How SWANA Youth Are Re-Engaging With LGBTQ+ Art Scenes In Philadelphia

Staff Writer

Throughout the past decade, Philadelphia has become home to multitudes of queer SWANA artists. From individuals like Ya Shoosh, Rami George, Nasrene Kordani, and Basak Kilicbeyli to groups like YallaPunk and Batikh Batikh, Philadelphia has become home to gallery exhibits, art collectives, and visual archives of SWANA LGBTQ+ life in the city. But as Philadelphia’s art scenes continue to grow, SWANA youth are re-engaging these platforms to answer their own questions about community. 

Where do young queer SWANA folks in Philadelphia come from? What do their queer communities look like? And what does the intersection of arts and queer culture in Philadelphia look like for them? To find answers, al-Bustan asked three SWANA-identified queer people in their 20s — who requested to go by pseudonyms or withhold their last names — to describe their engagement with the arts in the city. 

Growing Up in Philadelphia: Ehsan (she / her)

Being raised in the Sudanese community in the northeast of Philadelphia, it was amazing experiencing the arts culture in Philadelphia growing up. There was a high school program I enrolled in called Work Ready which placed you in different organizations to work for the summer, and through them I worked for the Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. I began attending plays every week in the city with the org, and that’s how I became involved in theater here.

“I moved outside the city to be able to live more freely and experience the queer arts without vigilance.”

Being raised in a minority community in Philly can hinder gay socializing on the arts scene because you’re always looking over your shoulder for nosy community members. One time I was coming home from a clearly queer party and my Uber driver was Sudanese. That’s a normal part of life for people who are not out, and there’s a lot of us in the Sudanese community. So I haven’t been able to create much queer community in Philadelphia and I moved outside the city to be able to live more freely and experience the queer arts without vigilance.

Not to mention that when I began trying out queer dating apps, I realized even if I meet someone queer and they’re SWANA, that doesn’t mean I want to hang out with them. It hinges more on if they’re black SWANA, since I connect more over shared racial identity in the US.

But just recently I was reminded of my good memories here in the city when I attended the queer-authored play Esto No Tiene Nombre with a lesbian friend from Sudan. That did make me miss living in Philly, and theater here remains a very touching space for me.

Moving to Philadelphia: Nour (she/they)

Straight up, I moved to Philadelphia in 2021 because my queer best friend was moving here and I knew I had black queer Muslim friends here too. I was born in Abu Dhabi then raised in a Sudanese American community, and I had been living in Brooklyn but it was expensive as hell! It’s very hard to exist in New York on a non-profit salary. As I was beginning to get more involved with audio and podcasting, I couldn’t stay there. It was a chaotic period of my life where I was searching for jobs with queer non-profits, I was stressed about my deteriorating roommate situation in Brooklyn, and I knew I could afford to live in Philly on my own.

”The art spaces are just where queerness is allowed to run more freely and be more centered than at the grocery store or bus stop.”

When I moved to Philadelphia, I relied on Instagram to find queer artistic events. I’m not really much of a club and dance person, but there are really rich queer spaces that exist in the art realm, and they give me comfort and rootedness in place. I attended the Hot Bits Film Festival in Philly and it was one of the first places I really enjoyed seeing lesbian sexuality portrayed on screen. I was really pleasantly surprised by the DIY culture and undercurrent of art and cultural spaces in Philly - every week I learn something new. 

When you come to understand yourself as a queer person and you release your shame, a third eye opens up. I’m tuned into things I wasn’t before - I see queer people in all spaces, especially since Philly is gay as hell. The art spaces are just where queerness is allowed to run more freely and be more centered than at the grocery store or bus stop. Art spaces are where it’s more accepted to be weird.

Seeking Refuge in Philadelphia: Saif (they/he)

I was born and raised in Kuwait in a very religious Shi’i Muslim family, and I came to Philly in 2016 as a student. After the pandemic hit in 2020, my mental health caved and I had to confront that I’m queer, I’m trans, I’m SWANA. I’ve known I was trans or queer my whole life - I presented as a boya and flirted with girls. But I’d never done anything about it because I didn’t have the resources. Then I got connected to Philly FIGHT, and I got access to healthcare like HRT. I started hormone therapy in 2021, and in April 2021 I began to seek asylum in the United States. Unfortunately I was helped by the fact that Kuwait explicitly discriminates against “cross-dressing” in Article 198 of the constitution, so after getting a pro-bono lawyer and still having $1200 in legal fees, I got asylum here in Philadelphia in September 2022.

“My father also used to do tatbir…and that memory is part of what drew me to using leather to heal my trauma.”

I’ve always been a landscape photographer but it was only in my senior year of college that I did my first queer photoshoot. That was my first time connecting my art with my sexuality, and now I do photography with friends in the kink and leather community. As a SWANA person I want to connect to the SWANA culture of leather - I’d love to do a photoshoot featuring dabkeh leather! As a kid, my grandfather owned a leather shop in Kuwait, and I would walk into his store and just indulge in the scent. My father also used to do tatbir - flogging himself for religious reasons - and that memory is part of what drew me to using leather to heal my trauma.

When I first came to Philadelphia, I was very isolated because of my mental health. It was only after getting refugee status that I  felt comfortable not being “closeted” when approaching other SWANA folks. My first queer friend here in Philly was also queer and from Kuwait. He was there when I had my first kiss in the U.S., he took me to my first gay bar, and every time I’m going to hook up with someone he asks me without fail “Are they a Zionist?” He featured in my first queer photoshoot, and now with his help and through art I’ve slowly built up my queer SWANA community here over the last two years.

These interviews have been lightly edited for clarity.