"Stop talking shit about my religion, you lesbian feminist witch!" Those were the first words my future girlfriend Nabila Yassin ever said to me. Most of you would assume that things wouldn't bode well for us, and this is where you'd be wrong. Absolutely wrong. The most passionate couples out there argue the most, and clashing isn't always a bad thing. It translates into a lot of fire in the bedroom, let me tell you.
My name is Christina Mathieu, and I was born in the City of Kingston, Ontario, to a Haitian immigrant father and a French Canadian mother. My parents come from radically different worlds but they made their relationship and produced not so little and not so old me. Six feet two inches tall, athletic, brown-skinned, short-haired, green-eyed, tomboyish and fearless, and ragingly and openly lesbian, that's me. I study Criminal Law at Carleton University.
I've sometimes been called arrogant, and that amuses me. Is there something wrong with being outspoken? Don't answer that. I am simply a product of my environment. I grew up in the City of Kingston, Ontario, a fairly homogenous town where ninety nine percent of the people you meet are white. Do you have any idea what it was like to grow up the daughter of an interracial couple in such an environment?
My father Christopher James Mathieu is black, and works as a police constable with the Kingston Police Service. Not an easy job for a person of color, even in the twenty-first century, let me tell you. Small-town Canadians are notoriously xenophobic, though they often hide it behind a polite smile. Polite doesn't mean good or open-minded, ladies and gentlemen. Polite simply means polite, at the end of the day.
Since Dad was born in the town of Cap-Haitien, on the island of Haiti, and came to Canada during his college days, he'll never be Canadian enough for some people. The fact that he was born outside the country, and is non-European extraction, that's something they can never get over. Never mind that my father loves Canada and has been a citizen for some time. To a lot of people in Canada, "real" Canadians are white Canadians.
My mother, Leanne Lapierre-Mathieu, born and raised in the City of Montreal, Quebec, and was doing her graduate studies in sociology at Queen's University in Kingston in 1989 when she met my father, who was an international student at the time, and they fell in love and got married. My mother teaches sociology at Queen's University these days, by the way. I've never met my maternal grandparents because they cut my mother off after finding out she'd fallen in love with a black man. Yup, that's the kind of family I hail from. I am a fighter by nature.
Which brings me back to the story of my first meeting with my Muslim life partner, Nabila Yassin. We clashed over our differences, to be sure. Alright, maybe clashed is putting things a bit mildly. Nabila and I got into a shouting match in class, and after class, the diminutive yet gorgeous young Yemeni-Canadian Muslim diva ( hey, she deserves the title of diva, seriously ) basically got in my face. That's okay, though. I like my women fiery.
"Nabila, I've got nothing against Islam, I respect your religion, I just don't like it when insecure men use religion and cultural norms to control women," I replied hotly, and the short, curvy young Yemeni woman glared at me angrily. I should mention that we were in the middle of a heated classroom debate at Carleton University in the City of Ottawa, Ontario.
The class, Law And Society, taught by professor Joelle Harding, one of a few black faculty members at our school, seemed destined for controversy. Discussing Islam and feminism is like a powder keg, I swear. Look, I'm not dumb enough to believe that feminism can solve all of the world's problems. Plenty of white feminists I've met on the Carleton campus and beyond are just as racist as the worst redneck bozo you can imagine, if not more so. Still, the way that women are treated in certain countries irks me and I believe in speaking out against injustice. Unfortunately, that sometimes mean clashing with other women.
"Look, I think we both have a lot of passion for these issues, we don't have to be at odds on women's rights, we should talk about this and try to find a compromise," I said hesitantly, and Nabila looked me up and down. Clad in a brown leather jacket over a black turtleneck shirt, blue jeans and boots, her dark hair hidden by a black Hijab, Nabila looked really good. This Yemeni gal is only five-foot-five, but I swear, when she gets mad, she looks like she might go toe to toe with the Hulk himself. I won't lie to you, I found her anger and passion a tad bit intimidating...and a bit of a turn-on.
