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The Queer Arabs
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© 2020 The Queer Arabs
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Some queer Arabs run a podcast together!
226 Episodes
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( 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…
Alma Doumani is the bassist for Slave to Sirens, an all-women thrash metal band from Lebanon that gained international attention through the documentary Sirens, which depicts the lives of the band members over three years. Outside of music, Alma is also a photographer and video producer. In the episode, Alma talks us through her love for the complexity of metal music, how she got connected to the band, and how the documentary process started with a Facebook message from Rita Baghdadi. She also describes what it was like to have such pivotal moments in her and her bandmates’ lives thoroughly…
Rayan Afif is a multi-media artist and theater maker of Egyptian and Lebanese descent making work that envisions queer SWANA futures. Rayan discussed some of their visual art which depicts dream physical spaces—including a mana’eesh cafe and queer SWANA drag race—and the importance of online community spaces when physical ones are not available. They also described their journey into playwriting and some of their theater projects, including a play exploring the effects of the Beirut explosion on two sisters, a historical fiction piece about a queer Egyptian in the 1950s (researched by interviewing their grandmother and great-grandmother), and an interactive…
In this episode, we caught up with Rana Fayez, an Arab, non-binary, arts producer, musician/sound artist, DJ, archivist, and founder of YallaPunk. Rana told us how they started YallaPunk in 2016 in response to political attacks on the SWANA community and how the organization has evolved since then, including the festivals, language practice groups, pandemic-era community kitchen, residencies, and pop-up events. They also talked about the mental health tolls of being in a quasi-community-organizer role, the unrealistic expectations placed on individuals with a moderately-sized public platform, and how they’ve learned to set boundaries around their time, energy, and social media…
Tarik Zahr is a Lebanese PhD candidate in New York City; his focus is the study of NASH and Atherosclerosis. We were excited to have this episode dedicated to science, to learn about some of the ways metabolic diseases can manifest, and to discuss how his research may be able to benefit individuals of Middle Eastern descent. We also discussed queer Arab science, the importance of archiving, and the need for diverse representation within the medical research field. (Science!) Twitter: tarik_zahr
It’s our 200th episode! Alia, Ellie, and Nadia celebrate with a deep and messy group chat. We recall the early days of the podcast and some tough lessons about trust learned along the way. Then we discuss the World Cup, the brief resurgence of pan-Arabism surrounding the Moroccan team, and what we think of discourse on migrant workers’ rights, LGBTQ rights, and alcohol in Qatar. We talk about how frustrating our mental healthcare system can be when it comes to seeking non-emergency support, and what’s missing from the “check on your friends” memos. We also vague-cast (the podcast equivalent of…
Sarah Bitar is an actor, writer, and teaching artist from Lebanon. Since graduating from the Stella Adler School of Acting, she has been living and creating in NYC. Sarah joined us to talk about her experiences in both the Lebanese and New York theater scenes, and the relative challenges of finding space, funding, community, and consistency in each. Sarah mentions her recent/upcoming projects including: Stockade, a thriller film directed by Eric McGinty, in which Sarah plays a Lebanese painter in NYC–amidst her artist visa application process–who takes on a job delivering a mysterious parcel. Diss Oriental, a play co-written with…
Elias Jahshan is a Palestinian/Lebanese-Australian journalist, writer and editor. He most recently edited the anthology This Arab Is Queer, which features eighteen queer Arab writers (including a good handful of former podcast guests) sharing stories across a variety of locations, experiences, and aesthetic styles. Elias joined us to talk about growing up in Western Sydney, breaking into the journalism field in Australia and England, and the assumptions he encountered while writing for both Arab and LGBTQ centered publications. He also discussed the process of putting this memoir together, the particular care involved in editing personal work, the quandaries involved in…
This week we were joined by Iranian-Canadian lawyer, researcher, and writer Aytak Dibavar for an episode focused on the recent uprisings in Iran following Jina (Mahsa) Amini’s murder by “morality” police. Aytak discussed aspects of the movement that have been neglected in mainstream media and discussion, including Jina’s Kurdish identity, its working class roots, and the inclusion of queer voices. We also discuss the historical context of American intervention in Iran and previous protest movements, often absent from Western coverage. We discuss the hesitancy of international leftists in speaking out–whether due to oversimplified ideas of anti-interventionism or concerns of promoting…
On August 30, 2021, we published a magical bicoastal, virtually-recorded episode with Amir Aram Ronaldo. We now have an in-person episode with them a little over a year later! On October 30, 2022, we (Alia, Nadia, and Aram) set out on an adventure in NYC on a Halloween bookstore crawl. Boba tea was had. Pickles were purchased at a bookstore that has books and pickles. Cats being walked in clear backpacks were discussed. We took a break, sat on a large rock in a park, and recorded this mini-episode! Hear all about Avocado Toast’s, Bella Hadid’s, and Cher from Clueless’…
