We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

Chapters 7-9 follow Habib’s quest concerning Found Family and Finding One’s True Identity. This section begins with the introduction of Abi and Megan and ends with Habib’s vow to treasure their friends as soulmates and their commitment to nurturing Shireen. Habib’s journey to find their identity leads them to a large, interconnected found family, suggesting that LGBTQ+ identity and found family are closely related.

Found, or chosen, families are a “cornerstone of queer culture” (103). Historical LGBTQ+ communities like STAR (Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries) of the 1970s or the ballroom scene of New York City often model themselves from family units. For example, both STAR and ballroom houses were led by somebody referred to as “mother” and historically took in LGBTQ+ youth abandoned by their families. LGBTQ+ people often experience extreme discrimination from their families or must leave to live an authentic life. They then replicate these family structures with the people who accept them. Habib’s found family is a staple of LGBTQ+ culture. The structures of historical LGBTQ+ culture are reflected in Habib’s tendency to call Abi and Megan their “lesbian moms” (91, 105).

When Habib vows to never marry again, they reveal the connection between finding their identity and their chosen family. They write, “As we grow into ourselves, we amass a network of friends who embrace us as we are and nurture us in ways we never were while growing up” (103). The function of Habib’s found family echoes their therapist’s advice to “re-parent” themself (123). Habib’s found family takes on the literal functions of their biological family in many ways by nurturing and “re-parenting” them in the ways they severely lacked while growing up.

The found family fulfills multiple roles for Habib that a traditional biological family and spouse would fulfill. The parts of Habib that are nurtured are implied to partly be their queer identity: Without Abi, they would never have seen an example of an out lesbian living proudly; without Andrew, they would never have stepped into avant-garde LGBTQ+ art and fashion; etc. Habib’s relationship with Shireen shifting from the sexual to the parental illustrates the “re-parenting” structure of the LGBTQ+ found family. Habib posits the chosen family as a social structure that allows LGBTQ+ people to be “re-parented” and experience their own version of family.

Habib begins the slow healing process with their biological family while gathering their found family. Habib’s family changes as radically as they do over the course of the chapters. Their father, who already disapproved of the arranged marriage with Nasir, helps them divorce Peter. Meanwhile, their parents have made a “mini-Rabwah” in Toronto, gathering their own small community of refugee Pakistanis (89). Both Habib and their parents gather an impromptu family of similar people around themselves in Canada, making Healing Intergenerational Trauma a possibility for them all. For both Habib and their parents, the gathering of communal support and interconnectedness is linked to their own journeys of personal growth and acceptance of one another. Habib’s memoir posits community as a kind of “window” that helps broaden one’s horizons, heal, and grow as an individual. Within this framework, Habib’s memoir is a story of communal belonging and personal growth through community.