 Welcome to No Summary, Golden Thread's livestream series of conversations with artists that don't fit in a box. For those who may not know, Golden Thread is the first American theater company devoted to plays from or about the Middle East. We are based in San Francisco and will be celebrating 25th anniversary this year. My name is Sara Rezavi or Sara Rezavi, depending on who I'm speaking with and as we have talked about with many Golden Thread conversations, we as Middle Eastern artists often have to navigate just how we even pronounce our names and to whom. But for the purposes of this conversation, Sara Rezavi, I'm an artist at Golden Thread. I'm a resident artist, specifically as an actor and a director, but I also and primarily now work as an executive in community-based lending in what's called the Community Development Financial Institution Industry. I'm the CEO of a company called Working Solutions CDFI. We do small business microlending serving the nine Bay Area counties. I brought all of that, my theater and sociology major and background, as well as the MBA graduate to my connection with Golden Thread. And part of today's conversation is about bringing that whole self to the fore in how we talk about our art and the work that we do, the multitudes, the multiplicities of our of ourselves and our artistic selves. I met Toran Yegazarian, the founding artistic director of Golden Thread back in 2002 when I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and when she had recently launched Golden Thread. We met then to discuss how I could help with a children's education program. I had done some similar work back at as an undergraduate student at UC Davis. So we connected. She found out I also acted and as she's known to do, she encouraged me to audition. From there, she also encouraged me to join the board. And I did both those things and have been in some service and support to Golden Thread since. In the midst of all that, while I was very much delineating my queer identity from my Middle Eastern identity, it was at Golden Thread and the community of artists that I met through it that I realized those two worlds don't need to live separately. And that was a really novel idea. In fact, I remember going to a Golden Thread cast party before I knew the company very well, before I was even going to show and telling my girlfriend who I brought with me at the time that we simply couldn't show that we were together. Now remember, this is a Golden Thread theater cast party. That means we're in the Bay Area. I think it was even in San Francisco. And it was it was a theater cast party. I mean, the idea that queerness in the Bay and the arts had to be separate is crazy when I look back on and think back on it. But that's where my head was. And I was so sure of that because it felt so important to me to keep that Middle Eastern and queerness identity so separate. Well, I was very wrong. And there are others here today to talk about their experience through the already complicated landscape of Middle Eastern identities. We talked about that name bit, we'll talk about that a little bit later, but also Middle East to what person of color, not of color, new democracies, old civilizations, there's a lot going on. And the midst of all that also holding up our queerness can prove a challenge. So I'm joined today by three other artists to hear how they have navigated this for themselves and how they've integrated their multiple selves into their life and their work. I'll briefly introduce them and then ask each of them to introduce themselves. First, Kenan Arun is a Turkish makeup designer and golden thread resident artist, as well as the director of operations at the LGBT asylum project. Kenan, please go ahead. Hi, thank you so much for having me and having the other artists and thank you so much for putting this no summary. It's I love that we don't fit in a box. I love that saying and that's what we're going to talk about today. My name is Kenan and I am from Turkey. I'm a Turkish gay man and I moved to United States in 2013. I was in Los Angeles first and after I graduated from Cinema Makeup School, I moved to San Francisco and met Golden Thread Productions and started working with them as a makeup designer and makeup artist. And I am the director of operations for the LGBT asylum project and Okaan immigration law group and that falls really well with the identities and personas that we have because with the LGBT asylum project, we are offering free legal services for LGBT asylum seekers out of the countries who flee their country, who had to flee their countries because of persecution and treatment. And it is the same with Okaan immigration law group and we're doing political cases for that. And we do have LGBT cases in Okaan immigration law group as well, but it is for basically four people who are not welcome because of their identities and because they want to live their authentic selves. And I'm a singing member for San Francisco gay men's chorus and we do a lot of drag work with Drunk Drag Broadway and with SFGMC Divas basically to raise funds and to have fun. It's a community work as well, but we do sing and we produce art all together in drag. Thank you. Thank you, Kenan. Second, we have Amin Algamal, who is an Egyptian American actor, active in theater, film and television. Amin, please go ahead. Hi everyone. It's such an honor to be here. Golden Thread means a lot to me. I've had a relationship with Torange and the company in some capacity for over a decade. I am a first generation Egyptian American Muslim queer artist. I got my roots in theater. I felt very alone as a child and unlovable. I never really saw representations