“Those who believe that a trans man delivered a baby live in a fool’s paradise.”
“Presence of uterus makes a person a woman.”
“LGBTQIA+ community is a shame and are the worst kind of people.” “Transgender is a fake mental state.”
These are just a few of the many transphobic and queerphobic comments made by Muslim outfits in Kerala, including the political party Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). The most recent comments were made by IUML leaders about a trans man in Kerala who gave birth to a child.
On February 13, IUML leader MK Muneer said that those who believe that a trans man gave birth to a child were “living in a fool’s paradise” and that the gender identity of the trans man was “hollow”. “The person who gave birth to a baby was actually a woman, although she had removed her breasts to look like a man. The presence of a womb in the person who gave birth to the baby proves that it was actually a woman,” was his exact statement.
Within a week after Muneer’s transphobic comment, IUML state secretary PMA Salam said that being transgender is a “fake mentality”. Speaking at an IUML district conference in Kozhikode, he said, “A woman recently claimed that she is a man and gave birth to a child.” Though Salam did not mention the couple’s names, he said that the incident happened in Kerala. He also said that this was just a ‘mentality’ and misgendered the trans man and his trans woman partner throughout.
“The woman removed some of her body parts through surgery, which is unnecessary. She claimed that she was a man and married a man who is pretending to be a woman. The woman also said that she was a man and gave birth to a child. We should remember that even if the body is altered surgically, what is inside will not change,” he claimed and added that Islam does not recognise the existence of any gender other than male and female. He also claimed that Islam does not accept marriages that do not happen between “natural man and natural woman” and added that there is no mention of ‘third gender’ in the Quran.
There has been a rise in such hate speech by members of Islamic groups in recent months, and this has made Muslim queer persons in the state especially vulnerable. In January of this year, IUML leader KM Shaji called the LGBTQIA+ community a “shame” and the “worst kind of people”. According to a Mathrubhumi report, he had said that while the word LGBTQ sounds like “something important, those are bad activities (thallippoli pani). They are the worst humans. They are projecting it as colourful, but the term itself is dangerous, it creates anarchy in society. Deciding one’s gender after growing up is just silly.”
In December 2022, senior Muslim League leader Abdurahiman Randathani made a comment about gender-neutral classrooms and sex education in schools. He claimed that male and female students were made to sit together in school and were being taught about masturbation and homosexuality.
In the month of July in 2022, a class was held for the students of Thrissur Medical College Hospital by a Muslim group about gender politics and the LGBTQIA+ community. While this may seem a progressive class given the topic, the class was actually conducted by groups that are notable for their homophobic, transphobic and queerphobic stands. Ironically, the organisers used a sheet to separate men and women who attended the class.
A month before that, in June, Jamaat-e-Islami conducted an online seminar in which a neuro physiotherapist compared homosexuality to paedophilia, and claimed that transgender persons are mentally ill.
It is pertinent to note that Muslim outfits are not the only groups making transphobic or homophobic comments. In December 2022, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Sushil Kumar Modi told Rajya Sabha that same-sex marriages were “against our culture and ethos”. “Same-sex marriages will cause complete havoc with the delicate balance of personal laws in the country,” he said and added that marriage was considered sacred in India and is only meant as a “relationship between a biological man and woman.”
However, in Kerala Youtube channels, Facebook pages, and other social media handles seem to be running what looks like an organised campaign against queer communities and individuals. The popular Youtube page ‘Unmasking Atheism’ is one of the Islamic platforms that speak about Muslim morality on LGBTQIA+ identities, and argues against LGBTQIA+ activism.
“We are not against people who are going through these difficulties. This is a reality. We have no objections that their troubles should be solved. But we are against generalising this in a society, by breaking heteronormativity and bringing queer normativity. We are against queer activism. This will only trouble those who belong to this group. These issues should be considered subjectively, that is each individual has to be considered separately rather than generalising. Some might need support from society while some others might be getting ‘fake thoughts’. If we normalise these things, this will have big implications. The number of such dysphoric people will increase,” says Abdulla Basil, one of the proprietors of Unmasking Atheism, who is also a dentist and an educationalist.
This group has conducted classes for students on LGBTQIA+ identities, including medical students. They believe that gender affirmation surgeries are a ‘trap’ and claim trans persons who undergo surgeries are not satisfied in future. “Many times we have been aggressive against queer activism, which was a mistake from our side. We are not against this community, but against activism,” Basil tells TNM, “They should be included, but society and family structure should not be restructured for that purpose. It is a moral question if it is wrong or right. So people can believe anything depending on their morality.” Basil claims Islamic morality is not against ‘thoughts’ but against acting on them.
