APEX Express – 11.23.23 Queers for a FREE PALESTINE

KPFA - APEX Express

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

DESCRIPTION:

Shenaaz and Saba of Queer Crescent and Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A of Lavender Phoenix join Cheryl for this week’s episode of APEX Express!

This first half of the episode dives into the insincerity of pinkwashing and the ways it has been utilized by the Israeli government to exploit LGBTQIA+ rights to distract from their oppressive policies towards Palestinians, both queer and non-queer. Shenaaz and Saba brilliantly expose the ways pinkwashing perpetuates Islamophobia and racist tropes about Palestinians, along with Arab, Muslim, and SWANA communities and shed light on the long history of trans and queer organizing within Palestine, uplifting work of Al Qaws, an organization at the forefront of Palestinian cultural and social change that builds LGBTQ communities and promotes new ideas about the role of gender and sexual diversity in political activism, civil society institutions, media, and everyday life. Queer Crescent urges queer organizations and leaders to speak up, take action, and demand a ceasefire, writing that “As trans, queer and non-binary people we understand too well what is at stake when our self-determination and sovereignty are removed. Palestine is a queer issue, and it is our duty to listen and learn from queer Palestinians who are living under Israeli occupation, and in the imposed Diaspora”. You can sign on to Queer Crescent’s ceasefire campaign at bit.ly/PalestineisaQueerIssue.

In the second half of the show we are joined by Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A of Lavender Phoenix who emphasize the importance of care within the Palestine Liberation movement, urging our listeners to not fall into feelings of inaction. They highlight the importance of grief routines and using grief and rage as tools for momentum, and ask the provoking difficult question: What could it look like for people to feel as safe at a protest as they feel at home? We also gain intimate insight into the ways Lavender Phoenix has been organizing, as Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A emphasize the interconnectedness of all of our struggles and the interconnectedness of all of our freedoms.

IMPORTANT LINKS + RESOURCES:

1. Queer Crescent’s website
2. Queer Crescent’s Call for Ceasefire Sign-On
3. Queer Crescent’s Pinkwashing Resources
4. Al Qaws’s website
5. Lavender Phoenix’s website

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Cheryl: Good evening. You are tuned into apex express. We are bringing you an Asian American and Pacific Islander point of view from the bay and around the world. I’m your host, Cheryl and tonight is an acre night, which is short for Asian Americans for civil rights and equality. Apex express is proud to be one of the 11 API social justice groups within the acre network, working to advance positive social change. Tonight, we have two very spectacular guests here with us, Shenaaz and Saba from Queer Crescent. It is such an honor to have you both here with us today. Do you mind introducing yourselves? Who are you and who are your people?

Saba: Hi, I’m Saba Taj. I am the communications coordinator for Queer Crescent. And, who are my people? Oh gosh, this is a beautiful question, and I think one that, changes at different moments. In large part, I really feel like I am on the side of humanity and Global dignity. As a queer Muslim from the South that struggle for our collective dignity often centers folks whom I share identities with and just more broadly, really thinking about individuals who are marginalized on multiple fronts. And so, yeah, that’s a really kind of vague answer. There’s a lot of different folks that are included, but, I hope that answers it for you.

Shenaaz: Yeah, thanks Cheryl for inviting Saba and I on the show. Hi folks, I’m Shenaaz Janmohamed. I’m the founder and executive director of Queer Crescent. I’ve been asked this question ” who are my people” at different times and in the past would have this litany of folks that come to mind: parents, queers, misfits, etc.

And I think what I’m feeling now and what I’ve noticed is that litany of folks can sometimes make the world feel smaller. What I’m pushing and striving towards is feeling a sense of home with more and more folks where there’s political alignment. There’s values alignment. We’re struggling together. So this notion of who are my people feels like it’s more of a question than it’s an answer. And it keeps me hungry for finding more and more.

Cheryl: Wow. Thank you both so much for your thoughtful answers and for setting the tone of our conversation in such a provocative and intentional way.. Do you mind telling us about Queer Crescent, the work that you do, and also about your current cease fire campaign?

