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This is a CBC podcast.

1:21

Hi, I'm Samira Moyadin. I'm

1:24

a journalist, documentary maker, and

1:26

producer. I want to tell you

1:28

about Amina and my new podcast,

1:31

Gay Girl Gone. Of

1:33

all the young revolutionaries in Syria

1:35

during the Arab Spring, Amina is

1:38

different. An out lesbian

1:40

in a country where homosexuality is

1:42

illegal, she bravely documents

1:44

her life on the blog, Gay Girl

1:47

in Damascus. Her candid

1:49

posts attract readers from around the

1:51

world and soon she has a wide

1:53

ardent following. But then

1:56

a post appears saying Amina

1:57

has been abducted. Her

1:59

fans. mobilized, desperate to track

2:01

her down and save their fearless

2:03

heroine. What they find

2:06

shocks them. Over six

2:08

episodes, I investigate what actually

2:11

happened to the infamous gay girl in Damascus,

2:14

and unravel a twisted yarn that spans

2:16

the globe and challenges our thinking

2:19

on love, politics, and identity

2:21

in cyberspace. Here's

2:23

the first episode

2:24

of Gay Girl Gone. Have

2:27

a listen. The

2:32

first time I heard about Amina in her

2:34

blog, it was 2011.

2:36

I was in my cramped Toronto apartment

2:38

nestled just right above a cake shop,

2:41

at least. That's where I was physically.

2:45

Mentally, I was in a whole other place.

2:48

The Arab Spring was popping off, and I was

2:50

glued to the news about it, just constantly

2:52

scrolling through these videos of crowds

2:55

of people chanting and protesting.

2:58

You see, right before the Arab

3:00

Spring started, there was another

3:02

thwarted revolution in the region,

3:04

what came to be known as the Green Movement

3:06

in Iran, which is where I'm from originally.

3:10

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets

3:12

protesting what they said were rigged presidential

3:14

elections. It

3:16

was huge, but the response

3:19

from the government to the protests was brutal.

3:22

Thousands tortured, many killed, and others just

3:24

disappeared. Anyway,

3:27

I felt totally helpless watching

3:29

Tehran from Toronto. So

3:31

I took to writing on my blog, writing

3:34

about what was happening in the streets and what people

3:36

were hoping for. Now

3:39

I wasn't a journalist yet. I

3:41

was writing the Odd Op-Ed and national

3:43

newspapers, but I was mainly concentrating

3:46

on my blog. I would write about Middie's

3:48

politics, women, and LGBTQ

3:51

rights. You see, the blogging world

3:53

gave me a way to connect with other people like

3:55

me, young queer Muslims, no

3:57

matter where we

3:58

were in the world.

3:59

We formed our own collectives, we built Facebook

4:02

groups and pitched in on each other's blogs.

4:05

And it was in one of those groups that I came

4:07

across a link to another blog, one

4:10

called Gay Girl in Damascus.

4:13

It had the kind of writing that

4:16

just stops you in your tracks. It

4:18

makes you look up and want to tell everyone

4:20

about it. I

4:23

live in Damascus, Syria. It's

4:26

a repressive police state. Most LGBT

4:28

people are still deep in the closet or

4:30

staying as invisible as possible. But

4:34

I have set up a blog announcing my sexuality,

4:37

with my name and my photo. Am

4:40

I crazy?

4:41

Maybe.

4:43

But I am also aware of the winds of freedom

4:45

and change blowing from one end of

4:47

the Arab world to the other. And

4:49

I want that freedom wind to bring

4:52

with it our liberation, not

4:54

just as Arabs and Assyrians, but

4:56

also as women and as lesbians.

4:59

Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't.

5:02

But if I want it to happen, I

5:05

have to do something bold and visible.

5:12

Bold and visible. That's exactly

5:15

what she was. I was reading

5:17

and rooting for her with every sentence.

5:20

Because you do not start a blog

5:22

in Syria and talk about being gay.

5:26

That's a ticket to prison. And

5:28

speaking out against Assad, that's

5:31

something that can get you killed.

5:33

And she's doing it all, all of it under

5:35

her real name, Amina Araf.

5:39

In the top left hand corner of Amina's

5:41

blog is her photo and under it

5:43

her bio. I am an Arab.

5:46

I am Syrian.

5:47

I am a woman.