of people like me. I felt that I was fighting several battles. There's the front of Islamophobia and xenophobia and the front of homophobia. It felt easier for me to keep to myself. I became a keen observer of life, which is a very important aspect for any artist. And then discovered theater, which is where I felt I could express myself through the safety and the guys of the character. I eventually moved to LA to get my MFA, and I never expected to live in LA, which I do now, or to be acting in film and television, but that's where I am. And along the way, my mother, knowingly or not, instilled in me this keen and fierce pride in who I am. I remember once she was reading us a bedtime story, the Narnia books, and at one point in the Narnia series, all the bad guys have turbines and they're brown. And I remember my mom reading it and being like, you don't need this crap. So that was the first time I understood how important storytelling can be in terms of self-acceptance, but also in terms of changing global perceptions and policy. And that's something that's been very important to me. I founded a group for LGBT Muslims and most people in Muslim background years and years ago in LA, and a lot of that was based around storytelling. I also co-founded an advocacy group with actress Azita Ganesada, who's Afghan-American, and we were making small inroads in Hollywood in recognizing Middle Eastern and North African folks as a diverse category, which you'll be surprised. We're either considered whites and not counted or we're too ethnic. Nothing makes any sense. And I've done work with the IRC for refugee resettlements. Basically, I spend a lot of my time when I'm not acting, engaged in advocacy. And I made a very strong choice to be out about my Muslim-ness and about my queerness and about my Arab-ness. And that's been an exciting journey. I think someone, I don't know if this is factually true, but somewhere on the internet, it says that I'm the first openly queer Muslim actor to have had a lead role on the television show, which is shocking to me. But yeah, I feel like I am in some ways blazing a trail, not in that I'm so great or anything, but that I feel like I'm riding the journey. I don't think the journey for someone like me has really been written yet. So that's me. Thank you so much for being here. There's so much to unpack there. Exactly. Thank you for asking me. Yeah. And I love your shirt. Yes, I noticed that as well. Thank you for representing and representation all around. So I'm going to bring on our final panelist, Amira Guzzo, an Afghan-American writer, activist, and cultural advisor for theater, film, and television. Please, go ahead. Well, good morning, everyone. It's wonderful to be here, especially since I'm the only cis non-queer female identifying member of this group, and so truly both fit in a box. I am a cultural advisor. I work on cultural authenticity mostly around Afghanistan and the Islamic world with theater, film, and television. So my role basically as a cultural advisor is to bring authenticity to the script, to do language coaching for any of the actors as well as work with directors, costume, and such. And actually, I became involved with Golden Threat community before I did any of this type of cultural advisory work. I met Taranj, and of course we all have Taranj in common, and was part of the community as someone who supported the programming. I hosted one of the playwrights at my house, and at one point I was lucky enough to actually work on a project with Taranj and the rest of the Golden Threat team, which was the most dangerous highway, which was set in Afghanistan. Aside from my cultural advisory work, I'm one of those people that has a portfolio of jobs, so I definitely don't fit in a box. So along with my cultural advisory work, I also write a blog about Afghan food and culture. I have a YouTube channel where I share Afghan culture through my cooking classes, and I've started doing a lot of informational videos about the plight of Afghan women and what the current peace process and Afghanistan's abandonment by the world that is upcoming in September with the U.S. withdrawal will affect the Afghan people. I'm currently also working with a cohort of theater makers in the Bay Area on a program called Making Good Trouble Anti-Racist Work, and we are supported by Playwrights Foundation Magic Theater, and I forgot the last theater's name, sorry about that. So anyway, we're all getting anti-racist training, and we hope to bring what we are working on to first our Bay Area theater community, but then to the larger world, because we just feel that the systematic racism towards the BIPOC community has been going on for a long time, and it's going to take a lot of work both on the advocacy as well as the artist side to make these changes. But the reason I am on this panel is because I have a queer son. He's transgender and transitioned, who actually came out to us around five years ago, and I'm really proud to be his mom, and it has tremendously changed my life. