Snapchat + alcohol = bad decisions.
Nick Wray for BuzzFeed
Nick Wray for BuzzFeed
Nick Wray for BuzzFeed
Tahlia Pritchard for BuzzFeed
Or: “41 Reasons You Have So Many Fillings Now”.
Never, ever make eye contact on the LUAS red line.
Getty Images / BuzzFeed
1. Never, ever make eye contact with anyone on the LUAS red line.
2. And always allow for unexpected delays on the DART.
3. You're never too old to drink cans at the Pav.
4. It doesn't actually matter whether you went to Trinity or not.
5. You'll be in town about 5 minutes before bumping into someone you know.
6. Especially if it's someone you're actively trying to avoid.
7. Going for "a jar" is never just one.
8. St Stephen's Green is lovely, but Merrion Square is quieter.
9. And Iveagh Gardens is the nicest park of all.
10. Temple Bar after dark is never a good idea.
11. Because only bleedin' thicks pay €7.45 for a pint.
12. Saying "thirty three and a third" is the key to any tourist's heart.
13. As is being able to direct them to the Book of Kells.
14. Dublin Bus drivers can be brutal at times.
15. But they can also be the soundest people you'll ever meet.
16. Although you'll never cash their stupid change refund receipts.
17. Pop down restaurants are the new pop ups.
18. Tacos are the new burritos.
19. And Dublin 8 is the new Dublin 7.
20.Burdock's > Beschoff's.
21. When the sun comes out, you should make a beeline for the patch of concrete outside Keogh's immediately.
22. A cone from Teddy's is worth trekking to Dun Laoghaire for.
23. And the vista from Killiney Hill is worth the hike.
24. Going into town on Paddy's Day, however, is a waste of time.
25. You get a better view of the parade on telly, anyway.
26. A toastie from Grogan's always hits the spot.
27. And the beat place to sit is outside, with a pint of plain.
28. It's your only man.
29. Moore Street is the best spot to buy fruit.
30. And the flower sellers on Grafton Street will always give you a good deal.
31. Henry Street at Christmas is where you'll find the best designer knockoffs.
32. It's always a good day when you see Pat Ingoldsby.
33. Don't pay water charges.
34. Do pay water charges.
35. Freshly toasting hops is the scent of the city.
36. So is the Liffey stink on a hot, summer's day.
37. You never need an excuse to start singing Olé Olé Olé.
38. The Nitelink is where many a good romance started.
39. Everyone has a Bono story.
40. Bono is a pox.
41. If you see him in the wild, you must never approach him.
42. Same goes for Glen Hansard. Don't give them the satisfaction.
43. December 8th is the worst day to go shopping.
44. The best view of Croke Park is from Hill 16.
45. A snackbox from Supermac's in Heuston is the perfect train fuel.
46. Coddle shouldn't be delicious, but it really is.
47. So is gur cake.
48. And we'll have a one 'n' one, if you're going to the chipper.
49. Nothing good ever comes of ending up in Coppers.
50. Or Leggs, for that matter.
51. And Johnnie Fox's is only okay if you're bringing tourists.
52. Let's all just call The Point, The Point.
53. Got a problem with that? Ask me bollix.
54. Foreign exchange students completely clog up the city from May to September.
55. Scarleh for them.
56. No, scarlet for their mas for havin' them.
57. Every movie is better in the Savoy's Screen One.
58. The National Gallery is the perfect place to spend a rainy Saturday.
59. The Natural History Museum and IMMA aren't bad either.
60. Nobody really knows where the relics of St Valentine are. But they're around here somewhere.
61. When the sun shines, Dublin the most beautiful city in the world.
62. But it's pretty nice the other 364 days of the year too.
As many as 700 migrants may have drowned after a Mediterranean shipwreck yesterday. The boat capsized, with many trapped behind locked doors, just off the Libyan coast in what could be the Mediterranean’s worst migrant disaster ever, according to The Guardian. Many of the passengers were refugees seeking to reach Europe to flee ongoing or worsening wars in their home countries. If confirmed, Sunday’s accident means at least 1,500 migrants have died so far in 2015 while en route to Europe, a figure much higher than that of the same period last year, which was also a record year. Sunday’s accident follows a similar accident last week in which 400 others drowned.
Migrants board a ship as they leave the island of Lampedusa, Southern Italy, to be transferred in Porto Empedocle, Sicily, on Friday.
Francesco Malavolta / AP
And a little extra. “A big reason the journey is becoming deadlier is that no one has stepped in to properly replace Mare Nostrum, an Italian coast guard operation for migrants that ended last year,” BuzzFeed News’ Shyamantha Asokan writes. A smaller European-led operation called Triton has replaced it, but doesn’t have the same capacity. Some European countries fear that setting up a big rescue operation would encourage migrants to take on a risky journey, and hence they were reluctant to help Italy with Mare Nostrum or set up a full replacement, Human Rights Watch’s Judith Sunderland tells BuzzFeed News.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called for a meeting of European Union leaders this week. “This is a European tragedy,” Renzi told reporters Sunday. If you want more, we recommend this comprehensive briefing from The Guardian, which outlines the key issues of Europe’s worsening migrant crisis.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi gives a press conference focused on the shipwreck of migrants last night off the Libyan coast, on Sunday in Rome.
Tiziana Fabi / AFP / Getty Images
More than 300 people were arrested in South Africa in connection to the wave of violence targeting immigrants from other parts of the African content — evoking the violence that erupted in the country’s apartheid history, BBC News reports. The Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, also issued a warning to those involved in the violence, which has killed at least six people in the past two weeks, and promised legal retaliation. On Sunday, South African President Jacob Zuma canceled a state visit to Indonesia to focus on alleviating the tensions in the county. Zuma has indicated that he will work to allow immigrants to stay in the country peacefully.
What’s next? The xenophobic violence in South Africa has caused backlash from neighboring countries. Nigerian officials are pressuring South African companies to stop operations in Nigeria, while protests are being held at South African embassies across the continent. In response to the backlash, the South African government hastily called a meeting with ambassadors from other African countries to assure them that their concerns about the security of their people were taken seriously. Many from outside South Africa remain skeptical, given the country’s history with apartheid, according to The Guardian.
A man holds up a sign as South African President Jacob Zuma addresses a temporary refugee camp in Chatsworth on Saturday during a visit marked by hostile reaction of foreign nationals chanting 'Go home, go home' and 'too late, too late'.
Rajesh Jantilal / AFP / Getty Images
ISIS may have carried out its first major attack in Afghanistan. On Saturday, a suicide bomber killed 33 people and injured more than 100 others in Jalalabad, a city in eastern Afghanistan. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has said ISIS claimed responsibility. If that’s verified, it would mark the militant group’s first “significant step in its expansions into South Asia,”according to Reuters. The Taliban has also strongly denounced the attack, BuzzFeed News’ Felipe Araujo writes.
What’s next? The Taliban may be an important element in ISIS’ attempts to become a prominent force in Afghanistan. ISIS could benefit from Taliban in-fighting, according to Borhan Osman, an analyst who studies the country. “[ISIS] has not built a solid, actual political presence in Afghanistan so far,” Osman told The Guardian, “but if the Taliban quasi-monopoly is broken, that will help [ISIS] to build networks and their brand.”