Shenaaz: Sure, yeah, I can kick us off and then Saba feel free to weigh in. So Queer Crescent, started really as a response to the ways in which many of us, I say queer Muslim and I really mean the range of LGBTQIA plus experiences, trans folks, non binary folks, intersex folks, et cetera. So Queer Crescent really started as a drop-in support group when the Muslim and African travel ban was imposed in 2017. At the time I was working as a mental health worker largely with high schoolers and I also had a private practice. As a queer Muslim recent parent at the time was really feeling like a sense of placelessness and lack of political home where all parts of me would be held whole. And so I put together a support group and it was an overwhelming response in the community. Over 30 people would show up every two weeks. I’ve lived in the bay for about eight nine years at the time and I was meeting so many different people. Really the seedling of that support group led to this more national organization stretching towards base building and power building with marginal Muslims, queer Muslims. It really was like trying to create a space where we could be held and seen and move from that place of the complexity and the entireties of our identities.

In terms of the ceasefire campaign, I’ll kind of foreground it and then kick it to Saba, over the last several years that Queer Crescent has grown we’ve been able to build really solid relationships with other movement partners and other queer organizations.

And linking to Palestine solidarity around bodily autonomy has always been something that has been top of mind. The assaults on Gaza are consistent and they have been for many years so when October 7th happened and the assault on Gaza and this genocide has been so intense, it required all hands on deck. Many folks who are committed to the liberation of Palestine have been calling for ceasefire. And so I asked myself, what can Queer Crescent do to play a role in calling for ceasefire and what are the links that are possible to make.

Pinkwashing was a natural connect because it is very much a queer issue. Queer organizations like Al Qaws in Palestine and so many others have been talking to us about pinkwashing and making those links. It felt like a good opportunity to call for ceasefire while also doing some political education around the importance of queer people understanding and interrupting and taking on pinkwashing as part of queer liberation.

Saba: Shenaaz, I feel like you covered the grounding. That was, I think, perfect. But Cheryl, there’s additional questions about the campaign.

Cheryl: Yes! I have many questions. For starters, what is pink washing and Saba I’m taking this line directly from Queer Crescent’s ceasefire campaign description, which you wrote. How is pinkwashing used as a strategy to advance Zionist colonial violence?

Saba: Yeah. So pinkwashing is a form of propaganda that’s used by Israel. The aim of it is ultimately to dehumanize the Palestinian people and use this racist trope that Arabs and Muslims and Middle Eastern SWANA people are anti queer and trans and are ultimately homophobic and backwards.

It’s part of a larger narrative of these groups of people not being with the times and trying to create some sort of image. Not trying to, but very actively pushing a story that Israel is the place of progress, of freedom, when in fact they are using these stories of Palestinians, Muslims, et cetera, being homophobic as an excuse to dehumanize them as cover for their own violent actions. So it’s a distraction from their racist and violent policies, projecting an image of freedom and safety for queer people in Israel that is not in fact true. You can’t be for queer liberation while also bombing these people and oppressing this entire group.

There’s no way for those things to happen at the same time, and I think it’s part of a larger strategy that we see also play out in terms of feminism. That story is very familiar, where after 9 11, we have to go save Muslim women from these evil, savage Muslim men, and to do so, we’re going to bomb all of these communities.

It’s a strategy you utilize to justify violence. It splits our communities in ways like a divide and conquer sort of tactic; this larger story of you can’t be queer and Muslim at the same time, or you can’t be a feminist and be Muslim at the same time. And that ultimately serves to split our movements and reinforce a racist stereotype that makes the larger public feel that it is justified to behave in violent and oppressive ways towards an entire people through some excuse that they actually don’t care about one another. Shenaaz, if you want to jump in.

Shenaaz: I appreciate the links you’re making and ultimately I think pinkwashing strategies or the splitting that you’re talking about requires a betrayal of the self. Only if you betray some part of yourself can you feel a sense of belonging. And as queer people in our queer bodies, we know that is just not the case.