5:49

I am queer. I

5:51

saw so much of myself in Amina.

5:54

We're both bloggers, both lesbians,

5:57

both the same age, born 1975. And

6:00

we were neighbors once. She's Syrian.

6:02

I'm Iranian. But

6:05

more than anything, Amina was living the

6:07

life I wanted. She was loud

6:09

and proud and back in her own country,

6:12

taking part in a revolution.

6:15

I would have given anything to be able to

6:17

do that.

6:18

Amina's my unicorn.

6:20

My queer Syrian unicorn.

6:27

Reading that blog post from Amina,

6:30

I knew it was big. But I

6:32

had no clue just how big

6:35

and weird it was going to get.

6:37

And what the consequences would be for

6:40

her readers. At

6:44

some point I was like, what am I actually

6:46

doing? Like, what is going on in this

6:49

story? This story remains

6:51

one of the strangest episodes of

6:54

the Arab Spring. It's

6:56

like a genie came out of the bottle and he can't

6:59

put it back. He just can't. The

7:01

truth is going to come out. Whether you

7:03

persuade me of something, it's already

7:06

in motion. They were rounding

7:08

up people left and right. And

7:11

it seemed at the time that

7:13

they had finally caught up with her. Worst

7:16

case scenario, we would never hear about her again.

7:18

We would never know what happened.

7:19

I'm

7:23

Samira Moyed and this is Gay Girl

7:26

Gone, episode one, The

7:28

Unicorn.

7:37

It's early 2011. Sandra

7:39

Bagaria is just trying to get through

7:42

another drawn out, miserable

7:44

Montreal winter. You go out

7:46

of work and it's like dark.

7:49

You feel more isolated.

7:52

It's the moment where you actually

7:54

spend the most time with yourself. Sandra

7:58

spending most of that time on the

7:59

the sofa,

8:01

curled up under blankets with her cat

8:03

nearby. Her escape is a

8:05

book she just ordered, a book of love letters

8:08

between writers and lovers Virginia

8:10

Woolf and Vida Sackville West.

8:13

I think the romantic part of me, I really

8:16

find it beautiful, you know, that two people could write

8:18

to each other in letters and like wait for

8:20

the letter and respond to it. I

8:23

have a fascination for like correspondents.

8:26

There's a French word, et pistolaire.

8:29

I found it so beautiful,

8:31

the writings between these two, like the way

8:33

they can be at the same time so

8:35

transparent in a way and hidden.

8:38

They were women in love at a time when it was

8:41

really impossible for two women to

8:43

love openly. And Sandra,

8:45

she's all in with Vida and Virginia, but

8:48

in her own love life, there is a lot less

8:50

happening. She's in her 30s

8:52

and has been single for about a year. She

8:55

has flirted with a few women, but

8:57

nothing to get excited about.

8:59

It was disappointing because, you know,

9:01

you have hopes and sometimes you think that

9:03

there's a connection and then you realize

9:05

there's actually no connection. I

9:12

said to myself, okay, let's find some distraction.

9:15

Finding distraction can only go two ways,

9:18

like whether you step out and you meet

9:20

other people or whether you do

9:23

it through and behind the screen. So

9:25

I went for option two

9:26

under the cover of

9:29

a bed or on the couch with a

9:31

tea or anything that could make it more

9:34

convenient and more relaxed.

9:36

Pretty soon, the Book of Love letters

9:39

is set aside and all Sandra

9:41

is doing is scrolling through online

9:43

dating apps. I

9:46

took the Blackberry in

9:48

bed next to my

9:50

bed and I was

9:53

hooked on these applications, checking

9:56

out the profiles of people, of women,

9:58

like where they're coming from.

9:59

their interests. But nothing

10:02

is hitting until...

10:04

And I remember it was a snowshoeing

10:07

day with a friend of mine and

10:09

we were snowshoeing and I

10:10

started receiving like notification

10:13

messages.

10:17

And we were kind of like, oh wow,

10:20

who is that girl? Like already accepting,

10:22

already starting to text.

10:25

I saw her name first.

10:28

Amina Arath. And I was like, oh, this is a

10:30

very

10:30

unusual name for Quebec.

10:32

So that was my first like curiosity

10:34

out of her name. She was

10:37

a brunette with strong dark

10:39

eyes.

10:41

Amina Arath.

10:43

The profile picture

10:44

striking.