Today is the Boston Marathon and about one million fans are expected to be cheering on the sidelines. About 30,000 people will run the 26.2-mile course, making this year’s marathon the third-largest in the event’s history, according to CBS Boston. Jurors in the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial were told not to attend the marathon ahead of the sentencing phase, which will kick off tomorrow, to avoid anything that could influence their emotions on the case, according to CNN.
Nearly every examiner in the FBI’s forensic unit gave exaggerated testimonies during trials conducted before 2000, the FBI and the Justice Department have formally acknowledged. The admissions come as the government conducts an on-going review of wrongful conviction cases — 32 of which involve defendants sentenced to death. It highlights the decades of failure by American courts to prevent false scientific information from influencing jurors, according to the Washington Post.
Meet Hoda: a 20-year-old woman from Alabama who ran away to Syria and joined ISIS. BuzzFeed News’ Ellie Hall was able to track her down on the internet and interviewed her over Kik, the messaging app, to find out why an American college student would become an ISIS member, bride, and now, a widow. “Life has much more meaning when u know why ur here,” Hoda told Hall.
Via Twitter: @yallahAlJannahh
A huge company in the lucrative but little-known privatized foster care industry has closed its Illinois operations after a scathing government investigation found a “culture of incompetency” at the firm. The investigators found that the company, National Mentor Holdings, did not care for its children adequately and recommended the state stop dealings with the company. A company spokesperson has denied these claims, and insisted the company’s closure in Illinois had nothing to do with the investigation.
The Federal Trade Commission wants to hear what the public has to say about the so-called “sharing economy.” Through a workshop to be held in June, the agency will gather information and solicit public opinions about the business models of companies like Airbnb and Uber, which it will use to inform future regulations and reports on the industry. It’s the latest sign that the regulators are taking on-demand tech companies more seriously as part of the economy — and as a potential threat to consumer and labor rights.
Pablo Blazquez Dominguez / Getty Images
There’s an app that lets doctors share and discuss graphic photos of their patients — and allows the public to gawk at them. Many experts say that the app, called Figure 1, raises substantial legal and ethical risks, particularly since a tenth of its users are non-healthcare professionals, BuzzFeed News’ Virginia Hughes writes. But Figure 1’s founders maintain that the app is a strong educational tool for the medical community. (Be warned: the post contains graphic images.)
Quick things to know:
Afghan courts are failing women who are victims of domestic violence, a U.N. report finds (BuzzFeed News)
Oklahoma says it will now use nitrogen gas as a backup method of execution (BuzzFeed News)
Researchers can now identify online trolls from normal internet users based on just five posts (Quartz)
Norway will be the first country to turn off FM radio in 2017 to complete its transition to digital radio (Gizmodo)
Photos show Kim Jong Un after climbing North Korea’s highest peak but the authenticity of the claim is doubtful (And a BuzzFeed News bonus: Make your own Kim Jong Un caption!)
It’s been a tough start to the week, but here’s something to keep your chin up: An 8-year-old boy in Durham, North Carolina, got a big surprise last week when his father, Corporal James Bass, returned from a year-long deployment in Kuwait and photobombed his school picture. The boy, Joshua, didn’t quite understand what was going on at first — until he was given a tip to turn around. *wipes tear off cheek* Wonderful.
via abc11.com
Jonathan Crombie died last week at the age of 48, but as Gilbert Blythe in Anne of Green Gables he gave us many memorable moments.
CBC
CBC
CBC
CBC
In her first tweet from Syria, “Umm Jihad” uploaded a picture of four passports — American, Canadian, U.K., and Australian — being held by hands garbed in the black gloves worn by the most conservative Muslim women. “Bonfire soon, no need for these anymore, alhamdulliah [thanks be to God],” she captioned the image. Now that they were living under the Islamic State, no other nationality mattered.
Using her account @ZumarulJannah, which has now been suspended, Umm Jihad expressed contempt for the United States. “Soooo many Aussies and Brits here,” she tweeted. “But where are the Americans, wake up u cowards.” If other American ISIS supporters couldn’t make it to Syria, she said, “Terrorize the kuffar [derogatory term for non-Muslims] at home.”
“Americans wake up!” she tweeted on March 19. “Men and women altogether. You have much to do while you live under our greatest enemy, enough of your sleeping! Go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood, or rent a big truck and drive all over them. Veterans, Patriot, Memorial etc Day parades..go on drive by’s + spill all of their blood or rent a big truck n drive all over them. Kill them.”
BuzzFeed News has confirmed this anti-American ISIS member is a 20-year-old American citizen named Hoda who ran away from her home in Hoover, Alabama, in November to become an ISIS member, bride, and, now, widow.
After BuzzFeed News identified Hoda and found her family, she agreed to give a series of exclusive interviews from Raqqah, Syria, over the messaging app Kik, on the condition that no images of her uncovered face would be published.
The family requested BuzzFeed News not use Hoda’s last name, or the names of her mother or siblings due to concerns about their safety. In addition to the Kik conversations with Hoda, BuzzFeed News spoke at length to her father, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Mohammed.
A naturalized U.S. citizen who fled Yemen with his wife more than 20 years ago, Mohammed watched from across an ocean as his country descended into civil war. As each of his five children was born, far away from falling bombs and tribal violence, he thanked God for their lives in the United States.
Mohammed never imagined that his youngest daughter would grow to hate the country that had given the family refuge, or that she would run away from home to a battlefield in the Middle East.
Driving through Hoover, located roughly 20 minutes outside of Birmingham, Alabama, it’s impossible not to notice the yellow and red flags attached to every other light pole and signpost. “Hoover: Voted Top 30,” they display. “Out of 550 cities, Hoover ranked in the Top 30 as one of the Best Places To Live in the US.”
The suburb has a significant Muslim population and three mosques. Locals say this is due to the town’s proximity to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, or UAB, a school that attracts students from around the world through international recruitment and education programs, some of which are in Middle Eastern countries. Hoda studied business here before she left for Syria.
At the heart of the community is the 25-year-old Birmingham Islamic Society, which has on its homepage “An Open Letter Condemning ISIS Ideology” and “Our stand Against Terrorism.” Citing the Qur'an, the society states in no uncertain terms that they and their members oppose ISIS and, in the 23-page letter, lays out all of the ways that ISIS has violated the tenets of Islam.
Each week, two police officers are dispatched to direct traffic in the overflowing parking lot of the town’s central mosque for Friday prayers. At the service on the first Friday of April, the imam delivered a sermon about how parents are responsible for guiding their children and leading by example.
Hoda’s father, a deeply religious man, said he cannot understand how he failed to do this with his youngest daughter, and guilt weighs heavily upon him. “I want to apologize for what my daughter did,” he said.
Mohammed is a compact man, with wispy graying hair and haunted eyes behind glasses that filled with tears throughout the interview. He speaks English with a heavy accent and a slight tremor, due more to his emotional state than his command of the language.
The father of five said the only reason he agreed to talk to BuzzFeed News is because he hopes that by sharing his family’s story, it will save another family from losing a child to ISIS.
