Islamic masculinity in Malaysia is frequently framed as fixed, uniform, and anchored in heteronormative moral

concept inspired by Malay cultural idioms and designed to theorise layered, culturally embedded forms of non-

normativity that are not fully encompassed by Western LGBTQ frameworks. Drawing on a qualitative analysis

of approximately 300 Instagram posts from twelve public accounts, the study examines visual and linguistic

practices, including gestures, captions, religious idioms, humour, and vernacular labels. The findings

devotion, challenging claims that non-normative expressions inherently conflict with Islamic teachings.

Instagram functions as a digital Third Space where these negotiations unfold, enabling selective visibility and

the articulation of hybrid identities that balance self-expression and cultural constraints. Overall, the study shows

that Malay-Muslim masculinity is being reimagined from within, reflecting layered and culturally situated forms

and cultural discourses tend to emphasise masculine propriety, piety, and heteronormativity as the pillars of

Malay-Muslim identity, everyday practices reveal a more fluid and contingent reality. Digital media, especially

visually oriented platforms such as Instagram, have amplified these dynamics by providing semi-public spaces

where identity can be curated, fragmented, and reassembled outside the constraints of familial, religious, or state

surveillance (Campbell, 2012; Evolvi, 2022; Latour, 1990).

This study examines how non-heteronormative Malay Muslim men articulate their gendered and religious

describing effeminate Malay men use humour, aesthetic experimentation, cultural idioms, and mediated self-

presentation to construct forms of masculinity that diverge from normative expectations. Their practices

challenge the dominant assumption that Islamic masculinity is inherently heteronormative, hierarchical, and

map neatly onto sexual categories. It instead captures aesthetic, affective, and embodied styles of selfhood rooted

normativity emerges and circulates, especially in digital contexts.

The study is situated within scholarship that foregrounds the intersectional nature of queer Muslim identities

(Rahman, 2010, 2014; Rahman & Valliani, 2016; Yip, 2005). These works demonstrate that the perceived

incompatibility between Islam and queer identity is a socially constructed opposition rather than a theological

inevitability. They show how queer Muslims inhabit positions that disrupt both Western LGBTQ frameworks

and normative Islamic discourses. This article extends these insights to the Malaysian context, where the

the emergence of non-normative gender expressions from within Muslim-majority contexts such as Malaysia.

The practices examined in this study are neither derivative of Western queer politics nor purely responses to

Islamic orthodoxy; they reflect a vernacular, situated, and culturally resonant form of self-making that requires

new analytic language.

Finally, digital media scholarship provides a background frame for understanding how Instagram functions as a

space of identity negotiation. Bhabha’s (1994) notion of the Third Space, while not developed for digital contexts

offers a useful metaphor for analysing how hybrid identities arise in liminal cultural environments. Instagram

becomes such a space; a site where Malay Muslim men can articulate selves that might be disciplined offline,

yet are not entirely detached from cultural and religious expectations. In this mediated environment, identity

becomes layered, negotiated, and visually curated. Guided by these theoretical considerations, this article

reinterpretation, humour, aesthetics, and affective self-making.

Scholarship on queer Muslim identities demonstrates that gendered and sexual subjectivities in Muslim societies

cannot be reduced to fixed doctrinal positions or universalised Western frameworks. Intersectionality has been

central to this argument, emphasising how religion, gender, culture, and sexuality intersect to shape lived

experience in complex and shifting ways. Rahman’s work (2010, 2014) is foundational in this regard. He asserts

that queer Muslims occupy a “disruptively queer” intersectional position that destabilises the normative

coherence of both Western LGBTQ taxonomies and Islamic heteronormative frameworks. Instead of treating

Islam and queerness as mutually exclusive identity categories, Rahman shows that queer Muslims construct

meaningful subjectivities by negotiating overlapping social, cultural, and ethical demands. His argument aligns

with Yip’s (2005) findings that queer Muslims frequently reinterpret religious teachings through personal ethical

At the same time, queer theory contributes important conceptual tools for understanding gender as performative,

relational, and embedded in discursive structures. Butler’s (1990) formulation of gender performativity clarifies

subjects reorient themselves within normative spaces, often reconfiguring bodily comportment and spatial

relations in subtle yet meaningful ways. These theoretical contributions are valuable but cannot fully account for

the distinctive intersections of Islamic moralities, Malay cultural repertoires, and digital mediation that shape

identity formation in Malaysia. As Marcus (2005) notes, queer theory, while conceptually generative, must be

adapted carefully when applied to contexts outside its Western epistemological origins.

