"Hi! Sorry to bother you; I know you probably get asked this a lot, but do you ever struggle with your faith because of your sexuality? - Anon."
Malik Ishtar is a Muslim journalism student who works for a freelance newspaper, and he lives in San Fra...
Hey guys! Hope you're enjoying so far. You'll get steady weekly updates from today on. Hope y'all enjoy!
CW: Outing, familial homophobia, forced out of home, description of injury to face.
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The purple blossomed over Mehi's face in the photo, spreading from her eyebrow to the top of her cheek, eye already swelling to a vicious red. The gash on her cheek was half hidden by the grey fabric of her hijab, and her hand was blurred from flashing up to pull the cloth over her head.
Her eyes were half closed, only a tiny flash of grey and white visible. Her lip was busted and still bleeding, despite having been cleaned up beforehand. Red leaked down the side of her chin, a thin river of blood between a brown valley of skin.
A small patch of her hair had been visible, hanging over her forehead, but he had blacked it out in a photo editing app before he posted it. He had also blurred out most of her face with the exception of the wounds, for her protection.
The photo was the cover of the article.
Muslim Trans Woman Attacked at Local Mosque.
Not his best work in terms of poetic titles, but it caught enough attention. Or rather, far more attention than he'd ever considered.
He hadn't thought to change his Twitter settings – anything he posted to tumblr was automatically shared on his Twitter page – and by the time he actually remembered it, it had already been shared a hundred times.
He had taken it down immediately, but now there were several versions of the article circulating. All with his name on it.
Queer and Muslim youth have always been at risk of attack, but it is trans Muslims, women in particular, that face some of the worst persecution in today's society, particularly women of colour. A woman, who will be referred to as Jane Doe for her privacy and protection, was attacked on her way home from her local mosque only two days ago by an old schoolmate, who shouted slurs as he assaulted her. 'Terrorist. Tranny.' They're not uncommon to hear, even in day-to-day life in America.
However, Jane Doe was also hesitant to approach police about the assault for fear of further persecution. The police have never been a friend of LGBT+ or hijabji women, and Jane Doe stated that she didn't, 'want to go through all the deadnaming and humiliation just to have them tell [her] that they can't do anything'.
Unfortunately, this trend is common throughout America, and San Francisco is no exception.
He jumped when his phone rang, and his blood turned to the ice cooling the water on his bedside table, but it was Ryou's name that came up. Not his sister's.
He let out a breath. He was being overdramatic. Maybe she hadn't even seen it. The people sharing it weren't in her friend group, and she wasn't on Twitter.
