Most white libs cannot conceive of the LGBT experience as anything other than a binary of “gay rights: yes/no”. They look at a map of “countries that recognize gay marriage” and sort the world into good and bad based on the colors on that map.
They don’t want to think about how LGBT people may be able to marry in those “good” countries but might also get beaten or harassed or spat on or killed walking down the street with their partner. They also can’t imagine that there are places where gay marriage is not legally recognized but people will leave LGBT people the fuck alone because there’s a centuries long precedent of gay or lesbian or trans people in the local culture.
Sorry but as much as I support Palestine this video creator’s reasoning is similar to that of Southerners who say that because there is more southern hospitality the south is actually less racist than the rest of America. At the end of the day legal protections are what matter most, allowing your same-sex spouse to inherit your estate or make decisions on your end of life care is what matters, allowing openly gay/trans people who are terminated from employment or denied housing to sue for discrimination is what matters. If leftism is about focusing on the material we cannot forget that.
Having lived in developing countries I know the kind of “pro-gay” milieu she’s talking about where you have a populous street here and there with gay bars and you have a trans person here and there and people who are nice to you face to face but outright tell their kids you are an aberration you hope they don’t turn into. They have these kinds of gay spots everywhere from Russia to Nigeria to Hungary, where you go to a local Pride celebration at a gay bar then quickly scrub off your pride facepaint and hide your flags before your train stops at the next part of town because there are roving gangs looking for people like you to beat and zero social outrage campaigns on your behalf if you’re attacked because “why would you be gay and go to ___” is the popular sentiment with no popular countercurrent.
Hell, even when I was in Shanghai gay bars were allowed to operate and teemed with femboys but would just arbitrarily get shut down by cops on random days as a flex of power and to remind the gay people there to stay in their place. That’s how it plays out in these cultures, the “leaving people the fuck alone from centuries of precedent” that we grade on a curve and consider a fair enough consolation prize for their queer communities just because we hate western hegemony and liberal western chauvinist ignorance. Oh and of course in these cultures if you are with a partner and their parents tell them it’s time he/she gives them a grandchild and daughter/son in law, your partner will likely do it in a heartbeat and cut you off forever without notice, and everyone you disclose your heartbreak to will say you should have known the deal.
In these milieus you have people refusing to entertain the idea that gayness isn’t a choice because that’d unravel society, who are polite enough to gay people face-to-face but in their mind think that they’re just irredeemably lost adults, and that kids should never be made aware of homosexuality lest they “catch it.” It’s racism to liken all Palestinians or even just Hamas to ISIS, and claim that Palestinian people are just throwing gays off buildings, but this TikToker using words like “progressive” and “supportive” to describe the overall view of LGBT in the West Bank and Gaza is its own sort of milder whitewashing and equivocating. After all the IDF ghouls would not be blackmailing queer Palestinians left and right with the threat of outing if they weren’t betting on the high likelihood that said Palestinians feared life changing negative consequences for being outed.
I fully agree that the right to life free from danger and torment by Israel is the first and foremost worry for queer Palestinians, and I clench my fists thinking back to Israelis spying on queer Palestinians having sex and choosing that as when to shoot them, and I know Israel itself is also rife with homophobia. But still this TikTok 2nd gen college kid style messaging that the West Bank is “actually progressive” is the kind of message that sets the pro-Palestine side up for being mocked and discredited.
Hell, even when I was in Shanghai gay bars were allowed to operate and teemed with femboys…
This still true?
Not sure after the government spoke out against the K-Pop idol look. There was a gay bar there named after Obama though haha
transcript
if you are a queer person who’s ever stood up for the Palestinian people odds are a Zionist has said to you “Well if you were gay in Palestine they would throw you off a roof”
as a queer Palestinian who spent a lot of time in Palestine I’d like to tell you my experience with queerness in the West Bank
majority of these people who say that Palestinians kill gay people have actually never been to Palestine (or Israel for that matter) and are just deeply racist and say this as a reason to justify the genocide of the Gazan people
when I was in the West Bank last year with all my friends I was surprised to see how many openly gay people were in the West Bank
a lot of my Palestinian male friends were holding other men in clubs, going home with other men, kissing other men, and I would see this in public
many people in Palestine are aware of who is gay in their town and they don’t care because Palestinians have more to worry about than who’s gay and who’s not
one of my best friends in Palestine, his cousin is a masc lesbian
she is very masc presenting and looks like a lesbian publicly all the time
when we were in Palestine, girls were kissing, guys were kissing in public
there’s a very famous road of bars in the West Bank where you would walk in and see same gender couples dancing together, kissing, going into the bathroom together
um so I don’t understand this notion that if you were gay in Palestine you’d be killed because we have been gay in Palestine and we haven’t been killed
you know what is killing Palestinians, Israel
so this idea that you can’t be gay and support Palestinians because they don’t support gay people one is untrue and b is just a cover up to justify the killing of Palestinians
I’ve clearly never been to Gaza because I am not allowed to but there are also queer people in Gaza who have spoken out on Instagram about being queer in Gaza
I even have a friend who has a non binary partner in Palestine, a non binary Palestinian living in Palestine and all of their friends use they them pronouns for them
Palestine is a lot more progressive than people think and this idea that they’re slaughtering gay people is just really rooted in racism and orientalism
gay marriage is not even legal in Israel so anyone using that as a justification doesn’t really care about gay people because if they did they would stop killing the gay Palestinians in Gaza
This Pride Month I really encourage you guys to stand with your queer brothers and sisters across the world in Palestine and a fight against their genocide
thank you guys
When it comes to pinkwashing racism, there’s always this disturbing binary of “white gay people who minorities and immigrants would kill” and “minorities and immigrants who would kill white gay people” being endorsed by these people. The awful people who promote this never consider that queer BIPOC, Muslims, immigrants, etc. exist. That’s why it has always personally concerned me when I see racist white gays supporting the far-right because they have this flawed mentality that your average non-white person is more dangerous than even the most reactionary whites. Funnily enough, that excuse shrivels up when they have to factor in how I, as a black queer person, would live under the subjugation of their "ideal"fascist society.
When it comes to pinkwashing racism, there’s always this disturbing binary of “white gay people who minorities and immigrants would kill” and “minorities and immigrants who would kill white gay people”
Yep every gay US student depicted in the intolerable “Israeli SNL” sketches on campus protests just happened to be white with dyed hair. If they had some POC queer people in the sketch it would undercut the “privilege” and “out of touch” angle they attacked the campus protestors from.