Being a Muslim and gay (with Mohsin Zaidi)

For anyone who is LGBTQ+, navigating your sexuality along with other aspects of your life can bring challenges. Mohsin Zaidi knows this more than many. Growing up in a strict conservative Muslim family, he had to balance the expectations of his faith and culture against his sexual orientation. On top of that, social class has been a characteristic that Mohsin has become very aware of in his life, most notably when he went to study at Oxford University. 

It was these different intersectional experiences that led him to pen down his story. In 2020 A dutiful boy: A memoir of a gay Muslim’s journey to acceptance, was published and allowed Mohsin to share an intimate tale which included both joyful moments but also one’s that were simply gut wrenching. He joins Liam McConkey on the latest ITV Pridecast to discuss what it was like to write the book and what life is now like having moved to New York with his husband Matthew.

During the episode, Mohsin also chats about writing a second memoir which tracks the process of how he and Matthew are trying to become parents through surrogacy. As well as that, he also talks about how he no longer works as a criminal barrister but has ventured down a new career path, in the form of playwriting. 

To find out more about the work Mohsin does, head over to his website: https://www.mohsinzaidi.com/

The transcript of this episode is available here: Pridecast with Mohsin Zaidi - transcript