When your experience is being exploited, it’s very evident. The work ahead is both combating the colonial violence, making the violence stop, demanding ceasefire now, and the continuous work of continuing to show up in our full selves as queer people, and affirm our sense of belonging within our communities despite both the state violence and the ways in which our belonging is interrupted, both from external forces and internal.

Cheryl: Thank you both so much. I think that imagery of splitting. And the ways pink washing shows up, especially for queer Muslim people is really powerful, especially that line Shenaaz, pink washing requires a betrayal of the self. Could either of you talk a little bit more on the impact of this splitting internally within SWANA communities.

Shenaaz: Well, I don’t think that Saba and I could speak to experiences of SWANA folk because neither Saba and I are SWANA, we’re both South Asian. I think the ways in which we come into this conversation, as folks who are Muslim who grew up in Muslim community and that adjacent experience, where Queer Crescent’s central project is to blow breath into what it means to be a Muslim.

And so Muslim multiplicity, nuance, contradictions, self determination around what your relationship to Muslim is, and a self determined Muslim identity. One of the many functions of Islamophobia and anti Muslim racism as an outgrowth of white supremacy is to dehumanize people.

In the case of what Saba was saying earlier, it limits what can be possible of a people. There’s this assertion that Muslim communities are inherently homophobic, inherently patriarchal. There were queer Muslim folks prior to colonization. It was the advent of colonization with it’s imposed Christian, dogmatic, very strict notions of gender that actually interrupted what was otherwise a much more fluid sense of gender. So part of it is understanding those lineages and that history. And then it’s also confronting the realities that are present today.

Saba: Yeah. I think it also really obscures a lot of reality as well.

One that there are queer Palestinians who are organizing and doing this work within their own communities, Al Qaws being folks that we really look to and want to amplify and follow their leadership. But even in the U. S., you can really see clearly this story of we are in the United States, the harbingers of progress, and yet anti trans laws and the oppression, the silencing of queer people and trans people in this country– we haven’t solved these things. . It’s a story that is used for a particular purpose and that purpose is just to justify war. That is the actual priority. It’s not about queer liberation. It feels incredibly obvious that is not actually the priority of the United States or of Israel, especially when if they were actually to be for progress, for queer and trans liberation, by design, that means you would not be moving in these ways.

Cheryl: That was perfectly said.

There is the strange dissonance going on with pink washing that, just as you said Saba, has nothing to do with trans and queer liberation at all. I know queer Crescent has compiled a thorough pink washing resource list. How can our listeners access that?

Saba: We put out a call to queer orgs to sign on to a letter that outlines that Palestine is a queer issue and is naming pinkwashing in particular as a framework that we need to be very familiar with because it’s a copy paste situation. This pinkwashing strategy is used really clearly and blatantly by Israel but also more broadly applied in other circumstances as well. So really calling on queer folks to understand that we have stakes in this and as Organizations as individuals who are committed to that liberation. We must recognize and move in a way that centers Palestine also as a queer issue, connect to it in that way.

It is our responsibility. So the letter is online. It’s bit.ly/PalestineisaQueerIssue. It can also be found via our Instagram. It’s one of the links in our bio as well as the pinkwashing resources, which can be further accessed via that letter. That’s a great way to get connected with us.

We are also planning some pinkwashing teach ins, so that we can help further this political education and make those connections so folks feel empowered to speak on this issue and bring more folks into calling for a ceasefire, understanding that this is in our broad interest as a community of LGBTQI plus organizations and individuals.

Shenaaz: Yeah. The only piece that I would add is this is a really horrific. moment of witnessing genocide and the fight for a free Palestine is a long fight. And so this is also a moment to shore up deeper solidarity. And part of solidarity is supporting people with learning the ways in which they, our struggles are connected.

And again really helping queer people understand pink washing, both as such a well oiled used tool of Israel and its settler colonial project and occupation of Palestine, but also the ways in which Israel is this. Model for other colonial powers to learn from through military, through cops and also pinkwashing.