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. What an amazing panel. I think all those who are listening in, who are watching can appreciate what a diverse group of representation here, but a through line definitely is the advocacy work. So we will come back to that, each of you in your own way advocating for issues that you believe, of course, overlap with your identities, but let's start with that identity. Queer, Middle Eastern, artist, you fill in the blank. What do you think of when you hear those words? Are they identifiers for you? All of them, none of them, or in any particular order? This time, Amin, we'll begin with you. It's really, I wouldn't say I do identify with all of those terms, and they overlapped me, you know, to be an immigrant in some ways is to be queer. I have a lot of friends who are first gen like me or our immigrants, and we have a chosen family, much like the traditional, you know, queer model. And in terms of my religious identity, I find Islam to be very queer. Going back to like the Prophet Muhammad apparently had a transgender servant, and there was a lot of sexual and gender diversity back in the day, you know, before the Western colonialism. But also the idea that you have your own relationship with your own higher power, and no one can interfere with that feels very individualistic and very queer and honoring that everyone is different and has different perspectives. So I see a lot of, I haven't always felt this way. I mean, I think I abandoned a lot of my cultural background when I was first coming out, because I felt like if, you know, if this culture doesn't believe I exist, or if this God says that I'm wrong, then, you know, screw that. It wasn't until after grad school, I discovered an organization called Muslims for Progressive Values, and seeing that there was a mosque where women could lead, where they didn't have to wear, you know, a hijab, where they could, you know, queer people could, you know, kiki in an iftar, you know, on Ramadan. It was like really blew my mind. And I was like, you know, I, I feel like I felt robbed of my Arabness, and my Middle Easternness, and my Muslimness, and who has a right to tell me that I'm not any of these things because I am a certain way. So it was really, it's such a blessing and a privilege to be able to pull from different parts of your identity and be your fullest self. So I don't, I find that all of these intersects. I think the fact that I was queer and marginalized because of being queer and because of being Arab and North African and Muslim led to me expressing myself as an artist, you know, that's changed. And now as an artist, I give back with visibility and advocacy. So I, I find them also intermeshed. Yeah, that point of feeling robbed, if you silo those identities, that definitely resonates. Hamaira, I would love to hear your perspective on those identifiers, queer, Middle Eastern artists, fill in the blank, parent of. Yes. Well, so, of course, I, I, first of all, everything that you all are saying is really resonating with me and, and making me realize that all the work each of us is doing is going to make our children's future better. So you don't feel robbed anymore. I definitely, to be honest with you, I don't identify with any of those because, to me, artists seems like such an elevated thing. And I don't know if I'm an artist, even though I am creative. I'm not queer. And I'm really not Middle Eastern. I'm from Afghanistan, which is in Central Asia. But what I do feel is that I am part of this community of the incredible artists, all of you, and in all of Bay Area and the theater world. And I feel so close to queerness because there are a lot of people in our community who are, which basically tells me how could one be normal or accepted and the other one isn't. I mean, if truly God or Allah created us, and then why would any of this be wrong or or unacceptable or should be hidden? I fortunately grew up with a brother who is queer. And I feel like he was really the one charting the territory for Afghan queer men, because he was one of the first people that came out publicly. And our family was definitely shunned. And this was we're talking about like 40 years ago. So it was a very, very difficult time. But one of the things that I do have to say is that my parents, despite the fact that they struggled with this, and being shunned from the community, they really accepted him. And they didn't always understand it like my dad would be, he actually made an attempt to go to Pride parade and was like, what is happening here? He was trying to understand it. So I feel like I was, but I really, in retrospect, appreciated their effort to understand, even though they didn't 100% get it. And I feel like what they passed on to me has affected how I accepted my son and helped him in his journey. Thank you. Thank you for that. We'll keep, we'll keep talking through that. But when it gives Kenan a time to respond to the question as well. Again, queer Middle Eastern artists, you fill in the blanks, what do you find with those words? It is, I mean, I can totally resonate with what I mean, and whom I just said, because of having multiple identities. It's like diamond has many facades. So you don't have to be just one thing that's in, I mean, you, you can, but most of the time it's different bubbles. And you basically use what you have with one information in the other one, and they overlap for sure. And I don't necessarily take myself as Muslim. I was raised Muslim. Yes. But I wouldn't, I basically approach it to more culture than religion. And I like owning up to how we're raised, like who says I'm not a Muslim. I mean, I can't say that it's not somebody else's or like I mean, said like who says I'm not a queer Arab, because I am here and we do exist. So nobody can brought me off of that. So I like having different personas and identities of multiple facades that we all own up to. Yeah, yeah. I, you know, it's interesting, I grew up in many Iranians, majority are of course Muslim, Shia Muslim, but I grew up in a Zoroastrian family who had converted generations back. And it was always hard because yeah, you go into these spaces, join the Persian group on campus and felt way too queer and not Muslim enough. I can't be anywhere quite right, but sitting in theater and finding golden