“I believe she been brainwashed,” Mohammed said, when first asked about his youngest daughter. “She’s not that kind of girl. They brainwashed her.”
“Everyone’s parents or family members says that about those who have come here,” Hoda said of her father’s accusation. “To that I say, 'Fear Allah, fear Allah with what you accuse us of.'”
Mohammed said that he and his wife permanently moved to the United States from Yemen before their first child was born in 1992. All of his children were born in the United States, Mohammed said, and all the members of his family are American citizens. Like many in the Hoover community, the women in his family dress modestly and wear the hijab whenever they leave their home.
Many people, including Hoda during her Kik exchanges, described her parents as “very strict,” a fact that Mohammed does not dispute. “I'm sure that every family controls their kids like I do, and like I did to Hoda,” He said. “But [ISIS] found somehow, some way to go through.”
Ellie V. Hall / BuzzFeed News
Mohammed was the person who gave Hoda the device that would ultimately let ISIS supporters get through to his daughter — her smartphone. Hoda received hers in May 2013 after graduating from Hoover High School. Mohammed explained that his children did not have phones until after graduation.“Their present from me is a cell phone,” he said.
The use of the phone, however, was limited by the family’s conservative rules. “When [Hoda] get a cell phone, she went on it like any teenager happy with a phone, and she opened Facebook and I saw some of her pictures, herself, and I told her, ‘No, that's not acceptable,’” he said. Although Hoda’s brothers and Mohammed himself have Facebook accounts — with pictures of themselves visible — the women of the family were not to have social media accounts or use messaging apps to communicate with anyone besides family members.
To enforce this, Mohammed would often check his daughter’s phone. When Hoda would object, claiming that everything on her phone was hers, and private, Mohammed said he would respond, “Yeah, you're private but I am a father; I need to know what you do.”
“When I get the phone from her,” he said, “Sometimes she scared, and I thought, What do you have?”
What Hoda had on her phone, Mohammed said, were Islamic apps. “Nothing but hadiths, Qur'an, suras. Nothing suspicious that makes me worried about her actions. Nothing.” If anything, he and his wife were concerned that Hoda might be secretly talking to boys.
Although she had been a practicing Muslim all her life, over the year and a half before she left for Syria, she had visibly become more devout, due, in part, she said, to scholars and interpretations of Islam she found on the internet.
“I started getting interested in my deen [religious life] around 2012,” Hoda said on Kik of her religious awakening. “I felt like my life was so bland without it. Life has much more meaning when u know why ur here.”
She explained that she started watching scholars lecture about Islam on YouTube.
These internet scholars influenced her faith more than her local religious influences, according to Hoda. “I didn’t like my Islamic community far too much.”
Hoda’s newfound dedication to her faith was a source of pride to her father, particularly her commitment to memorizing the Qur'an. Mohammed said that she would write out the words of the holy book in English and Arabic to help her memorize, filling many books. He was particularly proud, he said, when Hoda memorized one of the most important chapters of the Qur'an, Surat Al-Kahf, which tells the story of the societal backlash against the first adopters of Islam, who were forced to flee their homes and seek shelter in a cave. According to Muslim teaching, people who recite this surat on Friday will be forgiven their sins until the next Friday.
Mohammed said that he had no idea that her devotion would lead her to ISIS. “When I heard her memorizing one of the biggest suras — Surat Al-Kahf — I was comfortable because she’s a true Muslim, disciplined, but I didn’t know she’s going to go that far. Honestly. Nobody knows.”
Hoda said that her parents saw her change over time as she deepened her faith. “I dressed and behaved more modestly,” she said. “It helped me with my temper and made me a better person overall. They liked the change until they saw me getting ‘jihadi.’”
Unbeknownst to her father until after she ran away, Hoda’s “jihadi” evolution was both influenced by and supported by social media. In the fall of 2013, she secretly set up a Twitter account and, over time, gained thousands of followers. Online, she “met” known ISIS members and supporters, like Aqsa Mahmood, who ran away from her home in Scotland to join the militant group. She would post religious and activist posts freely, under many different usernames, among them @AhlulDhikr and @ZumarulJannah.
A former classmate and casual friend of Hoda’s was one of her few followers who actually knew her in real life. The woman, who wears the hijab and is an active member of the Birmingham Islamic Society and UAB’s Muslim Student Association, asked not to be named because she did not want to be associated with Hoda’s actions. She said that Hoda was “very different” on Twitter than she was in person.
“She was kind of an activist, but it didn't show in person,” she said. “She would post really controversial issues on Twitter, sometimes, or like, religious issues.“ Hoda’s friend said that she was confused by this change. “You would never have thought that she was anything other than a quiet, shy girl,” she said.
According to her friend, Hoda portrayed herself on social media to be more religious than she actually was. “It was like a different personality,” her friend said. One example she gave was the fact that Hoda claimed online that she had only worn the modest robe-like dresses called jilbābs and abayas in public since the eighth grade. “But like, she would only wear pants,” she said. (Hoda said that she never claimed to have dressed modestly from such a young age and struggled with her dress until "late 2013.")
Hoda's friend said she guessed Hoda lied because she had gained thousands of followers by tweeting in this conservative, religious persona. “I really think that her Twitter was her alter ego,” she said. “What she lacked in her personality she would make up for on Twitter.”
Increasingly, Hoda’s alter ego supported radical interpretations of Islam. “She posted a lot of really weird things” that were “radical” and “religious extremist,” her friend said. “Things that aren’t average Muslim women views.”
Hoda would tweet about the stupidity of nationalities and nationalist identity, her friend said, or “call out” other Muslim women for not wearing the hijab “properly,” stating that all Muslim women should wear the niqab, a conservative covering that shows only a woman’s eyes.
As soon as BuzzFeed News started asking the friend about Hoda’s Twitter account, she guessed that Hoda had left to join ISIS. “I just kind of expected it from her,” she said.
Hoda’s classmates and her father both described her as someone who didn’t have any friends in real life. According to her, this was a conscious choice on her part.
“I literally isolated myself from all my friends and community members the last year I was in America,” she said, explaining that she didn’t want to associate with anyone who didn’t share her interpretation of Islam, an interpretation that she said demanded every Muslim move to ISIS-controlled territory. “As I grew closer to my deen, I lost all my friends, I found none in my community that desired to tread the path I was striving for.”
Hoda told BuzzFeed News that she had been planning to move to Syria since November 2013. “People are nice [in Hoover] but they’re all about the dunya (the material world), which I didn’t like,” she said.
Hoda said that her parents weren’t entirely in the dark about what their daughter’s newfound religious interest might lead to. “They didn’t know I was leaving, but they had an idea,” Hoda said. “They’d see news reports about girls who have made it [to Syria] and say things like, ‘Hoda would probably do that.’’’
Memes are the opium of the people.
The speech came just weeks after her diagnosis with cancer.
Ethan Miller / Getty
Taylor announced the news via her Tumblr, telling fans that Andrea wanted her news to be made public in order to potentially help other families. She said:
"She wanted you to know because your parents may be too busy juggling everything they've got going on to go to the doctor, and maybe you reminding them to go get checked for cancer could possibly lead to an early diagnosis and an easier battle."
