While SALGA and other NYC based Desi queer organization such as the South Asian Trans and Queer Collective are explicitly geered toward South Asian queer activism, South asian queer visibility has existed across diasporic community organizing. For example, Har is a queer and transfemme Punjabi Sikh organizer who grew up in Queens and was an active in the South Asian Solidarity Intiative and Yoni Ki Raat (YRK), a theater collective of South Asian Americans in NYC. Har says, “it’s brilliant and wild how much queer South Asians are overrepresented in organizing spaces” . This trend of non-men leading the forefront for diasporic activism and representation can be seen else where, such as the East Coast Solidarity Summer, a leftist political educations space for young South Asians, and CAAAV, a pan-Asian organization, and Equality Labs, a national caste-aboliitonist organization. Sasha, the director of CAAAV, a queer Sri Lankan organizer, called the disproportionate representation of queer, trans femmes and nonbinary South Asians in spaces of organizing the “oh, you too?” moment.
Similar to the exclusion of SALGA from the India Day Parade, the YKR also experienced complex intersectionality within the diaspora, having to take a clear stance against Terfism (anti-trans feminism) and anti-trans lesbian politics. This expanded the conversation on what Desi queer femininity means in radical spaces and organizing for the diaspora. Solidarity between concepts of the Desi queerness and Desi feminism was built out of the long history of trust and care built by fem organizers.