Hadi Hussain

to be with someone we love is a heroic act of defiance, a grave dissidence to every single normativity of state, religion and society which tells everything about us is somehow wrong. all of a sudden you become a Luti (people of Lut), a mental condition, a pervert, or might be going through a phase which must end before you are damned till eternity. since childhood, people start telling you the way you walk and the way you talk is different but all that kind of walking and talking is so natural to us. it’s not a pretense, never was. but then you are disciplined to be like everyone else. you are bullied, violated, neglected, rejected and silenced. and then you learn to hide, to maneuver, to manipulate, to pretend to be what you are not. then most of us grow up and settle down in heterosexual marriages and thanks to the male privilege we have, we can still continue on with our business outside the holy heterosexual matrimony, with other men. some of us just pick up a fight with mainstream and dominant narrative of religion and declare ourselves atheists and non-religious. then there are those like me, who with all their colors and identities believed in the message of Allah given in 30:21

“And of His signs, another one is that He created for you mates from among yourselves that you may find comfort with them, and He planted love and kindness in your hearts; surely there are signs in this for those who think about it.”