Cooper Neill / Getty
She said:
"I've watched this milestone artist from the time she was a tangled-haired little girl growing up on our farm, full of imagination and creativity until right now, as she prepares for her next world tour, and ever since then, her favorite thing in the world to do has been to write a song, tell a story, play a guitar, or piano, and I've seen those things carry her through every emotion, every experience in her life, good or bad. Now, every once in a while her dad, her brother or I find ourselves to be the subjects of those songs. Sometimes we're merely the inspiration. Like the time she was 17 years old, and her dad and I strongly disapproved of a certain young man, and rightfully so. But she was mad. She was real mad, and she went to her room, and she closed the door, and she came out about an hour later with a song called "Love Story.'"
In an alternate universe, these people are killing it.
*Travis is not a truck.
I got 99 problems, and Twitter spoilers are one.
I... no, I can't, but... OK, you win, you gorgeously terrifying man beast.
HBO
Oh, Gregor Clegane is in this episode? ::: puts pizza slice down :::
HBO
All men must die, but... THIS MAN?!
HBO
HBO
Warning: Side effects include a sudden urge to flex in front of every mirror you see.
Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed
Lower the weights slowly, let your elbows rest on the floor for one second, and then press up explosively.
Do 10 to 12 reps.
Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed
No, seriously, he’s beyond cute.
LOOK AT THOSE BEAUTIFUL EYES.
Belly love.
True love <3.
Justin + Jessica forever.
50 mn Inside / Via laineygossip.com
Every morning, Mackensie fills in her eyebrows with eyeliner — the beginning and end of her daily makeup routine. It’s uncomplicated. Usually, it’s enough. But on this late Saturday afternoon, she’s gone unexpectedly HAM in a makeup store.
She tears polishes from a wall, painting every nail a different color. She angles to see herself in the corner of a mirror, wielding a flat Q-tip soaked in black liquid. After eyeliner, bronzer. After bronzer — two shades too dark — red, red lipstick.
“I look so different,” she says, gleeful and skittish.
The Lenox Square Mall Sephora can inspire this sort of behavior in the uninitiated. Mackensie explains that her trips there are usually limited to a few minutes, tagging along with people who know exactly what they want. She’s never actually tried stuff on.
“You could literally come here and do your whole makeup for your wedding!” she says. “I hope we don’t run into anyone I know.”
Suddenly she’s done. She looks at the mirror again, braces flashing, unruly curly hair piled into a bun that covers slivers of her bare scalp. She laughs, raising a pale hand to a much darker cheek. She does look different. She decides that feels good.
We visit two malls over two days, and Mackensie adores them both: the pristine tile, the organization, the food courts. Inside stores, she walks with one arm outstretched. She flattens her hands against Vera Bradley bags, drops Claire’s rings onto her small fingers. At Macy’s she clutches tops with phrases on them, reading each one out loud: “‘I’m actually really smart.’ That describes me! ... ‘To bae or nah to bae.’ I hate the word bae.” A boatneck shirt in purple ombre printed with two faded palm trees is “so Tumblr.” She says her ideal style is “schoolgirl chic.”
But the thing is, Mackensie never buys or even tries on anything. She hates spending money. When not bound to her school’s navy-polo, gray-skirt uniform, she wears old souvenir T-shirts with denim or stretchy black pants and sneakers. Her winter jacket is pink fleece. The mall never appeals to her functionally — it’s just a bounty of stuff to see and touch and imagine herself wearing.
Photo by Bryan Meltz for BuzzFeed News
When she was in fifth grade, Mackensie began pulling the hair from her eyebrows. They were thick, and she was self-conscious, so she used her fingers to thin them out. The summer before sixth grade, she began pulling from her scalp. A large bald spot formed on the back of her head, so over winter break, her dad cut off all of her hair. She started wearing a wig. By now — 10th grade — Mackensie’s wild, wiry curls have grown back, and she uses her bun or a hairpiece to hide her bald spots.
According to the national Trichotillomania Learning Center, 2-5% of the general public have the hair-pulling disorder. It’s a BFRB, or body-focused repetitive behavior. Another BFRB is skin-picking, which many people with trichotillomania — and 5% of the general public — also do.
Trichotillomania — trich (pronounced “trick”), for short — is listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but according to the TLC, the five criteria associated with the official diagnosis don’t always present themselves in every person with trich. You can feel pleasure or relief while pulling (one criteria), but not necessarily tension before you begin pulling (another criteria). Some don’t realize they’re pulling until another person points it out, or, as the TLC explains, until “he/she discovers of pile of hair, scratches on the skin, open scabs or bleeding fingers.” Examining the damage after a pull is often part of the process, which can mean anything from twirling a loose strand of hair around a finger, to, for some, tasting or swallowing it.
Some people with trichotillomania identify their behavior as self-harm. But the TLC says pulling isn’t like cutting — though people who suffer from BFRBs, including Mackensie, do often suffer from anxiety or depression, too.
While trich typically emerges in people between the ages of 11 and 13, experts have found that more women began pulling in puberty than men. This imbalance continues into adulthood, with women making up 80-90% of reported cases. A widely held theory is that men just don’t report trich as often as women — that shaving their heads can easily minimize the problem.
"It's an interesting question we talk about all the time," says Leslie Lee, TLC's program manager. "Because these are 'women's issues,' right? Hair and skin. I got an email the other day from a 22-year-old man who said, 'Do I have a women's problem?’”
When Mackensie pulls, she’s “looking for a coarse hair, kind of,” she says. “I don’t think it feels good necessarily ... Some people are like, ‘Oh, I love the feeling.’ I guess I do, but I started pulling from the wig too, so I guess just the feeling of getting rid of a hair, then playing with it and feeling it, which I really like.”
She’s tried different “fiddle toys” — like Koosh balls — but she says nothing provides her the same relief. She’s gone through four therapists, including her current beloved one, whom she sees once every other week. She’s tried hypnosis. She can’t recall all the drugs she’s been prescribed — among them Prozac and Naltrexone, often prescribed to recovering drug addicts or alcoholics. These methods and medications have helped others curb their trich, but Mackensie says she’s never been “pull-free” for more than two weeks.
Photo by Bryan Meltz for BuzzFeed News
Mackensie doesn’t have a job or an allowance, but she does make money. From September to January, she says, she collected about $200 through the Buckhead Exchange, a Facebook group for buying and selling in her affluent Atlanta neighborhood. There’s a group for teens, but Mackensie spends most of her time in the group for moms, who buy the childhood clothes and toys and books she lists for sale. She’s also obsessed with getting free products and gift cards and subscriptions through sites like icravefreebies.com — recently, she accidentally subscribed her white Jewish family to Essence.
Mackensie isn’t particularly interested in sports or the arts. Her short-lived stints in band playing the French horn and trumpet are spoken of with mock horror by her mom, who recalls spending one recital in the audience slunk low in her seat, hand over her eyes. But Mackensie has found her extracurricular joy as the varsity football mascot. She’s a lion, packing all her 5-foot enthusiasm into an overheated costume.
But the thing Mackensie really loves, more than malls and freebies and mascotting — miles ahead, in fact — is, and of course it is: One Direction.
