LIY | In their own words

What do you mean you're—

Muslim?

Muslim, as in the way I move is informed by a certainty that humanity's GLORIOUS and MESSY free will comes with the promise that we will all someday be held perfectly accountable to everything we have done on/to Earth and each other— audited by the Source of all creation, Who lovingly reminds us in many ways (eg. the Qur'an) that there are inevitable consequences to our relationships with care, power, and supremacy— so I believe I must struggle to solve more problems than I perpetuate, even though I am imperfect, may never see justice in my lifetime, and regularly disagree with other Muslims (btw, this is fine! People-pleasing 2 billion Muslims is a miserable project!)

Nonbinary?

Nonbinary, as in they/them/dia are my only pronouns, as in it is oppressive and expensive to expect all people to neatly fit 2-3 human-constructed categories, that for generations everywhere it has never happened and will never happen, and I am just another case study of both that gender failure and its euphoria.

Southeast Asian?

Southeast Asian, as in, this is where my avatar loaded up so I am gorgeous and handsome, as in I live in this tightly-held part of the imperial periphery and have the visa grief to prove it, as in I cherish these over-extracted and under-funded frontlines of the climate emergency where every square of the map has both so much and nothing in common with the other, whose wildlife, fruits, ghosts, resistance history, languages, stories and food nourish me most and I will defend it forever.

AuDHD?

I am an Autistic person with ADHD, as in I inherited a way of being where what I usually find easy is difficult for others and what others find easy is difficult for me, as in late-discovered but these days girl can't you tell?!, as in overlooked 1990s hell child turned misunderstood 2010s MPDG (retired), now an ominously positive cryptid with a weighted blanket, polyhedral dice, a handful of friends I reply to monthly, and the ability to learn something new a few times a year if it's not too noisy.

Knowledge worker?

Knowledge worker, as in I maintain over 20 years of journals and since 2020, a zettelkasten vault of over a thousand interconnected Markdown notes about everything I read, watch, and think about because I am fascinated with narratives, memory, and the world around me.

Here to be the ancestor of your dreams?

I am here to be the queer Muslim ancestor of my dreams as in, I know embodying these identity intersections is both revolutionary and mundane, that people like me have always existed, that we send joy and resilience to each other up and down Time's rivers, that showing up to be me might be good and helpful for someone else to see today, that even if not, I still write for my younger self, raised transphobic and sexist, who needed to know someone like me lives— that they are possible, powerful, loved and loving.