How can art serve as a tool for healing in queer communities? What roles have pop culture, drag, music, writing, and other creative expressions played in helping queer individuals embrace and understand their identities? How can parents, families, friends, and communities show meaningful solidarity by supporting queer people and their artistic expressions?

Moderated by Music Therapist Akash Bhatia, this panel brings together artists, community organizers, family members, and allies to explore the transformative power of art in South Asian queer communities. Together, they will reflect on how creative expression fosters healing, connection, and resistance—and how collective support can strengthen queer liberation and joy. Following the community conversation, a short reception with snacks and refreshments. Presented in partnership with Desi Rainbow and Trikone Chicago.

Moderator:

Akash Bhatia is a licensed professional music therapist, licensed clinical professional counselor, and musician based in Chicago. He manages the Creative Knowledge Center at the Institute for Therapy through the Arts and serves as chair of its annual Integrated Creative Arts Therapy Conference. Akash provides clinical services to children and adults with anxiety, depression, trauma, and neurodevelopmental disorders. He has developed music therapy programs at an inpatient psychiatric hospital, addiction and eating disorder recovery centers, a South Asian mental health support group, and an LGBTQ youth center. His music performance experience spans European classical and South Asian vocal and instrumental traditions. Akash enjoys speaking and writing about critical, anti-oppressive, and liberatory frameworks for the creative arts in healing spaces.

Panelists include:

Humza Malik (he/him) is a queer and transmasc therapist, poet, and drag performer with roots in both Pakistani and Indian ancestry. His work explores the intersections between care and creativity — supporting queer and trans folks of color in his therapy practice, and creating new worlds through his poetry and drag as Spirit Apotheosis. At the center of it all, he is guided by a love of transformation, tenderness, and the belief that healing is both personal and collective.

Saleha Salam lives in Chicago and has been a member of the leadership at Trikone Chicago, an organization that serves the queer and trans South Asian population in the city and surrounding communities, for the past decade. Outside of her work with Trikone, she writes about films and pop culture and performs in queer nightlife spaces.

Rahul Deshmukh (he/him/his) is a parent of a 10-yr old transfeminine child. In addition to being an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, he along with his wife Reema are active members of Desi Rainbow. In his professional life, Rahul is a professor at Rosalind Franklin University and proud to be associated with a strong, diverse community with a long history of inclusion. At RFU, he is involved in the training of future pharmacists and other healthcare professionals. At Desi Rainbow, he wants to help other desi parents to see beyond and celebrate our children's identities that exist beyond the binaries within which most of us grew up.