Sahiyo’s response to recent Executive Orders by the Trump Administration
To our Sahiyo community, We realize that the past few weeks have been stressful to say the least. With the new administration’s slew of Executive Orders targeting the most vulnerable and the dismantlement of DEI programs at various organizations, we acknowledge that fear and trepidation are on the rise. If you’re in need of support, please check out the resources at the end of this blog. We admit: we’re also concerned. It’s disturbing watching the Trump administration blatantly conflate FGC and gender-affirming care. As we explained in a recent blog, this not only endangers trans and LGBTQ+ youth but also survivors of FGM/C. Additionally, we know that the recent attempt to freeze federal funding has worried many of you given the potential it has to impact critical programs and resources for our community. We want to assure all of you that Sahiyo is working to secure more funding and continue our programing to support survivors. We’re also working hard on no longer relying as much on government funding given it’s not a reliable source these days. To do that, though, we need your help. We understand these are hard times for everybody, but any kind of monetary donation would help us continue our work during the Trump era. Please, if you can, donate here. In the meantime, we hope you are all taking care of yourselves and each other, and know that we will get through this together. With love and in solidarity, Sahiyo Helpful resources: Our partner, the Asian Women’s Shelter, has a helpful crisis line for FGC survivors (1-877-751-0880) Rape / Sexual Abuse / Incest National Hotline (RAIN): 800-656-4673 Members of the LGBTQ community can call 1-866-488-7386 or visit www.thetrevorproject.org The South Asian Network provides a variety of health and wellbeing resources along with useful information to help immigrants protect themselves BlackLine Crisis Call Line: 1-800-604-5841 The National Hispanic Family Health Helpline, Su Familia: 1-866-783-2645 Dial 988 or visit www.988lifeline.org if you or somebody you know are in a crisis or experiencing thoughts of suicide Psychology Today is a large directory connecting you with therapists, support groups, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals in your area or virtually The ACLU provides information on your rights if you come into contact with or are questioned by immigration officers
Sahiyo condemns recent executive order conflating female genital mutilation/cutting with gender-affirming care
At Sahiyo, we are disheartened and frustrated by the harmful conflation between female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and gender-affirming care made in a recent Executive Order issued by the Trump Administration. While this is unfortunately not the first attempt made by government officials to co-opt anti-FGM/C legislation to criminalize gender-affirming care for transgender and non-binary youth, the use of the Presidential platform to uplift discriminatory rhetoric and instill fear is shameful and must be addressed. FGM/C comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. The practice has no health benefits for girls and women, and causes severe bleeding, problems urinating, as well as cysts, infections, and complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths, to name a few negative outcomes. The STOP FGM Act of 2020 made it clear that FGM/C was illegal in the United States. These hard-fought legal protections for FGM/C survivors and those at-risk at the federal level must be preserved by calling out the Trump Administration’s inflammatory rhetoric for what it is: an attempt to dilute the protections already in place to protect survivors of FGM/C, and those at-risk of undergoing FGM/C to harm and discriminate against another vulnerable community. Sahiyo stands with survivors of FGM/C, some of whom also identify as transgender and non-binary, and who have prompted Sahiyo over the years to create programming that can better support their intersectional realities. In fact, Sahiyo studied the intersection between FGM/C and LGBTQIA+ issues in our Critical Intersections Research Project. From our work with survivors, our research, and our experiences, we recognize that there are several key differences between FGM/C and gender-affirming care, namely the fundamental issues of consent and bodily autonomy. FGM/C is a human rights violation performed without consent that compromises the bodily autonomy of children and has negative physical and mental effects that can last a lifetime. Gender-affirming care is a medically necessary form of care that includes a diverse array of interventions to align one’s identity with their sexual characteristics; this care is only provided with the consent of the individual. Research has also shown that these treatments lead to decreased rates of depression, improvement in psychosocial functioning, and minimal long-term side effects. In other words, FGM/C takes away bodily autonomy, while gender-affirming care preserves the bodily autonomy of the individual. For additional information and research, we encourage you to read When Protecting Girls Is Twisted Into Attacking Trans Youth: FGM/C Survivors Fight Back Against Transphobic Right-Wing Narratives. In Solidarity, Sahiyo
That Old Familiar Violence – Reflecting on AAS 2024
