Explicitly queer fronts are emerging both within wider activist movements and to demand change within LGBTIQ+ institutions and organisations. They have much more than LGBTIQ+ liberation in their sights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the onset of Israel\u2019s ongoing assault on Gaza, Queers for Palestine (QFP) have been a permanent fixture at marches for Palestine \u2013 part of a Queer Bloc<\/a> uniting Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants, London Trans Pride, Fossil Free Pride (FFP) and more. They blockaded Elbit<\/a> in April, and called on<\/a> the BBC and UK contestant Olly Alexander to boycott the Eurovision song contest<\/a> over a months-long campaign<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The same groups have been publicly holding Pride in London<\/a> to account through a series of open letters<\/a>, callout posts<\/a> and explainers<\/a> on the event\u2019s ties to Israeli occupation, collaboration with police and unethical sponsors. On June 22, activists disrupted<\/a> Cardiff Pride on similar grounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A rapidly-mobilised grassroots campaign quickly has successfully pressured Pride Edinburgh to drop Aegon sponsorship<\/a> over ties to weapons, defence and supplies trading<\/a> with Israel. Another coalition has mobilised the No Pride in Genocide<\/a> campaign, targeting the British LGBT+ Awards for nominating<\/a> weapons manufacturer BAE and holding a protest outside the ceremony<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These actions are informed by activists\u2019 understanding of an internationally shared queer struggle. The already-marginalised status of many queer and trans people renders them more vulnerable<\/a> to the impacts of climate change, like rising food prices, displacement, destruction of key resources and homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n FFP campaigner, Beth*, told me, \u2018Queer people in the Global South are suffering first and worst on the frontlines of the climate crisis and the resource extraction driving it. That demands solidarity and action from queer people in the heart of the empire, profiting from it\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Already-marginalised queer and trans people are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, like rising food prices, displacement, destruction of key resources and homelessness<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Dyke Project (TDP) was founded in response to rising gender-critical action<\/a> in London. The group made headlines<\/a> in October 2023 when they replaced tube adverts<\/a> with messages from queer Palestinians taken from Queering the Map<\/a>. Members of the group told me that they took action because \u2018the same systems of racial capitalism and colonialism that harm queer people in the UK harm all Palestinians \u2013 including queer and trans Palestinians\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Highlighting queer Palestinian lives flies in the face of mainstream characterisations of the Middle East as irredeemably homophobic \u2013 which TDP members describe as \u2018one of the ways that Zionists justify Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians\u2019.<\/em> Their point is made when Israeli soldiers placing pride flags<\/a> in the rubble of Gaza is promoted on Israel\u2019s official Instagram page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As members of Pinkwashing UK<\/a> explained, such Israeli propaganda \u2018promotes a progressive image of the apartheid state, weaponising queer bodies to provide cover for ethnic cleansing and genocide\u2019. <\/em>For Beth, this \u2018pinkwashing\u2019 means \u2018entities publicly placing themselves in close proximity to queer culture, queer people or queer aesthetics in order to associate themselves with socially progressive values\u2019. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When Barclays Bank<\/a> temporarily swap their logo out for a rainbow version, or Primark releases pride-themed clothing, their goal is not queer liberation but image-cleansing and distraction from social harms \u2013 from investments in weapons manufacturers to wage theft<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strides in marriage equality, anti-discrimination laws and legal recognition of gender diversity over recent decades have resulted in what Beth calls a \u2018corporate capture of queer culture\u2019. This capture demands that we celebrate arms manufacturer BAE for being \u2018LGBT-inclusive\u2019 \u2013 as if the end goal of inclusion is to be allowed complicity in international warfare. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, critics of QFP argue<\/a> that queer people should be grateful for \u2018Western-won freedoms\u2019 \u2013 and that being queer is incompatible with support for Palestinian liberation. As Chiamaka Muoneke<\/a> recently reminded us, however, homophobic laws across the world are legacies of British colonial imposition. In Israel, a \u2019proudly homophobic\u2019 <\/a>politician props up a far-right<\/a> government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Barclays Bank post a rainbow logo, their goal is not queer liberation but image-cleansing and distraction from their investments in weapons manufacturers<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a queer person, it\u2019s jarring to have my identity weaponised in this way, particularly when my inclusion has always felt conditional at best. As Schuyler Mitchell<\/a> notes, backlash from pro-Israel actors hinges on a homophobic and transphobic rejection of unsanitised, anti-normative queer identity. If we are allowed only to be palatably queer within the boundaries of social norms \u2013 without questioning who is excluded and harmed by those norms \u2013 then \u2018something is deeply broken in queer politics\u2019, as Beth put it, adding that <\/em>\u2018it\u2019s our collective responsibility to recenter solidarity\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Members of TDP told me that \u2018Many of us in the queer community acknowledge that Pride emerged out of queer people’s resistance to policing \u2013 but we’re not always willing to confront the same conditions of surveillance, violence and control in the present\u2019. Pinkwashing UK told me that \u2018protest is our collective queer history, but it should also be our collective present\u2019 \u2013 and yet, feels like queer radicalism is acceptable only in past tense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, when queer people are a vocal and oppositional force within their own institutions \u2013 like protesting Prides or fossil-fuel sponsored awards shows \u2013 they are at best dismissed. Worse, they are accused<\/a> of choosing the wrong target, met with justifications<\/a> for taking dirty money, or face violent repression<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A strong queer liberation movement defined by collaboration and solidarity is coming together against the odds. By building a broad coalition of queer activists united across the intersecting movements \u2013 for environmentalism, internationalism, anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism \u2013 we can redefine what it means to be proud of our identities, and demand better from our community and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n *Names have been changed<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LGBTIQ+ activists are fuelling movements for climate justice and Palestine. Paula Lacey spoke to Queer Bloc members about the meaning of liberation \u2013 for everyone<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":43474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[279,199,848],"tags":[2913],"class_list":["post-43472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-civil-liberties","category-lgbtqplus","category-palestine-middle-east","tag-paula-lacey"],"yoast_head":"\nConnected struggles<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Identity politics?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n