We see, for example, India adopting pinkwashing strategies as well to again blur its power and its own project of ethnic cleansing of Muslims, Dalits, Christians, and anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the Hindu fascist notion Modi and his government is trying to push. And so it’s also really important for queer people to understand this strategy of pinkwashing, to interrupt the Israeli propaganda, but also to notice and be on alert for other colonial and state forces that also use pinkwashing to further other political gains that are in direct opposition to us having safety and bodily autonomy and freedoms.

Cheryl: All of these amazing resources will also be linked within our show notes. For maybe one of the final questions do you mind expanding more about this interconnectedness between all of our movements, how to quote from the ceasefire campaign “as a queer Muslim org we recognize that there is no queer trans non binary and femme Muslim liberation without Palestine. Could you expand on this a little bit more?

Saba: Yeah. the interconnectedness of our struggles is just such a critical piece, that shows up in this moment and so many others. And I can track that and name as a queer Muslim person, the Black Lives Matter movement was also integral. When we think about our freedom, we must always be looking towards how we can disrupt, dismantle systems of oppression, of policing, of dehumanization that are perpetuated across so many different lines. And that connection I think is really critical because it becomes so easy to think about safety on an individual level. How can I personally be comfortable? How can I personally be safe? But oftentimes what that requires within a capitalist framework is somebody else not being safe.

As long as our systems of safety are contingent on the oppression of one or many groups, none of us are actually safe. If you look deep into policy, just to further articulate this, the Patriot Act not only impacted Muslims in the U. S. and more broadly, but immigrants. We’re not only Muslim, you see that police violence in the U. S. is not disconnected. Anti blackness that is so obvious and rife in our policing in the United States is also in relationship with Israel. Much of the police across the nation is trained by Israeli IDF. And if we’re not actually seeing those connections, then ultimately we are not dismantling those larger systems that serve to direct their violence, their silencing towards different groups at different times, but ultimately all serve to uphold white supremacy.

I think it can be very tempting when it feels like the target is not specifically on our own back to feel like maybe we can find some safety by being close have some proximity to whiteness in different moments. And we really need to resist that urge. Even when they’re not looking directly at us, if there is a group of people who are being named as enemy, who are being actively dehumanized whether that is subtle or blatant, that is all of our business, and those are strategies that will be certainly used against us at a different time when it’s in the interest of consolidating white supremacy.

These strategies can be used to target so many of us. Also this notion that we are separate groups is also often not the case. There is overlap so we must, at all turns, be on the side of liberation, on the side of pushing for community care, as opposed to our money going towards violence, which is the root of so much of this. The interests of the

1. S. and Israel is power at the expense of people, not actually about how to care for their own people.

Shenaaz: Yeah, if I could just build on that as well. I think that’s such an important point that you’re making when there is one community that is facing assault in this case, Palestine and Palestinian liberation movement organizers.

It also becomes a moment where harmful policies and decisions are made in rapid fire to your point around the Patriot Act. For example, right now there is the potential of a reauthorization of section 702, which is a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and Queer Crescent is a part of many other Muslim progressive organizations that are trying to resist this.

But this moment of increased violence against Palestinians that is being met by mass mobilization in the form of protest, of shutting things down, deep solidarity is being met from the elected official side and the state side with more more strategies for repression. We’re seeing much more police force at protest. And then we’re seeing things like the reauthorization and the expansion of the surveillance apparatus and the surveillance state. And so while that is Popping up in response to the swell of solidarity with Palestine, everyone will suffer under more expansion of surveillance, not just Palestinians, not just Muslims, right. So it is then both our responsibility to be in solidarity as people who are committed to liberation for a free Palestine, but is also tactically and strategic for us to be stronger together. And those that are the most vulnerable under increased suppression and surveillance are those that the most on the margins, be it poor working class, disabled, queer, trans, sex workers, incarcerated, et cetera. There’s always so many things happening simultaneously and we need each other, you know, in short.