By Umme Kulsoom Arif Seattle, Washington. March 15, 2024. 9:00AM. The presentation room is small and its audience even smaller, with just about six or seven seated in a space meant to fit thirty listeners. I count myself as apart from them, seated nervously at the front of the room with my fellow panelists and professors all with fascinating and powerful subjects of interest — true scholars, honored in academia, years of experience and dedicated research behind them. And then there’s me — an interloper. Existing on the outskirts of spaces is not an unfamiliar feeling to me. At the 2024 Association for Asian Studies Conference, I was a non-academic, a formerly practicing attorney now working at a university as an academic counselor. This may have been fine to me, were I a mere attendee, a voyeur on the outside of the conversation, observing and learning. Barely noticed, but not enough to be spoken to. Unfortunately for me and my imposter syndrome, I had a paper to present. I chose to write Boxed-In: Considering the Impact of FGM/C on Queerness and Sexuality in the South Asian Diaspora in America as a scholarly personal narrative because — in truth — I wasn’t sure what Queer perspectives were out there for FGM/C survivors and did not have the emotional courage to put out a call for voices. I was familiar with activist artist and writer Dena Igusti, whose work and open existence as a non-binary survivor was what gave me the courage to attach non-binary to myself and my survivor status, and though our experiences mirrored each other, I found myself struggling to find academic research surrounding what it meant to be the victim of a very gendered act while simultaneously wanting to reject being seen as that gender. FGM/C happened to me because someone else decided I was a woman long before I was old enough to understand what womanhood and girlhood meant, much less able to process what it meant for me. As a result of it, I will always be associated with my “dead” womanhood, further denied my agency and reminded of such every time “she” and “her” are used in association with me. Therefore, selfishly, I wrote my paper to reclaim my identity and make myself whole. It sort of worked. The day before our scheduled panel presentation, as we rehearsed our various speeches, I corrected the panel moderator — my speaker bio had “they” and “their” in it, instead of “she” and “her” — and then stood to practice my speech before my fellow speakers. I anticipated it — strict adherence to (incorrect, outdated, prescriptivist, cruel) “rules” of grammar pretend that the singular “they” is an impossibility in English — but anticipation certainly doesn’t stop that low-grade invalidation from hurting. My speech even called this out, promising, “I can even guarantee you this — once you leave this room, once I am done talking — you will forget. You will perceive me — surrounded by the trappings of my assigned womanhood — and you will forget. So you will fall back on that old familiar violence — she and her.” I was right. The day of the presentation, my speaker biography is read aloud and — despite the words they and their written on the page — she and her pour out from the moderator presenting me. Looking back, I imagine the audience saw me wince before I began speaking. Dena Igusti called this experience — this perpetual association with cis-womanhood — a “quiet violence.” They aren’t wrong. As a non-binary survivor, I have to weigh my physical safety every time I enter a survivor space, or engage in anti-FGM/C activism. Will my identity be respected? Will gender-affirming care once more be equated to FGM/C, forcing me to out myself in non-affirming company in an effort to defend the rest of my trans and non-binary community? Will the push to ban FGM/C on the state level be co-opted by hate the way it nearly has been in Texas through bills like SB249 or similar bills in many other states? On some level, this feels intentional. In survivor spaces, womanhood is elevated because of FGM/C’s attack on it. My imposition in these spaces is allowed as a courtesy, and I reluctantly accept “she” as a courtesy in return, accepting the violence that erases my identity in an effort to receive solidarity and support for the violence that granted me it. At the conference, I am both unable and unwilling to make this concession. Accustomed to butchery as I am, I speak to a teary-eyed audience of the ways I — as an example of non-binary survivorship, should more than I exist — carve my many identities into pieces to make myself more palatable to the disparate communities I am desperate to belong to. I call out this indifference to queer survivorship — likely the reason so few exist publicly, unable to comfortably come out and seek necessary support — and the way the movement to end FGM/C quietly includes trans-exclusionary voices, both because TERFs (defined by Oxford Languages as: a person whose views on gender identity are considered hostile to transgender people, or who opposes social and political policies designed to be inclusive of transgender people.) love to co-opt the term “genital mutilation” to make the case against gender-affirming care and because the inherent attack on womanhood that is FGM/C leads to many forgetting that those who don’t identify as women can still be victimized. Make no mistake — I am grateful for the opportunity to attend the AAS Conference and the support given by Sahiyo to make that possible. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak and make even the slightest effort at raising awareness and using storytelling as activism. That does not erase the profound loneliness and struggle of being a minority within a minority, double-marginalized and forced to choose between identity and activism. It can be annoying. I get it. Being publicly corrected, interrupted mid-thought
A Space to Belong: My Reflection on the 2023 Activist Retreat