On display in Mackensie’s room are three life-size cutouts of 1D members and north of 60 posters on her walls. She has One Direction–branded bracelets, books, Barbie dolls and figurines, socks (which she won’t wear because they’ll get dirty), pillowcases (which she won’t use because they might get lost or ruined in the wash), first-row ticket stubs, wrapping paper, balloons, and temporary tattoos. The worst question you could ask her is which member of 1D is her least favorite. Instead, she’ll diplomatically put them in order: Harry, Niall, Louis, and Liam. (Zayn was fifth even before he left the band.) Her love for them is unconditional and earnest.
“Sometimes I'll be pulling, and I'll think, Harry wouldn’t want you to do this, so I’ll stop for a few minutes,” she says. “A lot of people don’t understand that. I usually keep it to myself or tell my therapist. They’ve helped me a lot and that’s why I like them so much. My goal in life is to meet them and thank them. I know this sounds totally weird, but I want Harry to kiss my bald spot or something. I’m like, that’ll help me stop pulling.”
Taped to her bedside table is a list she made of reasons she doesn’t want trich, with entries like “eyebrow makeup sucks” and “hair piece is annoying.” But also: “Harry would be proud (heart emoji).”
“I have a theory,” Mackensie says about the reminders. “Once you've had trich for a long time, you get so far and deep into it that it's, like, taken over you — you feel like there's no help and that nothing you can do will help it. And you get brainwashed, in a way, into thinking that you like having it and that you don’t want to stop. So I'm kind of in that hole right now.”
Photo by Bryan Meltz for BuzzFeed News
To know Mackensie is to know she loves attention. She’ll remind you of this, too, whenever she says something particularly spotlight-hungry (like “I love the spotlight"). It's simple: Attention, she says, makes her happy, and she's channeled that into a one-woman trichotillomania-awareness campaign.
Last fall, she emailed several media organizations, including BuzzFeed, introducing herself as a 15-year-old from Atlanta. It worked; over the next four months, Mackensie appeared on the websites of MTV, Gurl, and Cosmopolitan, and in J-14's iconic congested pages, talking about her experiences with trich.
On Twitter, Mackensie routinely tweets at reporters and searches for the word "trichotillomania," sending strangers who tweet about their disorder links to TLC's website and stories about her. She urged the combined 5,600 followers of her One Direction fan Twitter and Instagram accounts to buy the J-14 that featured her. She doubles these efforts on her Facebook page. She used to have a Tumblr, until the mother of a girl at her school saw it and contacted the school. It was “just a hipster Tumblr” with about 3,100 followers, Mackensie says — she learned basic HTML so she could customize her page. But there was also an “about me” section that described trich and her past experiences with depression and cutting. The title of the blog was Sugar-Coated Whore.
The school contacted Mackensie's mom, who made Mackensie shut it down. "She didn't know it was that bad," Mackensie says. "I was really upset. It was good to let out my feelings, because I learned through the trich community that it's good to share your story."
That's not to say Mackensie's family isn't supportive — their two-story brick home in Buckhead is warm and silly, particularly when Mackensie's younger sister, 13-year-old Reagan, is around. It's just that raising a kid with trich has been hard. What do you do when your fifth-grader comes home with no eyebrows because she tore them all out?
"As a parent, I was literally like, I want to die," Mackensie's mom, Faryl, says, driving to pick Mackensie up from school one day.
Faryl is an accountant. Mackensie's father, Kevin, is an ophthalmologist. When Mackensie began pulling, they understood it was a medical issue — not all parents do. That didn't make it any easier; this wasn't a rough two-week adjustment period. When Mackensie relapsed in seventh grade, pulling out every last eyebrow hair, her parents rushed home early from one of Reagan’s soccer games. For a long time, Faryl says, she and Kevin would wake up in the morning thinking, "Another shitty day!" They became the self-described hair police, busting into Mackensie’s room to see if she was pulling, telling her to put a hat or gloves on.
"That's the worst thing to do, but you can't help it,” Faryl says.
Cutting off her hair entirely was a big, messy decision — Kevin and Mackensie were on board, but Faryl was resistant. It ended up being a turning point, though. It helped them get past the shock — to realize Mackensie could only stop on her own.
"You feel bad about it,” Faryl says. “But it was just easier to look at."
Photo by Bryan Meltz for BuzzFeed News
The social event of the year for freshmen and sophomores at the tony Lovett School in Atlanta is the pre-debutante cotillion, or PDC, a version of Sadie Hawkins with upper-crust rules. Before girls can invite boys, they must first be invited by a hosting committee. There is a required manners class — for girls only. If a girl wants to attend as a sophomore, she has to have attended as a freshman. This year, Mackensie went with a football player; she asked him with a note written on a $1 football from Target.
Mackensie's classmates have known about her trichotillomania since the sixth grade, when Mackensie gave her blessing to the PE teacher to explain the disorder to the class. She isn't ostracized for it; open bullying isn’t tolerated at Lovett. But that doesn't mean Lovett is paradise, socially. Once last year, the administration called an emergency assembly after Yik Yak — an anonymous social network, incidentally co-founded by a Lovett alum — had been flooded with vile messages about students and faculty members.
"Everyone says Lovett isn't cliquey, but it is," Mackensie says.
Photo courtesy of Mackensie
"Lovett is SO cliquey," her friend Josephine chimes in. It's Friday night, and the girls are out to dinner at Flip, a burger bar that calls itself a boutique. Josephine is outspoken like Mackensie, but in a more grown-up way — where Mackensie has unfiltered enthusiasm, Josephine plays it cool. Mackensie says she doesn't spend much time thinking about her generation, while Josephine can go off about Vine and people her age not being able to carry on conversations with adults. Their worlds within school are different, too. Mackensie worries most about keeping up good grades. Josephine worries most about being able to stand up for herself.
"Like, if someone disagrees with or a good amount of people disagree with you, being able to not give in just to be like them and to have their acceptance,” Josephine explains. “A lot of my guy friends drink, and I don't want to.”
"I'm, like, out of the loop," Mackensie says. "I didn't even know that was going on."
"Oh, yeah. Silly boy stuff," Josephine replies. She has a boyfriend who she's gone to two PDC dances with now. Mackensie says she doesn't like anyone right now — and she's fine with that. Her PDC date was just a friend; she spent slow dances asking what he thought of the Spanish exam.
Before leaving the restaurant, they pose for a photo that will later become one of the thousands Mackensie has uploaded to Facebook. It’s been hard for Mackensie to find a group of friends in high school. She knows she tends to over-apply the term "best friend."
"A best friend invites you over to places,” she explains. “I don't really get invited places much."
Photo by Bryan Meltz for BuzzFeed News
Mackensie has a new psychiatrist — Dr. Eric Fier, an animated, comradely doctor with an exceptionally hip office in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward. During Mackensie’s second appointment, the doctor spends about an hour alone with her before bringing in Faryl. All together now, they talk about whether there have been any obvious differences in Mackensie’s pulling.
“As Mackensie will tell you,” Dr. Fier says, “she's not going to really stop until she makes a commitment to stop … And she's not there.”
“You’re not at that point?” Faryl turns to Mackensie.
“I don’t know!” Mackensie says.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Dr. Fier asks.
Mackensie goes into her theory about trich and brainwashing.
