A bite of duck helped me finally accept my sexuality

It was 2014, I was eating in my college dorm’s cafeteria and duck was on the menu. 

It was a Chinese New Year themed duck – delicious pieces of meat with hoisin sauce. I never thought one meal would change the trajectory of my entire life, but that’s exactly what happened. 

That single spoonful helped me come out as gay to my devout Muslim parents.  

My parents and I emigrated from Pakistan and India to Canada in 2004. I grew up with very rigid expectations: Go to college, marry, then settle down with a wife and kids and, of course, abide by Islamic guidance.

Anything outside of that – eating non-halal meats, marrying a non-Muslim woman, mingling with the opposite sex or having an untraditional romantic interaction – was not only completely out of the question, but in some cases demonised. 

So when I realised I was gay at the age of 14, it was terrifying.  

I’d never seen any queer desi – a term that refers to individuals of South Asian descent who identify as LGBTQ+ – representation, so it felt like waking up with a tattoo that read ‘you are cursed’. 

I begged God to cure me of ‘this disease’ but of course it didn’t work and, over time, I started to resent my South Asian identity – which I felt was at odds with my sexuality.

Then, at 18, I had that delicious duck dinner.  

I recounted it to my mum, who informed me duck isn’t halal, and I initially panicked. 

But then I realised, nothing bad had happened. 

The world hadn’t stopped spinning. 

That’s when I realised I didn’t need to lie to myself anymore.

And just like that, everything I’d been taught growing up no longer felt important. 

I realised it didn’t matter what I ate or drank, nor did I need to lie to myself anymore. I could stop believing in a religion that I felt didn’t serve me and finally start to embrace who I really wanted to be. 

Naturally though, this still took some time.  

At 23, I moved in with my then-boyfriend in Toronto, but played him off as a roommate as I still didn’t feel ready to be fully out. 

Leading a double life was not sustainable though and eventually, during a visit home, I blurted everything out to my parents: That I am gay, my ‘roommate’ was my boyfriend and that I am an atheist. 

My mum was stunned and silent – she still feels guilty that she didn’t know who I was for so long – while my elderly dad, who admitted he’d overheard some incriminating phone calls in the past, took it surprisingly well. 

Luckily my parents have mellowed out over the years, which has allowed them to embrace me regardless of my sexuality. I’ve even introduced them to partners in the past.  

The one issue we do still have as a family though, is that I stepped away from religion. During Ramadan in particular my parents will often try their hardest to bring me back to Islam.  

I’ll sometimes fast to feel grounded and grateful. But now I do it because I want to – not because I feel obligated to. 

My extended family, on the other hand, have whispered about my sexuality ever since finding out through social media and one relative, who lives in Pakistan, has cut me off completely. 

I anticipated some pushback – Pakistan is a conservative Muslim state where homosexuality is outlawed and punishable by life imprisonment – but losing someone so close to me has been a hard pill to swallow. 

Almost a decade on though, and I’ve finally found a way to embrace who I am.

In fact, learning that my culture was once very queer before colonisation, helped me realise my identity isn’t in conflict with my heritage at all. 

I’m now a proud ambassador for my culture; I cherish the food, clothing, and music and I love singing in Hindi. And though I poke fun at my heritage to my 300,000 TikTok followers, I also have a bio that reads ‘happy gay immigrant’ – that’s worlds away from how I felt growing up. 

Of course, I still get social media comments telling me I’m going to burn in hell, that I’m a disgrace to my culture and deserve to die, even prayers for me to be stoned. But while those words haunt me when I’m having a tough time, I’m mostly used to it. 

I’d rather have a platform that normalises LGBTQ+ relationships in our community and helps show that being South Asian and gay are two things that can coexist, than staying silent any day. 

As told to Zeenia Naqvee

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