By: Umme Kulsoom Arif Pronouns: they/them Age: 29 Why Did You Want To Attend The Activist Retreat? I attended the Activist Retreat for the first time virtually in 2022, and it was a really affirming experience over those three days. However, I was really excited for an in-person retreat, especially because I had not really interacted with other Bohras who had experienced FGM/C or were even open to talking about the practice. I wanted to meet others who are doing the work that I was doing. I’ve always treated the Activist Retreat as a part of the healing of my inner child and as a part of my journey through the five stages of grief. For the first year I attended, I was in the stage of anger over what had happened to me. During the second year, it was about forgiveness, because my mother and I have had some conversations about khatna since that first retreat. What Have You Learned or Most Enjoyed at This Retreat? I really was blown away by the sheer scale and range of ages of a lot of people. I’ve always thought that FGC activism was a young person’s job. Our generation was doing the work, because previous generations had ostensibly failed us. So I was really blindsided – yet also impressed and pleased to see – that we had moms and grandmothers in the space talking about how they prevented their daughters from being cut, or they themselves were saved from it. Learning that this work had been going on for longer than I have been alive was one of the most beautiful things to hear and just really empowering. Why Are You Involved in the Movement Against Female Genital Cutting? I was five when I was cut, and I was 19 when I found out. At the time that I found out I had been cut, I had one younger cousin and she was also cut despite my family’s best attempts to prevent it from happening. For me, it’s become important to change the narrative around the issue because even if our families try to prevent it from happening, it still happens to those we love. That realization was really powerful and frustrating for me, because we deserve better out of our culture and our faith. It’s also important for me as somebody who sees how much my mom loves being a Bohra, to make it something that she doesn’t have to feel guilty or justify being because of the practice. How Do You Think That This Retreat Will Inform Your Work as an Activist? We had some interesting conversations at the retreat, especially around the Detroit case, and it forced me to process a lot of empathy for those who unfortunately do practice FGM/C. I also had the realization that the practice almost leads to a sort of cult-like mentality. As much as we know that “do no harm” from doctors is part of their oath, the harm of FGM/C does not seem to be seen as harm. That has changed a lot of my anger towards the culture, and it has just forced me to be a little bit kinder in thought to those who still support and practice it — especially as we are trying to change their minds. What Work Are You Doing Currently or Are Hoping to Do In the Future? I’m working on presenting a paper for the Association for Asian Studies Conference on March 14-17. It’s about the intersection of queerness and FGM/C, and what it means to be a non-binary survivor of FGM/C in a space that is incredibly female-focused. One of the things I processed at the retreat was that these spaces— despite the fact that I use they/them pronouns— are where I am most often referred to as a woman. That’s because most people consider the practice to be centered around womanhood and femininity. As I don’t engage with womanhood in a traditional manner, this can be difficult. So my work is centered around trying to reframe it for myself and other non-binary survivors. The harm was done to us was because of a perception of womanhood that was forced upon our bodies. And therein lies the second injustice of FGM/C for non-binary survivors – the denial of our ability to choose our own identities over the one that is placed upon us. That’s what my paper is tackling. How Did This Second Retreat Make You Feel? I felt empowered. The retreat always makes me feel powerful and I find myself leaving with a lot of clarity for what my next steps for my activism are in the coming year. One of my big goals that came out of the retreat was finishing the paper, as I mentioned previously. Also, finding others who had survived FGM/C – speaking to these people who had such varied lives, that weren’t just centered around being a survivor – makes me feel like we’re not alone. There is a line by Rumi, the poet, “Ours is not a caravan of Despair”, and that line comes to me every time I think about the retreat—this is not the Caravan of Despair that we think it is when we’re alone. Do You Have Anything Else You Would Like to Share? Something You Can Share With Other People Who Might be Interested in The Retreat? If you are ever afraid that you’re not going to fit in because you don’t fit the traditional mold of a survivor—you will. Everybody is very welcoming. Related: Volunteer spotlight: Umme Kulsoom Arif On being a Nonbinary Survivor of FGM/C [youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfSUlv7Zmto”]
More Than A Survivor: Celebrating Queer Joy
At Sahiyo, we believe in creating a space where all voices are heard and celebrated. We acknowledge the unique experiences of Queer survivors within the FGC community and aim to provide support, inclusivity, and joy! In celebration of Pride Month, we asked members of our community what joy looks like to them: Umme Kulsoom Arif “My grandmother made a living making lace borders for dupattas and ridas when my father and his siblings were growing up, and now I make blankets for my family and friends. Though our relationship is not always an easy one, separated by generations and miles of ocean, I still have the ponchos, purses, and scarves she made me, her love and determination woven into every beautiful stitch. I may not have the patience she had to make intricate lace patterns, but I like to think I make up for it by crafting blankets large enough to wrap yourself in — my own way of showing the people I love how much they matter to me. The two blankets shown are ones I made for my parents — and one of them has over three miles of yarn in it!” Check out Sahiyo’s Instagram for more this Pride Month!
