Notes on Defiance: An Interview with QED
Words by Goose (she/they) and Amal Samaha (she/her)
This year, Queerlient is themed ‘Queer Defiance’, inspired by the work of local activist group Queer Endurance / Defiance (QED). I sat down with Amal from QED for a chat about their fight for queer rights in Aotearoa.
Amal has been with QED since its founding and is also part of the Bolshevik Club and Students Against Cuts VUW.
Goose: For anyone who doesn’t know what QED is, would you mind giving us an intro?
Amal: Queer Endurance/Defiance is a coalition of queer activists, founded in 2021 to oppose the Wellington International Pride Parade’s willingness to work with police and military at Pride. The basic idea was that we didn’t want pinkwashing of imperialism and police violence in Aotearoa.
A similar disagreement about the involvement of police ended up being a really big deal in the Auckland queer community, to the point where there was a huge public meeting with a mediator brought in. I was there, and it was incredible. There ended up being two pride parades in Auckland. One was anti-police, which had the vast majority of people, and another that was mostly police [and] small business owners, and it was much smaller.
QED founder Elle Brocherie wanted to have that kind of conversation in the community here as well.
G: What does queer defiance mean to you?
A: Queer defiance means a refusal to be used for the ideology of the state and capital. The refusal to participate in pinkwashing was the first impetus behind us. Also, going beyond that, to refuse to be silent while our rights are taken away and while trans people internationally are not doing well.
The Posie Parker rally, in particular, was not just us, but part of an international wave of queer defiance, propelled along by people in Melbourne and Hobart. It wouldn’t have been anything here without that. So it’s international resistance to anti-queer hate.
G: One of the things we’re looking at in the magazine is the idea of defying cis-heteronormativity in little ways. How do you feel you manifest the smaller side of queer defiance in your daily life?
A: Communism is pretty much my entire life. I don’t know if there is a smaller side that I think about often. I guess the smaller side is loving queer people and refusing to even think about letting anything happen to them.
G: That’s wonderful. Do you have advice for others on how to be more active in their defiance?
A: All oppression is interconnected. It isn’t necessarily just standing up for queer people, it’s standing up for all aspects of their existence—standing up for workers, standing up for students, standing up as queer people. Anything you can do to get organised, to start thinking critically about the society in which we live and the way we live, is practising defiance.
G: Defiance is a very active thing, and not everyone has the capacity for fighting. Shifting to the other side of your group’s name, ‘Queer Endurance’, is there anything you can advise on how to endure in a more subtle way?
A: Knowing when to opt out. We live highly politicised lives and we need to protect ourselves by knowing when to step back from the fighting.
G: Do you consider being queer an inherently political act?
A: No. I think that often gets said, but on one level, simply refusing to give in, to be forced back into the closet, or to detransition, is a form of resistance—the most necessary form of resistance. On another level, that’s not a form of resistance with which we’ll win. That requires a more active kind of resistance. We do actually want to win. We do actually want to be free, not just temporarily, but permanently.
Queer people currently in New Zealand are living in a relatively liberal society, one that has gone through a small wave of increased rights, but that can reverse quickly. It’s reversed internationally in a lot of places. We need to be aware of how we’re not actually free while it still can reverse.
That’s why we say things like ‘queer liberation’, rather than ‘queer rights’. It is always possible to achieve more rights, but rights are never secured without liberation. Liberation would require a genuine revolutionary approach to society as a whole. Not just a tactical victory against people who hate queers, but a strategic victory against those people, the actual elimination of the conditions that give rise to those who hate us.
G: So do you think there’s an obligation for our people to get involved in fighting for this liberation?
A: I would hesitate to say obligation. That would seem to say they should be morally condemned if they don't. Each person has different capacities. For some it'll mean googling the meaning of a term, for others it'll mean attending a rally or joining a group.
G: You say liberation requires a total restructuring of what we have. Do you think we would be better off building our own world, rather than trying to reform something?
A: Reform is the means by which we can build the forces necessary to reshape the world. Without reform campaigns, you have nothing to show for your struggle.
There is an enormous change in ideas that is necessary before any change in the actual structure of the world. We need any opportunity we can to have those kinds of conversations in united fronts, like QED, where people can have political discussions openly with people of different kinds of politics and views on how to reshape the world.
G: What do you think makes your group so effective?
A: We have so many people in socialist groups. There’s a very strong tradition of united fronts in the socialist movement, and this avoids problems like cliqueism, where it’s just a small group of friends who aren't really open to new ideas or new people.
G: As a member of Students Against Cuts VUW as well, what’s your position on the importance of education for the queer community?
A: I think our resistance needs to be on all fronts, and that includes anything that will make our society a less vibrant, less interesting place to live in. A less free place to live. The question at stake with these cuts is academic freedom, and ultimately queer people never benefit from a society that doesn’t value certain forms of knowledge. We know that often the first sciences to go are the ones studying us, so I think that’s one of the many reasons queer people should be thinking about how attacks on all parts of society can ultimately damage us.
G: You’ve just finished your rally for better queer healthcare. What’s next on the horizon for QED?
A: We’re going to continue working towards making queer healthcare demands an election issue, so we’re going to continue rallying prior to the election. We will also be pushing our healthcare demands through lobbying and petitions. They won’t get through purely by the actions of politicians. Politicians need to be kept accountable by mass popular support for effective healthcare demands.