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Tag: queerswana

Episode 208 [in English]: Pride for Sarah Hegazi

Published October 1, 2023

Hey everyone! We’ve missed you, and we’re excited to return from our break with an episode we’ve had cooking for a while! 

CW: general discussion of suicide

Taim is a student from Syria in Cologne, Germany, and one of the organizers of the organization Pride for Sarah Hegazi. Taim discusses the organization’s second demonstration that took place in the summer of 2023, dedicated to the Egyptian activist Sarah Hegazi and the Saudi trans woman Eden Knight, both of whom died by suicide in conditions of structural queerphobia. 

The protest took place in an Arab neighborhood and involved 50 participants chanting queer slogans in Arabic, with the goal of creating both visibility and discomfort. Taim discusses the importance of putting queer Arabic lingo in the streets—not just in academic settings—and maintaining Sarah’s revolutionary communist ethics in protest organizing. They also discuss future hopes that the organization can work to help queer people still living in the SWANA region.  Taim’s fellow organizers are Fadi, Ahmed and Salman.

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Episode 205 [in English]: Hayati

Published April 28, 2023

( See a walkthrough of Noor’s exhibit here! Hayati – My Life/My Love )

Noor Aldayeh is a visual artist from Los Angeles, California. She is an Honors Film and Media student at Emory University minoring in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality studies, and acts as a student photographer for the Office of Belonging Community and Justice at the university. Our conversation centered around Noor’s thesis project ​​”Hayati (حياتي) – My Life / My Love,” an archive of queer, Middle Eastern and North African women and gender non-conforming-individuals across the US photographed alongside their personal safe spaces. 

Noor discusses what drew them to this subject matter, observing exploitative tropes of orientalist photography and, conversely, finding role models in other SWANA woman artists. She explains how she approaches photography in a way that maximizes the subject’s autonomy and consent. Noor also mentions how this project has been a conduit for finding community in multiple cities–something they weren’t able to access easily in their upbringing and college career–and how they plan to continue the work after graduation.


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