Happy to share the latest edition of a research project I worked on together with a colleague, focusing on digital violence in Ethiopia. (highlights the patterns of harassment, surveillance, outing, and stigma against queer individuals.) genderit.org/feminist-tal...

Discounted registration is not compensation. If an organization truly value art as advocacy, healing, and change, they need to value the artists behind it with fair pay. Isn’t compensation equity in practice? How do you ask for art projects and treat artists as customers?

I've been engaged in a research project for over a year with an incredible research partner I'm deeply grateful for. Our work focuses on online violence against queer individuals in Ethiopia. Our reflection has finally been published: genderit.org/index.php/fe...

Picked my favorites 💐 ✨ Tulips ✨ Dalton Farms, NJ

Thanks to my friend Harriet for pointing out that the women went to Christ's tomb and saw he was not there, the angels showed up to describe what happened, & the women then told the apostles, who dismissed them. A Biblical account of women not being believed.

First half marathon ✅

I can’t believe I am actually running my first marathon this Sunday 🎧🏃🏾‍♀️✨

Why queer archive? Because queer stories shall start with queerness not queerphobia.

Key dates on the evolution of anti homosexuality advocacy and online violence against LGBTQIA+ communities in Ethiopia: 1/

Fuck this fucking fascist fuckery.

In the face of relentless disinformation and the shattering weight of systemic denial, queer Africans continue to create safe spaces for themselves. Every quiet search for connection and every hidden gathering is an act of defiance — a refusal to be erased.

"Now or never" - @thecontinent.org. Thread: While Europe was getting scolded at its own Munich Security Conference, African leaders were in Ethiopia for the annual African Union summit. As @simonallison.bsky.social explained, it was a critical summit, with Africa facing a new Trump led world order.

Publishing this during black history month is DIABOLICAL. LMAOOOOOOOOO!!!! The NYT is so wild.

🤩 Ethiopian and Eritrean queer stories to the streets. To be seen. To be heard. A song of resistance ✨ Billboard from Exposure Photography Festival. (📸 Mitra Samavaki) Calgary, Alberta

My photography project Wonderfully Made, which highlights the Ethiopian and Eritrean queer community in the US, is featured in this year’s Exposure Photography Festival and opened last night ✨ If you are in Calgary don’t miss it - at Contemporary Calgary.

“I grew up in a very religious household where my parents often expressed that they didn’t believe the LGBTQ+ community deserved equal rights. Yet one of God’s commandments is “love your neighbor as yourself.” Why would you deny your neighbor the same rights you have? 1/

“I can still see you if I close my eyes and focus, but that’s the only place you exist now. You’re a dream I had to let go of, even though I didn’t want to. Because more than anything, I wanted you to be safe and happy—and I can’t promise you that.” open.substack.com/pub/soniawit...

Even decolonization would need to borrow decolonization just to decolonize academic spaces smh

Okay I really like The Later Daters.

"I wish the war would end and we could return to our homes in peace." A Christian Palestinian girl in Gaza wishes for peace on Christmas Day amid Israel's war, at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City.

✨ All of this!!

“It should drive us all beyond rage that revolutionary imaginations almost always stop outside the home. … unless we topple that tyrant in our minds, our bedrooms, and on our street corners – our revolution has not even begun.” ✨ @monaeltahawy.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

😂😂😂😂 they are only homophobic if you are poor 😂😂😂

One of my participants became homeless after coming out to her family. Eventually, she managed to relocate to another state. Later, her family reached out, asking if they could stay with her while visiting her city. She told them ‘My house is gay.’ Audacity

People in #Syria are still opening prisons

AMEN!

"About 1.4 million people have left online dating in the past year as experts say users see it as a chore rather than social activity" "a contributing factor in the decline of online dating could be a sense of detachment from reality and fatigue at the process." www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

In 2019, an LGBTQ+ tour operator (Toto Tours) based in the U.S. announced a 16-day tour to Ethiopia, which included a visit to the Lalibela Church. The tour was eventually canceled due to threats and a widespread hate campaign on Facebook.

The disinformation targeting LGBTQ+ Ethiopians on YouTube is relentless. From religious leaders to random YouTubers, government officials, anti-LGBTQ+ group founders, health professionals, and celebrities. No accountability. No justice. Just endless digital violence.

Read about the incredible work of @nighatdad.bsky.social "In 2012, Dad established the Digital Rights Foundation, an NGO that aims to address the digital divide and fight online abuse of women and other gender minorities in Pakistan." www.wired.com/story/nighat...

2024/almost 2025 even!! these yt digital creators still on poverty porn

When Kendrick said “Bitch, I cut my granny off if she don't see it how I see it.” I felt that.😂

Tyla and Kehlani’s fashion is the real - don’t let them know your next move - 😭 what is it 😩

Excerpt from a conversation with a queer Ethiopian American woman: “My entire family knows I’m queer.The most challenging relationship is with my mom, who is homophobic, likely influenced by her culture & religion. I’ve been searching for ways to help her understand because my mom is my beacon. 1/

That article was great until it got to ‘teaching people is vital’ 😭 Why is it always on marginalized groups to teach? Let the majority read and do the work please.

Going through interviews with Ethiopian and Eritrean queer individuals stirs a whirlwind of emotions—sadness, anger, joy, frustration, hope, and helplessness. I make space to laugh, but also to cry. Healing to all queer individuals who have faced betrayal from their families and friends.

A lot of people think everything will work out if we just play by the rules but don’t seem to recognize that rules only matter when everyone agrees to follow them and, well, that isn’t our present reality.

She said “an organized event in Nairobi is a dream like Ruto must go.. it is a dreaaam” 😅 I hope she sees Uncle Waffles in SA 🇿🇦 Being tear-gassed out of an event is wild.

Everyday I am grateful that I don’t have a child because phew 😭 (don’t come at me. You can be grateful you have one/many 👏🏾🙏🏾)

Reminded me of “…& when we contend that the primary concern for sex workers is the sex involved in sex work and not the criminalized & stigmatized nature of their work, not the material conditions of their labor, we fail to acknowledge & address the actual abuses many sex worker communities face.”

#Belgium sex workers get maternity leave… “In what other job would you need a panic button? It’s not the oldest profession in the world, it’s the oldest exploitation in the world.” www.bbc.com/news/article...

A few weeks ago, an Ethiopian man, presumed to be gay, was forced in a video to repeat degrading phrases like “I came here looking for a dick,” while crowds online cheered and asked the tiktoker to finish him. 1/

Revenge porn industry via telegram channels #Ethiopia Misogyny, patriarchy and a culture that prioritizes silencing & pushing marginalized groups. And no accountability. Horrifying. shega.co/news/hidden-...

Eritrean refugees describe police crackdown in #Ethiopia #Eritrea #Refugees www.bbc.com/news/article...

Every morning at 8am my time, I send out a Daily Dose of feminist fire. Here’s today’s

Featured Khalid Albaih, Sudanese political cartoonist, civil rights activist, and freelance journalist ✨ africasacountry.com/2024/11/draw...

6th cataract of the Nile. Sabaloga area /North of Khartoum, Sudan April, 2017

Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) #birds #nature #wildlife #photography #bluejay