Cheryl: We do need each other. Well, Shenaaz, Saba, thank you both so, so much for being on tonight’s show. For all of our listeners out there, to stay in contact and to keep up with Queer Crescent’s work, Shenaaz, do you mind reminding us one last time how our listeners can keep up with Queer Crescent?

Shenaaz: Yeah you can follow us, our website is queercrescent.org. Thanks to Saba, we have a pretty active social media presence through Instagram, so it’s @queercrescent. And then the amazing, resources and call for ceasefire, is at bit.ly/PalestineisaQueerIssue

Thank you so much for having us on, Cheryl, and I think it’s really important before we end to give a strong solidarity and love to Al Qaws, the Palestinian queer organization in Palestine, who have been talking to many of us about pinkwashing, about resisting colonialism, and about really centering liberation and queerness as two things that are not mutually exclusive, but part of the same liberation project. They’ve got great resources, really encourage folks to support them, learn from them and follow their lead in the ways that we are trying to do with this campaign.

Cheryl: Thank you so much Shenaaz for ending us on such a great note, the link to Al Qaws’ website and socials will be also linked in our show notes. Now before I introduced our next guests, we’re going to do a quick music break. This song is “Anger (DPT)” by the Khamsa Music Project. Hope you enjoy.

PT2: LAVENDER PHOENIX

Welcome back to the show, everyone. You are tuned in to APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley and online at kpfa.org.. You were just listening to “Anger (H.T.P.)” by the Khamsa Music Project. We’ve reached the final half of our show where we’re joined by Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A– three incredible organizers and members of Lavender Phoenix. Lavender Phoenix along with APEX Express are two of the eleven AAPI social justice groups within the AACRE network working to advance social change. It is such a great pleasure and honor to have the three of you here with us on the show. Do you mind introducing yourself for our listeners here tonight? Who are you and who are your people?

Cynthia: Of course, thanks Cheryl for having us. I’ll get us started. My name is Cynthia. I use they/them pronouns. I am the lead organizer at Lavender Phoenix. I’ll pass it to Kaiyah.

Kaiyah: Hello. Hello. I’m Kaiyah.

I use they and he pronouns. I’ve been a Community Safety Committee member for a couple years and a volunteer for much longer. I’ll pass it to A.

A: Hi hi, my name is A. I use she/her pronouns, and I’ve been a Community Safety Committee member since 2021 and also a volunteer slash person who hung around before then.

Cheryl: Thanks for indulging me in that quick Round Robin. Can you tell our listeners who is Lavender Phoenix, and what is the role that LavNix plays within the movement for Palestinian liberation?

Cynthia: Yeah, of course. Here at Lavender Phoenix, we organize with trans and queer Asians and Pacific Islanders here in the Bay Area. We build power through our organizing, inspire and train grassroots leaders, transform our values from scarcity to abundance, and we also build vibrant intersectional movements. We work with our youth, but we also have a community of elders and our history has been a lot of intergenerational work and oral histories. And as trans and queer Asians and Pacific Islanders, I think it’s important for us to know how deep in our legacy our relationship with state violence is. We have lessons from the AIDS epidemic, and we also need to stand on the lessons that we experience from our homelands.

From all of this, we know that organizing in solidarity right now with Palestinians is actually the best way to make that argument for true healing and safety. All the money that’s going into this war, violence, and the prison industrial complex, those are resources that could actually go towards healing our earth, feeding our people, housing people.

They actually call Palestine an open air prison, and we know that we have better ways to spend our money, better things to do with our time, than to incarcerate and murder people. We want to mourn for our dead, and we fight like hell for the living. And we know that right now, it is not just an actual war, but there’s a war in ideology.

Are we going to go for weapons and corporate greed, or are we going to fight for a new world?