thread. And I joke with Taranj. I don't think I've ever actually represented an Iranian on stage, but I've represented an Arab and Egyptian and so on. It's been so fun to take on the different parts and to let shine like you're saying. Parts that I do know and I recognize. Oh yeah, I didn't feel quite 100% part of the majority, but this is what I brought to that minority lens, wherever that was, because there's always that piece of bringing in a different lens, a different, I like that, I'm imagining a diamond, you know, about the different lights piercing through as you move it around and it's going to shine through in a different way. Beautiful, thank you all for that general answer. Back to you Kenan, makeup and immigration work as you introduced at the asylum center. These sound like very distant from each other. How do you combine them? So they do seem very distant, but they are not actually because it's all about identities and personas as well. Theater is creating storytelling as I mean said as well on stage and having different characters come to life and makeup helps that. And the immigration work that I do, it helps people who couldn't survive in a certain environment to leave that behind and start over in a place that they chose to with a chosen family, chosen society, however you want to say it. So it overlaps in the means of finding oneself, whether it's like a short period of time when you're on stage representing someone else that you're not or maybe you are and you are basically making a platform for yourself and then raising awareness. And the immigration work falls under finding your authentic self and living your own truth. And it all comes down to however you live your life in a very microcosmic way becomes advocacy and activism because you have the right, you find, you give yourself the right to live however you want to live. So I like that they're overlapping. They seem very distant, but they are totally together. Give yourself the right. That's so beautiful. And that goes back to, thank you, that goes back to, I mean, you'd mentioned and it's sticking in my head. And I think it's resonated for all of us. This feeling of in some ways, if we don't, we're robbing ourselves and allowing to be robbed of the multiplicity, the plurality. So thank you for raising that. It's wonderful at a certain age and maybe in the right communities. And I think all of us have been blessed to have this opportunity. You can sit back and say, wait a minute, I don't need to silo all of these. They can live, but it does take having an example, whether Amirah, it's in your brother's example, or Amin in finding this opportunity in the history books and looking back, or Kanan really thinking about the stories of the refugees and asylum seekers that you speak with, that there's similarity enough and there's diversity enough. And so much in, and I've found over the years in the diaspora culture, folks end up wanting so much to tie back to the old world, whatever that old world is, and being so rigid about what it looks like. But when you go back to the home countries, of course there's diversity. You don't have to define being, you know, Turkish or Egyptian or Afghan or Iranian in a certain way. You can be a punk rock star Iranian and nobody's going to blink an eye because, you know, there's others around you. So I hope that's what's coming through. That's certainly what I'm hearing a lot from everything you guys are saying. Let's talk about you and your responsibility, if any, as an American artist who is queer and of men and descent. What you said you have found out you might have been one of the first openly queer Muslim men actors representing, you know, that's a lot of identifiers I had. How do you hear that? It kind of boggles the mind because I think this show I did in like 2017 and I was like, how, how is this possible? But after I did that, more people came out. I'm not the only one that I know of anymore who's openly queer and identifies as Muslim and is in the business. So like you said, it's about, you know, I might have made sacrifices. I have no idea by being so open about who I am. I'm sure I have, but I don't see the points of being someone who is a storyteller and who makes a living doing it and sometimes has to make compromises on those things. Like I don't see a point to me other than speaking out and being visible. And to, so that I feel is my responsibility, you know, not only to be like, hey, look, I'm Muslim. I'm not scary. You know, I don't deserve to be banned. But also in the more rigid potentially mainstream Muslim communities to also to challenge those barriers that might be imposed. An important example of that I think is a film I did recently that's called Breaking Fast that opened earlier this year. And it's a queer Muslim rom-com that takes place during Ramadan. And I play the kind of funny best friend with a twist. But I initially, when I first saw the script, I was sort of like, well, I don't know, this doesn't seem very radical. You know, this is like a page by page is a rom-com. This is so like, you know, frothy and silly. And I sort of reluctantly went into it. And I was so wrong because the movie came out. Unfortunately, it couldn't have a theatrical release because of COVID, but it's available for rent. And hopefully it'll be streaming on some platform soon. It's a VOD right now. But the response that we've gotten has been incredible all over the world, even though it's not technically released in other countries, people are contacting me. I had a family member who came out to me. It's been very difficult. I mean, my family is progressive and supportive, but, you know, they're also Muslim Egyptian