Author Archives: Laura (ace-muslim)

About Laura (ace-muslim)

Laura is an aromantic asexual, queer-identified, and a Muslim. She lives in the U.S., works in online tech support, and volunteers for a Muslim anti-racism organization. She blogs about asexuality, queer Muslim issues, and other topics at http://ace-muslim.tumblr.com and has written on asexuality for a number of Muslim sites.

Asexual Muslim resistance, activism, and self care: Creating Change 2017 and me

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Laura (ace-muslim)

This post is for the February Carnival of Aces. Author note: I originally intended to write this post soon after I got back from Creating Change a month ago. However, thanks to the start of my spring term Arabic classes … Continue reading →

Posted in activism, Articles, Community, Intersectionality, LGBT, personal experience | 1 Comment

#QueerSelfLove, Intersectional Harassment, and Resilience

Posted on June 30, 2016 by Laura (ace-muslim)

Content warning: This post contains a discussion of multiple types of bigoted harassment that I experienced, and provides examples of threats of violence. This section is preceded with a trigger warning and its end is also marked. Please exercise self … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Community, Intersectionality, LGBT | Leave a comment

My Islam is Queer

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Laura (ace-muslim)

This post is for the May Carnival of Aces. I first became fascinated by Islam in the summer of 1994. I remember spending many afternoons in the university bookstore, lurking by the Religion shelves, at one point poring over English … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, asexual identity, Intersectionality, personal experience | Tagged | 3 Comments

Not queer enough, not Muslim enough

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Laura (ace-muslim)

Recently, I wrote about burnout, from writing in general and from writing about asexuality for Muslims in particular. In that post, I talked about the lack of any real asexual Muslim community or even an active group of bloggers other … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Community, Intersectionality, LGBT, personal experience | Tagged | 6 Comments

Grad school, failure, and having been an asexual woman in science

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Laura (ace-muslim)

Although it was 20 years ago now, I still remember the day my parents told me I needed to withdraw from grad school. I had stopped attending most of my classes, was erratic in turning in homework, and had missed … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, personal experience | 9 Comments

Asexuality, Writing, and Burnout

Posted on March 6, 2016 by Laura (ace-muslim)

A year ago, I wrote a post announcing that I wanted to make 2015 The Year of Writing about Asexuality for Muslims. Over the course of the following nine months, I wrote ten essays for Muslim sites about asexuality, as … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Blogging, Community, Intersectionality, Meta, personal experience | Tagged , | 26 Comments

Learning to Understand my Aromanticism

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Laura (ace-muslim)

This post is for the October Carnival of Aces. There’s nothing gray or fluid about my aromanticism; as with my asexuality, it seems to be total and lifelong. Yet, I’ve always found it difficult to write about being aromantic, despite … Continue reading →

Posted in aromanticism, Articles, romantic orientation | 20 Comments

What price visibility?

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Laura (ace-muslim)

In recent weeks, I’ve been involved in discussions over three different incidents of asexual community drama. First there was MAAPLE accepting support from UKIP. Then there was The Advocate’s #21AceStories series (while most of the commentary on this focused on … Continue reading →

Posted in activism, Articles, asexual politics, Community | 55 Comments

Structuring asexual groups and communities to be anti-bias and anti-bigotry

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Laura (ace-muslim)

The Movement for Asexuality Awareness, Protection, Learning and Equality (MAAPLE) is a group recently founded in the UK (it was featured in an Asexual Agenda linkspam). The group aims to engage in political advocacy towards getting asexuality included in anti-discrimination … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Community, Intersectionality | 27 Comments

Obstacles to therapy as an asexual Muslim convert

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Laura (ace-muslim)

This post is for the June Carnival of Aces. In her call for submissions for this month’s Carnival, Elizabeth asked people to write about their experiences with therapists, or the considerations they would need to take into account if they … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Intersectionality | 3 Comments