The Queer Arabs

This week, we decided kind of last minute to do a fun, light-hearted episode instead of the episode we’d been planning to do (probably going to table that one for next Friday).  This week, since this episode drops on June 1, we talk about Pride!  We tell our fun stories from Pride festivals, and to end the episode, we each give our accounts about the first day we met each other.  It was a fu...

We spoke to Mekhi Adams (he invites you to email him at mekmekhil@gmail.com if you have questions/feedback).  Mekhi is one of the many individuals who has seen the impact and manipulation caused to many by Rabi’a. Some points from this episode: -Rab’ia is a supposed “ally leader” but abuses her position. -She consistently misrepresents herself, her position and the position...

On this episode, we speak to Aditi, whose parents traded India for Indiana.  Aditi talks about growing up in the Midwest & her experience growing up American while being consistently exposed to Indian culture.  We covered many topics during this conversation, such as cultural appropriation (please make sure to listen to the intro of the episode!), gradual growth in diversity in makeup, communa...

Our guest on this episode is the fabulous Naushaba Patel, a Pakistani American who embraces themself in a beautiful, genuine way.  We spoke about their navigation toward accepting every part of themself and living an honest life (as we can all relate to in various ways).  It was an absolutely lovely time with Naushaba.  Listen to this episode to hear about all of the important work Naushaba has be...

This week, we spoke with Cherine!  Cherine talked with us about her experience growing up as a child of Egyptian immigrants in the United States.  Cherine also shared her experience being bisexual, and that got us talking about bisexual visibility and how the “B” in “LGBT” often gets overlooked.  We also spoke about mental health and the stigmas against the topic within man...

Photo credit: Trish Badger Join us for this very fun & meaningful conversation with Miriam Hakim, lead singer of the punk band Giant Kitty.  We talk to Miriam about many things: music, her Syrian-American identity, forming our own communities, and so much more.  We had such a blast during this episode and we hope our listeners will enjoy listening to this great discussion. As mentioned at the...

This week, we had an amazing guest on the show: Shiyam Galyon, a Syrian American activist.  We both learned a lot from this episode, and we hope you all do too!  Shiyam gave some important information about the Syrian conflict, how the UN has been responding, and more.  Further, Shiyam touched on the parallels between queer activism and conflict resolution activism and how the two need to merge mo...

Content warning: This episode includes a brief reference to abuse/assault; it also includes slightly graphic details re: the effects of mental issues.  If these topics will be emotionally difficult or harmful for you, we suggest you refrain from playing this episode. On this episode, we discuss our dealings with mental imbalances, how those things have affected us, and the measures we’ve tak...

On this episode, we talk about listener feedback we’ve gotten and how we intend to implement the suggestions we’ve received! Then, Ellie starts explaining the complexity that is Lebanon, and Alia explores the factors that have led Saudi Arabia to be such a closed society.  Both of us are reminded just how daunting these topics are, which makes it clear how important it is to keep learn...

Woo!  Episode 2 is here and we talk about a variety of topics.  Saudi Arabia, an upcoming Arab Netflix show, and cat baths are just a few of them.  Enjoy! Like with episode 1, we apologize for the annoying sound quality.  This is something we’re working to improve (better equipment is coming)!

On this episode, we introduce ourselves, explain what inspired us to finally start this podcast, and we have some fun beginners' level echoing issues (sorry about that - we're taking measures to improve the sound quality).