Kaiyah: Yeah, I was gonna kind of go off what Cynthia said about how our struggles are connected. The money that is going to weapons, going to fuel the military, to take people’s lives in Palestine. That money could be used instead to uplift life all around the world and also here in the US where people are houseless. People don’t have enough food. People don’t have their basic needs met. Safety could be realized in a very practical way instead of using it to take people’s lives. And for me, I was thinking about how to become more human is to be aware that we’re all connected.

And this isn’t just like a pretty thing to say, cause literally we’re seeing money being sent over there could be used differently. A lot of different cultures and different organizations I’ve been a part of really hold this value that we’re all connected. You hear people say things about Ubuntu and Kapwa– that I am because of who we are and I guess I’ve developed this sense of connectedness to other people across the world and people in Palestine– many of whom I’ve never met. I was thinking about why I felt so connected to it. I definitely had this sense that like. I’m seeing my siblings across the world suffering and in pain. What else can I do but try to stop that pain? I see my siblings across the world in Israel are harming others and causing pain. What can I do except to ask them and demand of them to do differently to stop hurting others. We wrote in our organization’s plan that to support Palestine is to support our own liberation as well.

Palestinian struggle is our struggle and Palestinian futures are our futures. So that’s kind of how I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t know if you want to add anything, A?

A: That’s so beautiful Kaiyah.

Yeah, and absolutely resonate with all of that. I guess the last thing I’ll add is that I think we also have a really unique opportunity as Asian Americans, as people living in the heart of empire. This is happening overseas, but it’s very much a result of our government.

The United States is ultimately the most culpable here. So I think as people living here, as people who are voting our representatives into office, who give that legitimacy to our government, I think we both have a responsibility, but also a unique power that most people in the world don’t have.

That is such a unique opportunity that we have as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Yeah, we’re a marginalized group here, but we’re still, relatively speaking, have so much strength in both our position and privilege and also in the ways that we connect to each other.

Cheryl: Thank you all so much for speaking to that. From Cynthia and Kaiyah, we’re hearing the interconnectedness of all of our struggles to Palestine, and also from A, the positionality and as a result responsibility we have as people within the global north who are complicit within this genocide.

Before we continue this incredible conversation. We’re going to take a short music break. Go ahead, grab some water and maybe a snack. And we’ll be right back after we listened to “Power Struggle” by Kultural Worker

And we’re back. You were tuned into apex express on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley and online at kpfa.org.. I’m here in conversation with Cynthia, Kaiyah, and A from Lavender Phoenix, a grassroots organization, building trans and queer API power in the bay area. You were just listening to “Power Struggle” by Kultural Worker. Now let’s get back to the show.

The next question I have for you all revolves around how a lot of Asian Americans, by way of class privilege or otherwise, are decidedly apolitical even though our existences themselves, as you all have been saying, are extremely political and are extremely interconnected within the Palestinian struggle for liberation. How do we get our communities thinking and taking action on this?

A: I can take a first pass, because this is something I truly think about all the time, you know, how do we collect our people? I feel like it really goes back to what Kaiyah was just saying about our humanity is all connected, and to care about other people is to also care about ourselves. It’s really hard to do, but this key piece of how do you get people to see that systems of oppression, even if they ostensibly benefit you and guarantee you real material privilege, they also detract from your humanity, and they also make your lives actively materially worse in a lot of ways, or spiritually worse in a lot of ways.

I really struggle with how to implement that. It’s a hard thing to convey. In movement spaces, over time I, finally, like, you know, got it. But I think that is really what the work is, right? Even if you are not at the bottom of a hierarchy, even if you’re at the top of a hierarchy, a system of oppression dehumanizes the oppressor too.

Kaiyah: I really feel that. I, I really feel like in this time, there’s been a lot of spiritual growth as people are seeing just what is truly important in life. I’ve been hearing so many people talk about how what’s important has become crystal clear as they see people across the world having their lives taken and being like, wow, we really have to do something about this.

I’m going to kind of take it a different direction. In general, I think something I often see is that people who care about what’s happening to other people who are being oppressed become really overwhelmed with grief and the feelings that come with witnessing something terrible and either become stuck in that and become stuck in inaction because they’re overwhelmed, or detach from it because they’re not sure what else they can do. Maybe they attempt to take some action, but then it feels futile.

