Sima Shakhsari, Associate Professor
University of Minnesota, Gender Studies

How is it possible that someone who supports this organization is up for an academic promotion at a public university?


The following is from a Tweet by Marina Medvin on December 22, 2023.

"Sima Shakhsari is an associate professor in the department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota (end of sentence from original post deleted as it's irrelevant).

Sima denied Palestinian atrocities committed on Oct. 7 and denied Israeli women were raped or were the victims of horrendous sexual crimes that day. She nonetheless boasted, “I am a rape crisis counselor, I believe the survivors.” She went on to say that it’s racist to say that Palestinians committed rape.

In a Facebook post, Sima cited support of Leila Khaled, a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who participated in the hijacking of planes in 1969 and 1970. (Khaled has said that the Second Intifada, during which over 1,000 Israelis were murdered by Palestinians had failed because it was not violent enough.) Just recently, Sima has attended at least one on-campus Palestinian rally, where she was seen chanting, “Globalize the Intifada.”

Sima is now up for promotion at the University of Minnesota for the school’s top DEI job. Read more

University of Minnesota is funded by taxpayers. This year, University of Minnesota got $1.15 billion from the state."

Is this the type of hatred that should be in charge of a department teaching the future leaders of tomorrow?










































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Sima Shakhsari, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota, Gender Studies

Sima Shakhsari is an associate professor in the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. They earned their PhD in Cultural and Social Anthropology at Stanford University and have an MA in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from San Francisco State University. Before joining the University of Minnesota, Shakhsari held postdoctoral positions at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wolf Humanities Center and the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at the University of Houston, taught as an assistant professor at Wellesley College, and worked as the Director of Adult Education Program at San Francisco Women Against Rape for several years. Their interdisciplinary research intersects with transnational feminist theory, transnational sexuality studies, queer and transgender studies, Middle East studies, critical refugee studies, and political anthropology. Their areas of specialization include refugees, diasporas, empire, militarism, neoliberal governmentality, biopolitics, necropolitics, civil society, and digital media. Shakhsari's book, titled Politics of Rightful Killing: Civil Society, Gender, and Sexuality in Weblogistan (Duke University Press, 2020) received the Fatema Mernissi Book Award Honorable Mention from the Middle East Studies Association.Their second book manuscript, tentatively titled “Moving Queers & Queer Moves: Deterritorialization and Loaned Life," combines ethnographic research among Iranian queer and transgender refugees and refugee rights organizations with the analysis of queer diasporic literature and films to explore the way that Iranian transgender refugees shuttle between rightfulness and rightlessness as they transition from the naturalized domains of sexuality and citizenship to zones of indeterminacy.

Sima Shakhsari Activities

  • No Sanctions on Iran: https://www.nosanctionsoniran.org/video-campaign
  • Sanctions on Iran--Center for Political Education: https://politicaleducation.org/resources/sanctions-on-iran
  • Anti-Black Racism in South West Asia and North Africa and Diaspora: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyTWDSItNdg
  • Navigating Queerness and Trans-ness as an Iranian Immigrant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9aZQPctOiQ
  • COVID 19 and Sanctions on Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QucuOsj3qCw
  • Teach in at East Side Freedom Library- Iran: What Americans Need to Know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v-FCE-IZic
  • Grassroots Against Sanctions: Iran Podcast: https://anchor.fm/theiranpodcast/episodes/How-Grassroots-Movements-are-Fighting-Sanctions-etjauh/a-a52j1ei

    • Sima Shakhsari Research

    Sima Shakhsari Publications