Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 16:11:09 -500 (EST) From: Basil Girgrah I went to my first meeting of SALAAM yesterday. SALAAM is a social and support group for lesbian, gay and bisexual muslims and their friends and family. It is believed that SALAAM-Toronto is the only group of its kind in the world. As the meeting started at 2pm, we did a round of introductions and I was quite delighted to hear that all the names were of eastern origin; it made me feel quite at home with these strangers. The slated discussion was coming out. I thought it was going to be the usual coming out stories and dealing with homophobes, but it wasn't really. We didn't talk about homophobes much but muslim-phobia and racism and how it affected out coming out processes. 10 men and 6 women attended. Age range was between 23 and mid50's. Of all the people, only 4 were out to their parents. None of the parents were supportive except for one women's who had been out for 21 years. We talked about the lack of resources available to muslims as far as literature, advice, pamphlets, etc. We talked about the perceived 'Christian Propaganda' that our parents believe. We discussed criticism from white friends about our 'lack of courage for not coming out to our parents.' Someone brought up the subject of not being taken seriously when applying for a job because employers look at his name and throw away the resume. Stereotypes that indians are pacifists and arabs are terrorists; Wearing a sari or a kamees is perceived as flaunting our culture or shoving it down people's throats. Talked about arranged marriages, women's places in the various cultures, family dynamics, etc, etc. It was a wonderful feeling to be in a group of people who understood what I was talking about when I relayed a story about my childhood or my parents. There were many different interpretations of Quranic passages and religious beliefs. Some people still worship while others no longer do. Many of the attendants had queer siblings or other family members. The group meets at 2pm on the 3rd Sunday of each month (with the exception of Dec93) at the 519 Lesbian and Gay Community Centre at 519 Church St. Toronto Ontario. There are about 40+ names on the strictly confidential phonelist that only the director sees. The phonenumber to contact is 416/925-XTRA xtension 2141 (leave a confidential message and organizers will get back to you). The next event is a social party being held on December 10th (or maybe 11th) at one of the attendants' homes. I had a wonderful time. The meeting ended at around 5pm with several of us going for coffee until 7pm. Basil Girgrah (aka Queen of DeNile) basil@kueper.civil.queensu.ca ----- + The preceding message is from the glbpoc mailing list + To submit an article, send it to glbpoc@ferkel.ucsb.edu + To sub, unsub, etc., send mail to glbpoc-request@ferkel.ucsb.edu + Do not send mail to glbpoc-owner@ferkel.ucsb.edu; it is + used only to collect bounce messages.