Let’s Center Liberation this Pride Month 🌈

It’s finally June, and you know what that means—Happy Pride 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🫶! Summer is upon us and school is out! We hope you find all the joy and celebration, resilience and resistance that embody Pride and the fiery heat of the season. Remember: Pride is both a party and a riot. It means building the world in which we want to live while resisting the current systems of oppression that dominate and constrain us. Pride is liberation!

In that spirit, we also want to note that we stand in solidarity with the activists in LA who have been shutting down the heinous ICE raids in their community. Resisting ICE and disrupting these racist and fascist deportations is an act of radical love and caring for our communities. CHNGE has put together a list of local resources and organizations. If you can, consider donating or simply giving them some love on social media.

This month, we are thrilled to feature a Q&A with our own Sara Rahimi! Sara, who uses they/she pronouns,  is the Community Engagement + Training Lead at Apiary. She has her hands in a lot of our programmatic work, particularly the Pollination Station and the Hivemind. Their journey to this work aligns with their most deeply-held values, their unique gender journey, and their big and beautiful heart. We are honored to work alongside Sara and now you will see why!

It’s Pride Month! Do you identify as a member of the LGBTQ+ community?

I identify as queer. I do want to have a gender reveal party for myself. From a young age I’ve gone through those phases of being a tomboy and read every single one of my mom’s journals and one entry she had when I was a toddler and apparently I just kept declaring myself a boy. She went into a panic. I was always wearing my brother’s clothes or being mixy with it. I’d be futch. I was confused for a lot of middle school and when gender reveal parties started becoming a thing, it irked me. But that would be really cool for myself. 

What has been your journey with identity?

I’ve been on a weird little journey through many phases. I’m not necessarily the stereotype of whatever imagery of gender-queerness, but ever since I hit my 30s, it’s like, I don’t give a fuck!

The pandemic shattered a lot of my mask-wearing. I didn't realize how performative a lot of basic social interactions were for me, even the ones I was good at. Some were way more apparent. Doing bail work for six years, I was in and out of jails and courthouses in such a way that I had to work alongside court officers and corrections officers. I knew how to work that, and I really could finesse that. I knew it was a mask I was putting on, but I didn’t always think about, for example, going to the corner store and picking up whatever snack I wanted—I’m also heavily masking. The pandemic disrupted a lot of that. It slowed me down. It was the first time I was unemployed. It was isolating and when everything started, NYC seemed really extreme. The isolation forced me to realize both the mask-wearing and to stop doing it ("not to be confused with N95 mask wearing—v hot, v sexy, we love!"). It was a relief, but I stopped practicing and going out in the wild was that much harder. 

How did the shift in mask-wearing affect your gender journey?
I don’t think performing is inherently bad, and gender expression can be performative in so many different ways. What affected me the most with my gender journey is my little niblings and having young people in my life. I’ve always had babysitting and nannying as a background gig ever since I was in the 6th grade. When I was unemployed during the pandemic, I started nannying for two families—one was a childhood friend of my sister and single parent. I started supporting her and her kid was a beautiful little gremlin. So unabashedly unashamed, it’s amazing. I love how unhinged a four-year-old is. They really dont’t give a fuck. I feel like kids are down to be confused but they’re also trying to figure you out. Gender obviously comes into play there. I think the way I started relating to my cousins’ kids and all the little kids around me helped me to reparent myself in a lot of ways. I learned the best from doing and practicing in that way. I’m forever sitting at the kids’ table.

And I’ve had two really amazing therapists in life, which also started during the pandemic. I found this amazing unicorn of a therapist when they were leaving their employer and started to decolonize their own therapeutic practice. We broke so many traditional walls in therapy. The dynamic of paying for a service, but we’re still in a relationship. She really never laughed at self-deprecating humor in a way that was so loud for me. That was such a crutch of mine, making an easy laugh, and she would never laugh. It was so awkward. When I finally named it, they said, “I’m not going to laugh. I’m not shaming you but I’m not going to find it funny.” Now, when I see self-deprecating humor in others I’m like, you’re hurting. 

For our astrologically-minded, what are your signs and what do you think they reflect about you?

Sun: Pisces

Moon: Capricorn

Rising: Leo 

Sun in Pisces: I have big emotions. That’s also part of what made me wear a mask so much. My emotions were too much for people as a child. 

Moon in Capricorn: I box things in, being vulnerable is super hard and so many things that people don't find vulnerable I find to be super vulnerable. I do a lot of all or nothing with how I build relationships and how I open up to people. It doesn't feel slow and steady, it's either on or off. I don’t feel like I talk about myself very well. I keep things on lock. 

Rising Leo: When I’m comfy, I’m louder and I do take up a lot of space. I think I pull that out of other people, too.

What’s Happening at Apiary 🐝

💤 Apiary will be closed for Radical Rest for the week of June 16-20! We will be back at it on Monday, June 23, so look for us then.

✊🏿 June 19th is Juneteenth, the annual holiday that commemorates the official end of slavery when the enslaved people of Texas were finally told they were free. Apiary’s offices are closed to honor and reflect on this important day, the legacy of slavery and racism, and to recharge for the continuing work of liberation for Black and brown folks.

📚 We’ve added a new resource to our growing Resource Library! This resource explores pregnancy criminalization, who is commonly criminalized, how prevalent criminalization is in the U.S., and how you can try to protect yourself and your loved ones from potential criminalization. Read more at our website!

What’s Happening in the Community 🍯

🗒️ Our friends at INeedAnA are giving out free informational stickers! You have until June 14th to get them for free at their website (use promo code “abortionforever” when checking out to ensure they are free).

🏥 As of June 3, the Trump administration has revoked specific guidance around pregnancy care regarding EMTALA, which requires hospitals to provide necessary emergency abortion care to pregnant people to stabilize their medical condition. This could endanger the health and lives of pregnant people even further in states where abortion is restricted and banned.

🗣️ Feel like you have even more to give the abortion access movement? The National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) is accepting applications for new board members! This is a unique opportunity to join an organization dedicated to breaking down financial barriers to abortion care.