Transcriber: Cecilia Navarro Guitart Reviewer: Taher Koja
Hello, everyone. I just want to say hello to all the viewers today, Lambert,
and welcome you to your presentation.
My presentation will be regards to my work as an LGBT Muslim.
My name is Egil Khan and I'm the coordinator of
the Muslim LGBT Network based in Luton in Bedfordshire.
Luton is a place of my birth and the time in which I was raised.
I'm proud to be able to turn in a support of my local football club,
the Hatters. I just wanted to talk about my experiences as a gay Muslim
and being part of the LGBTQ plus community in this country
and more broadly because of social media and the global reach it has.
I was brought up in a secular family over my father came from
a religious background. His father was an imam.
All of his family were members of the ulema, which are the clergy,
which incorrectly. He chose to bring us up as culturally Muslim
and not practicing, although we do celebrate the festival
and occasionally go to mosque. Most of the people I knew were country Muslim.
Growing up in Luton, they were practising. That was my background.
I grew up in quite a conservative community,
and we did not really discuss sexuality sexuality in any of its guises beat
homosexuality or heterosexuality.
We just did not speak to our parents or elders in regards to anything sexual.
Occasionally, I would hear scripture in regards to homosexuality.
But for me, it wasn't, you know, a big aspect of my life.
However, growing up in Luton,
it was quite a polarised town then and in some ways still is today.
It is the birthplace of the English Defence League and used to be
the headquarters of al-Muhajiroun and now proscribed Islamist organization.
So this was a back drop to my upbringing.
I could not be out as a gay man in that community.
Some very close friends and confidants knew, but I wasn't up to my family.
I only came out to my family when I was 30 years old,
when my father was still alive. However, he subsequently passed away.
I've come up to my mum and I have two other siblings.
However, because of social media and my activism,
a lot of people now are aware of my sexuality who I am and my work.
And as I mentioned before, the Muslim LGBT Network is a secular organisation.
It is open to all. In our bio, it says open to LGBTQ,
plus identifying Muslims and allies alike.
So we openly advocate people from outside our community,
joining us and being members of a Facebook group or Instagram or Twitter.
All over social media, LinkedIn,
we have a website and we also have demonstrations
and events that other people can participate in.
Social media has been very good for me and my community.
I have people from all over the world contacting me in regards to my work
and my journey as a gay Muslim.
I have people from the Muslim world in Muslim majority countries contact me
and some of them are privy to Sharia law and may even be privy to
the death penalty in some cases.
I always tell them to be wary of their own use diction, their personal safety,
and not to post anything on my site or our site that could, you know,
bring them attention or harm or to the attention of the local authority.
I always tell them to be wary of their own personal safety because
I live in Great Britain, we are afforded many freedoms in this country,
such as freedom of speech, and we can post, you know,
memes and share posts and stories on our social media feeds.
But many in other parts of the world cannot.
So I always tell them, be wary, you know,
but they can obviously come on to our site.
They can access our resources and our resources pertain to Islam,
LGBT and Muslims as not just about the Koran and what the Koran says or
the Sharia or the ABC Socio-Cultural.
It's about personal testimonies from people such as myself
and others from around the world and what it is.
But we, as Muslims, have taken the mantle of across the mantle
that our movement is a social cultural one.
It isn’t just about the scriptures, although that is important part of it.
People want religious instruction, religious guidance and they seek.
But we are not members of the ulema.
We are not theologians or scholars who run the Muslim LGBT network.
We are communal garden people with normal people and like yourselves.
But we happen to be brought up in Muslim households
and have Muslim background practising on non-Muslim
or even be culturally Muslim while identified some adults.
There are some who are members who no longer consider themselves Muslim
or practising in any sense,
but they still like to engage with our community
and we are open to all irrespective of your backup.
It is difficult because, as I mentioned,
many of our members may live in countries where homosexuality is up,
and I'm always wary, you know about these situations.
Many of them have sought asylum in this country or in the process of doing it,
and not just in this country, in western countries and particularly Europe,
in more secular liberal. Western countries and further afield,
Latin America and Canada, and nowadays,
a lot of the messages and communication I get from members
or people wanting to find out more about our organization pertains to asylum
and refuge on grounds of sexuality
and how they can access immigration services and lawyers and such right.
And this is a growing sector within
the immigration scenario where people are applying for asylum
on grounds of sexuality. This is exponentially growing,
exponentially growing all the time.