Western sexual identities risks erasing local sexual cultures by imposing foreign taxonomies. Yet Massad’s

framework underestimates local agency and the creative ways in which communities appropriate, resist, or

transform global categories. Puar’s (2007) analysis of homonationalism provides another critical lens by

demonstrating how some Western states mobilise LGBTQ rights discourses to reinforce civilisational hierarchies

that position the Muslim world as sexually repressive. While these critiques illuminate the geopolitical

dimensions of queer modernity, they do not account for queer subjectivities emerging organically within

Muslim-majority societies. As Arondekar (2006) argues, race, sexuality, and globalisation intersect differently

outside the United States, requiring conceptual approaches grounded in local histories and cultural logics.

The Malaysian context demands precisely such an approach. Local scholars have highlighted the layered and

often conflictual nature of identity among Malay-Muslims. Guo and Kamaruzaman (2025) conceptualise identity

where these individuals explore and negotiate identity boundaries in ways that may not be possible offline. Her

earlier work (2023) introduced a conceptual vocabulary for analysing gender performance and expression among

Malaysian Muslims, laying the groundwork for the present study’s extension of this intellectual project.

authors to theorise layered, processual identity practices rooted in Malay cultural idioms. Its inspiration from

a form of non-normativity that is not necessarily tied to sexual identity but encompasses affective, aesthetic,

linguistic, and embodied practices shaped by Malay-Muslim cultural repertoires. Such a concept is necessary

Finally, understanding how these identity practices unfold on Instagram benefits from postcolonial theories of

hybridity, particularly Bhabha’s (1994) notion of the Third Space. Although Bhabha was not theorising digital

on social media in ways that complicate dominant discourses of religion, gender, and identity.

generalisability or categorical classification (Krippendorff, 2004). The research builds directly on earlier

Malaysian scholarship that foregrounds the negotiated and layered nature of identity (Guo & Kamaruzaman,

2025; Kamaruzaman, 2024), extending these insights to the digital domain.

Purposive sampling was used to identify public Instagram accounts belonging to Malay Muslim men who engage

in non-normative gender expression. The sampling did not require explicit LGBTQ identification; instead,

selection centred on vernacular expressions, aesthetic cues, linguistic play, and stylistic performances commonly

conforming Malays do not adopt Western LGBTQ labels but instead engage in culturally rooted practices of

gendered self-articulation (Kamaruzaman, 2023). Twelve public accounts (see Appendix A) were observed over

a six-month period, generating approximately 300 posts comprising images, captions, hashtags, story highlights,

and identity. Coding proceeded iteratively, beginning with descriptive coding, moving to interpretive coding

balances empirical richness with ethical sensitivity, grounding the analysis within established research traditions

in digital religion (Campbell, 2012; Campbell & Connelly, 2020), local queer Muslim scholarship (Rahman,

2014; Kamaruzaman, 2024), and identity negotiation in multicultural contexts (Guo & Kamaruzaman, 2025).

vernacular culture, Islamic ethical sensibilities, humour, and digital aesthetics. These identity practices were not

incidental or sporadic; rather, they formed patterned behaviours that reflected a coherent, though highly flexible,

cultural logic. As Rahman (2010, 2014) and Yip (2005) argue, queer Muslim subjectivity must be understood

challenges rigid Malay-Muslim masculine norms. Rather than opposing Islamic values, participants reframed

gentleness, beauty, and self-care as compatible with Muslim ethics.