10:46

Amina has chin length hair, an

10:49

elegant neck and a mole just right

10:51

above her left eyebrow. She's

10:53

smiling shyly and glancing down.

10:56

She's beautiful. In

10:59

the first messages, she told me that she was

11:02

in Damascus. So since

11:04

the beginning, I knew that she was in

11:06

Syria. My great grandmother

11:09

was born in Syria in Aleppo.

11:11

So the fact that she was coming from there was,

11:14

you know,

11:16

very cool.

11:18

It might sound like a small connection, but

11:20

for Sandra, it means a lot. For

11:23

a few generations, her family lived in

11:25

both Egypt and Morocco before

11:27

her mom immigrated to France where Sandra

11:29

was born.

11:32

I missed a lot of, you know, the exotic

11:35

angle that I was raised with and that

11:39

I was always exposed to. So for

11:41

me, it was a great package.

11:44

She had Middle Eastern roots,

11:47

the perfect English writing. She

11:49

could express herself very well. She

11:51

was interested in me. She was

11:54

single. I always

11:56

value when people are being

11:59

honest.

13:44

I

14:00

would reach for the phone, opening

14:02

it, and seeing if there's any messages. When

14:05

I didn't find messages, I was also very

14:08

disappointed.

14:10

When Amina doesn't respond right away,

14:12

it's sometimes because of a power outage,

14:14

just one result of the chaos in the country

14:17

in 2011. Amina

14:19

tells Sandra that she wants to join

14:21

the revolution, and that she wants

14:23

to document it too, both

14:26

the protests and her own life

14:28

as a lesbian in Syria. So

14:31

she thought to do it all, to start

14:34

a blog and to put her writings and

14:37

at the same time report

14:38

on her day-to-day life in Syria.

14:43

But Amina's decision to write her blog

14:45

under her real name terrifies Sandra.

14:49

I think she already had in her head

14:51

what she wanted to do.

14:53

Even if I would have told

14:55

her, maybe it's not a good

14:57

idea, maybe you should wait. I

14:59

don't think it would have changed anything honestly, because

15:02

she was the type of personality that

15:04

was also stubborn and had a

15:06

clear idea where she wanted to go and

15:09

what she wanted to achieve.

15:11

It's about a month and a half after Amina

15:14

and Sandra first message one another that

15:16

Amina

15:16

publishes her first blog post.

15:18

And just a heads up, we've asked

15:21

an actor to read Amina's writing for

15:23

us.

15:26

Here I see it,

15:27

and since I am the one writing here, I will

15:30

begin my way,

15:31

since of course that's the best way. Bismillah

15:36

al-Rahman al-Ahim,

15:38

which means in the name of God,

15:40

the merciful, the compassionate, and

15:43

is the way any account is supposed to begin.

15:46

I set myself a task, make

15:48

sense of the contradiction, and explain

15:51

myself to me.

15:59

first

16:01

four or five person to follow the

16:03

blog, the gay girl on Damascus blog. And

16:06

yeah, that's how it started.

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Damascus is the place that I was born,

17:19

right? It's the place that I wore shorts for the first

17:21

time. It's the place that I kissed a boy for the first

17:23

time. The city is

17:25

one of the oldest cities in

17:28

the world. It has existed for

17:30

the last seven thousand years. And

17:32

you can tell as you're walking in the streets

17:34

of Damascus, it's this maze of

17:36

humans and buildings and historical

17:39

sites all covered in those jasmine

17:42

trees. And you can tell that this

17:44

city is old. It feels like a wise

17:46

woman. You just can

17:48

walk its streets and it will answer all of your

17:50

questions.

17:52

Danny Ramadan is a queer Syrian

17:54

activist and a writer.

17:56

He was born in 1984 in Damascus.

17:59

I would say that my childhood was

18:02

a

18:03

conflicting experience, a complex

18:05

experience. I was in love with my

18:07

city, I was in love with my language,

18:10

but I had a very difficult relationship

18:12

with my parents. I think that my father

18:14

could tell since a very young age

18:17

that I was going to grow up to be a queer

18:19

man because he was trying

18:22

to straighten me up, I guess.

18:25

And the more push towards

18:27

this masculinity that my father

18:29

is pushing me, the more I am becoming

18:32

aware of my queer

18:34

identity, of who I want

18:37

to be, if that makes sense.

