The Humanity Of The LGBTQ+ Community Is Tied Up In Palestine

My queerness has always been one of the things I’ve valued most about myself. When I finally had a name for how I felt as a 14-year-old, I could see the ways queerness had already wrapped itself around me without my knowledge. It had taken root in my sense of humour, the aesthetics I chose, and my favourite book characters, but I felt it most strongly in my politics. Long before I ever fell in love with a woman, I fell in love with the lengths humans would go to in the name of justice and freedom.

Queerness is not just about who you love, who you fuck, or who your family is. You can be gay without being queer. As bell hooks said, being queer is “about the self that is at odds with everything around it and that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.” This framework of queerness can be applied to in so many different ways, but today, when I think about a self that has to create a space to live despite the odds around it, I am sure that one of the most important queer struggles in our lifetime is that of a free Palestine.

A genocide has been streamed into our homes for almost two years. More and more people are understanding the use of this word can no longer be questioned, and it is an act our government is directly complicit in. If we cannot stand up now, we are betraying the values generations of our queer forbearers fought for. As queers, have we not built our movement around freedom from oppression? Pride in our identity and who we love?

 

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Israel likes to pretend to be a haven for queer people. “The only place in the Middle East with a pride parade”, they like to say. But there is no getting around the fact that Israel has killed countless queer people in Palestine, and in neighbouring regions. It has flattened their communities, shot them as they sought food, denied them basic medical care, killed them before they could even leave their mother’s womb. Atrocity upon atrocity: in the last decade, Israel has likely killed more members of the LGBTQIA+ community than any other state in the world.

Critics have said that queer support for Palestine is equivalent to “chickens for KFC”, but the thing is, I truly, genuinely, do not care if people in Palestine don’t believe in gay rights. I don’t care if someone in Palestine does want to throw me off a building, or if, magically, there is not a single queer person in the country. No one deserves to be obliterated in a genocide. The belief in a shared humanity is a fundamental tenant of the queer rights movement.

The truth is, I am closer to the people of Palestine than I ever would be to those who continue to drop bombs, enforce borders, or block aid, regardless of how many pride parades they’ve been in. Our humanity is tied up in that of Palestinians. The only thing that separates me from a 26-year-old under occupation is distance and luck. Who gets to decide whose life is more important, whose love? As a queer, as a dyke, as a human, it is my responsibility to stand against the dehumanisation and disenfranchisement of Palestine.

 

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Although I write these words, I know I have not done enough. I know this, and I want that shame to move me to action for the rest of my life, but I am not here to absolve my sins in front of you. This is not about my feelings or holding space for my guilt, or yours, for that matter. This is about an emergency that has been going on for 664 days straight, and for another 75 years on top of that.

If you are here, it is because you know what is happening is not only wrong and illegal, it is a crime against humanity. You have seen the photos, heard people weep as they hold the bodies of their loved ones. You have watched as our politicians promise we’re only manufacturing “non-lethal” fighter jet parts.

If you are able to this Sunday, get to a rally. If you are in Sydney, there will be a queer contingent to the March for Humanity, organised by Pride in Protest and meeting at 12pm at Pride Square in Newtown. Invite your friends, create your own group of queer, even if there’s only a couple of you- no matter how big your group, your presence, your voice saying ‘no more’, your body in that crowd matters. We have a responsibility to each other, and we have always been more powerful than we realise.