In late June, Souad, 27, was looking for a spot to watch from as she wove through the crowd that showed up for “The Cunnilingus Comedy Show (Vol. 1)” at Amsterdam’s famed Vrankrijk, a former squat turned cafe and event venue. Any proceeds were going to a collective run by and for queer refugees. First to the mic was the organizer Mikaela Burch, 28, a financial compliance officer who hoped to become a professional comedian. As Souad listened, Burch told the audience that because she was a “poor black lesbian from Detroit,” she was officially President Trump’s worst nightmare. “He’s not going to come grabbing on this [expletive]!” she said to laughter. Burch was followed by acts that included comedians from around the world; the sole Dutch performer used a wheelchair and introduced herself as a lesbian with Tourette’s.This is the Amsterdam where Souad feels safe and a sense of belonging. (Out of concern for her security in a new country and the safety of her relatives in Syria, Souad asked to use only her first name.) “They’re fighting for things I believe in,” she said. “Because it still feels like a squat and it’s part of the alternative scene in Amsterdam, this means a ‘community feel,’ and for sure no racistAfter leaving Syria seven years ago in a displacement that took her first to Jordan, then to Turkey, Greece and the Netherlands — where she bounced between five different refugee camps — Souad is looking to find herself much more than she is hoping to find a home, a concept that has become so unattainable that she has learned to live without it. While she begins to finally process what she has been through and how it has affected her and the decisions she has made, she is seeking out spaces defined by their commitment to principles whose values she has come to appreciate more with each country she has had to survive in. And even if the places through which she has already passed so readily defined her as only one thing — woman, Syrian, Arab, Muslim or refugee — she’s still not sure who she is and might yet be. [full story]