18:39

And who Danny wants to be is the Backstreet

18:41

Boys. Boy bands

18:43

were huge in the 90s. Their packaging

18:46

of synchronized dance moves and boy-next-door

18:49

looks piqued many a queer youth's

18:51

sexual awakening, even if that wasn't

18:53

the intended

18:54

audience. They're

18:56

hard, right? Like, I was a 13, 14-year-old

18:59

and all of those hot men are singing

19:02

in those monster outfits. I'm like, that

19:04

is my aesthetics. I like this. This

19:06

is what I like.

19:08

And these teen heart throbs are the reason

19:10

why Danny wanted to learn English.

19:12

I joke all

19:14

the time that I fell in love with the Backstreet

19:16

Boys when I was 13 and I just wanted to

19:18

know what the hell these people are singing about, which

19:21

kind of is partly true. English

19:24

is not a language that is

19:26

very popular in Syria. And

19:30

we learn it in

19:32

high school, but not to the point

19:34

where it becomes a second

19:37

language or where you become fluent in it.

19:50

But boy band fantasy lands

19:52

can't shelter Danny from a hostile

19:54

home life. It gets worse as

19:56

he gets older, and it really

19:58

comes to a head when he's a teen.

19:59

he's about 18.

20:02

We had a confrontation my father and I I would

20:04

say and it ended up with me announcing

20:07

to the world that I was a queer man. And

20:11

of course that sounds like I'm I'm I don't

20:13

know like raising rainbow flags across

20:15

the streets of Damascus. It wasn't like a brave

20:18

act. It was extremely naive heat

20:20

of the moment kind of a thing. My

20:23

father both physically and emotionally

20:25

was abusive towards me that night and

20:29

and I ended up being kicked out of the house.

20:34

Danny's still a kid really.

20:36

One wants to grow up fast. After

20:39

getting kicked out he stays on friends couches

20:41

and sometimes even sleeps on the streets.

20:44

Eventually he manages to get a job

20:47

at a place of his own. Newly

20:50

independent, Danny is also about

20:52

to discover a whole new side

20:55

of Damascus.

20:57

I did not realize that there is a queer

20:59

community in Damascus. It's very

21:01

hushed. It's very secretive. It requires

21:04

a chance for you to

21:06

enter. And I

21:10

in a cruising cinema at

21:12

the age of 18 I ran into a

21:15

trans woman who introduced

21:17

herself. She explained her transness

21:20

to me and introduced me to

21:22

all of her daughters which are

21:24

other gay men that she took under her wing.

21:27

And I realized that Damascus

21:29

has this queer family system

21:31

of sorts and it has continued

21:33

for I don't know a hundred years or so like

21:35

my mother and I would call her my mother, Samma.

21:39

She can trace her queer lineage

21:42

back to like the 1920s. She

21:44

knows who is her mother in the queer scene

21:47

and who's that person's mother up

21:49

to like 1920,

21:51

1915. That story of the family

21:54

reminds me so much of families

21:56

as you said that develop in Chicago

21:58

or even Toronto where I am. It's sort of this

22:00

idea of a chosen family. And

22:04

mentors exist, right? They sort

22:06

of bring you into

22:07

the queer world and say there is

22:09

something else, you know, there is this possibilities.

22:14

It feels like it just authentically

22:17

is born because of the need of a family

22:19

system really. Specifically,

22:21

the more troublesome the

22:23

society is around you, the more

22:25

you find this pearl of safety

22:28

that is hidden that you just have to dig for for

22:30

a bit. And that is what

22:32

my trans mother offered me.

22:37

Danny stays with his new family for

22:39

a few years

22:40

before moving to Egypt to pursue his career

22:43

as a writer. But by 2011,

22:46

things are changing, both for Danny

22:48

and for the Middle East.

22:50

I decided to move back to Syria

22:52

around the time that the Tunisian

22:55

revolution started.

22:57

People in Tunisia began protesting,

22:59

and in less than a month the government of Ben Ali

23:01

was no more. Protests spread to

23:03

countries nearby, and then the dominoes

23:06

started falling. Libya's Gaddafi,

23:08

Egypt's Mubarak, they're calling

23:10

it the Arab Spring. It

23:12

was the year of people, power, of

23:14

revolution. This will send shockwaves

23:18

throughout the region. Setting in motion

23:20

a wave of discontent that promises

23:22

to wash the years to come.

