the angry, homophobic arab.

it's a problem that we've mostly resolved as a society in my experience (although i have little experience living in rural spaces), but that continues to exist in this demographic in rather noticeable numbers. which isn't to say that you don't also have passive, queeny arabs or even just secular, tolerant arabs, too - or that one negates the other in some way - but just that this is a lingering problem that doesn't really exist in any other segment of society and that there needs to be some serious intervention into in order to try and alleviate.

i shouldn't have to live fearful of angry, homophobic arabs getting violent with me, but the truth is that i actually do. that's what's actually real. so, when i speak of islamophobia being rational, there's an experiential basis to it; nobody else goes after me like that. and, it's consistent over a long period....

the most recent encounter occurred last night on my way out of a bar on my corner of downtown, which is shrinking and kind of dying. i decided to take a walk around the corner to get a smoke before i left or maybe talk for a bit and found some people outside of the bar at ouelette and university, under the newspaper building.

"could i buy a smoke from one of you?"

they said the smokes went inside. so, i thought to myself that i could wait for a minute for them to come back out, but the conversation quickly turned to my gender expression, and, more precisely, the way my gender expression made this particular male feel, which i was apparently supposed to care about.

i was making his thoughts race, apparently. did i know what i was?

"i know exactly what i am."
"well, you've got me thinking."
"you'd better keep those thoughts to yourself, then. i don't need to hear them; your thoughts are not my concern."

i understand what happened. this is an individual that appeared to be drinking, and so wasn't particularly religious, but was still holding to the idea that if i turn him on by walking over to ask for a smoke then that's my fault. well, that's what he was taught. unfortunately, what he was taught is wrong, but how do you make him understand that? the reality that he was reacting to an attractive trans-female rather than to a male aside, that is that he was attracted to me because i'm a hot girl in a perfectly heteronormative way, the fact is that it's perfectly normal to have random moments of sexual attraction to people of the same gender, and that doesn't even actually make you gay so much as it makes you a normal, healthy human. these thoughts are not sinful, not immoral, not unnatural, but rather the opposite of it - every human has them, and you're acting against your biology in trying to suppress them.

so, i had nothing to apologize for. i was hot, and he recognized it. high five?

no - he became angry and agitated that i was arousing him, and being insolent about it, as though i both had no right to dress like that and yet an obligation to submit, nonetheless. nope - fuck that.

so, i take a walk towards the bar, thinking there's somebody around the corner, and the other guy pulls out a smoke. i guess he had some smokes after all. he won't take the change for it. but, as i'm lighting up, i start to smell something.

"heeey. you guys are smoking a joint aren't you?"

this seems to have triggered the angry, homophobic arab. not only did i come over here and arouse him with sinful homosexual thoughts, and not only am i rejecting his masculine authority over my servile femininity, but now i'm trying to get in on a joint, too? infidel! he actually literally started swinging at me and yelling at me to get out of there, and i hardly wanted to get into a fight so i left, but i yelled to his friend as i was leaving:

"is this acceptable behaviour?"

and, he frowned at me. he knew it wasn't. and, i think that mr angry, homophobic arab got a talking to from his friend when i left, which is as good a starting point as any in dealing with this.

again: i approached these people because i'm not going to judge somebody by how they look. i'm not going to walk around avoiding arabs, under the assumption that they're all violent and misogynistic and anti-queer, that would be a shitty way to live, even if it wasn't completely wrong. but, nobody else acts like that. really. nobody.

in the end, i just hope that this guy is able to get the help he needs in better understanding that it's ok to have the thoughts he was having - that they weren't sinful, and that the people who told him that are wrong.