I honour my Arab heritage every time I perform in drag

Walking out onto the stage, I spotted a group of Muslim women in hijabs sitting in the front row and I practically froze with fright. 

It was 2017 and, while performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with my then drag troupe, Denim, I’d decided to honour my Iraqi-Egyptian heritage by wearing a sapphire blue ensemble. 

I had long dreamed of dressing like the women I grew up with in the Middle East, and it was exhilarating to wear markers of my Arab heritage within a queer context. But I never expected to see Muslim women so present at one of my shows. 

Now I was terrified that these women in the front row would not only be offended by my material, but that they were going to judge me as I sinned, too.  

I came to the UK in 2001 when I was 11, meaning I was educated here during the US-led invasion of my homeland, Iraq. After that, experience after experience in this country slowly conditioned me to think negatively of my heritage. 

At 14, while taking my art GCSE, I was given the assignment to draw my ‘autobiography’. 

Originally, I planned to document my friendship at school with portraits of my best mate (who I fancied) using images traversing our deep connection – but my art teacher had other ideas. 

‘Amrou, you’re Iraqi. With everything going on in the world, why not really go there and do a project about…9/11? What about a sketchbook on suicide bombing?’ 

I was devastated and confused – but too insecure to stand up for myself; it confirmed all the negative associations with my heritage that the world was constructing. 

What 9/11 had to do with my life, I have no idea, but being a people-pleasing immigrant desperate for belonging in the UK, I just nodded along. 

While my white classmates got to draw portraits of their pets, parents and holidays, I was forced to make images of Arabs holding guns and Muslim women wearing bloody niqabs. 

A true autobiography would have shown my mother as the most glamorous and beautiful woman I’ve ever known. I would have drawn us spending most weekends at Harrods, watching her try on dresses and telling her how iconic she is.  

What I actually drew for my final painting for the project was an image of my mother – bleeding, no less – in front of the Twin Towers. 

During the same period, I was a working child actor and had secured my first job playing a terrorist’s son in Spielberg’s Munich. I was so excited to land such a big gig that I didn’t even question the implications. 

When I was on set, however, watching my fake terrorist parents get shot to cinematic death by Eric Bana, I couldn’t have felt more ashamed about where I came from. 

After that first explosive entry into showbusiness, I’d go on to audition for around 20 terrorist roles and played quite a few more. The more I did, the harder it became to ignore this country’s conditioning. 

It was a kind of colonial conversion therapy I didn’t know I signed up for, and over and over I felt like I was being taught to only associate the horrifying with my heritage, not the beauty and culture that exists in abundance. 

It was all the more complicated realising I was gay and gender non-conventional, which put me further at odds with my heritage due to fears of Islamic and familial rejection. And being who I was certainly did come with a cost. 

Drag has been so healing for me because it has allowed me to rewrite the narratives this country and industry have forced on me. In drag, I can wear markers of my heritage in a way that celebrates where I’m from, and in a country that has tried to make me feel ashamed.  

That’s why, every night in Edinburgh, I’d feel free on the stage – I was finally living out my fantasy. But the moment I saw those Muslim women, it all ground to a halt. 

Not only was I in my belly dancer ensemble but my performance included a break-up song to Allah – I felt sure these avatars from my childhood would not approve. 

Unsurprisingly, I had a bit of a breakdown during the performance: I tripped on my heels, forgot my words, and even pleaded with them to stop judging me. Apparently, it was hard to watch.  

And when I heard that the women were waiting outside the stage door to meet me, I headed to them like Marie Antoinette on her slow march towards her guillotine. 

Only, these women were not there to berate me, rather, they turned out to be long-time fans who just wanted to say hello and tell me how much they appreciated my queer perspectives on Islam.  

I felt foolish for assuming they were there to judge me, even hate me; but before leaving, one of the women held my hand and, looking me straight in the eye, said: ‘Glamrou – Allah loves you’.

Once they left, I stumbled onto the floor and sobbed for an hour, decades of grief and the possibility for healing all culminating in a moment that completely winded me. 

I realised in that moment that my past experiences had conditioned me to expect punishment, but that I now had the chance to challenge my own perspective about my heritage, and to connect with where I’m from in ways that had felt denied to me. 

Since then, I have fully embraced my Iraqi heritage when performing drag shows around the world and my recent tour celebrates who my mother actually is. 

In 2020, I was lucky enough to write on the finale of Apple’s Little America – an episode about a queer Syrian and Iraqi asylum seeker in the USA. 

To this day I have Arabs messaging me from all over the globe to express the hope this inspired in them – and I’m only just getting started. 

At a time when Arabs across the globe are being denied not only the right to tell their story, but the very right to even have a story, I feel a duty to platform Arab stories now more than ever. 

I worry that the TV and film industry seems to be slipping backwards, reverting to narratives that do nothing to push conversations forward and packaging content around mostly white talent, leaving behind essential minority voices. And there are nearly no Arab-created series on screen in the UK.

This year, a study showed that creators across all streaming shows were 90% white. But I have to hope that stories like mine and countless other left-behind voices have the power to change people’s minds and enter their hearts. 

Now is not the time for capitulation. It is incumbent on everyone in media industries to platform the stories and perspectives that global political forces are working harder than ever to suppress, no matter the odds against us. 

They are petrified of our truth and the potency of our humanity. I, for one, will not go quietly.  

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