23:26

It just felt like it was the right time,

23:28

right? It felt like there is

23:31

a movement towards civil

23:33

rights in the Middle East, and it just felt that

23:35

I wanted to be part of that experience. I

23:38

just wanted to be part of that.

23:46

It's just a few months after Danny

23:48

arrives home in Syria that the

23:50

protests against the Assad regime

23:52

begin.

23:54

Soon the internet is buzzing with

23:56

videos of demonstrations across

23:58

Syria and the diaspora.

24:08

A group of teenagers are accused

24:10

of spray painting, your next

24:12

doctor, on a wall

24:14

in a town called Dara. The

24:16

regime takes it as a direct threat

24:18

against Assad. The

24:21

security forces capture those kids

24:24

and torture them. And when people find

24:26

out, huge numbers go to

24:28

the streets and the Syrian uprising

24:31

begins.

24:34

People of Dara, these men shout,

24:37

your blood is ours. The

24:39

Western media is paying attention, including

24:42

the UK's Channel 4 News. And

24:46

tonight, hundreds descended on the

24:48

biggest bazaar in Damascus. The

24:50

footage was posted on the internet within

24:52

minutes. At the same time, Syria's

24:55

information minister appeared on state

24:57

television, claiming all parts of the country

24:59

were calm. He'd obviously not checked

25:01

YouTube. There is talk that Syria

25:04

is fast reaching the point of no return.

25:10

In the days and weeks that follow, protests

25:13

in Syria spread to dozens of towns

25:15

and cities. And right there

25:17

in the thick of it is Amina, documenting

25:20

what's happening around her in her brand

25:22

new gay girl in Damascus blog.

25:26

That is, was in use from the south. In

25:29

Darao, near the Jordanian border, demonstrators

25:32

had been met by armed force. First,

25:36

we heard that two of us had been killed when

25:38

the police had opened fire on the crowd.

25:41

Later, reports raised the number

25:43

to three and four,

25:46

now five. The

25:49

state had shown its fear of us and its

25:51

naked violence. Today

25:54

we are mourning the first martyrs of the revolution

25:57

and ready you for the next stage. Somehow,

26:03

in the midst of all this, Danny

26:05

feels more whole than he

26:08

ever has.

26:26

Danny and my siblings started inviting other

26:28

queer folks to my house, a

26:31

one-floor house in a very

26:33

shabby neighborhood in Damascus. And

26:35

I would say there was around 40 or 50 copies

26:38

of my home keys floating around Damascus

26:40

at one point in 2011.

26:43

It had two bedrooms, my bedroom,

26:45

which was off-limit to everybody unless you're invited,

26:48

and then the second bedroom, which people

26:50

used as a safe space to practice

26:52

intimacy and to have fun

26:54

hookups, I guess. And

26:57

then the living room was this space

26:59

covered in cushions and broken furniture

27:02

that we found around Damascus that

27:04

we just gather and fix and clean

27:07

and then use. Samira,

27:09

you have to understand, there's a moment that when I

27:11

walk through my door and there are a

27:13

couple of queer folks in the other bedroom having

27:16

an intimate time and there are four or five sitting

27:18

in my living room talking or

27:20

watching TV and there's somebody making

27:23

coffee in the kitchen while the other

27:25

is making omelets on the oven. It

27:28

felt like home. It felt lively,

27:31

right? Weirdly enough, while the civil

27:33

war is raging in the country,

27:36

while people are dying, while there's so much

27:39

happening that is difficult, that was one of the

27:41

happiest times I've ever had in my life.

27:44

And in some ways his community is safer

27:46

in the chaos.

27:48

So the fact that we were so low in the

27:50

hierarchy of our own society had created

27:53

the sense of safety for us where nobody

27:55

would care about us, if that makes sense.

27:58

During that time, the first six months,

28:00

I would say, of 2011, we were

28:03

feeling quite protected by

28:05

our insignificance, I would say.

28:08

Danny's keeping his head down, feeling

28:10

like this is the best and most realistic

28:13

way to keep his community safe.

28:15

Amina, on the other hand, is

28:17

taking a completely

28:18

different approach. We

28:21

assembled in the courtyard and marched through the

28:23

soup, hundreds of us, and

28:25

coming the other way was a second crowd, chanting,

28:29

our blood, our souls, for you, Beshut.

