Being Black, Lesbian, and Muslim In The South

http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2013/07/26/op-ed-being-black-lesbian-and-muslim-south#.Uf_3LyvXuH4.twitter

Op-ed: Being Black, Lesbian, and Muslim In The South

One woman's quest to find comfort in herself.

BY RED SUMMER

JULY 26 2013 3:08 AM ET

198

Black. Muslim. Lesbian. I get the same look now that I did eight years ago when I say those words together. I might easily have said purple, polka-dotted unicorn. People pause and reflect. Their eyes become serious or confused. The contradiction in terms just does not settle well when most people hear it.

“I didn’t know there was such a thing...” is a fairly common response. I don’t blame them.

When I saw the words together for the first time, I was equally as stunned. Not because I held some narrow notions of what a Muslim was, or could be, but because I thought I was the only one.

I left the mosque in 2002 shortly after I left my husband.