London could be getting a Muslim LGBTIQ+ festival

"There's Islamophobia that we sometimes have to deal with within Pride and within LGBTIQ+ communities."

LGBTIQ+ Muslim festival

London could be holding its first ever LGBTIQ+ Muslim festival. Source: Getty Images

Queer Muslims are hoping to take their sense of pride to the streets in London's first ever Muslim LGBTIQ+ parade and festival.

The event is being planned by award-winning charity organisation , founded in 1999, which has currently raised 50 per cent of .

The event, which has't yet secured a date, will include panel discussions, speakers, arts, culture and history - celebrating Imaan's 20th anniversary.

"I think we've earned a party," said 29-year-old Joy Muhammad, a member of the group, according to.

"We've had Bi Pride, we've had Black Pride, we have Trans Pride. So now we've got Muslim LGBTIQ+ Pride."

She added: "It'll celebrate the diversity within the BAME community and the LGBTIQ+ community to show we're not all the same, we don't have just one identity. We all have different identities."
"There's Islamophobia that we sometimes have to deal with within Pride and within LGBTIQ+ communities," Muhammad revealed.

"Not just at Pride, but within the queer community."

She added that many queer members of the Muslim community often feel the pressure to choose between their two identities.

"Not only with the Muslim community, but also with other religious communities, we're being told to choose between our religion and our queer identity," she said.

"I wouldn't openly discuss certain topics within the Muslim community - and sexuality is one of them," she continued.

"But then again sexual orientation - whether queer or straight - isn't really discussed in the first place. There are a lot of conservative circles within the Muslim community for cultural reasons."

The event's reads: "We as LGBTIQ+ Muslims often find ourselves isolated, without community and frequently facing homophobic, biphobic, transphobic AND Islamaphobic abuse.

"We are proud that over the last twenty years, we have managed to build a huge community and network across the UK and the world that supports and celebrates Muslim LGBTIQ+ diversity on almost no budget."

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Published 24 September 2019 9:46am
By Samuel Leighton-Dore


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