More Than A Survivor: Celebrating Queer Joy Campaign
At Sahiyo, we recognize that our work to end female genital cutting (FGC) does not exist outside of Queer liberation, and members of the survivor community who are Queer have distinct experiences that deserve to be seen, heard, and made room for in the FGC sphere. Whether this means incorporating more gender-inclusive language, clarifying that outdated statistics only capture the experiences of women and girls, or providing a sense of community for Queer survivors, we are just getting started. Pride Month is a time for celebration, protest, and remembrance, of the challenges, and joys, surrounding Queerness and Queer liberation. Occurring every June in homage to the Stonewall Riots, Pride speaks to the enduring spirit of resistance against challenges that have historically affected, and continue to affect, the Queer community. To this end, Pride has a multifaceted purpose: it is as much advocating against the ongoing oppression of Queer folks and calling attention to human rights abuses occurring globally as it is dancing in the street and raucously cheering at a parade. To celebrate this Pride Month, we chose to uplift an angle of FGC survivorship and Queerness that honors and celebrates joy. Inspired by a conversation with Dena Igusti, a trans non-binary survivor of FGC, the significance of a “joy-centered campaign” became apparent: “I think it would be really great to see more campaigns where it’s seeing folks who are also Queer, who are also survivors, but also, overall, are also just doing well… Just hanging out, having fun, and also showing us outside of just trauma. I think it’s one of those things, a combination of wanting to know that exists and that I’m not alone… But also I think it is also nice to know other aspects of these survivors outside of what was done to them.” To Dena, seeing other survivors, or non-binary folks, outside of the context of their trauma gives them hope: “What was so important for me was… seeing them outside of [survivorship] and after that; looking back and being like, ‘Yeah, I went through that.’ It was a wild ride, but they get to have this joy and hope of saying everything in past tense. ‘This was horrible.’ ‘This was awful.’ ‘This was painful, but I’m here now.’” While we continue to push for inclusivity and intersectionality beyond the scope of this month, which includes discussing and working to address the unique challenges that affect Queer survivors, we hope to also uplift and celebrate our community members who are More Than A Survivor; they are here, Queer, and finding their joy.