28:32

Rumor says that they were burst in. The

28:34

two crowds met. We shouted

28:36

at each other. I heard that there were blows,

28:39

but saw none. The police came

28:41

in and scattered us, siding with the other

28:43

crowd. We went home

28:45

to Reddy for next time.

28:56

How did I first hear about the blog, Gay Girl in

28:58

Damascus?

29:00

I think we talked about it in the house.

29:03

I think at one point we

29:06

were talking about blogging and I said, there's this

29:09

one and there's that one and there's the

29:11

Gay Girl in Damascus. I would

29:13

say that was around the time that blogging

29:15

was a big deal in the queer community.

29:18

And I had a blog myself that was extremely

29:20

insignificant and nobody clicked on it.

29:25

I would say mainly the blogs that

29:27

I followed were other gay men

29:29

in Lebanon and Syria and

29:32

they were just writing about their intimate

29:34

experiences, writing about their heartbreaks,

29:37

writing these kind of things. And

29:40

sometimes I would sit on a chair and I

29:42

would open the laptop and I would go

29:44

blog post to blog post and

29:46

just read and translate

29:48

the stories to the folks who wanted

29:51

to hear.

29:53

We are, we feel, sitting in

29:55

the middle of a revolution. Maybe

29:58

we can hope these changes will mean a

30:00

real blossoming of freedom. We

30:02

are ready. We've been waiting."

30:06

I would sit there and I would read it in English

30:08

and then people would nod and then I knew that

30:10

half of them did understand what I was saying so

30:12

I would translate it in Arabic and

30:14

I would see them just engaging with

30:17

the stories.

30:19

Amina wrote about a lot of different things

30:21

on her blog. Some of it was impressionistic

30:23

descriptions of Damascus. A lot

30:25

of it was about politics. But

30:28

that's not what Dehni's friends want to hear

30:30

about the most.

30:31

They were interested in the intimate sexy

30:34

details.

30:37

Up on the roof, our bodies

30:40

entwined. Your flick with my

30:42

foot and the favor of your self

30:44

from my skin, sun on

30:46

my shoulders,

30:48

my shadow across your breath, rising,

30:51

hauling with your

30:53

breath, calling my name, Bebeq.

30:58

Some of the poems were for me. She

31:02

would say, I wrote this. I'm

31:04

going to post it online. It is for

31:06

you. When I say this, I'm speaking

31:09

of you. So yeah, for me it

31:11

was quite obvious that she was writing,

31:13

thinking of me.

31:15

While Dehni and his chosen family follow

31:17

along with Amina's blog in Syria,

31:20

Sandra is in Montreal reading

31:22

between the lines.

31:24

There was a poem, I don't recall the name

31:26

of it, but I remember reading

31:29

that there was one or two lines that were

31:32

in French. And

31:34

I knew it was for me because she

31:36

would never write in French. Un

31:39

amour

31:39

y moi. I see.

31:43

Side by side, we are lying here.

31:45

Her

31:46

finger is entwined. Her

31:48

lips are open.

31:57

It only felt like I was the special.

32:00

one, the chosen one out of the

32:02

rest of the world. We

32:05

were talking to each other every day, many

32:07

times for weeks, sharing

32:12

personal details, sharing our

32:14

day to day. But there's also,

32:16

you know, now we

32:18

call that sexting. There was

32:20

also some sexting. So

32:23

I guess this is where it was like just

32:25

like one plus one plus one

32:27

equals girlfriend, you know, or lover.

32:31

I don't remember if it was Amina that

32:34

said it first or I did. You know,

32:36

I was writing, she was answering,

32:39

vice versa. So there was a commitment

32:42

to keep on that relationship

32:44

happening and living through the days

32:47

and weeks.

32:48

Amina's relationship with Amina is really

32:51

flourishing and she wants to tell everyone

32:53

about her girlfriend's mission. Sharing

32:55

Amina's story,

32:57

discussing it with people I knew, sharing

33:00

the blog when she started the blog, that

33:03

was my personal activism

33:05

was to spread the word about

33:07

what she was living. She starts

33:10

with her friend group. It was not

33:12

very difficult to convince them to follow

33:14

the blog. All of my friends are

33:17

very engaged in life. They're like interested,

33:20

curious, adventurous, diverse,

33:24

and have

33:26

character. And Amina had all

33:28

of this.

