loving family and always knew that he was gay. He finally came out to his parents when he left for college at the age of 15. At the time, his name was Sidney and he wasn’t Muslim. His family had always instilled in him the importance of believing in God. They themselves are Southern Baptists, but accepted their son when he came out.
WHY IS THIS RELEVANT?
We are afraid as a community to touch this subject because we feel the religion doesn’t accept it as a lifestyle. Many muslims right now see homosexuality as a phenomena that doesn’t effect Muslims. We take the Ahmedenejad “there are no homosexuals in Iran.” But what will we do if one of our siblings comes out? If our child tells us they are gay? Or a close friend? Will you still love them? Will you shun them? Beat them?
[…]
Click the dots above to read more.
Also, the heated commentary that ensues as a result of the article…thoughts?](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lruoonblBy1qa25vqo1_500.jpg)