Reflecting on A Quiet Violence: Navigating Female Genital Cutting as an LGBTQ+ Survivor
By Trisha Kini On June 23rd, Sahiyo hosted their webinar A Quiet Violence: Navigating Female Genital Cutting as an LGBTQ+ Survivor in honor of LGBTQ+ pride month. The event was moderated by Sahiyo U.S. Advisory Board chair, internal medicine physician, and chief medical editor of EverydayHealth.com Dr. Arefa Cassoobhoy. Panelists included poet, playwright, filmmaker, and producer Dena Igusti (they/them), End FGC Singapore volunteer Afiqa (she/they), lawyer, activist, and writer Umme Kulsoon Arif (she/they), and pelvic and gynecologic surgeon Dr. Marci Bowers (she/her). Oftentimes, LGBTQ+ and non-binary survivors of FGC are underrepresented and silenced in FGC activism, statistics, academic literature, and healthcare settings. Health organizations and anti-FGC advocacy movements frequently use gender binary terms when referring to FGC survivors, further propagating the harmful idea that FGC only impacts women. Panelists who identified as non-binary FGC survivors, Dena, Afiqa, and Umme, all shared stories of their own journey in understanding sexuality and gender as survivors of FGC, along with the harms of a false assumption that every survivor of FGC identifies as a woman. While it is true that FGC impacts those assigned female at birth, not all survivors identify with being a woman, womanhood, and heteronormative culture. Ascribing cisgender-heterosexual labels and expectations to non-binary survivors not only dismisses one’s identity and personhood, but also negatively impacts a survivor’s mental and physical health. Members of the panel advocated for the needs of unheard LGBTQ+ survivors, and raised awareness about steps anti-FGC organizations can take to be more inclusive, respectful, and welcoming to survivors of all gender identities. The event began with two powerful videos from our 2022 Voices to End FGM/C cohort, which were recently released to the public. Dena Igusti’s On being a Nonbinary Survivor of FGM/C highlighted that the use of non-inclusive language and terminology in FGC-related statistics has led them to question whether their experiences can be validated as a gender non-conforming individual. This was followed by Afiqa’s eye-opening video Conversations with my Mother, which shared their experience of learning about FGC as a young girl. Afiqa often questioned why circumcision was celebrated for men versus women, and as they continued to question FGC and heterosexual norms, they realized their reality of gender and sexuality did not match what society demanded of them. The lack of LGBTQ+ inclusive resources available in healthcare settings, therapy, and anti-FGC organizations has actively limited the amount of care non-binary FGC survivors can benefit from. Dena, Afiqa, and Umme often found they had to create their own language for themselves, as their experiences were not considered in the resources sought for their own healing. They also found that their experiences were often downplayed by society through invalidation and ignorance. Following this discussion, Dr. Bowers stressed the importance of gender affirming care, which refers to medical interventions that support an individual’s gender identity. With anti-FGC bills in Texas and Idaho that prohibit gender affirming care, healthcare as a right has been denied to trans individuals, which further deters LGBTQ+ individuals from seeking care. This has put LGBTQ+ youth at risk of facing wider health complications and neglect from the system. In addition, the reversal of Roe V. Wade has turned back the clock and denied rights to bodily autonomy. Trans people, just like cis people, deserve the right to safe spaces for healthcare, gender affirming care, and the right to choose what happens with their bodies. The webinar ended on an important note: how allies can be supportive of LGBTQ+ survivors. Some of the many steps we can take as allies are as easy as amplifying voices, even if it just means adding your pronouns to your social media, or making public statements showing solidarity, such as “trans rights are human rights.” In terms of anti-FGC initiatives, it is essential to actively make an effort to utilize gender inclusive language and include non-binary folks, rather than restricting FGC to a woman’s issue. This applies to medical care as well. Healthcare providers can actively stand with their LGBTQ+ patients by implementing inclusivity in intake forms, wearing pronoun buttons, unlearning assumptions, educating each other, and making an effort to meet the patient where they are, thereby cultivating an open-minded and respectful environment. One of the big takeaways I gathered from this webinar is the harmful impact of assuming one’s experience with gender-based violence (GBV). Not all LGBTQ+ survivors of GBV share similar experiences, as these are also shaped by intersectional factors such as culture, value, and religion, among others. In order to make an effort to understand one’s experience with survivorship, asking questions, showing support, and speaking up can make all the difference in helping LGBTQ+ survivors feel safe and welcomed. LGBTQ+ individuals, like cisgender, heterosexual ones, are well within their rights to expect respect, healthcare, and inclusion in order to facilitate their own healing and growth. Watch the webinar here. Read the transcript from the webinar here.