Participants often posted make-up trials exclusively for their Close Friends lists. One user wrote, “Don’t

self-affirming ways. Wodak and Reisigl’s (2001) work on discriminatory language illustrates how terms used as

Instagram functions as a digital Third Space in which these practices unfold. While Bhabha’s (1994) concept

was not formulated for digital media, the hybrid and liminal qualities of Instagram parallel the conditions he

audience expectations, showing that digital platforms systematically shape identity work as both opportunity and

constraint. The dynamic aligns with hooks’s (1990) notion of radical spaces where marginalised identities can

articulate themselves in ways foreclosed in normative environments. Yet, as Latour (1990) argues, technology

is always entangled with social dynamics; Instagram does not erase vulnerability but instead reframes it within

a context of selective self-curation. These digital negotiations mirror the multilayered identity conflicts described

negotiated, and affectively rich field of meaning, shaped by everyday practices and mediated through digital

spaces.

to Islam; rather, they are articulated through ethical sensibilities rooted in Malay-Muslim cultural norms and

religious concepts such as sincerity, gentleness, humility, and self-restraint. Such everyday moral vocabularies

complicate claims that non-normative gender expression is inherently incompatible with Islam—a point long

emphasised in queer Muslim scholarship (Rahman, 2010, 2014; Yip, 2005).

The analysis also contributes to critical discussions of queer theory’s applicability outside Euro-American

contexts. Foundational frameworks by Butler (1990), Sedgwick (2015), and Ahmed (2006) help illuminate how

gender norms are reproduced and challenged; however, they cannot fully account for the specific cultural and

religious dimensions that shape Malay Muslim subjectivities. While their conceptual insights clarify mechanisms

of normativity, they do not address how Islamic ethical discourses, Malay linguistic repertoires, or localised

forms of piety inform identity work. As such, the present study affirms existing critiques that global queer theory

often lacks the conceptual vocabulary to explain Muslim-majority contexts (Arondekar, 2006; Massad, 2007).

This limitation becomes especially evident in the case of Puar’s (2007) homonationalism. Although her analysis

cogently explains how Western states use queer tolerance as a marker of civilisation in opposition to Muslims,

it presumes that queer subjectivity is intrinsically tied to Western liberal modernity. This presumption renders

the experiences of non-normative Malay Muslims marginal or unintelligible. The forms of expression

documented here—gentle poses, playful femininity, scripted modesty, humorous captions invoking Islamic

values—do not emerge from the geopolitical dynamics Puar describes. They arise from local negotiations of

culture, religion, and digital visibility within a Muslim-majority nation.

intentionally distinct from “queer”: it does not carry the same genealogies of Western activism, sexual identity

or liberatory domain, Instagram offers a mediated environment where Malay Muslim men can explore embodied

forms of selfhood that may be constrained offline. This aligns with Bhabha’s (1994) account of hybrid cultural

spaces, although the platform’s technological affordances introduce new forms of curation, audience

segmentation, and selective disclosure. The use of filters, “Close Friends” lists, ephemeral stories, and stylised

captions reflects a strategic navigation of visibility and vulnerability. Such strategies illustrate what hooks (1990)

Instagram’s role as a Third Space also illuminates how digital religion operates in contemporary Muslim life

(Campbell, 2012; Campbell & Connelly, 2020). The posts analysed here show that Islamic piety is not

abandoned but reinterpreted. Quranic verses, religious reminders, and expressions of gratitude appear alongside

playful femininity and aesthetic experimentation. This coexistence suggests that religion is not experienced as

an externally imposed norm but as a fluid, vernacular, and deeply personal moral framework. It aligns with

scholars who argue that Islamic masculinity is historically contingent and shaped by shifting social, political,

and economic forces rather than theological absolutes (Ouzgane, 2006; De Sondy, 2015). Taken together, these

findings demonstrate that Malay-Muslim non-normative expressions cannot be understood through the

dichotomies that dominate both Western queer theory and Islamic orthodoxy. They neither replicate Western

LGBTQ identity frameworks nor reject Islamic values; instead, they reconfigure both through layered, situated

practices of self-making that are mediated by humour, aesthetics, and digital creativity. The everyday

This study examined how non-normative Malay Muslim men articulate gendered and religious identities on

Instagram, revealing that Islamic masculinity in Malaysia is neither monolithic nor static. Through their aesthetic

demonstrate that Muslim masculinity can be expansive, layered, and ethically grounded in ways that depart from

dominant heteronormative ideals. These findings reinforce arguments in local scholarship that identity in

Malaysia is fundamentally multi-layered, relational, and contested (Guo & Kamaruzaman, 2025), shaped

through everyday negotiations rather than rigid adherence to predefined norms.