Mikail Khan is a Bangladeshi transmasculine queer Muslim media maker, communications specialist, writer, print model, organizer, & film curator. They grew up in Dhaka for 19 years and are currently based in Lenape and Wappinger land (Central Bronx, NY).

Mikail is invested in advocating for the liberation of trans and gender-expansive people of color through an abolitionist perspective. Drawing from personal history, their creative pursuits are driven by interrogations on gender, queerness, geography, religion, and the politics of refusal. They organize with a few NYC-based grassroots groups to counter Brahminism and white supremacy. Mikail lives with severe ulcerative colitis and also advocates for disability justice.

Mikail’s writings, perspectives and appearances have been featured in places such as the New York Times, The Advocate, Asian American Writers Workshop (The Margins), BBC Radio, Dhaka Art Summit, Gender Reveal Podcast, Bangalore Queer Film Festival, Toronto Queer Film Festival, Gender Reel Festival, Esquire Magazine, Xtra Magazine, NYC Trans Oral History Project, Community Centric Fundraising (CCF), New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene (TGNB Health), and the Decolonizing Sexualities Network. Mikail has also delivered presentations on trans activism and the need for liberatory South Asian spaces to undergraduate/graduate students at Columbia University, New York University, and Utah State University. They’ve curated and launched two film festivals, served on the selection committees for Bronx Council on the Arts and Gotham Week Project Market (Independent Film/Web), and was a recipient of a BRIC Arts Brooklyn fellowship where they produced videos about the health disparities faced by trans kids and their families. Mikail was a LGBT Young Leaders Institute Fellow at South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) and is currently the Muslim Narrative Power Fellow at Muslim Counterpublics Lab.

Between 2012-2016, prior to state persecution, Mikail was active in the Bangladesh LGBTQ+ movement, and helped launch the country’s first and only National LGB Survey, documenting the discrimination the queer population is facing.