Is this actually making an impact? I guess what I’m trying to talk about right now is what can give people hope so that they feel like mobilizing is worth it and mobilizing can be effective. How do we get to that and that? Those things I named around inaction definitely apply to me. In the past I would attempt to organize. I would be like, is this really working? How do I even know it’s working? God. Or just feeling like I can’t engage with this. I’m I’m going to cry my eyeballs out if I think about this for more than five seconds.

So I want to share about two main things that have helped move me from hopelessness and overwhelm into action and to stay there. So the first one is a practice of welcoming and making space for grief in my life, grief and rage. Grief and rage is often trying to remind me of what I yearn for, what I’m missing, what I care for, and what I deeply love.

People say grief is love with no place to go, right? So I try to spend time with this grief to give it a place to go and do things to help it flow through me. Not to distract from it, not to get rid of it, but to let it move; to let it be. So I might like scream in my car. I might say to myself okay I’m really feeling this grief and rage today, what do I want to do? Okay, maybe i’m gonna scream my car. I’m going to listen to loud music. I’m going to go by a walk by the water. I’ve also been making a lot of altars and just giving thanks in nature to feel connected to what’s in the world and feel like nature’s helping me hold all these feelings. I might go to the gym to run out my feelings or talk to a friend.

And all these things help me feel the grief and rage and let it move through me instead of sitting there and overwhelming me and demobilizing me. So instead that grief and rage can take the form of love and the care that it’s trying to express. It’s like I’m able to take all this pain I feel for my siblings in Gaza so that it fuels me to act instead of preventing me from acting through that overwhelm. The second thing I want to share that kind of moves me from hopelessness into action is to hone my understanding of strategy. I feel like nothing feeds hopelessness for me like pointless action, or action where the outcome and purpose is so unclear or if I’m not sure how its impact is going to play out.

So for my actions to feel purposeful, I need to know, one, what is the outcome of my action? And two, how does that outcome fit into a larger plan or strategy? How does it feed into an overall goal of Palestinian liberation, per se? For example, I might tell myself, okay, I know that some protests are meant to be a part of many protests internationally that together are meant to draw more media attention or put more pressure on representatives.

Other protests might happen even when the goal seems futile because to stay silent and let it happen without a fight would be even more damaging to our spirits. Maybe it serves some other purposes. Some other protests might be to directly intervene on organizations that are sending weapons and supplies and resourcing oppressive systems across the globe.

Some protests are meant to directly slow that down or grind that industry to a halt. There’s much more, but those are just some examples of things I think about when I go to a protest to make it really clear to myself what the function is of each action I’m a part of so I’m clear about how my little bit adds to a much larger goal, and it doesn’t feel futile. And I know what the risks are, what the outcomes could be and what I’m fighting for in really certain terms, so I can have faith in my own impact. So I just want to share that long chunk as a hope that it might give other people some insight of how they might want to move out of hopelessness and let that grief and rage take another form.

Cheryl: Thank you so much, Kaiyah. I was giving myself a hug just listening to you speak. It’s important that we feel more rather than just feel better. We can hold all of these nuances without looking away. Cynthia, is there anything you wanted to add to that?

Cynthia: I think today we’re recording the Trans Day of Remembrance, and I know that this week, there is a holiday. I would encourage us to actually be celebrating the Indigenous Peoples Day. This theme of grief, rage, what we do with it, how we not let it immobilize us. I think is so sharp. This question about strategy too, because it has been 75 years of occupation, I’m actually really grateful for the leadership of Palestinians in this moment. This question of what do we do with this energy and how I’ve seen them move hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people all across this world to stand in solidarity. That is because of that strategy. And really, let’s just get sharp. It’s not just the politicians, but the weapons; manufacturing; the tech. It’s all connected. How do we put our pressure where power is and contest for that? .

