By Melissa Gheisari, Center Summer Intern
For Yaas Farzanefar (she/her), wrapping up her senior year of college turned out to be dramatically different than anything she could have ever imagined. After the death of Mahsa Jina Amini, her fall semester consisted of organizing demonstrations and reporting the daily happenings and impact of the “Woman. Life. Freedom.” movement in Iran on social media. As the advocacy director of Middle East Matters, a student-led non-profit 501(c) organization dedicated to advocating for human rights in the Middle East, Yaas had already been working with the organization as a founding member for nearly three years when the movement erupted in Iran in September of 2022. “For the first time, everything felt different. Like we could actually create some change. This was the moment my generation had been waiting for our whole lives,” she says. Farzanefar immediately decided to organize a demonstration at UC Berkeley, relying on community support to organize one of the earliest demonstrations in the Bay Area after Mahsa Jina Amini was killed by Iran’s morality police. Farzanefar says that it was a seemingly daunting task given that she had no prior experience organizing at this level and intensity. “I’m so grateful for the Iranian community that showed up. It was truly like we were a mutual aid group; we spent the night before making posters, making an agenda, and no one could have anticipated that hundreds of people would actually show up that evening on campus.”
Farzanefar was born and raised in Iran. Since receiving admission to UC Berkeley, the US has become her home. The work she’s been doing with Middle East Matters reflects the challenges she has faced as a young Iranian woman, and now, as an Iranian-American woman. “The reason why people like me are here is because we were taught from a young age that there is no future for us in Iran. We have the privilege to be here [in the US] and we’re going to do everything we can in order for our children to actually be able to live in the country they were born in. It is the least I can do.” As an Iranian woman, Farzanefar felt that the revolution prompted by the death of Mahsa Jina Amini gave her no choice but to take a stand, even if it meant she was jeopardizing her chances of returning to Iran. As challenging as it was and continues to be, Farzanefar says that her advocacy for human rights in Iran is built into her identity. “It is not a choice but my duty. Fall semester remains a blur. I just remember from September to December organizing rallies back-to-back – Middle East Matters gave me a thirty-hour work week. And I couldn’t not do it because it was literally my life. It was for and is about people my age and the future of my country. Like if I had been in Iran, I could have died. My friends were in the streets. The first weeks, I couldn’t even reach my family in Iran because they shut down the internet,” Farzanefar says.
During the spring semester of 2023, Farzanefar’s protests took the form of academia, as her academic life became a space of self-expression and demonstration against the regime. As a senior in the Gender and Women’s Studies department, and nearly eight months after the protests started, Farzanefar completed her honors thesis titled, “Woman. Life. Freedom. Queer. Trans. Liberation: Echoes of Azadi. Breaking Free from the Inner-Panopticon.” Farzanefar says she was inspired by young queer Iranians fearlessly protesting against the Islamic Republic.
“I think the first time I heard the slogan [Queer, Trans, Liberation] was when Middle East Matters was planning a global student march for Iran and Afghanistan, and on BBC Persian there was a feature on the Berlin University protest. I remember seeing this video of students marching, screaming and chanting ‘Women, Life, Freedom, Queer, Trans, Liberation,’ ‘Zan, Zendegi, Azadi, Queer, Trans, Rahaei’ in Farsi.” The liberation of women in Iran is concurrent with the liberation of queer and trans folk, she says, and it is impossible not to see the connections. “We are not free until we are all free, and true Azadi will never be achieved without this understanding,” Farzanefar says, referring to the freedom of all marginalized communities in Iran regardless of sexuality, religion, and ethnicity. Farzanefar recalls being brought to tears when witnessing young queer Iranians make their voices heard within the “Woman. Life. Freedom.” movement “because that was the first time that you were seeing Iranian diaspora actually reclaiming this movement and centering not only ‘Woman. Life. Freedom.’ but also ‘Queer, Trans, Liberation.’”