“Everyone has the right to subscribe to their own morality. I subscribe to Islamic morality, so then homosexuality is haram (forbidden by Islamic law). I cannot support homosexual acts. We should have that freedom to take that moral stand, and should not term it as phobia. Our stand is that nobody is wrong due to their orientation or their thoughts, it is only the acts that make them wrong,” Basil says.
Another popular Islamic channel is run by MM Akbar, an Islamic preacher, in his own name. “We understand that homosexuality gets approved in the world as well as by the legal system. But it's a baseless argument. That is not natural. The basis of sex is reproduction. It's not hereditary. This LGBTQIA+ activism is politics. Politics is played by calling them a gender minority. We, who believe in morality, cannot accept it. Some who go through these situations need individual treatment,” MM Akbar says in one of his speeches.
MM Akbar in all his classes related to LGBTQIA+ rights has claimed that the demand for LGBTQIA+ rights is ‘politics played by western countries’. “Being transgender is a sexual disability. A person’s physical gender is what is his or her gender. Transgender is not a different gender, it's a disability,” he says in another speech.
MK Muneer, PMA Salam, KM Shaji, MM Akbar
Shahid (he/him), who is a queer Muslim from Kerala, counters the claims of these outfits by saying that there are three ways followed by queer Muslims in facing this issue. “One is rejecting the entire religion completely; two, to reinterpret Islamic texts and assert that queerness is not something new and has existed even in mediaeval times; and three, not minding what people preach about us,” Shahid says, adding that the stiff opposition and hatred faced by LGBTQIA+ communities stems from the fact that homosexuality and queerness are condemned by Quranic text and Hadiths.
“It all comes from the story of Prophet Lut and the hadith that says Prophet Muhammad cursed and chased away transgender persons,” he adds. The story of Lut, who is said to be an Islamic messenger, is narrated in multiple places in the Quran. He was sent to a city named Sodom (Sadum), located near Jerusalem, to provide ‘guidance to the people of the city’. It is said that the city was filled with “evil”, including robbery, murders and homosexuality. It is from the name of this city that the word ‘sodomy’ was derived.
Though there are multiple instances that talk about homosexuality, two verses in the seventh surah in Quran are primarily what refer to homosexuality as an evil. “Do you commit a shameful deed that no man has ever done before?” and “You lust after men instead of women! You are certainly transgressors”. The story goes that the people of Sodom were punished by God by making “a rain of brimstone” fall upon them and destroying them completely.
Regarding trans people, though there is no reference in the Quran, there are multiple instances in Hadith - which consists of sayings and accounts of Muhammad - considered another source of prescribed religious practices. It is claimed that Muhammad “cursed” the men who “imitated” women and vice-versa, and said that they should be “exiled”.
“While all the Abrahamic religions are intolerant towards queer individuals and communities, the intolerance is more in Islam,” says Shahid. “That is because the religion or its leaders are not open to change. They even cite the Quranic verse where God says ‘I have perfected for you your religion’ [5:3] to say that the religion is perfect. This is the root cause for the hatred spewed by the political and religious Muslim parties in Kerala,” he says, adding that that there is a sense of insecurity among queer people even within groups of liberal Muslim individuals who support LGBTQIA+ communities.
Ahamed (name changed)(he/him), another queer Muslim, said that alternate readings of Islamic texts and having a support group within the community might help navigate the conflict that arises between religious groups and an individual’s queerness. Ahamed also says that the community is subjected to two forms of hate in such cases — queerphobia and Islamophobia.
“In addition to facing Islamophobia and associated mental struggles, we are also stressed out due to queerphobia. Also, in addition to the queerphobia created by the outfits, they also amplify the existing Islamophobia, which creates a sense of insecurity among queer Muslims,” he says and adds that only an open dialogue between queer communities and the outfits can help rectify the current scenario.
“Muslim outfits are a bit conservative when it comes to LGBTQIA+ issues, compared to other Abrahamic religions. But right now, in Kerala, we feel that there’s a targeted campaign against queer people as many such Muslim outfits are making similar statements against us. It might also be because our visibility is increasing now,” he says. To say that there is one particular way of being Muslim or forcing a particular ideology or inference of the religion is against democratic principles, feels Ahamed.
“We have individual rights in this country, and we can choose how to follow religions, what version to follow, and to what extent we want to follow them. None of these can be forced upon anybody. The need of the hour is to bring changes in the way things are taught in Madrassas. There should also be sex education and queer awareness in schools that will help avoid such conflicts,” he says.