We’ve got a personal episode this week with Ellie, Alia, and Nadia! A lot of the discussion focuses on one particularly eventful day for Alia and Nadia that included: Alia attending a protest in solidarity with Iranian women’s rights, along with some friends from Iran, who discussed how optimism and political energy varies across micro-generations. The puppet/public art project Walk With Amal, which was heartwarming, but also brought up complicated feelings about the need for art to create empathy towards refugees. The documentary Sirens about the Lebanese all women thrash metal band Slave to Sirens, which was both beautiful in…
Ahmed Sadkhan (The Healing Khan) is a queer activist and life coach specializing in inner alignment and inner child work. He is Lebanese-Iraqi and grew up in Berlin; during this episode, Ahmed discusses the work he has done internally and externally to examine the pieces of himself and his identities that have yet to receive needed care. Ahmed also talks about the work he has done with others to help them along their healing journeys, the ways he has contributed in the collective aim for queer liberation, and more. You can follow Ahmed on Instagram @TheHealingKhan, and check out his…
Barrak Alzaid is an award-winning writer of memoir, prose, poetry and art criticism, as well as an educator and organizer of artistic community spaces. His current projects include his memoir Fabulous, about queer coming of age in Kuwait, and a speculative fiction novel grappling with the racial, class, and environmental circumstances of near-future Kuwait City (based on his short story “The Runner”). Barrak discusses how he aims to move away from the Eurocentric “single author” model of creating art, including the GCC artist collective, which creates group work around the aesthetics of their upbringings in the gulf, and holding physically-based…
Hamzeh Daoud is a trans femme Palestinian researcher, organizer, and tech person originally from Amman, and currently based in Texas. She’s co-lead of the ongoing survey Presencing Ourselves: A Survey of LGBTQI+ Muslims in the U.S. (along with our recent guest Amara, and in partnership with Queer Crescent). **If this applies to you, you can take the survey here!!** This episode consists of complete emotional whiplash in which we alternate between serious conversations of queerphobia, family trauma, and settler colonialism, and utter ridiculousness. Hamzeh discusses the importance of the survey from their perspective, both identifying and critiquing the ways that…
You might remember Amara Ahmed from one of our very first guest episodes–and we were delighted to have her back! Amara is a researcher and PhD candidate based in the CA Bay Area. A trans Muslim of Mexican and Pakistani background, she is involved in queer Muslim community organizing in the area including the organization Queer Crescent. She joined us to talk about a research survey she’s co-conducting in partnership with Queer Crescent: Presencing Ourselves: A Survey of LGBTQI+ Muslims in the U.S. **If this applies to you, you can take the survey here!!** We discuss the confidentiality and security…
Photo attribution: Trekky0623, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons Just the hosts this week here with an unedited personal catch-up episode (Do y’all like these? Let us know!) Ellie talks about getting COVID (finally) and lots of things wrong with the world: from the overturning of Roe v. Wade to Mohammed Bin Salman’s continued financial takeover of the video game industry (this leads to a conversation about which countries are the best at glossing over shit, and we wonder if we’re all in a Dubai-based replica of our lives). Nadia talks about their time in Turkey and Lebanon, and…
It was such a joy to have Saudi-American podcaster, theater maker, and just overall awesome individual, Sid, as our guest for this episode! They had one of our co-hosts (Alia) on their podcast recently, so this was a really fun crossover. Sid hosts The Wayward World Podcast, which you all should subscribe to. On this episode, we discussed the creation of, and inspiration behind, Sid’s podcast, their experience growing up in Saudi Arabia and relocating back to the U.S., the journey we all have been on in connecting with other queer Arabs, and more. Enjoy! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-wayward-world-podcast/id1519818615
Bashar Murad is a Palestinian singer, lyricist, director and composer based in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem. Bashar uses pop music and art as a vehicle to challenge stereotypes, normativity and to highlight social issues facing young generations of urban Palestinians. We were so excited to have Bashar on the pod to discuss his recent work, including his latest EP Maskhara, a remix EP (coming soon), and covering Nina Simone’s I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free for the upcoming film A Gaza Weekend. Bashar explains the creation process for both his music and his visually striking music…
We were thrilled to have Alireza Shojaian back on the podcast after his last episode three years ago! Alireza is an artist from Iran, previously in Beirut, and currently based in Paris whose work pushes boundaries in representation of queer bodies and sexuality. He discusses his veggie drawing series, made during a period of identity questioning, and the line between gay and trans identities in the Iranian framework. He also explains the instances of censorship he’s still experienced presenting queer work in the US and France, due to Iranian authorities exerting “soft power” abroad and Western presenters neglecting to stand…
Layla EO is a Jordanian-American artist, self taught illustrator, and overall creative, raised in Texas, currently living in Chicago, offering a more vibrant take on the world. Layla talks about using her bold color palette as an alternative to the infamous yellow filter usually used to portray our home countries in Hollywood. Many of her illustrations feature queer, SWANA, and other POC subjects, allowing a wide range of people to imagine themselves through a lens of joy and beauty. As Layla discusses her love for drag, we all recount our own dabblings as drag kings and queens. We also talk…
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