Mark graduated with a degree in German from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986, after spending two years as a genetics major. He passed general exams in German literature at Princeton University in 1989, obtaining the master's degree, but left the university without the doctorate in 1990. At Princeton, Mark was exposed to the debate between essentialism and social constructionism with regard to the naturalness of sexual orientation. 

Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and raised from the age of six in various cities throughout California, Mark attended high school in Fremont. During and after college he traveled much in Europe and the United States. He lived in Göttingen, Princeton, and New York City before returning to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1994. 

Raised without any particular denomination, Mark attended Catholic and then Lutheran churches in high school and college. He was finally baptized in a Baptist church in Berkeley in 1995, but left to pursue Islam three years later. In addition to the Born Eunuchs site, he has recently launched a new project called Ecumenical Islam: Reconciling the Prophetic Religions. He also keeps the pioneering Queer Jihad website online. Mark lives in Oakland.