immigrants. And it's been a really difficult negotiation for this person. And watching the movie made them comfortable enough to come out to me, which was very special. And I just keep hearing all these stories about how a movie that is a rom-com that sets up an ideal about who is worthy of love and centers queer, you know, POC, Mina love, however entertaining and silly and funny it might be in a way that kind of makes it subversive. And I've also heard other stories from people who are hungry, who have a hunger for Middle Eastern authentic Middle Eastern contents. And like, Arab culture is very prevalent in this movie. So they come to the movie for that wanting to see themselves represented. And then they end up coming away with this sort of opening their minds about queer Muslims and the, it seems like an inherent paradox, but this movie just, you know, kind of blows that out of the water. So that's my responsibility as an artist. I recognize that not everyone does that. And I, I respect that I have a certain level of privilege to be able to do that. Yeah, yeah. But that's, that's, we don't even appreciate, I think that's an interesting point you just raised, how powerful normalizing can be, you know, normalizing that love can be. And, you know, it's beautiful and it does not need to be, you know, exceptionalized. Yeah, Hollywood in theater too. The stories continue to be, you know, we have dark, there's, you know, we've, we are in some sense like, you know, victims in our region of the world. And there's a lot of darkness, but we don't allow, you know, we don't allow joy, you know, we don't allow characters from our backgrounds and of our identity intersections to experience joy. And I just found that so refreshing. Yeah, yeah. And not unlike, I mean, that piece of queer identity as being joyful is new actually in the larger sphere as well. So let alone adding a layer of diversity and other and immigrant to that, you're actually right, which you end up seeing as his sad stories. And that's been one of the stories about golden threads as a board member, we would sit through and think, you know, about these strategic plans. And one of the things that I remember one of the board members I respected them a lot would say, I just want to go to theater and laugh. Can we just laugh? You know, and that's what's been great about some of the productions is this intentionality about comedy about the balance of humor in everyday life that even when something is difficult, you know, especially cultures use humor to bring light to it and to have a conversation around it. Yeah, I mean, that's so healing for the community. And also, like, it's better art, you know what I mean, even in the most dire situation, there's stupid, funny, weird things that happen, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. No, that's really lots of fun. Pamela, you are sorry you touched on this. What has been your personal experience as a mother to someone? I know when you said that my brain went, you know, that's when in my head with my experience with my own mother, I would imagine the other panelists as well, our relationship with our families in their ability to accept and recognize but also in their identification as a parent of someone who is queer. Would love to hear more about that for you. Yeah, thank you. Well, when we're pregnant, a couple, we lie out to ourselves all the time and say, if only my child is healthy, I will be happy. Nobody really, when they're saying that things, if only my child is healthy, and not on a spectrum, but within this box, and I, you know, dresses this way, talks this way, loves this person, will I be happy? And I think that's the dichotomy that a lot of people are in, is that they look at their children as a reflection of themselves. And therefore, when a child is queer or whatever, maybe the situation, and it, we're not seeing our own reflection, there's like, whoa, what's happening here? And in my case, actually, was a little bit different. My son was very, I would say, gender neutral from age two. He didn't like wearing anything that was not black or brown. He did not like wearing anything that was not pants, sweats and such. So we kind of grew up with this child who was different. And what was really interesting to me was, that's exactly how I was when I was a little girl. I wanted to be a boy. I had my hair short. I dressed in boys' clothes and such. So I was like, oh, well, you know, trip off the old block. And we let him express himself any which way he wanted. But with all that openness, with all my own experience with my brother also being queer, when he came out as trans to us, I thought I was hit by a truck. I mean, literally, like, for two weeks, morning, day, night, I just kept saying, in my head, transgender, transgender, and what all that means in our society, how horrible his life is going to be, how is this going to work? Is he going to be marginalized? Are people going to hate him? Of course, to him, we projected the sense of like, we've got our shit together. But in my head, I literally thought my head was going to burst. So for all the queer people out there, if somebody like me who is open-minded, I live in San Francisco, I had this kind of experience, imagine your parent who is in a much more insular type of situation. Once I was able to stop that ruminating, I literally laid on a couch, not in front of a therapist, but by myself for a week, I could barely get up. And I think for me, the biggest thing was like, will he live in the margins of society? Will he live a happy life? Will he find love? Will people treat him as a human being, as part of their community and such? And of course, over