Indian. Educator. Warrior. Poet. Queer. 

Sam(ira) Obeid is an internationally renowned spoken word poet, a reputed educator on intersectionality, systemic discrimination and resistance, and a local activist.

A masculine, Indian lesbian raised Hindu on her mother’s side and Muslim on her father’s side, Sam moved to the U.S. in 2007 earning her second and third masters in Multimedia Journalism and Women’s & Gender Studies.

Sam’s identities and lived experience not only make up who she is but  inform what she does. Her commitment to justice stems from a long and existing journey of knowing what it is to have one’s humanity revoked socially, politically, legally and economically.

Performance & Publication

In 2015, Sam placed 5th at the Women of the World Poetry Slam, her first introduction to the national poetry slam stage. She has performed feature sets at Nuyorican Poets Cafe and Bowery Poetry in NYC and Busboys & Poets in D.C., and represented Tampa with the Speak Tank Poetry Team at Southern Fried Poetry Slam in 2016. Her poems The Journal and Pigtails have been featured on Button Poetry.

In collaboration with USF Professor Dr. Sarah Crawley, Sam gave her first TEDx Talk titled “We Are All Trans” using poetry, personal experience and queer theory to provide thoughtful perspective on why and how we perform gender the way we do. Her second TEDx Talk is titled “Boxes Are Square Not Round” and was given at Palm Harbor University High School in 2023. Sam was most recently published in an international  anthology, The World That Belongs to Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia  by Harper Collins India. 

Sam has also spoken at the Racial Justice Convening by the California Conference for Equality and Justice and was a Keynote Speaker at the Promoting Ethical Behavior through Social Justice Advocacy, Research, and Civic Engagement at the University of South Florida.

She was recently awarded the 2022 Charlie Hounchell Spirit of Service & Leadership Award by Equality Florida for her work as an activist in the Tampa Bay community.