Telling Queer and Trans Muslim Stories

Queer and Trans Muslim stories are often erased, tokenised or co-opted in attempts to frame Muslims at large as uniquely homophobic and transphobic. We are bringing together poet and screenwriter Fatimah Asghar, award winning author Zeyn Joukhadar, historian and writer Blair Imani and screenwriter Faryal Velmi to discuss how we make room for Queer and Trans Muslim stories to be told on their own terms. This conversation will be chaired by Latifa Akay, the Director of Education at Maslaha.

Accessibility

This event will have BSL interpretation. Please contact us with any additional accessibility needs - we are committed to making our events as accessible as possible.

Speakers: 

Zeyn Joukhadar is the author of the novels The Thirty Names of Night, which won the 2021 Stonewall Book Award and was a Lambda Literary finalist in transgender fiction, as well as The Map of Salt and Stars, which was translated into 20 languages and won the 2018 Middle East Book Award. He recently guest edited the Queer + Trans Voices issue of Mizna. His work has appeared in the Kink anthology, Salon, The Paris Review, [PANK], and elsewhere, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net. He is a member of the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI) and a Periplus Collective mentor.

Faryal Velmi Faryal ran a disability rights charity in Brixton, South London for a decade and her stories are inspired by campaigns for social justice and the multi-cultural tapestry of city life. She wrote on series 2 and 3 of Channel 4/The Forge’s groundbreaking show Ackley Bridge. Faryal is currently developing a number of TV and film projects with BBC Studios, Fable Pictures and Dog Rose productions. This includes Take Me Home, a drama about the political awakening of a young homeless mum.

Fatimah Asghar is a poet, filmmaker, educator, and performer. Fatimah is the writer and co-creator of the Emmy-nominated web series Brown Girls. Their debut book of poems, If They Come For Us, was released via One World/Random House in August 2018 to much acclaim, and along with Safia Elhillo, Fatimah is the editor of Halal If You Hear Me anthology. Additionally, Fatimah has directed music videos for recording artists like Jamila Woods and Jidenna's, and wrote and directed a narrative piece, the short film titled "Got Game?" which was released in May 2020.

Blair Imani is a critically-acclaimed historian, outspoken advocate and activist, and dynamic public speaker. The author of two historical books: Modern HERstory: Stories of Women and Nonbinary People Rewriting History (2018) and Making Our Way Home: The Great Migration and The Black American Dream (2020), she centers women and girls, global Black communities, and the LGBTQ community. She takes education further on Patreon and provides publicly accessible weekly lessons on Instagram. Blair has appeared on Fox News and MSNBC, presented at colleges and universities, spoken at conferences around the world, and delivered powerful talks for organizations and brands including TEDx and GLAAD.