Queering Existentialism Centers Harm-Reduction and Community Care

Logina Mostafa (she/they) is the founder and director of Queering Existentialism, an education and connection initiative in New York City that specializes in stigmatized pathways to healing, including cannabis, psychedelics, and more. QE hosts workshops and events, writes articles, and offers consulting services around the cultivation of communal secure attachment, healing-centered harm reduction, and transformative justice. 

—————————————————————————————————————– 

How would you summarize the mission of Queering Existentialism? Is it generally communal, or is there a specific focus on psychedelics and cannabis? 

The mission of the organization is to co-create containers for the exchange of liberating ideas and cultivating secure communal attachment. 

We have a specific focus on stigmatized pathways to healing with a focus on altered states of consciousness and centering underserved communities in education and access to altered states, including psychedelics, cannabis, and sex. 

What led you to create Queering Existentialism? 

I created QE at the end of 2023. I’ve always had an interest in the areas of intersectionality, mental health, sexuality, and psychedelics; my undergraduate degree is in Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, and I have a Master’s in Public Health where I focused on equity and access to psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. 

As a person who is Egyptian, queer, non-monogamous and gender-nonconforming, I struggled to find spaces and organizations within the psychedelic community where I felt safe and seen in processing experiences around identity. 

After experiencing some severe differences in political values, I realized that social justice and equity were merely performative in some of these spaces. At the same time, I was also part of all these queer communities where people were using psychedelics, and saw the opportunity to create culturally competent harm reduction information. I was inspired to translate what I learned from academic and mainstream psychedelic spaces into accessible resources for the queer- and POC-centered communities I was a part of, experimenting with creating interventions that would be engaging and relevant. 

With new psychedelic interventions becoming available, why do you think it’s important to have a support and educational organization specifically for queer people? 

Cannabis and psychedelic use is very common and pertinent in queer communities, as plant medicine has been around for much longer than western biomedical acknowledgment of their legitimacy as a therapeutic intervention. When we consider a valid increase in mental health difficulties (it’s not a sign of health to well-adjust to a sick society), especially during this time where there are constant attacks on our communities—such as healthcare being taken away and an uptick of hate crimes and discrimination—I think that psychedelics have immense healing potential—with proper set, setting, and support. That also includes having access to spaces that are explicitly safe, somewhere for queer people to access the therapeutic potentiality of psychedelics and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in values-aligned communities. 

I am hoping to expand on this grassroots psychedelic public health work through my fellowship with the Center for Psychedelic Public Health, contributing to this pivotal emerging field. 

What does harm reduction look like for psychedelics and cannabis in your line of work? 

I run workshops on intentional cannabis use, which includes talking about not only the education around strains and sourcing and testing, but also checking in with attendees about their relationship with cannabis and practicing actually ingesting in community in a way that’s creative and positive while creating a space to ask questions and openly discuss experiences. 

I also co-facilitate psychedelics workshops where we not only talk about the more traditional side of harm reduction, but the psychological and emotional aspects as well. That includes integration circles around psychedelic experiences. 

I’m also a part of the People of Color Psychedelic Collective and the Psychedelic Alliance for Healing Justice, and I’ve facilitated workshops on the queer identity, ethnic identity, and psychedelics, including how altered states have supported somatically unlearning the internalization of homophobia and radically accepting our authentic identities.

Harm reduction is not just about education; it’s about being with likeminded people and building interdependent community roots to hold and sustain us, a critical component of communal secure attachment. 

What is existential healing, and how does it tie into your work? 

I started to think about the concept of existential healing when I constantly found myself talking about existential dread. I took something called the Multiple Intelligences Quiz, and I really resonated with the concept of existential intelligence and asked myself, “Is this another layer of being able to connect with people that has potentially been missing in my quest to find a resolute community and places to talk about my psychedelic experiences?” 

One of my current writing projects is a piece on secure attachment across the socio-ecological model. That extends out to existential and secure attachment and my experiences with psychedelics. As someone who grew up with a lot of religious traumas specifically around things like queerness, psychedelic experiences (alongside access to aligned community) have allowed me to connect with the experience of unconditional love and believing I’m going to be OK, accepting mortality and other pathways towards existential healing that I struggled to find previously, and that has really transformed my mental health. 

From a legal standpoint, do you see a lot of pushback from local and state officials regarding psychedelics? 

Yes, absolutely! I think that there is a lot of misinformation and stigma around psychedelics, even with all of the research that’s been done. There’s often a focus on the risk of mental health implications without considering the importance of context and harm reduction education. Right now, there are efforts and outreach through storytelling and a focus on veterans, for example, to pull in more bipartisan support. 

I think that it’s definitely been a challenge, especially in increasing access, and also increasing access in a way that is sustainable and acknowledges that psychedelics are not inherently “good” or “bad,” but that they’re tools. There’s also a lot of care required because of potentiality for risk. I am continuing to work on these challenges through various initiatives that I am a part of.

Have you noticed any positive shifts in the public perception of psychedelics in particular? 

In terms of positive shifts, there is progress that has been made across the country in different ways, including a resurgence of research and the positive impact of books such as How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan. 

With my focus on psychedelics in graduate school, there weren’t opportunities regarding psychedelics in public health post-graduation. It’s really been a labor of love these last few years, and I am so glad that now we’re starting to see pathways to improving the field and addressing some of those issues so we can really expand the access to people who could greatly benefit from these interventions. 

What does the future look like for Queering Existentialism? 

I just quit my full-time job a couple of weeks ago to focus on Queering Existentialism full time! 

Things that I’m excited about are that I’m going to be launching a Patreon where people can access past workshops, essays, zines. I am continuing to write about different aspects of secure attachment, my own story (including my intersectional background and psychedelics). I also plan on gathering other people’s stories and creating platforms for those to be shared. 

I am excited to continue presenting at different conferences and cross-pollinating movement-building between queer spaces, psychedelic spaces, and sex-positive spaces. 

—————————————————————————————————————— 

Learn more about Queering Existentialism at queeringexistentialism.com, and connect with them on Instagram, @queering_existentialism!