Bisexual Indonesian Men’s Experiences of Islam, the Quran and Allah: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Spiritual Resistance

Abstract

Many Muslim men with same-sex sexualities experience tensions between their sexual/religious identities. However, few inquiries address how bisexual Muslim men grow and develop amidst socioreligious persecution. Therefore, the present study utilized a mixed-methods design and the Transformative Intersectional Psychology (TIP) framework to explore the spiritual resistance of 35 bisexual, Indonesian Muslim men. Participants completed online religious attitudes and experiences measures as well as open-ended questions regarding their religious/spiritual lives. Although 70% of participants reported that they felt unsupported by the Muslim community in the past year, 49% of participants described Islam in positive terms. Moreover, participants’ largely constructed their religious and spiritual experiences outside of LGBT + Muslim affirming organizations due to the pervasive LGBTQ + hostility in Indonesia. The present study helps build a stronger theoretical foundation for understanding both the positive and negative aspects of religiosity and spirituality in bisexual Muslims’ lives from a transformative and intersectional perspective.