“So, she has a relationship with trich,” Dr. Fier says, facing Faryl now. “Trich really is a relationship. It's like any addiction, whether it's drinking, whether it's coming home and smoking some weed, whether it's pulling your hair when you're stressed out. And like many relationships, you know, it's got certain elements about it that, even though you know we're not going to stay together forever — this isn't really a good long-term relationship, I'm not sure that I like myself most when I’m in this relationship — it still sometimes feels pretty good, and it is pretty familiar, and the thought of stepping out of this relationship and just trying to see who I am without being in this relationship is a little bit scary.
“I have this conversation with kids all day long,” Dr. Fier continues. “I asked Mackensie straight out, ‘At what point in time, what day, what month, what year, what age, do you think you're ready to stop trichin'?’ She said, ‘I'm not sure yet.’”
“[My therapist] and I are working on that, trying to get to that feeling,” Mackensie says.
The focus of their work, the doctor says, should be getting her anxiety down, but also nudging Mackensie out of her familiar world, building her confidence through new friendships and interests outside trich.
“I just don't want you to think that what stands between her and stopping trich is magic or anything. Mackensie is what stands between Mackensie and stopping trich.”
Later, in the waiting room while her mom schedules her next appointment, Mackensie admits this stressed her out.
“I don’t really want to do new things,” she says, solemnly — unusual for her. “I’m happy where I am. I just don’t want it to influence my parents so that they completely change, like, how they do everything.”
Photo by Bryan Meltz for BuzzFeed News
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
One Monday in September on a busy street in New York, my girlfriend and I fought loudly about how little I had eaten that day.
My younger brother had just visited me for a long weekend; we’d eaten our way through the boroughs like royalty. Still full of barbecue and Cuban food, I skipped breakfast the Monday he left and allotted 200 calories for lunch.
The plan derailed when my girlfriend Kaitlyn came by my office and suggested we grab a bite. When I placed my order at the soup and sandwich restaurant, she caught me.
"That's not even 300 calories," she said as we waited to pay. "That's not a meal."
"It's full of vegetables," I said. "I eat it all the time."
"That doesn't make it a meal."
We sat down at a wobbly laminated table, surrounded by hurried office workers on their lunch breaks. I tried to pretend nothing was up as I watched her shoulders clench. Had I done something wrong? Is there something bad about eating a light lunch after a gluttonous weekend?
"Camille," she said. "Say something."
"I'm going to eat the whole thing,” I said. “I have it all the time."
She packed up her untouched sandwich and walked out, tears brimming. I chased her outside.
"You always do this," she said. "You know exactly what it is you’re doing, but you refuse to believe there's a way out. "
We had never talked in public about my trouble with eating, and I was hyperaware of how many people shuffled around us, swinging in and out of the Starbucks next door.
“What do you want me to do, go back in and order something else?"
"That would be a great start, yeah."
I glanced back inside the restaurant. My legs locked. The pressure in my chest threatened to pop. 200 calories for lunch. I promised.
"I'll eat more later," I said. "It's not a big deal."
“You don't even think about what effect this has on me and everyone else in your life,” Kaitlyn said, raising her voice and locking her eyes on mine — both scolding me and scared for me. “It's not all about you."
Guilt rolled down my cheeks. She was right and she was wrong. I did think about the toll I was taking on her — maybe even too often — and so I pushed back.
"Don't tell me that I don't think about how this affects you," I said. "I hate myself for it, and I wonder if you’d be better off if I let you find someone else."
Her shoulders dropped and she let herself exhale. Her anger quieted now that I’d said out loud that I was just as scared as she was.
I shut up and she hugged me. Lower Manhattan carried on around us, but we stood on the sidewalk oblivious to honking cars and sweaty excuse-mes and falafel sizzling on the cart outside the restaurant. I hoped none of my co-workers would walk by. If they did, my head was buried too deep into her shoulder to notice.
We held on to each other and prayed to nobody in particular that I could break this — that it wouldn't break us.
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
I have always been obsessed with scales, BMIs, calories, and nutrition facts; they were the only tools I had to document changes in my body as a teenager before I had settled into my adult shape and size. Nutrition by number has always made sense, so I didn’t notice when, after moving to New York City for my first job two years ago, those numbers started to dictate my days again.
It is offensively easy to count calories in New York. Chain restaurants are required to post caloric content on their menus. Gym culture is inescapable. Over the tops of cubicles, I heard co-workers chatting about their fitness accomplishments. The city that never sleeps never stops running.
I nursed my infatuation with counting at the office, where snacking between meals kept my spirits down and my numbers up. One day, I unstuck a yellow Post-It note and wrote in thick Sharpie, “LTH>LTF.” A little too hungry is better than a little too full. I kept it in a desk drawer for inspiration. After I cut out snacks, I started cutting out meals.
In an office where everyone misses lunch sometimes, nobody noticed. With no room for a table or even a couch in my tiny apartment, I ate all my meals alone in bed. Kaitlyn and I were still dating long-distance at the time, and texting each other during dinner wasn’t the same as having her next to me, preparing full portions of a meal we’d lovingly cooked together.
Instead, with nobody sitting at my side, I ate as little as I wanted, proud as I'd ever been of my self-discipline. This was the biggest self-improvement project I had ever taken on, even if I didn’t have an exact end goal in mind. I wanted full control over what I put in my body.
Objectively, there is nothing wrong with knowing how many calories you take in. Balancing meals and physical activity is doctor-recommended. We wear bracelets and program our phones to remind us to put down that soda or push through that extra mile. So when I organized my every day around netting as few calories as possible, I didn't think of it as an eating disorder. I thought of it as math.
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
Distorted body image takes on a tricky dynamic in a relationship between two women. For every unkind thought you've ever had about yourself, it's likely she's told herself the same. When you restrict and exercise and count, count, count, it's because of the same societal forces that have inflicted both of you — inflicted all women, equally and indiscriminately.
Of the "big four" health concerns lesbians are disproportionately prone to — smoking, drinking, breast cancer, and obesity — obesity has been of particular interest to researchers lately. A survey from 2013 has affirmed that while lesbians and bisexual women skew heavier than straight women, they're also less concerned about being overweight. One possible, pleasing explanation is that queer women tend not to care about fitting the standard of "beauty" perpetuated by — and designed to please — straight men.
I’ve long identified as bisexual, and even though I’m now in an amazing relationship with another woman, I can't fully relate to this hypothesis. The last time I stopped eating, I was pursuing a man who ran half marathons, climbed mountains, and dated a gaggle of beautiful women with delicate waists and legs like lightning rods. Now he was gone, and I had Kaitlyn, and I couldn’t care less whether men liked how I looked. I should have been immune to this illness — this contagion so often shaped by patriarchy’s impossible demands of women. I didn’t believe I was sick because this wasn’t my disease to have.
A woman I love loves me for me, I thought to myself every night on the subway home. Why do I care about looking like what men want?
Last May, I weighed less than I had as a sophomore in high school. I was coming up on my one-year anniversary in New York, work was stressful, my then-roommate and I were on shaky terms, and I had all but stopped eating.
At the end of the month, Kaitlyn would be moving from Chicago to New York to move in with me, a certified big step. It was a convenient coincidence that my attachment to counting calories reached its peak just before this major life change.