time, and that's what's one of the most amazing things about human beings are we, we hopefully adapt and accept and such. Thankfully, my husband and I and our daughter were all in the same page and we just put everything behind supporting him. And my family came on board very quickly, my mom, my aunts, they were just like, yeah, what's the big deal? Especially since the transition was from female to male, that's definitely a thing in the, in our community. If it was reverse, I think it would have been a little bit harder. I was really impressed by my Afghan friends, especially the new immigrants when I shared with them. It was just like, oh, Mubarak, you know, congratulations. So I've been really, really, really grateful to my community for being so supportive to Sutter and what he has been through. We navigated a lot of the school things and, and, you know, things like that. That within itself is a freaking full time job, I have to tell you. And at that time, there was really no playbook and it still isn't. And I really advise a lot of people on what the steps are, whoever, you know, contacts me. But one of the things that has done for me is that I have become a much more empathetic, open-minded person who's able to think about a situation from many facets than just one way. And, and I'm like, I'm so grateful that, you know, my son is such a strong person who is able to stand and be proud. He's a very introverted person. So he's not always running around, you know, showing his queerness. But one of the things that I want to share with our community is, please don't hide these things. Because what happens is when I feel that when you hide this kind of information, not only them, are you damaging yourself because that information is going to eventually become an ulcer inside you, but you are communicating to your child, cousin, brother, whatever, that you're ashamed of them somehow. And that is very, very detrimental. And that's one of the things my husband and I decided at the beginning is that we're going to send one blanket email explaining what has happened and owning our own story. Because if you don't own your story, then there's going to be all kinds of stories out there. And I know it's part of our culture to hide things. And, you know, and say to this person, not that person, blah, blah, blah, just own your story, tell it as it is. And then you are the one that is managing your narrative. Totally. I love that. Own your, own your story, tell your narrative. Go ahead. Thank you, Umaira, for not hiding a major approach as well when you were talking about not hiding yourself and acknowledging the fact that it would have been much different if it was for a male to female. That's something that needs, that had to be addressed. And thank you so, so much for saying that out loud. I want to pause just for a moment. There's never quite the right time, but for those who are just joining us, just a reminder, this is no summary, golden threads, live stream series of conversations with artists that don't fit in a box. We are here in conversation with the beautiful artists today. You may post your questions to golden threads, Facebook live for artists to respond to. We have a little over 20 minutes left of this conversation, which I hope will continue to stay forward. But yeah, I want to pick up on a couple of things that were just said by Umaira. One, that this point about the female to male, you just raised that as well. Certainly similarly, queer identities, sometimes more acceptable with lesbian, identifying as lesbian versus gay was accepted. We've heard some of that as well, but so much of it comes down to shame, internalized shame and fear. And, you know, as a parent myself, and as I've gotten older, you have these moments of like, oh yeah, they don't know everything. So that reaction they had right away was a very human and not all knowing reaction. And so yeah, in my own experience, a very open-minded, very liberal upbringing. And yet when I came out to my mother now over 25 years ago, her immediate response had been, so please keep it in the family, don't mention it to anybody. And what that ended up doing is actually distancing me from many family for many years. And I remember I was in a car driving with a cousin, we were going to a wedding, and she just casually was like, so you got any boyfriends you want to tell me about? And I said, no, I just like girlfriends. And she was so casual about it. And my mom was in the car and I remember looking right away to my mom like, can I, can I tell her? And my mom just like tightened up. And I thought, what? I guess not. But I think, you know, I think that's why it just resonated as well. Family will surprise you. Extended family will surprise you in ways, because there are some things that are very clear in the love that's shared in the nuclear family that's really sent from fear and concern. But the extended family can really participate more in the joy of things. And I'm so grateful for them as well. So a couple, a couple more questions back to you. What do you do? This question, what do you do to give back to the community? You and I had talked about these beforehand. I feel like you give a lot to the community in every work that you do. But can you? As we all do, yeah. Yeah. I am, I like having a platform, especially with Golden Thread. And I want to highlight that, that like, because I'm a makeup designer and makeup in theater is not really mentioned that much. It is, it always falls under costumes. You guys worked on this project together, the most dangerous highway. We did. You did an amazing. Exactly. Yeah, tell us more about that too. So with Golden Thread, I'm using that