{"id":570,"date":"2014-06-27T18:42:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-27T18:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/06\/coming-out-in-the-muslim-community.html"},"modified":"2014-06-27T18:42:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-27T18:42:00","slug":"coming-out-in-the-muslim-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/06\/coming-out-in-the-muslim-community.html","title":{"rendered":"Coming Out in the Muslim Community"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div style=\"border: 0px;direction: ltr;line-height: 21px;margin-bottom: 15px;padding: 0px;vertical-align: baseline\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">One of the greatest heartbreaks in my life occurred after coming out at the age of 24: I lost my Muslim community. After my public coming out, via an article in<em style=\"border: 0px;line-height: inherit;margin: 0px;padding: 0px;vertical-align: baseline\">The Los Angeles Times<\/em>, and the backlash that came with it, I retreated. I distanced myself from the people I cared about, the people I\u2019d been raised with in the\u00a0<em style=\"border: 0px;line-height: inherit;margin: 0px;padding: 0px;vertical-align: baseline\">masjid<\/em>in Los Angeles, those whom I viewed as extended members of my own family. I was certain that they had stopped caring about me. It took me years to take responsibility for my part in that break rather than only see myself as a victim of circumstance.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"border: 0px;direction: ltr;line-height: 21px;margin-bottom: 15px;padding: 0px;vertical-align: baseline\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">Many Ramadans and Eids went by without seeing any of the friends or elders I had known my entire life. The only relationship I had with other Muslims was with my immediate family \u2014 a relationship that was growing increasingly toxic. Though I saw my family regularly, I was not being seen. Our conversations always avoided the subject of my life.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"border: 0px;direction: ltr;line-height: 21px;margin-bottom: 15px;padding: 0px;vertical-align: baseline\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">The lack of intimacy with my family took such a toll on my mental well-being that I jumped at the opportunity to move to New York City for graduate school. I thought placing the entire country between us would get my family to recognize my value.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"border: 0px;direction: ltr;line-height: 21px;margin-bottom: 15px;padding: 0px;vertical-align: baseline\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">What I discovered in New York City was nothing short of a miracle.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"border: 0px;direction: ltr;line-height: 21px;margin-bottom: 15px;padding: 0px;vertical-align: baseline\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">Read the rest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/ramy-eletreby\/coming-out-in-the-muslim-community_b_5533991.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&amp;ir=Religion\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the greatest heartbreaks in my life occurred after coming out at the age of 24: I lost my Muslim community. After my public coming out, via an article inThe Los Angeles Times, and the backlash that came with it, I retreated. I distanced myself from the people I cared about, the people I\u2019d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Coming Out in the Muslim Community<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of the greatest heartbreaks in my life occurred after coming out at the age of 24: I lost my Muslim community. After my public coming out, via an\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/06\/coming-out-in-the-muslim-community.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Coming Out in the Muslim Community\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the greatest heartbreaks in my life occurred after coming out at the age of 24: I lost my Muslim community. 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