Activists Retreat Reflection: Umme’s experience
By Umme Kulsoom Arif When I was first invited to join the 2022 Sahiyo Activists Retreat I was… terrified. I almost didn’t sign up. I wanted to be an activist and I wanted to do more with Sahiyo, but I was scared of both.. Being both non-binary and a survivor of FGM/C, I always thought of myself as being in limbo — did my identity as a non-binary individual somehow invalidate the pain of my cutting? Was I less valid within the LGBTQIA+ community because of the trauma I had endured that shaped the way I viewed my gender and sexuality? Was I less valid within the Sahiyo community because I was only perceived by others to be a woman, as opposed to actually feeling like one myself? What did gender and sexuality even mean in the context of being a survivor, an activist, a Dawoodi Bohra, both in the closet and outside of it? I was scared. Every step of signing up — from filling out the interest form to creating my bio to sending my first message in the groupchat — was something I procrastinated, almost dreaded doing, because it cemented the feeling of walking into a den of lions. I wondered if I would be judged as harshly as I feel I am by the Bohra community I know, by my extended family, by myself. I don’t know what compelled me to take every step, but I’m glad that I did. The moment I logged onto that Zoom call and faced the community waiting for me, I realized: this was what being safe truly felt like. I sat, listened, and heard my thoughts, fears, and emotions echoed back to me in the voices of those who — like me — had either gone through or knew someone who had endured an injustice the likes of which I still struggle to properly name. Grief is a strange, frustrating thing. I never know what to grieve — does one mourn the moment one learns about the loss or the moment of the loss? Do I mourn the teenager tentatively coming out to their mother, and learning suddenly just how little their family valued their autonomy over the words of a man they had never met, or do I mourn the frightened five year old girl-who-one-day-would-not-be, laying on a cold metal table and feeling gloved hand wipe away her tears in an operating room? Or is it both, embracing all that fear, anger, and agony that comes from not knowing and needing to know at the same time? Even before the Retreat, I had been grieving. I went to therapy, I laid in bed and wallowed in my depression; I bargained with a God I almost didn’t believe in anymore for a justice that did not come; I denied the magnitude of what had been done to me, insisting that others had it so much worse and that I needed to just move on; I accepted the things I could not change and resolved to use my law degree to help others just like me; and… I raged. Quietly, internally, I burned with fury I could not share. As an activist, I knew I had to take a measured response because those who were for FGM/C would use anything, including the tone of activists, to decry and deny the validity of the campaign. But pain is not measured, it is not reasonable; it is a cruel, burning thing, and I found myself repeatedly wondering if I was even ready to do this activism thing if I couldn’t control my emotions. I felt like a bad person for being angry until the Retreat, until I heard the same emotions in the voices of others and realized the bottled up and tamped down anger was not an aberration, but a reasonable response. While it needed to be edited and pared down and softened to be shared with the world at large, it could be shared here, amongst others who knew the truth. It can feel isolating and infuriating to go against the grain of one’s own community, to be ostracized and judged and feel betrayed by one’s own family to the point where one loses faith. I felt alone, until I didn’t, until I realized there were others who felt as alone as I did. Which is a weird thing to feel, I think. What the Retreat offered me was a confirmation that I was not alone or an aberration, and that I was enough simply for wanting to speak up and speak about my story. I made friends. I was invited to speak about my identity as a non-binary survivor — which in itself was terrifying, but I did it and found myself feeling even more validated through that experience — and realized both the value of having a global community of people with whom I could be my most authentic (and slightly odd) self and of forgiving myself for the things I could not do in that moment. Read the report on this year’s Activists Retreat.
A Quiet Violence: Navigating Female Genital Cutting as an LGBTQ+ Survivor
