What you can do this Pride month: Disrupt Israel’s pinkwashing and your local Pride events’ complicity in it

By Chris Talbot-Heindl, nonprofit laborer and perpetually disappointed trans queer

Pinkwashing has become even more despicable and insidious because an ethnostate is using it to justify the genocide of Palestinians. And every member of the 2TLGBIQA+ community must band together to say unequivocally, Not in our name!

I’ve written about the impacts of the annual pandering to us queer folk before, but this year, rainbow capitalism is hitting a bit differently. For me, it’s usually a source of anger and frustration. But this year, it’s making my stomach turn, and my heart sink.

Pinkwashing has become even more despicable and insidious because an ethnostate is using it to justify the genocide of Palestinians. 

And every member of the 2TLGBIQA+ community must band together to say unequivocally, Not in our name!

Israel’s pinkwashing used as justification for apartheid and genocide

Israel has long claimed to be a beacon of gay rights in the SWANA region (although they still don’t have legal same-sex marriage, and polls still show that 56% of Israelis oppose allowing queer people to marry legally, with only 36% in favor). It seeks to perpetuate the derogatory stereotype of the homophobic Arab or Muslim as proof of the “backwardness” of Palestinians and an added excuse for apartheid control and mass extermination of Gazans. 

This was a talking point lobbed at me continuously as I loudly opposed the current genocide, and repeated by Zionists – Jewish and antisemitic alike – including Julianna Margulies, who was famously quoted late last year saying, “These people who want us to call them they/them or whatever they want us to call them…It’s those people that will be the first people beheaded and their heads played with…like a soccer ball on the field.”

The official Twitter account of the State of Israel has repeatedly posted petty and snarky posts to mock 2TLGBIQA+ people around the world, especially the Queers for Palestine movement, who are vocal in their solidarity and want for Palestinian liberation.

Screenshot of a quote tweet from Israel that mocks the Queers for Palestine, saying, “Looking forward to seeing Hamas raise the rainbow [rainbow emoji] flag across Gaza as a thank you for your solidarity.”

Not only is the Zionist talking point “they would kill you on sight” a ridiculous claim, but it’s incredibly racist. It erases the fact that many Palestinians are queer and trans. We’ve seen this through the heartbreaking messages left on Queering the Map, where queer Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Strip, who believe they are not going to survive, share their last thoughts of love and identity. And as numerous queer and trans people around the world have stated on Twitter since October 8, Israeli bombs don’t have gaydar.

Screenshot from Queering the Map showing a pink map of a portion of Gaza. A black location marker has a quote from a queer Palestinian hovering above it, which says, “Idk how long I will live so I just want this to be my memory here before I die. I am not going to leave my home, come what may. My biggest regret is not kissing this one guy. He died two days back. We had told how much we liked each other and I was too shy to kiss last time. He died in the bombing. I think a big part of me died too. And soon I will be dead. To younus, I will kiss you in heaven.”

“Making Palestine out to be exceptionally homophobic or heteronormative is a colonial strategy that falls apart when you offer context, history, and comparative frameworks,” @mej_makes shared on Instagram, “Pinkwashing feeds anti-Arab sentiment and fuels violence. It dehumanizes us. It erases queer Palestinians.” 

What led to the belief that Palestinians hate all 2TLGBIQA+ people

So what’s led to this belief that Palestinians hate all 2TLGBIQA+ people? Mostly state- and media-supported racism, but also the British Mandate Criminal Code made same-sex sexual activity illegal in Palestine during colonization. One of the reasons that the British used as an example of why the SWANA region needed to be colonized was because they were too accepting of homosexuality, and that (was one of the things that) made them “primitive” and “barbaric” and in need of being colonized for their own good (that should sound familiar considering that’s been the pattern the world over).

In the West Bank, the Jordanian Penal Code overtook it in 1951, which had no such prohibitions — therefore, it is legal in the West Bank. Because so many places have occupied current-day Gaza, all with their own laws and enforcement of those laws, it’s not clear where it is illegal and where it is legal.

Honestly, how would Palestine, as a sovereign nation, fully legalize 2TLGBIQA+ identity and rights when they aren’t allowed democratic elections and when they’re constantly having to defend themselves against a violent oppressor? We haven’t had any of that in the U.S. since 1783, and I have had to fight for my rights my whole life in every state I’ve lived in. Hell, the state I escaped from still allows trans and gay panic defenses without any oppression and repression from an occupying entity stunting their progress. 

