"I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood." Audre Lorde

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Our Mission and Aims Mission The mission of the ASWAT initiative is to serve as a Palestinian gay women’s group where we may express ourselves, discuss gender and sexuality, define our feminism, and address the conflict experienced by us between our national and gendered identities. The ASWAT group provides a safe space for any Palestinian woman who identifies as lesbian, bi-sexual, transsexual, transgender or inter-sexual, where we can break our individual silence through dialogue, self-education, healing and activism. In addition, we strive to generate social change in order to meet the needs of one of the most silenced and oppressed communities in Israel. We work to reach out to Palestinian and Jewish communities in Israel, and also to collaborate with other like minded institutes, groups and individuals in order to combat the multilayered discrimination we face and to promote women rights. Need for ASWAT Many women in the Palestinian society are living their identities and sexuality in secret. We believe that this is a result of the patriarchal structure of our society where surviving means being silent; silent in our neighborhoods and villages, silent inside our families and schools, silent within women’s organizations, and often even with each other. Palestinian patriarchal society does not accept, and often aggressively rejects, any expression of ‘otherness’. When women dare to identify themselves outsides the borders of prescriptive traditional gender roles and identities, they face violent exclusion, or even worse, violence against their own bodies and property. One strategy to reinforce silence on and subordination of women's sexuality or sexual energy and potential is through sexual violence. This is the reason why, until now, Palestinian women have hardly ever organized or dared to protest, resist, and insist upon creating a space to deal with issues of women's sexuality and lesbianism. Furthermore, as Palestinian women living inside the borders of Israel or in the Occupied Territories under Israeli occupation, we belong to an internally displaced population that does not enjoy equality in power, resources, education, culture, or religion.  In addition to our feminist struggle for equal rights, privilege and opportunity in our society, we are at the same time very much part of a national struggle for recognition in our civil minority rights (Palestinian who live in Israel comprise about 20% of the population of Israel).  As long as women participate in the struggle for national liberation, we are welcomed and our efforts are appreciated.  Some women can, in fact, leave the private sphere only if their activities serve men’s strategic and political aspirations for national liberation. The moment women want to focus their energies in establishing independence from the male occupation and structure, they are transformed instantly into enemies. The competition between different, sometimes clashing needs and struggles, puts us in peculiar situations where we are demanded to prioritize one struggle over the other or to choose our ideological 'loyalty' in a multi-layered reality and among potential partners. In this sense, ASWAT offers a unique perspective on social change in light of the conflict between identities and political struggles. ASWAT's Aims:  • To create a safe and anonym space in order to empower, support and inform Palgaywomen; • To combat distortion of information, censorship and ignorance created by social taboos regarding women's sexuality and lesbianism by disseminating alternative, resisting knowledge. • To reach-out to other Palgaywomen struggling with closet, shame, undisclosed feelings and identities and become a main source of information and empowerment by using our direct authentic voice and our own words; • To advocate our values and vision to interested groups and individuals such as educators, service providers, community leaders and NGOs within the Palestinian and local communities, and increase public debate regarding gender, sexuality and minority perspectives towards LGBTQI struggle for equal rights; • To produce high standard complementary materials in the service of ASWAT's projects (such as education and advocacy projects) and a reference for further information and knowledge and increase accessibility of information by gathering, translating, editing, and posting on-line materials and links on our web-site, and at the same time creating hard copies for those who haven't got access to the web;   • To increase the presence of women's sexuality and lesbianism in the Arabic language and culture by forming an alternative glossary and indeed, a 'mother tongue' with positive, un-derogatory and affirmative expressions of women and lesbian sexuality and gender; • To contribute our unique gender and national experiential knowledge to the growing feminist/gay multicultural discourse and influencing the LGBTQI struggle to incorporate national/cultural/ethnic perspective