Queer Underwear

The last day or so, I've been wanting to do something a little different.
Change my desktop image, so to speak.
Apply a new theme.
Slick up my style.
Fill different shoes.
Put on my queer underwear. Instead of my 3rab ones. (let your imaginations run wild as to what they look like.)

The last few years of my life have been a veritable identity roller coasters. Peak Arab, dip queer, and sometimes find myself hanging upside down hollerin my head off (that's when my parents slip on some queer I left loose.)

I recognize that activists, feminists, theorists, academics, and the like, most of whom are safely behind their ivory tower, will insist (and I agree!) that the two are not mutually exclusive, that the intersectionalities of race and sexuality and gender construct and etc on and on. I know.

The fact remains that I usually cannot embody/embrace both identities so that I legit feel like a queer 3rabiyeh, whatever the hell that means. There are rare beautiful moments. But usually, it's my queer "identity" that gets hidden/not manifested physically, both because it is logistically difficult for me to do so, and I haven't fleshed out what it is yet.

There is the added nuance that I feel a certain duty/passion to my Arab identity because of what is going on in the Middle East. The Syrian revolutions have never made me feel more Syrian (correction. They've never made me feel more Syrian-American. As excited as I am about what is going on in "my" country, I've also never been more aware of the limitations I have in fully adopting it.)

And I will never give that up, nor do I want to, and no one can make me. However, the fact remains that living out an Arab identity (particularly a cisfemale one) comes with lots of nastiness attached. There is an obligation to family, which I do gladly (but somehow my brother gets out of every.single.chore.) and there's the marriage jokes, the racism, the sexism, and of course the homophobia. There is the absolute taboo on any sexual activity, or sexuality at all before marriage whether hetero or homo or queer. And sexuality is a big part of my identity. Nor orientation wise, but just, everything wise. It's really hard on me when I can't express that sexuality. Hence, frustration at how long the 3rab underwear has been on.

"Egypt's gays hope for change in culture after revolt"
Can it be? Can I dream? I saw that being tweeted around today.

Last summer, after an unfortunate incident in which my family found out a little bit too much about my queer life, I lamented to my cousin (having suffered through months of hell with my parents) "I just want to pick up the whole world and shake it"

The last few months have been the manifestation of that wish. Of that innate desire to see change, change that leads to growth, growth that leads us closer to humanity and closer to God.

"It takes a revolution to find me a solution" sings DAM. And revolutions of the government are happening, and as it stands, I am looking for how to make revolutions of the spirit and of society happen too.

I'm not looking to step away from the revolutions. I can't. I am waiting anxiously for the moment though when I feel like they are truly a revolution for everyone. So even as I yearn to be out in the streets of Homs myself calling for isqat el nezam, I'm also impatient for Assad to just fucking leave already so the important work can be done. A revolution of the people. Acknowledgement of the rights of minorities. Agency to women. Transformation of gender norms (tolerance of differently gendered identities? A gal can dream.) But above all, anything that makes Syria, the Middle East, anywhere, a little more human.