Israel has positioned itself as the antithesis of this without genuinely being an antithesis. While it’s true that the Israeli government allows 2TLGBIQA+ Palestinians temporary permits to be in Israel, it’s not a safe haven, it’s not permanent, and they aren’t given any rights. They have no access to health care or any services, and they need to renew every three months, which means they could be deported at any time. The only 2TLGBIQA+ Palestinians permitted permanent residency are those who turn around and act as police or informants for the IDF – and historically (I wasn’t able to find if it is happening currently), the IDF has surveilled queer Palestinians and blackmailed them into working as informants. 

I need people to hear me on this point: it wouldn’t matter if that downright racist fabrication made by people who try to dehumanize Palestinians to justify genocide were true. My advocacy for people to live lives outside of an oppressive regime at all, but especially one that is ethnically cleansing them, is not contingent on whether or not they would do the same for me.

That’s not how allyship, accompliceship, or human rights work.

What we can do to inform and transform this year’s Pride events in our cities

As 2TLGBIQA+ people of conscience, it’s our responsibility to ensure that pinkwashing on behalf of the organizations that claim to support and speak for us isn’t allowed this pride month. Here are some things you can do:

1. You can learn more about pinkwashing as a tool for colonization, apartheid, and genocide. Jewish Voice for Peace has a great guide to pinkwashing, complete with links about it and about disrupting it. You can follow No Pride in Genocide as well. Follow their Instagram page for current actions.
2. Support alQaws, a Palestinian organization that supports sexual and gender diversity. They run community centers and events in Palestine, operate a national support hotline, and much more to materially improve the lives of queer and trans Palestinians.
3. Speak up against and put collective pressure on the large legacy queer nonprofits who participate in pinkwashing. Examples include the Human Rights Campaign, which receives donations from Northrop Grumman Corporation – which has sent countless weapons to Israel. 
4. Speak out against and put collective pressure on the organizations hosting your local Pride to refuse to participate in pinkwashing. Lockheed Martin has always had their spot in my local Denver Pride, which is despicable. And it was heartbreaking to see 2TLGBIQA+ people (let’s be real, current Pride parades are primarily for, featuring, and attended by cisgender heterosexual folks, but there still are us queer and trans folks in attendance) cheer for a weapons manufacturer. But looking at the lists provided by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, many more should not be featured at Denver Pride. Call for the refusal of complicity in the image sanitization of these companies from your local Pride event (or if, like me, you’ve burned that bridge too many times, organize others to do so).
5. Make Pride an event that materially improves the lives of 2TLGBIQA+ people again. For those who work at organizations that put on Pride events or those with the ear of organizations that do, I am once again asking you to make your events improve our lives. The parades and tabling events should be full of useful resources for the queer community. For more ideas on how to do this, check out the “So what should you do this Pride month” section of my last essay about the month here.

Voting (for one of the two main parties, anyway) won’t make a difference this year when it comes to Palestinian liberation, as both Republicans and Democrats seem to be fully immersed in AIPAC money with no intention of following international law or basic morality. Still, the BDS movement is putting pressure on companies and (to a somewhat lesser degree) politicians by hitting them in the only place they care about – their pocketbooks.

We need to, now, more than ever, stop the pinkwashing happening in our names and move back to our roots. After all, the first Pride was a riot, and the second was a protest of the conditions that necessitated that riot. While we also need to lean into queer joy and celebrate ourselves and our community, corporate Pride doesn’t do that. It caters to white, cisgender, abled, heterosexual folks, respectability politics, and the status quo. We can’t be complicit in it. 

We need to be the allies and accomplices we deserve showing up each Pride, fighting for our diminishing rights during Pride – we need to be that for our Palestinian siblings this year and every year until Palestine is free.

A final thought from @mej_makes’ Instagram post: “Don’t allow violence against against Palestinians to be done in the name of LGBTQ communities. It dishonors us all. 

“Remember: our freedoms are all tied to one another. There is no ‘Pride’ in apartheid. There is no freedom in genocide. None of us are free until all of us are free.”