feature image photo by Avijit Ghosh/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Pride this year will take place during the eighth month of an ongoing genocide against Palestinian people by Israel. This cannot and should not be forgotten or ignored. It also cannot logically be separated from the origins of Pride itself. The first Pride was a protest or the first Pride was a riot are phrases we hear every year leading up to and during the month of June. And while it’s important to recall and record history, we should resist the urge to use past tense here, especially this year. Pride is still a riot. Pride is still a protest. So long as there are still queer and trans people suffering at the hands of imperialist governments and unjust systems, Pride will continue to be a riot. Pride will continue to be a protest. This is not to say it can’t also comprise parties, joy, rest, and fun. Pride has always been and will continue to be a mix of resistance, rage, release, and revelry. Pride is a rage party, as I like to think of it. But this year at Pride, we must continue to focus on the inextricable links between queer liberation and Palestinian liberation.
One way to do this is to follow and support the work of No Pride in Genocide, a “collective of Queer and Trans anti-zionist Palestinians, Arab/SWANA folks, Jews, and allies working for a free Palestine,” according to the group’s website. No Pride in Genocide utilizes a mix of direct action initiatives, digital organizing, and cultural work to achieve its goals of amplifying the voices of showing solidarity with queer and trans Palestinians as well as combat Israel’s pinkwashing. No Pride in Genocide is based in DC, but they offer all sorts of digital resources — including a free toolkit — and ways to support that can be done from anywhere.
ACT UP NY, which has been part of the pressure campaign on GLAAD and other mainstream LGBTQ organizations and nonprofits to sever ties with the ADL, combat misinformation, and take a stance on genocide, is also cooking up Pride plans, and especially if you’re in New York, there are tons of ways to be directly involved, including the Dyke March on June 29 and the Queer Liberation March on June 30. These marches have a long history of engaging with the more political and radical parts of Pride month. There are offshoots of these marches all over the country, so look up your city to see if there’s a local version for you.
Read and seek out the words of queer and trans Palestinians. Journalist Afeef Nessouli’s ongoing documentation of his anonymous Queer Friend in Gaza’s experiences throughout this genocide have been an impressive example of deeply personal queer reporting. Follow @officialjakegyllenhalal, who is also raising funds and often posts other fundraising efforts for direct mutual aid for people in Gaza or who have recently evacuated. Whatever you plan to spend on a particular Pride event, try to match it with a donation to one of these funds if you have the means. Also, here’s an excerpt from Rand’s newsletter, which you can read in full with a paid subscription.
For those in event planning, do your due diligence on who you’re partnering with. If there are fundraising components to your events, avoid organizations that actively participate in pinkwashing and consider raising funds for direct mutual aid efforts in Gaza. There are so many GoFundMe’s at all times, and again, following folks on social media who have been using their platforms to specifically create content around supporting Palestinian liberation is the best way to find out which ones need funds right now. Ask yourself how you can use your event to organize and build community in a productive and genuinely liberatory way.
Yes, we should use Pride to also rally against the transphobic and queerphobic policies affecting our local communities and legislation sweeping the U.S. that seeks to severely limit the rights of trans people in particular. But the fight for true queer and trans liberation is a global fight. This Pride, it’s especially important to remember that.
