![]() ![]() September 2017 is when our journey really started, we went to a local fertility clinic to check our fertility levels. Not only was I out and proud but I became full of colour just like the flag, sparkled just like the glitter I saw as a young kid and instead of passing by London pride as I did when I was young I was also able to march with my fellow Co-op colleagues on the streets of Birmingham Pride showing people who looked like me that they too can walk in their truth and there is a world full of colour, hope and happiness and they too can take a step away from the pavement and March with us along the road of love. My friends adore me and my faith has kept me. Also that my parents, family and friends would disown me. The general narrative held by myself and the world is that being Muslim & Gay are not compatible and the two wouldn’t be able to coexist in harmony. Growing up in an Arabic Muslim household, those words held such connotations with one of them being fear. One of the hardest things about coming out was plucking up the courage to proclaim that I am gay and not being ashamed to do so. My own version of the yellow brick road, a new world of bright colours where my red nail polish would blend right in. I was aware that there was a place where I belonged, a safe place that would accept me for who I am and for what it was worth the two minutes it took to walk from one end of Compton street to another was enough to fill my heart and maybe added a little more acceptance and self-worth of my place in this world. ![]() Each and every person was a version of who I wished I could be but was too scared to. In fact, the only person who recognised me in the crowd was me. I was invisible to the crowds so there was never any need to concoct such lies. Turns out I never had to lie about my whereabouts and despite the amount of openly gay men I knew who attended the fabulous festivities none of them ever saw little old me there. I worked at the Imperial hotels on Russell Square for years since 2001 so a slight detour past Soho would not be too far fetched. Act raged at how much of a total inconvenience it was and tut every now and again to make it sound like I was genuinely angered by the whole thing. I would settle with the well-planned excuse that I decided to go home a different way than I usually would and Act like I never knew that gay pride was happening. I would go over the stories in my head of what I would say if someone saw me bordering the lines of Soho, what excuse would I make up and how will I justify being present in a place I had no business of being. To live a life where I didn’t have to worry about the confines of an arranged marriage or which cousins would be chosen for us as a conquest for a flourishing life together. To be able to walk around and be at one with the gay community. I would often wonder what that felt like. ![]() There they were in all their glitter and glory unashamedly themselves, proud and out. I saw myself in every colour of the flag, every tribe and person who marched amongst them. ![]()
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