After a year of long distance, Kaitlyn and I were both eager for our new life to start. She knew I’d been having trouble with my body — she commented that I looked thinner on each of our visits — but we didn’t see each other often enough for her to get a clear image of how calculated my eating rituals had become.
Even though living together sounded like a dream, I couldn't let go of the fear that my strict schedule would unravel. I wouldn't have time for two-hour nightly workouts, and she would see what I ate or didn’t eat. Presented with the option of healing with the girl I loved by my side, I was shamefully afraid of giving up my comfortable, controlled routine.
I brainstormed ways to keep it up under our shared roof: I could lie about my lunches, do push-ups at the office, or even start purging. I could make it work.
Or I could let it go, break up with counting, and nurture my healthy relationship with the girl I loved. But I couldn't do both.
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
When moving day came, my parents and Kaitlyn's made the trip north to lend a hand. They were an immense help, but by the last day everyone was sick of everyone else; shuttling a U-Haul around Manhattan in June will do that to you. My patience broke when we all went out to dinner that night.
The house was a mess, we had so much more to do, and my family was fighting at the restaurant, so I took charge of myself the only way I knew how. In the middle of the meal, I escaped to the bathroom to cry and quietly pronounced myself un-hungry when I got back to the table. It was immature, but it gave me back some control amid all the frantic energy.
When we got home (sans parents) and I confessed that I was hungry, Kaitlyn didn't shame me for skipping dinner or tell me I'd brought it on myself. Instead, she made us a plate of cheese and crackers to share and then produced a box of Trader Joe's cookies from one of her suitcases.
I was shaken from fighting and embarrassed to stray from my conviction not to eat, but this space felt safer than the public display of a restaurant; it was not quite a haven where calorie counts no longer applied, but a transitional place where I could remember what it felt like to eat for pleasure again. I still felt vulnerable, my throat raw and lumpy as I swallowed bite after bite — but I chose to eat, just like I'd chosen not to an hour before.
Eventually, though my road to body self-care was studded with disagreements and occasional interventions from Kaitlyn, I reached a place where I could focus less on undoing damage and more on taking proactive steps. I started eating breakfast again. I ordered a subscription of boxed healthy snacks to my office and let myself have one every other day. I quit the gym, kicking and screaming. I talked about food in therapy and cried on the bus home.
Even with Kaitlyn next to me now, cheerleading and coaching and sometimes doling out necessary tough love, letting go of my decade-long yearning for physical perfection is not an easy task. Because it doesn't actually matter what men want; it's about a universal, inhuman ideal of female beauty, a sublime goal that lingers no matter who you date. The standards are set. The damage is done.
But even if I can’t upend the norms by myself, I can challenge them — by loving a body that the magazines I grew up reading say is not good enough, and by letting someone else love it too.
When old bad habits tempt me, I remember that first night Kaitlyn and I spent alone, after our parents had gone and the furniture was built. To wash down the Trader Joe’s cookies, we opened a bottle of champagne and ordered in cheesecake and watched Netflix all night. For the first time in a year, I didn't check the label to see how many calories I was taking in. In that moment, it didn't matter. I could be myself in this body, in this house, with this woman.
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed
Recovery isn't a flipped light switch. It's a dimmer that hums even at its lowest setting. After half a year, many sessions of therapy, and a few loud fights, I ripped the Post-It note in my office drawer into Scrabble tiles. I joined a new, smaller gym, where I’ve learned to exercise responsibly. My therapist suggested I never weigh myself again. Body self-consciousness is not a spirit that lifts out of you and never comes back, so I'm preparing for it to come and go, while I collect habits to help me muffle numbers that never stop shouting.
Making peace with food has been a shared experience. Kaitlyn and I cook together, go out for drinks, do yoga occasionally, watch Food Network constantly. Food, as it turns out, is a huge part of our relationship. Therapy and common sense remind me to get better not because it makes someone else's life easier, but because I owe it to myself. While I’m working toward loving my body on my own behalf, for its protection, its strength, and its power, it would be dishonest to say Kaitlyn’s validation doesn’t make a difference. She fills in the gaps.
Not long ago, I came home from the gym giddy after a milestone and played a joke on her.
"Guess how many calories I burned on the elliptical?" I asked.
I heard her breath catch. "I don't know."
"I don't know, either. I turned that function off today. First time ever."
Kaitlyn beamed and hugged me and told me she was proud. We opened a couple of beers, made dinner, and the hum softened.
Khalil realised he was gay at 17.
It was 1984, and he was living on a council estate in West London with his parents and two sisters, who originally came from Pakistan. “We had some family guests over,” he recalls, “and they brought along their daughter, who was around my age. My father kept making all these jokes about us getting married… and I knew he was joking, but I was trying not to cringe. I wasn’t attracted to her at all, and I realised at that moment that I hadn’t been attracted to any of the girls that had come over before.”
Seven years later, Khalil got married to the same woman, and they currently live in a well-to-do suburb of London along with their two children. However, he admits that despite having “the ideal life of a Muslim man” on the surface, he does not feel attracted to his wife.
When we meet near his office, Khalil (who has, along with the other interviewees in this article, asked for BuzzFeed News to use a pseudonym) is dressed in a pristine pinstriped business suit, and sports a medium-sized, perfectly trimmed beard. He greets me with a firm handshake – "Salaamwualaikum" – and apologises for being late, telling me that he needed to pray first.
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We’re later joined by two other men, Adnan and Mohammed, both of whom are in similar situations. Adnan, is tall, skinny and dressed in a plain suit. He's been married for just under two years, having had a ceremony arranged by his parents. Mohammed, who is short but well built, is dressed in the traditional Islamic thoba – a garment he says he usually wears in public. He’s a university student who hopes to be married soon.
The men head to an Italian restaurant in central London. Khalil booked a corner table weeks in advance: he highly recommends the food, and says that these types of venues are much better for such meetings, because of the nature of their discussions. "You don't really want to be talking about these things in a Muslim restaurant," he jokes. Adnan, relaxed in his chair, laughs with him, while Mohammed, who shows some nervousness, hunches over his phone.
After a small amount of short talk over olives, in which they talk about their jobs – and, more importantly, last week's football matches – Khalil asks how Adnan and Mohammed have been "managing" since the last dinner.
Although the men acknowledge they have same-sex inclinations, they are reluctant to identify themselves as "gay". However, they say that as Muslims who are "devout", they have dedicated themselves to strengthening their imaan [religious belief] in an attempt to overcome them.
In some British Muslim communities, homosexuality can be a controversial issue: some believe the act counts as a form of "zina" – an Arabic term referring to "unlawful" sexual activity.
Many imams were uncomfortable talking to BuzzFeed News about the issue on record, although one scholar, who wished not to be named, said that homosexuality was a “cardinal sin” in most strands of Islamic thought. He emphasised that the same view was held in most world religions, including Christianity and Judaism.
Dan Kitwood / Getty
Others imams, such as Ghulam Rasool of Leicester central mosque, said that Islam did not make a direct reference to homosexuality, but instead prohibited areas of sexual activity deemed impermissible, such as anal sex. He adds that the regulations apply to everyone, including those in heterosexual relationships.
