Tracing trans Muslim lives

July 3, 2020 4:13 AM

Islamic history and medicine in trans Muslim lives. A post by Shireen Hamza on the Journal of the History of Ideas blog, on uncovering sex and gender in pre-modern Islamic law, medicine and society.

Starting with the story of Aliyya who was formerly known as Ali in 10th century Damascus, Hamza asks: How many other stories of “non-binary” Muslims are hidden in plain sight in the documentary record of Islamic history? What keeps historians from seeing them? And who stands to benefit from an increasing awareness of the history of sex and sexuality in the Islamic world?

posted by tavegyl (4 comments total)

Thanks for this post. It looks like there are a lot of links in the piece that I'm looking forward to diving into.
posted by hoyland at 6:38 AM on July 3, 2020

This is really interesting, thank you for posting it. Gonna try and see if I can find the movie whose poster is shown in the post.
posted by ITheCosmos at 9:46 AM on July 3, 2020

The idea of gender as something that grows through social and legal discourse reminds me of Michel Foucault's work.
posted by gryftir at 6:28 PM on July 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

This is so cool. For me as a young white queer kid in the US midwest, I was fascinated to learn one day that local indigenous cultures held queer people in some esteem, and it's been similarly interesting to learn about this worldwide - that we're not a modern phenomenon but have always existed, and that different cultures have treated us differently, that the revulsion so common from white christian colonizers is not in fact universal.

This also made me think of the Queer as Fact episode on Albanian Sworn Virgins, which deals with AFAB people who take on masculine roles, usually in part to stay with their parents rather than to marry but it's fairly clear that it's a comfortable and desirable role for them.

Thanks for the post!
posted by bile and syntax at 10:24 AM on July 4, 2020