Feminist International Radio Endeavor Interviews Astraea and Aswat-Palestinian Gay Women
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At the AWID forum in Cape Town, South Africa, FIRE (Feminist International Radio Endeavor) interviewed Astraea Executive Director Katherine Acey and Samira, of Aswat—Palestinian Gay Women, an Astraea grantee partner.
As one of the founders of Aswat, Samira spoke of the progress made in just five short years in Haifa, Israel. She recalled vividly the days of living without ever seeing the face of another lesbian in her community and how today college students actually know the word for LGBT in Arabic. Katherine spoke of Astraea’s commitment to building movements, and highlighted Aswat as a “role model of courage for the rest of the region and the rest of the world.” Both spoke to fundamentalisms, as enacted by groups such as the conservative Islamic Party in Israel or the Mormon Church in the U.S.—a major proponent of the Proposition 8 legislation to ban same-sex marriage in California. Samira ended the interview on a powerful note, declaring, “I’m a fundamentalist believer in change. And I am willing to do the journey. There are no achievements without the journey.”