“To have the inclination has never been condemned,” he said. “It’s acting upon it."
He added: “Whatever thoughts prevail for your mind, if you don’t act on the bad impulses you have to learn how to deal with them as a Muslim. And if you can’t, it's about where that sin fits in the Islamic spectrum.”
Rasool adds that similar rulings on sexual activity are evident in all branches of the Abrahamic faiths – but points out that in Islam, sexual habits have always been a "private issue".
There is still little information on how many gay Muslims are living in Britain – not least because many (especially regular worshippers such as the members of the support group) remain closeted, out of fear of reprisal from conservative elements of their communities.
As a result, some Muslim activist organisations, such as the LGBT support group Imaan (which is not affiliated with the men interviewed in this article), have articulated the need for British Islamic communities to be more open to such Muslims.
The organisation also said it does not support or encourage LGBT Muslims to enter "marriages of convenience," or pursue treatments that require one's sexual identity to be repressed.
Although Imaan usually works with LGBT Muslims who are "being pressured into heterosexual marriages", its spokesperson, Naeem (who preferred not to give his surname), told BuzzFeed News that it had heard of some cases where religious individuals were willing to repress their sexuality.
"The LGBT Muslim community in Britain is as diverse as the wider Muslim community here," he said.
"We come from various ethnic and sectarian backgrounds and each would have inherited their community’s attitudes towards Muslims of other ethnic or sectarian communities."
Naeem emphasised that the experiences of LGBT Muslims are unique and that they shouldn't be treated as a single group. However, he added that many are reluctant to talk about sexuality out of fear they "might dishonour their families, be forced into marriage as a form of rehabilitation, or become unwelcome in their communities".
In some cases, he says that people have suffered "intense emotional, psychological, and spiritual trauma" as a result of familial pressure to marry the opposite sex.
However, the men believe that common assumptions about homosexuality in Islam have been misinterpreted.
“It’s not homosexuality itself that’s a sin,” Adnan says. “It’s more about acting on your sexual urges – I think that’s been really misunderstood by the media, so they make out that Islam is homophobic, or anti-gay or whatever. It’s not, it’s just about controlling things that are haram [forbidden].”
Mohammed agrees. Although he realised he was gay in secondary school, and says he’s had “quite a few flings” with men in his early years at university, it was only a couple of years ago that he decided to devote himself to his faith.
“There was always a part of me that said what I was doing – going to clubs, having boyfriends – was wrong, but I tried to block it out," he says. "It was only when my mum passed away that I began really taking Islam seriously, when I realised we will all eventually return to Allah to be questioned about our evils.”
“The imam said that this was just a challenge in my life – so the only way to overcome it would be by devoting myself more to God. I was recommended to fast at least once a week, to be more devout in my prayers – and to get married. The imam had told me he knew many men who had felt these ‘natural emotions’, and were able to overcome them by living a good, Islamic way of life.”
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Mohammed describes the group as the first “safe space” where he was comfortable talking about his past activities. “No one judged me for my past," he says. “They were very open about their experiences, and how they returned to Islam. Usually, people would post a motivational image with verses of the Qu’ran on them, mainly about Allah forgiving you for your sins. And it was nice to be in a place where there were brothers to support you – it’s not often you find [something] like that in a masjid [mosque].”
Mohammed adds that the most common advice to Muslims in the forum – especially young people – is to get married. “Most of the brothers in the group recommend nikah [marriage] to overcome sexual urges,” he says.
“It’s not just for gay or lesbian people – Islamically we’re taught to regulate our sinful desires, like having sex out of marriage. Nikah isn’t just sexual, it’s also a way to come closer to Allah and please him.”
He cites a number of men he knows through the forum who claim to have “overcome their sexual feelings’ toward men” by marrying “practising sisters”, although he admits that they don’t really talk about the more intimate parts of their relationships.
Rob Stothard / Getty
“It’s not just religion – it’s more to do with culture,” he insists. “Islam doesn’t shy away from talking about dealing with homosexual feelings and transgressions. It offers the best solution for overcoming these feelings. But if you bring it up outside the mosque it is dangerous, and I think that keeps many gay and lesbian Muslims from coming out.”
When asked how his family would react if he came out, he says: “They’d definitely be very shocked to say the least – I’d be quite worried to find out. I’ve heard about gay Muslims who have come out and have lost contact with all their family, kids and friends.”
Adnan also keeps his sexual past a secret from his wife, although he says that it “isn’t much different” from the experiences of other Asian Britons.
“I don’t really know many Asians generally who are open about their sexual history, gay or not. It’s not something we really talk about in our culture, so in some ways it’s actually much easier,” he says. “It helps that I was always quite religious. I wasn’t very outward about my sexual preferences, and was only in one, very short relationship when I was younger.”
Adnan says he’s “working hard to build a strong relationship” with his wife, and believes that “if Allah wills, our relationship will blossom when we are graced with children”. However, he’s reluctant to answer questions on whether he has felt sexual attraction to other men since he’s been married. “I’m just trying to live my life as Islamically as possible,” he says.
Dan Kitwood / Getty
While Khalil, Adnan and Mohammed have not resorted to drastic measures in their attempts to overcome their sexual inclinations, they do say that others in the group have done. They recall one man in America who went to a spiritual healer, believing that his sexual inclinations were the result of an evil spirit known as a "djinn". Others have allegedly embraced full abstinence or sought help through gay conversion therapy (which has been condemned by the medical and mental health sectors in both the UK and US as damaging and ineffective).
“A lot of the time Muslims with these feelings want to follow the "sirat al Mustaqeem" [the right path] but they don’t know how," he says. "They’re lost. So they go to people who say they can cure them, and a lot of the time they don’t! I’ve heard stories where con artists have ripped people off pretending they can cure them of illness, diseases, and it’s just a con.”
He adds: “It’s much better to seek proper solution. I’d recommend any Muslim brother or sister feeling these emotions to go to their Imam or a respected scholar first... then seek devout brothers and sisters online for guidance.”
While this view might be controversial, the men say it is becoming the “normal opinion” of most devout British Muslims trying to understand their faith in the context of a sexually liberal society.
“It is quite sad to see some Muslims being abused by their families and communities just because they are gay,” Adnan says, recalling a former friend who was kicked out of his family home after coming out to his family.
Khalil says that while he would ideally want gay Muslims to “return to the right form of Islam”, it was “unacceptable” for anyone to be abused because of their personal qualities: “Doesn’t matter if you’re gay, straight, black, white or whatever, abuse is abuse, whatever the circumstance.”
And although none of the men have ever heard an imam publicly condemn gays or gay activity, Mohammed says that he still feels uncomfortable whenever his friends make “crude jokes” about gay people.
As we finish, the men exchange salaams outside the restaurant, and reaffirm the need to “get in touch any time” if they need to.
“Oh no, I better head back before it gets too late,” Khalil jokes. “My wife will think I’m having an affair!”
To contact Imaan, visit its website or email info@imaan.org.uk
CORRECTION: This story has been edited to clarify that the none of the interviewees are affiliated with Imaan. Additionally, Imaan neither supports or endorses the decisions made by the interviewees. (20/04/15)