platform to basically for a political place to have the visibility and raising awareness, that's for sure. And having Humaira, when we were doing the most dangerous highway, I was like, I asked the simplest questions possible going. So do I have to do like a really bold eye makeup to this character? And she said, no, no, she's in hiding. So we're not doing that. Let's keep her simple like that. So it follows the narrative as well. So and having a cultural consultant with you is perfect. Yeah. And in addition to my work with the San Francisco Game and Scores, I'm a singing member, but it's a community for again, raising awareness on identities, diversity, however you want to say it. And we have multiple programs, especially the one that I really enjoy is rhythm. It's reaching youth through music. And we are having assemblies. I mean, before COVID, it was in person, we were showing up to the schools, and then singing about coming out identities, multiple things with songs blended in between. It was a very short, like 30 minute concert. We started doing that online. As we are speaking, actually, there's one going on over zoom with the chorus. I'm so happy to do that. And I also do the with SFGM CDVAs, I'm using my makeup for drag. And I want to add something here, because I don't want to shave when I'm in drag, I basically keep my beard. And one of my friends ended up telling me, oh, like, I really like that you're keeping it androgynous and non-binary. I'm like, no, no, I'm just lazy. But I like that. But I like how it's seen that I was just like, I would go for that. And I totally didn't. I'm telling it to everyone. And I like it's basically this is what I'm doing is applicable to all of us. And I want to highlight something Toran says all the time. It takes a village to raise a kid. And it takes a village to for us to do what we do. We have multiple aspects that we're bringing together and forming something out of that and putting it on our platforms to speak up, to raise awareness, not hiding as who may have said, we're sharing our stories so that there is a bold story for someone to look up to or like however they want to approach it. Yeah, yeah. Visibility comes in just, yeah, in that, in showing all sides of yourself so that people can tell, oh, there's that way to be as well. You can be a drag queen with a beard. You look gorgeous actually when you do. And there are so many aspects of your work, your musicality with both song and instrument, your flute as well. Oh, yeah, thank you. It gives such color, it colors so many parts of our identities. And also with Drunk Drag Broadway. Drunk Drag Broadway is our drag through company and we perform at Oasis. And they always do a fundraiser. They have done fundraisers for the LGBT asylum project and Jimmy Moore always says he's the artistic director. And he says we're doing drag for activism. So it's again like art for activism. Yeah, yeah. I mean, how do we tell stories that are that are a little bit that are removed from that straight white gaze? How do we make our identities without pandering? We talked a little bit about this through your work already, but you want to highlight a little bit more. Yeah, I mean, I think that is an open question that I want everyone who's watching this to ponder. I have felt some recently frustrated with the limitations of being an actor a lot of times, especially in film and TV, you kind of come in the very end of the process. And you don't really have a lot of say as to some of the choices you make, even some of the most minute things. Sometimes I was on a show that I was on multiple episodes of and the director for one of the episodes, we were having trouble with landing a certain joke and making the script work. And I had all these ideas and they just wouldn't listen to me. And I was like, what? What? I can't. So that's that's like a limitation of the profession of acting. And I realize that I'm someone who has to who wants to have creative say. But then also I can get very frustrated with what I'm considered for and what the limited way that I'm sometimes seen in film and TV, but also in theater. A lot of times I'll get a script and it's a queer Muslim thing, but I'm just like this. This this is explaining the situation to an outside audience. This is pandering and this is going into the tragic queer, you know, queer era trope. And I just don't want to see it. You know, I don't want to be part of that. So I think it takes a lot of mindfulness because I'm now turning to writing because I'm frustrated with acting and I want to have more of a creative say. And even in myself, I find as I'm outlining like a new script, I find myself going towards a story that is expected of me to tell, you know. So I'm not sure if I know exactly how to do that. But I thought it was a compelling question. And it's something that's very actively on my mind. It's how how can I am? How can I go away from being seen for what I am and and move towards being seen for who I am, you know, the the privilege that a white first actor has or white storyteller has of just examining the human experience versus having to do it through this like, let me explain the culture and then also let me do this and then let me, you know, fall into this thing where I have to lean on identity or whatever. Otrange said, what about drowning in Cairo? Yeah, Cairo was good was was special because it was an experience. It was about a raid in in Egypt on a gay party boat. And how that ruined people's lives. And I think that is a true story. And it's important to examine. And I think that story has not been told. And there's not a lot of awareness about about that. At the same time, too, I want to