It's a very large sector now because many people you know,
who identify as LGBT plus, you know,
want refuge in other countries where they can be themselves. They can speak freely.
They can identify with their sexuality that is their own.
And that's across the whole LGBTQ plus spectrum,
which they would not be able to do in their country.
You know, and like I mentioned before,
they could be privy to death penalty or lengthy prison sentences in some cases,
you know. So that's a big part of what we do in our organization.
But we are very intersectional in our approach to we have allies within human
rights. I myself am a human rights activist,
and I like to align with other organizations that work within
the Human Rights Watch. LGBTQ rights are human rights.
In my work, I've seen that there is that connection because, you know,
LGBTQ people are human, their rights are important to them and that prison to
a broader human rights agreement.
So my work is with others within this country in
the UK that support human rights and human rights groups
or civil liberties groups that we join in demonstrations that I've spoken
on their platforms to and they have engaged with us, you know, in our work.
And I find that very reassuring that we have allies in this country, you know,
who are willing to understand and reach out to us.
And that's part of our outreach work.
Our outreach work is not just with religious communities, be Christian,
Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or the many other religions that reside in the UK.
Our outreach work is with the general public to to make them aware of what's
happening within the LGBTQ movement and that, you know, the Muslim activity.
Cuba's community is a growing community and that we are here to stay
as one of my friends. We are gay and we are here to stay.
And me personally, I've worked with many different organizations
and human rights activists
such as Peter Tatchell and his foundation.
We had LGBTQ plus Muslim Solidarity campaign that we did,
and I paid on his Netflix film Hating Peter Tatchell.
And for me, it was important that I engage with actually such as Peter,
who's been doing the work he does for more than half a century now.
He's a stalwart of the organization and others too,
such as Reverend David William Perry.
I took part in an interfaith service at his church Valentine's Hall,
where I participated in an Abrahamic service.
We had the Koran, the Torah and the Bible on a table,
and I read from the Koran and I was honored to participate in such
a service that encompassed all the Abrahamic faiths.
Because in reality, the scriptures that most Muslims refer to is
the biblical chapter of Sodom and Gomorrah,
and that comes from the Judeo Christian tradition,
as we had that was one to tour the Gospels and to ask the Koran.
So we must refer to those very scriptures.
Sodom and Gomorrah is a, you know,
a text that we refer to on a regular basis and which has been examined
the discourse surrounding that. But for me, it's more broader.
I don't want the discourse just to kind of revolve around scripture.
There are great ideas within scripture. It's not all black and white.
I understand that, you know, and I debate those issues on those issues.
However, my work is truly sociocultural in people, society, culture,
and we're out there as gay Muslims and most Muslims in general,
we want to engage with society.
So our work in both the communities that we live in
and we don't want it just to be a religious debate because for too long.
It's been just a scripture discourse about the wrongs
and rights of homosexuality within Islam, and people are locked up,
do not look at the nuances.
The conversations I've had with scholars have been very enlightening because
I can have a nuanced, nuanced debate,
which I don't always have with some of the lay congregation of some of
the most I've visited or, you know, prayed in.
So, you know, for me, you know, always,
I've always thought religious guidance and to understand one another
and I've always found the scholars to be open people or members of
the ultimate clergy to be open within their debates.
But unfortunately, you know, not enough of it is happening.
I was told not to be too public about my sexuality when I was younger, you know,
and that was by other members of the clergy that I grew up with.
For me, it wasn't an option. I had to come out.
I had to speak out just something just accepting the Muslim world.
And I'm still speaking out against injustice,
and I hope to do so for the foreseeable future.
And I'm always engaging with my community,
but other faith communities in regards to LGBT two-plus and faith people
and how they navigate that world.
You know, how do they reconcile their faith and their sexuality and how we move
on, move forward, particularly for main issues, not just to do with Islam,
like I mentioned before. Attacks come from, you know,
the Judeo-Christian tradition, too. So for me, it's all encompassing.
And I will carry on doing the work I do for the foreseeable future as long
as we have allies. There has been backlash.
I do get a lot of trolling on social media and I've had death threats in
the past and I've been personally abused verbally and physically.
You know, when I was younger.
But nowadays you tend to be more on social media and that's an aspect
I do worry about is online cyberbullying, particularly towards my community.
And that's something once again I'm going to highlight.
I hope you see everybody in the future in person soon.
And thank you all for your support.