Sepi Shyne became the first out LGBTQ+ Iranian elected anywhere in 2020 and served on the West Hollywood City Council as the first woman of color and second queer woman. In 2023 she became the first female Iranian American mayor in the United States. She passed numerous people-centered, future-forward policies while encountering xenophobia, Islamophobia, lesbophobia, antisemitism, misogyny, and targeted threats from neo-Nazis, regime operatives, white liberals, and even law enforcement leadership. After six years in public service she deliberately stepped away to reclaim peace, creativity, and joy and to pursue healing, travel, and embodied, personal advocacy.
I passed many people-centered, future-forward policies, but I also faced an unprecedented amount of hate: xenophobia, Islamophobia, lesbophobia, antisemitism, misogyny, and dangerous threats from factions inside and outside of the LGBTQ+ community. I endured harassment from neo-Nazis, Islamic regime operatives, fragile white liberals, and even from law enforcement leadership. The weight of being so visible while holding multiple marginalized identities eventually took its toll.
After four years of elected service on the West Hollywood City Council and two additional years on city boards and commissions, I made a conscious decision to choose myself. I stepped away from politics to reclaim my peace, my creativity, and my joy. I had spent so much time fighting for others' freedoms that I had neglected my own. I am entering a softer, more feminine era of my life, one rooted in healing, travel, and soulful experience.
My first destination on this journey was Marrakesh, Morocco. Marrakesh is a city I had long yearned to visit but deeply feared. As a woman, as a queer person, and as a liberal Muslim-born Iranian, I carried layers of anxiety about traveling to a predominantly Muslim country where LGBTQ+ people are criminalized. To create a layer of safety, I traveled with my business partner, a fellow LGBTQ+
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