Farzanefar says that the values behind the slogan are ones of inclusivity and intersectionality – a refusal to accept the erasure of queer and trans people from the “Woman. Life. Freedom.” movement. Farzanefar reflects on the stares of disapproval she would get when she would wear the pride flag at protests for Iran here in California. “Even with being in the diaspora, there is still so much homophobia and silencing of queer voices in the Iranian community here,” she says. Her thesis specifically addresses how the regime of the Islamic Republic commodifies queerness through its inhumane laws and punishments. Her thesis, directed by Professor Minoo Moallem, redefines Azadi (freedom), to give further context to the role that queerness plays in the movement. “Azadi translates to freedom in English, but in Farsi, it’s not just freedom. It’s evermore channeling than that – it can encounter and embody all kinds of freedom. Woman. Life. Freedom. Queer. Trans. Liberation. is a way to give power to so many marginalized voices that are not included. It shows that our Azadi doesn’t have to be binary. Azadi is not women’s rights vs. economic rights – no, it’s everything” she adds.
Farzanefar says she wasn’t initially planning on applying a queer lens to her analysis, but it was seeing the many young queer voices of the movement that inspired a necessary shift in her perspective. Her thesis reflects the changes she went through as an activist and as a queer Iranian woman. “My thesis was first going to be on what I called ‘The War on Sex’ and how the Islamic regime is using sex and sexuality to commodify and further marginalize female bodies, sexuality, and women in general. But it wasn’t long before I realized there was something missing in doing that. Without including a queer lens, I would be silencing queer voices, including my own voice, in my work.” As a triple major in Gender and Women’s Studies (GWS), Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, and Political Science, Farzanefar made a deliberate decision to write her thesis through GWS and show how this often-overlooked discipline has uniquely shaped both her academic journey and worldview. Naturally, she has been scrutinized by some of her peers and family who expected her to choose a more technical discipline over the humanities. But Farzanefar emphasizes the importance of GWS as it teaches specific critical skills that help to dismantle internalized constructs that may cloud our values and judgements. She also has always had a specific interest in women’s movements in the Middle East, and especially in Iran.
Farzanefar’s lived experience as a queer Iranian woman is embodied in all levels of her work and with this she says there is necessary introspection – a confrontation of internalized experiences and beliefs that are a product of living under that regime. “My thesis started with me having to unpack all my trauma from Iran, from being a woman in Iran and being treated as a second-class citizen. I think growing up in Iran and seeing everything firsthand, what living as a queer woman in Iran is like, has instilled in me a passion and duty to continue this work.” This process of unpacking is an inherent part of the work she does, and ultimately is a step towards healing and light.
When she experienced intense burnout, Farzanefar found herself in spaces that promoted joy and healing for Iranians. She was involved with the Iranian Students Cultural Organization (ISCO) at UC Berkeley, attended and organized galleries showcasing Iranian artists, organized healing circles, and started working at a local yoga studio owned by an Iranian woman (Green Yogi in Berkeley). “Healing occurs in small instances where there is community, Iranian food, Iranian art; where there are people reading poetry and singing and dancing. It took me a while until I was able to dance again and feel joy,” she says. “I also learned that our joy is revolutionary, because the Islamic Republic wants to take our joy away and has been doing so for the past forty years. Although we are still grieving a lot of lost lives, and the revolution continues, it doesn’t mean that we can’t heal. And healing starts with joy and love and compassion. It’s that compassion that brings our community together. We need to heal ourselves first in order to heal the world.” she adds.
We commend and thank Yaas Farzanefar for her human rights work and congratulate her on her graduation from UC Berkeley this past May. She reminds us that the inclusion of queer voices is essential in our pursuit for Iran’s liberation. Woman. Life. Freedom. Queer. Trans. Liberation. You can keep up with Yaas and her postgraduate journey on her personal Instagram and follow Middle East Matters on their website or Instagram @middleeastmatters.
With a Trace: Documenting and Sharing the Experiences of the Iranian Diaspora 