Our Mission

The intention of DesiQ Diaspora (DQD) 2022 is to create and facilitate a safe space for all persons who trace their heritage to South Asia including members of the South Asian Diaspora.

DQD 2022 is a conference that aims to gather LGBTQ+ & GNC South Asian, Indo-Caribbean and folks that identify within the Desi Diaspora. Earlier conferences (DesiQ), held in 1995, 2000, 2006, and 2013, brought together hundreds of LGBTQ+ & GNC South Asian and Desi people from around the world to discuss the political and cultural issues that people in our communities face. Often LGBTQ+ & GNC people of our communities exist as marginalized minorities and it is crucial for us to create authentic, diverse, and progressive spaces in which we can proactively combat stereotypes and be successful advocates for change. DQD 2022 will be a space where we can recognize and strategize around the current and future political battles and build vital bonds of community and friendship.

The organizers of DQD 2022 have been involved in planning previous summits and/or come from years of experience with LGBTQ+ & GNC Desi spaces across the US. At this initial stage, we are envisioning DQD 2022 as the largest conference yet, reinvigorated by changing political landscapes in the United States and our places of ancestry together with a growing recognition of queer and trans rights as human rights.

**Desi refers to people who self-identify as having ancestral heritage from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or Tibet. 

Disclaimer & Guidelines

DesiQueer Diaspora is a space created by and for the members of the LGBTQ+ & GNC South Asian Diaspora. Our goal is to create a vibrant and inclusive space that meets the needs of our communities and orients them toward love, healing, and liberation. These guidelines serve as an evolving boundary for us to build respect and radical inclusion into the heart of our conference and beyond. We recognize the inherent limitation of codifying attempts like this so please reach out to us in the spirit of love and openness if you feel we’ve missed something vital. 

To us, radical inclusion means we are actively striving to create a space that centers the most marginalized folks in our community; we see this principle as a way to build power for all of us. We specifically and unapologetically want to welcome people of different sexual orientations and proclivities, ages, class, faith backgrounds, body shapes and sizes, genders, gender expression and identities, countries of origin, skin color, caste, family structures, and abilities.

While firmly within a liberation framework that is open to sexual experience and freedom, we also hold consent and anti-harassment as our core principles. In advance of the conference, we will send out a list of guidelines that community members should hold to when they are in the conference to respect one another.

DesiQueer Diaspora is specifically an anti-fascist space that will not tolerate supremacist behavior from any community members.

Any action that diminishes one of us, diminishes all of us and so in that spirit we reserve the right to ask folks to leave the space if they are not acting within these guidelines.

Allies at the conference

We are so honored and grateful for the interest in attending DesiQueer Diaspora 2022 from our community members! However, we want to highlight that this space is being intentionally and specifically created for folks who identify, broadly, as desi / desi-diasporic *and* LGBTQ+ & GNC. Desi refers to those who can trace their roots back to South Asia, with the acknowledgement that our histories are complicated by colonialism and dislocation and for many folks, those roots are tangled in ways that others may not comprehend. 

We welcome family members of community members - including chosen family, partners, romantic partners - but for those folks who don’t identify as desi and/or LGBTQ+ & GNC, we ask that you be aware that certain sessions or spaces within the conference may have restricted access for just desi and/or LGBTQ+ & GNC folks and that you center the experiences of the folks the conference is created for. 

For those who do not identify within these intersecting communities, we ask that you consider other ways of supporting this conference rather than attending in person - including financially at https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dqd or directly supporting those who are choosing to attend.