Excerpt:
Iris Akbar has had to be cautious most her life as a Muslim woman and a lesbian in Singapore — and that continued after she moved to Canada.
It was an identity that took time to make its way to the open, said Akbar, who hadn’t come out until she was in her mid-thirties.
“It was only until I was able to support myself, be independent, that I had to courage to actually come out to, at least, my immediate family,” she told CBC Radio’s The Afternoon Edition.
Akbar said that courage came from relationships she had in her twenties and while she was living in Australia, where she said she had a bit more freedom to be who she really was.