33:28

So for me, it was just like adding

33:31

an extra member to the circle. So

33:33

for them, it was not even a question that

33:36

like for them, they knew why I was interested

33:38

in Amina. And the rest of my friends are

33:41

very interested in geopolitics.

33:44

So, you know, all of them were like

33:46

moved and shaking

33:48

up with the Arab Spring starting

33:51

and what it meant.

33:54

It's not just Sandra's friends. The

33:56

Arab Spring captured the attention of

33:58

the world. traditional

34:00

newsrooms bringing people the latest from Tunisia,

34:03

Egypt and now Syria. The news

34:05

was also trending on Twitter and other social

34:08

media. Minute by minute, citizen

34:11

journalists were reporting what was happening

34:13

on the ground. It was unprecedented

34:15

coverage and many people were

34:18

turning to Amina's blog.

34:20

There were like events in Syria that were happening

34:22

and she was writing about it. There was only

34:24

a few moments after

34:27

it was reported in the news. She

34:29

felt that we had an inside by reading

34:31

her post. So people

34:34

felt the connection and the human connection

34:36

by identifying with her through

34:38

her.

34:49

On Friday, this writer went for prayers

34:51

at the Almea Mosque, the large central

34:53

mosque here. When

34:56

the service ended in the men's section, someone

34:59

shouted, freedom, and the crowd took

35:01

up the call. Repeated calls of the techvied,

35:04

God is the greatest, and calls of freedom echoed

35:06

through the ancient shrine. Police

35:09

who dissembled outside came in and pulled

35:11

a few men out while everyone inside

35:13

shouted out resistance. Sandra

35:17

and Amina are really excited about

35:19

the blog and their growing intimacy, but

35:21

they're also really scared.

35:24

I remember creating like

35:26

a secure email address. So

35:29

her content was not easily traceable.

35:32

She gave authorization and codes

35:35

of her bank accounts, email

35:37

addresses, and all her personal

35:40

belongings to her cousin. So

35:43

she was making sure

35:45

in a way that in case something happened

35:47

to her, there was someone that

35:51

knew how to access it.

35:53

Sandra keeps telling Amina that she

35:55

should leave. Go back to America

35:57

or even come to Canada.

35:59

And then one day, Sandra's

36:02

fears become a reality.

36:04

Amina gets a visit from Assad's

36:07

sacred police. One evening,

36:09

there's a knock on the door of

36:12

Amina's family house.

36:18

Next time on Gay Girl Gone.

36:24

Everybody in Syria have had

36:26

a relative who was arrested by the Muhabbarad.

36:29

And nobody will stand in their

36:31

way. So they will take her. There's no

36:33

two ways about it.

36:35

Sandra waits anxiously for news.

36:39

I was freaking out that I would receive

36:41

a message from someone telling

36:43

me that, you know, she'd

36:45

been

36:45

killed, she'd been arrested, that she's

36:48

in hiding. And Amina's

36:50

blog is getting a lot of

36:52

attention.

36:52

I distinctly remember thinking

36:54

that we now had a public face of the

36:57

revolution in Syria.

37:05

Gay Girl Gone was written

37:07

and produced by me, Samira Moyedin,

37:09

Brenna Daldorff, and executive producer,

37:12

Hagee Sutton. Sound design

37:14

and mixing by Jeff Empmann. Original

37:17

music by Reza Moradas. Amina's

37:20

blog posts are read by Tracy Rahi.

37:24

Deborah Judgen is the executive producer

37:26

of podcasts at Raw. And Georgina

37:28

Savage is the lead producer. Suzanne

37:30

Hamilton is the production executive. Our

37:33

team from CBC Podcast includes

37:35

Roshni Nair, who is our digital producer.

37:39

Ashley Mack is our senior producer. Executive

37:42

producers are Cecil Fernandez and

37:44

Chris Oates. Tanya Springer

37:46

is the senior manager of CBC Podcast.

37:48

And R.F. Narani is the director. Special

37:51

thanks goes to Raw production team, Joanne

37:54

Patterson, Anna Marie Basso,

37:56

and Rowan Lee Potter.

37:59

Thanks to CNN.

37:59

end for the use of an archive clip. If

38:03

you're enjoying this series and want to help new

38:05

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38:07

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38:10

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Gay Girl Gone, or you can

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38:37

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