Cheryl: As I’m listening to all of you speak, I’m hearing so much about the importance of taking care of our spirits as important and integral part of our strategy. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the importance of care and collectiveness within the Lavender Phoenix’s organization and structure, and how it aligns itself with Palestinian liberation?

A: I think something that I noticed that was really interesting when this latest slate of intensified violence started is people in LavNix started with, I’m going to this protest, who’s coming? Then, people were pulling together Signal chats, and we were all coming together, but it was, like everyone had this urge to do something, and LavNix provided that home to do that and resources to do that. I know if I go to a protest I will have a group of people to meet up with there, and be safe with there. LavNix provides this base that allows us to take strategic, powerful action, and that’s only possible because of all of the building that we have been doing before this point, like the work of our Community Safety Committee training folks on de-escalation practice, and now that folks are trained, they can go volunteer as protest marshals and do community safety work in that way. Or our healing justice committee providing peer counseling support for folks and helping folks be emotionally grounded so then in a moment of really intense violence, there’s like a higher baseline of stability that allows us to do more.

I think it’s especially helpful in this moment. because it creates an organized resource group of people that can then go take action that is risky and difficult sometimes.

Kaiyah: Yeah, I have been really appreciating how I have an organization to organize with. I have a group of people to organize with in this moment that is Lavender Phoenix, because I see so many people asking right now, Oh, I want to do something. How do I help? And while I believe that everyone can get involved and everyone can mobilize themselves if they would like to, it also is really helpful that we’ve already had that sense of trust built. We know each other so we can ask each other to join up on higher risk actions because we know how to work together already , whereas we wouldn’t be able to ask that to a completely new stranger. Something else I was thinking about in terms of caring for each other at protests was actually a conversation I was having with another Lavender Phoenix member the other day, so I’m stealing this from them.

They were asking, “What could it look like for people to feel as safe as a protest as they feel at home?” Not that we were thinking that we’re ever going to get there per se, but it was just something we want to think about because I want people who join protests and actions to take really informed risks and be trained in what to expect and how they can maybe react in those situations, especially in escalated situations if that happens.

On a personal level, the way I feel healing and care is showing up is again, it’s similar to those grief routines. I’ll often set aside time to just be really silent after a protest and be by myself, make sure I have a meal prepped at home. Maybe take some time to listen to sad music, really do my thing to move through those feelings because I can often feel really disoriented and kind of discombobulated from all the adrenaline after a protest, or maybe even more sad because it’s got me thinking about everything happening to my Palestinian siblings, so that’s how healing and care is showing up. Did you want to add anything, Cynthia?

Cynthia: I would say it has been special to see how our membership has kind of snowballed into this collective action Started with a few of us. And then there were maybe 10 of us, 20 of us, and then at one point there were 50 of us, and it was I think a testament to trans and queer APIs just feeling that connection, feeling that love, wanting to put that love into action and do that with our community, because we know we keep us safe and we have something to contribute to the broader movement around us. Like we know we can bring that and where we organize, we contribute a lot. And so it’s something to be really grateful for.

Kaiyah: Yes, I feel so grateful as well.

Cheryl: I’m feeling so grateful for this conversation and I’m so grateful that organizations like Lavender Phoenix exist and can cultivate these strong senses of communities. And really y’all do such a great job. Cynthia, do you mind letting us know what are ways that people can follow and stay in touch with Lavender Phoenix and what y’all are up to?

Cynthia: Yeah, of course. We are celebrating a new graduating class of Rise Up members. Our organization, we’re doing things externally, but also building internally.

You can find us on Instagram @lavphoenix. You Google us, you’ll find our website as well. Keep in touch. We’d love to see you around.

Kaiyah: Trans and queer Asian and Pacific Islander people, come find us. .

Cheryl: And that’s the end of our show. Please check out our website, kpfa.org to learn more about Queer Crescent and Lavender Phoenix.

We’d We’d like to thank all of our listeners out there. Keep dreaming folks. A better world is possible.

Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong

Tonight’s show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!

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