Love is a pious act: Butch Muslim Masculinities, Gendered Subjectivities and Parenthood in Singapore

In Singapore, discrimination toward LGBT citizens has been reinforced through a monolithic notion of the traditional Asian family. This presentation is an ethnography based on the lives  of seven Malay Muslim gender nonconforming individuals and their journey to parenthood. Drawing upon frameworks of intersectionality and piety, I explore how ‘butches’ negotiate, contest and reconcile their queer practices as Muslim daughters around “coming out,” raising children with same-sex partners, biological parenthood and their perceptions of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART). Reproductive futures, enacted by Malay Muslim butches, disrupt yet reinforce the durability of “natural” life trajectories scripted through conventions of marriage, family and fatherhood that have, insofar, excluded them.

Speaker bio:

Dr Maulod is a cultural anthropologist and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Ageing Research and Education (CARE), Duke-NUS Medical School. He is a strong proponent of culture-centred approaches to understand older persons’ experiences with health care and community services. Ad believes in the empowerment of our elders by amplifying their stories and advocating for an inclusive, compassionate and just society for all-ages. Ad’s earlier research focuses on non-conforming masculinities, queer reproductive practices and gender performativity in female same-sex households. These works have been published in Journal of Homosexuality and in edited volumes Contemporary Studies in Homosexuality in the Muslim World (Praeger, New York) and Sex: Ethnographic Encounters (Bloomsbury, UK).