see a diversity of stories that's not giving fuel to demonize the Middle East for for being homophobic, another reason to, you know, dehumanize that region. And also, I just want to see stories that are not necessarily tragic. Like, there's a lot of people in Egypt who have vibrant gay lives. I mean, they live in danger. That's real. But they have underground lives that are vibrant. And, you know, they figure out how to make it work. So I'd love to see that play, too, you know. Well, again, the nuance, learning and living in the nuance. But, you know, in theater and any work of art, it's a moment in time that you're telling, even if it expands multiple years or generations. So you know, and the most effective art does hone in on a feeling, a story, a specificity, and then allows interpretation. So when you are representing, you know, any kind of minority experience, it can feel so frustrating because you're trying to hone in on that moment. And then you can put there's so much more to say there's so many moments. But, you know, and that's, I think, anybody who is other than white male, whenever they're producing anything, it becomes either a woman's story or a, you know, queer story, and immediately triggers a perception for people. It's a Middle Eastern story. Oh, it's going to be about war. It's going to be about conflict. It's going to be about coming out. You know, the stories are not valid. But, you know, at a certain point, we get siloed. And then, you know, in Taranj, I've talked about this with Taranj and with other, and with the director of Breaking Fast, Mike Mussalam, Breaking Fast is a comedy. And he was very strict about, he's Lebanese-American, and was very strict about having, he was like, here, these are all the Arab countries that people have background from that are acceptable in this movie. I want to get casting right to the casting director. So a lot of Arab actors came and because they're trained to be brooding and scary, and they're rewarded for playing into this colonial Orientalist narrative, they weren't even able to find like the funny in the script and this like romcom. And I remember Taranj talking about witnessing actors going to Hollywood and getting trained to be, you know, like scary and whatever. And then they come back and they just are like this rigidity. There's this sort of deadness, which I find like really sad. And I think I'm not sure what my point is talking about. And we can be trained out of humor is what I think where you're ahead of that, even if we have it intrinsically, you know, what that's what happens when we're not mindful about like, if we have to like, I've played roles that I find problematic, you know, one of the biggest roles I played was like a riff on a stereotype. And I did what I could on broadcast television to make it a human. But I never, you know, I knew exactly what I was doing. Like I never bought into like, oh, this is, oh, whatever. Like, I guess, you know, it's okay, terrorism on TV and these stereotypes are all great. You know, I never lost sight. I never lost sight of trying to make him human. And I knew that I was exploiting myself to move forward in my career. But I was doing it myself, you know, yeah, your narrative and only each of you individually will know that. And and what what is portrayed by one actor by one writer by one designer can be almost the same. But the intentionality is is really what's going to color that experience for all those involved. And that intentionality comes down to your self knowledge. Sorry, can I jump in there? I'm putting on my cultural advisory hat. And I want to raise what I mean, mentioned earlier, which is that by the time the actors come into it, it's so far along. And that's one of the things as a cultural advisor, I tried to do is get me involved in the script writing, teleplay, you know, because that is where really a lot of the nuances are going to be set ahead of time. And especially if it's television or film, there's so many layers of approval that by the time it gets to the actor, there's no room for change. And often I find that when I'm brought in early enough, then I can bring some authenticity and humanity into it. Like, yeah, we do laugh in Afghanistan, even though it's been a war or yeah, you know, there's there's there are so many things that like just attributed directly to certain cultures that can't be that that's continually replicated, but you can mitigate it at the level when they're filming. It's too late. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're totally right. You could keep talking, guys, but unfortunately, we have come to the end of our time together. I want to thank our guests today, Kenan Arun, Amin Al Gamal, and Hamaira Gilzai. Thank you all so much for your time. And I'd like to also thank HowlRound for hosting this live stream event. A recording of this session will be available both on HowlRound and on Golden Threads websites. Many thanks to our live stream technician, Wendy Reyes and Chris Steele for managing the live stream on Golden Threads Facebook page. And thanks to all of you for joining us today. Again, we could have spoken a lot longer. We were just getting into that was just brewing the tea. So we were about to get get down. But thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Really, this conversation about just naming it. There are queers in our communities. Our communities are diverse. And we welcome these stories just as much as we welcome any of the stories that make up the plethora, the diversity of the Middle East and the region surrounding it. So thank you again for everybody for your time. And with that, bye-bye. Bye. Thank you. Thank you for that.