Register Today: https://bit.ly/AQuietViolence Female genital cutting (FGC) is a form of gender-based violence that is often undermined by harmful gendered social norms. Whether done for marriageability, cleanliness, purity, or a variety of other reasons – the practice of FGC is often tied to socially ascribed standards of ‘womanhood’. Despite being seeped in highly binary gender norms, not all who are survivors of FGC identify with cis-heterosexual womanhood; not every survivor is a woman. As non-binary anti-FGC activist Dena Igusti said in an article for Womanly, “The quiet violence of FGM is that survivors forever bear the burden of being associated only with cis-womanhood.” In fact,the language surrounding anti-FGC advocacy and programing often centers on the needs, experiences, and terminology most associated with cisgender and heterosexual women. Furthermore, anti-FGC laws in the United States are increasingly being weaponized against trans communities to deny them gender-affirming healthcare. As growing conversations around the world have sought to address the unique needs of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) communities, the question remains as to how to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ survivors of FGC. On June 23rd, 2022 at 10 am EST, Sahiyo will be hosting,“A Quiet Violence: Navigating Female Genital Cutting as an LGBTQ+ Survivor” in honor of Pride month. This webinar will bring together LGBTQ+ identifying survivors of FGC and other LGBTQ+ activists to discuss their experiences navigating FGC alongside their gender identity and sexuality – as well as thoughts on how anti-FGC advocacy organizations can become better at meeting the needs of LGBTQ+ survivors. The goal of this panel is to center and uplift the voices of LGBTQ+ FGC survivors whose identities and needs are too often pushed to the margin of conversations on FGC. This webinar will also seek to explore how anti-FGC bills across the world are being co-opted to deny trans and gender-nonconforming individuals their right to healthcare. For this event, we will be joined by three advocates who have an intimate knowledge of the topic and the challenges that we seek to address; Dena Igusti, Afiqa, and Dr. Marci Bowers. Dena Igusti (they/them) is a queer non-binary Indonesian Muslim poet, playwright, filmmaker, producer, and FGC survivor & activist born and raised in Queens, New York. They are the author of CUT WOMAN (Game Over Books, 2020) and I NEED THIS TO NOT SWALLOW ME ALIVE (Gingerbug Press, 2021). They are the founder of Dearest Mearest. Their work has been featured in BOAAT Press, Peregrine Journal, and several other publications. Their work has been produced and performed at The Brooklyn Museum, The Apollo Theater, the 2018 Teen Vogue Summit, Players Theatre (SHARUM, 2019), Prelude Festival (Cut Woman, 2020), Center At West Park (CON DOUGH, 2021), The Tank (First Sight 2021 at LimeFest), and several other venues internationally. They are a Culture Push Associated Artist. They are currently a 2021 Playwright-in-Residence for Rogue Theater Festival. They are a 2022 Sundress Arts Resident, 2022 Best of the Net Nominee, 2021 Baldwin For The Arts Resident, 2021 Hook Arts Media Digital Connections Fellow, 2021 City Artist Corps, 2021 Stories Award Finalist, 2021 LMCC Governor’s Island Resident, 2021 Broadway For Racial Justice Inaugural Casting Directive Fellow, 2020 Seventh Wave Editorial Resident, 2020 Ars Nova Emerging Leaders Fellow, 2020 Spotify Sound Up cohort member, 2019 Player’s Theatre Resident Playwright, and 2018 NYC Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador. They are a Converse All Stars Artist and UN #TOGETHERBAND Global Ambassador. Afiqa (she/they) is a Malay Muslim gender-nonconforming survivor of FGC in Singapore. They volunteer with End FGC Singapore, a community-led campaign aiming to empower Muslim communities in Singapore to make FGC obsolete through community re-education and community-based support. They participated in Sahiyo’s 2022 Voices to End FGM/C workshop. Dr. Bowers (she/her) is a pelvic and gynecologic surgeon with more than 32 years of’ experience. She is a University of Minnesota Medical School graduate, where she was class and student body president. After residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Washington, she practiced in Seattle at the Polyclinic and Swedish Medical Center. Dr. Bowers left Seattle in 2003 to apprentice with the legendary Dr. Stanley Biber, considered the “Father of Transgender Surgery.” In 2010, Marci relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area community of Burlingame, CA. She has now performed more than 2,250 primary MTF Vaginoplasties and 3,900 Gender Affirming Surgeries overall. In 2014, Dr. Bowers was hired to renew transgender surgery at Sheba Hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel. Subsequently, she initiated trans surgical education programs at Mt. Sinai (New York/2016), Denver Health (2018), the University of Toronto Women’s College Hospital (2019), Northwell Health (2020), and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (2020). The Mt. Sinai Transgender Surgical Fellowship is the first of its’ kind. Dr. Bowers performed WPATH’s first 2 “live surgery” vaginoplasties at Mt. Sinai in 2018 and 2019. Dr. Bowers is the WPATH President-elect and currently serves on the Trevor Project Board of Directors having served previous terms with GLAAD and the Transgender Law Center. Her gender diverse work has been highlighted by appearances on Oprah, CBS Sunday Morning, Discovery Health and the TLC reality series, “I am Jazz”. She was interviewed in 2021 by Leslie Stahl for the CBS News program 60 Minutes. Dr. Bowers is recognized as one of the 100 most influential LGBT people on the Guardian’s World Pride Power List and one of Huffington Post’s 50 Transgender Icons, was called the Transgender Surgery Rock Star (Denver Post), the Georgia O’keefe of Genitalia (unknown) and the Beyonce of Bottom Surgery (KPFK-FM North Hollywood).