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Meet a Grantee

Aswat - Palestinian Gay Women, Haifa, Israel

Aswat - Palestinian Gay Women (Haifa, Israel) provides a safe space and serves as a critical resource for Palestinian women who self-identify as lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, transgender or intersex. They raise the profile of Palestinian gay women's issues and address the intersections of gender, sexuality and nationality through education, media and advocacy. Aswat was honored with the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission's 2006 Felipa de Souza Award.

In 2002, a group of women logged on and joined an Internet forum for Palestinian lesbians. It was an important moment, which led to the formation of the very first organization for gay Palestinian women in the Middle East.

The women of Aswat met in person for the very first time in the apartment of Rauda Morcos, the group's founder. Many women dispensed with screen names and used real ones. And instead of looking at a cold computer screen, they relished being able to look directly into the eyes of other women who had also felt isolated from friends or family because of her sexual identity or expression. Without the looming fear of physical reprisals or harassment these women formed deep connections. They also began to organize around providing personal support to one another, and promoting the issue of sexual expression within Palestinian society. On both counts, they have made incredible strides.

Today Aswat is legitimizing the expression of women's sexuality and articulating a Palestinian feminism that encompasses gendered and national struggles against oppression. This past year alone, the group hosted over 80 regular support group meetings rotating between Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. According to Aswat, most of their members—enveloped by occupation, homophobia and misogyny—are closeted, and the very existence of these meetings is groundbreaking. Women travel from near and far, while enduring Israeli checkpoints or the loss of critical income from work. For many, it is the only time they can freely discuss their true selves in Arabic.

Speaking words like lesbianism, queer, bi-sexuality, sexual abuse and incest has proved to be an empowering and liberating force, spurring Aswat's work even further. Aswat has expanded their online community, which now has over 70 participants, most of whom use the forum on a daily basis. Additionally, they have introduced an educational project geared toward sensitizing youth service providers about the needs of queer young people.

This past May, Aswat became the first Palestinian organization to receive the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission's Felipa de Souza Award. Upon accepting the award she said, "Just think how this will sound to women or men in our communities—that a person gets awarded for who they are as a lesbian and that being a lesbian is something to be celebrated."

Aswat recently launched a state of the art website filled with quotes from women including Virginia Woolf and Mahatma Ghandi at the top of each page. Aswat's name in Arabic mean's "voices," and the words of Audre Lorde speak volumes: "I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood."

www.aswatgroup.org/english

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