Streaming Exclusion: Digital Media, Conservative Muslim Rhetoric, and LGBTQ+ Politics in Kerala

This study analyses how conservative Muslim speakers in Kerala, India, use YouTube to produce and circulate anti-LGBTQ+ discourse. Through a qualitative content analysis of 15 Malayalam-language videos posted after India's 2018 decriminalization of same-sex relationships, the research identifies a multi-stage "architecture of digital exclusion." This rhetorical system is built from four discursive repertoires that guide audiences from moral-theological certainty to a populist moral panic. It launders religious objections into the language of science and frames LGBTQ+ identities as an existential threat, weaponizing Kerala's partial state-led inclusion policies as proof of a hostile, Western-backed "gender ideology." The findings show how digital platforms are used to amplify exclusionary religious narratives and mediate anxieties about social change. The study contrasts this with the "architecture of resilience" constructed by queer Muslims, who use the same digital platforms to forge alternative, queer-affirming communities and theologies.