Queer Folks Mobilize for Palestine

Secondly, there’s the dominant cultural erasure of queer Palestinians’ very existence — advanced by many pro-Israel advocates. In November 2023, for example, a viral photo shared by the state of Israel’s official social media account showed an Israeli soldier carrying a Pride flag with the caption, ​“the first ever Pride flag raised in Gaza.” The photo was taken against a backdrop of tanks and demolished buildings.

“Homonationalism” is the term used for the convergence of LGBTQ+ rights with a nationalist agenda. It was coined during the War on Terror by Jasbir Puar, a professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Rutgers University. Homonationalism is often thought of alongside the strategy of ​“pinkwashing,” the marketing tactic of framing a nation as uniquely allied with the LGBTQ+ community, in contrast with the exceptionally homophobic ​“other,” to justify a military or imperial campaign. 

Many organizers have accused Israel and its allies of using these tactics for years — in this case, framing Palestinians or Arabs more broadly as that ​“other.” In this latest offensive, for instance, the names of several American drag queens (such as Kandy Muse, Willow Pill and Lady Bunny) were written on the side of an Israeli missile in January 2024.

“It’s so disappointing to see queer people and ​‘Drag Race’ fans who think they are good for supporting drag turn around and support the murder of Palestinian people with decorated missiles,” Willow Pill wrote in a tweet responding to the photo.

Queer Palestinian activists are pushing back against this erasure. ​“My father is from Yaffa,” says Mama Ganuush, a California drag artist who describes their drag as an extension of their advocacy work for an end to the occupation in Palestine. “[In Yaffa], there was a park for hookups and there were parties. West Jerusalem was a big area for queer writers and activists at that time, and thinkers against British colonization. I don’t have to justify my people.”

“Settler colonialism, colonization, imperialism, capitalism, all these systems — they’ve robbed us of a sense of who we are as a people, ancestrally,” says Mx. Yaffa, executive director of the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity. ​“Queer and trans bodies, we represent memory.”

And while Queering the Map wasn’t initially founded to elevate Palestinian voices in particular, it’s become a resource for queer organizers in the United States working for Palestinian safety and freedom. ​“There is a connection between the struggle for queer liberation and Palestinian liberation,” says LaRochelle, who views Queering the Map as a tool for folks to ​“see how intimately tied up these movements are and move them towards actions like protesting, fundraising [and] other solidarity work that can happen.”

Another dispatch from Gaza, posted on Queering the Map, reads: ​“My biggest regret is not kissing this one guy. … 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.”

“The stories [in Queering the Map], collectively and individually, function as sites of refutation for a totalizing imaginary of Palestine as a place where there are no queer and trans people, or the idea that if you’re queer, you’re going to be thrown off a building,” LaRochelle says. ​“The primary issue facing queer and trans people in Palestine is the occupation and genocide perpetrated by Israel. You can’t move towards queer liberation if you’re being bombed and occupied.”

“Our moral obligation as queer people, which I think we should all feel, is to fight for collective liberation, period, whether or not that is our people,” offered Noor Aldayeh, a member of ACT UP New York, in conversation with Friedlander. ​“Because we should understand that queer people live all around the world, and those are all our siblings, period.”

Resistance in either case is driven by a refusal to let queer pride be used to justify the oppression of anyone. 

Pride festivals this past summer saw massive disruptions as queer folks rallied to elevate the profile of the genocide in Gaza and efforts to oppose corporate sponsorships with ties to Israel. These disruptions continued after Pride month ended, affecting major LGBTQ+ gatherings such as the Human Rights Campaign’s 2024 National Dinner and Equality Weekend in Washington, D.C. Protesters demonstrated outside of the event, headlined by Gov. Tim Walz, chanting and carrying banners calling for ​“No Pride in Genocide.”

“As a queer and trans Palestinian myself,” says Yaffa, who spoke on the main stage at Oslo Pride in 2024, ​“I actually felt like I honored Pride this year more than any other year. Pride is meant to be a protest. It’s meant to be a riot.” Oslo Pride committed itself to fully divesting from genocide, beginning at the conclusion of their current contracts.

Many of the same queer organizers advocating on behalf of Palestine today were active in 2023 and 2024 in the fight against the onslaught of anti-trans bills and proposed bans on drag in state legislatures around the country. That fight, staged ahead of the swelling of the contemporary pro-Palestine movement, demonstrated the strength of queer organizing.

Ironically, however, Mama Ganuush and others say that even some within the queer community have embraced the tactic of policing and exclusion when it comes to pro-Palestine drag artists, imposing a cultural drag ban in bars and at festivals — the same spaces where simple queer congregation historically has stood as an act of protest on its own.

“I’m seeing the drag ban [happening now] to drag queens locally that are supporting Palestine,” Mama Ganuush says. ​“Other drag artists in San Francisco that I’m organizing with are struggling so much — like losing gigs, being doxxed, being not asked to come back to perform again.” 

“I have had events canceled because of serious threats,” says Lil Miss Hot Mess, an Arizona-based drag queen who drew national attention — particularly within conservative media—in April 2024, after her participation in an all-ages Queer Storytime for Palestine event. ​“I’ve experienced hate mail, not any credible death threats, but death threats nonetheless. It’s scary.”

Palestine organizers and queer activists find themselves in the crosshairs of conservative culture wars now more than ever. Conservatives are fighting in the courts to restore the drag bans. Those organizing for Palestine have faced arrest and detention ahead of intended deportations, workplace retaliation and even threats of physical violence. A report by the FBI notes that, while violent crime in the United States has decreased over the past year, the rate of hate crimes has held steady — and may even have risen. And as the threat of violence posed to the broader queer community remains at a troubling high, threats against drag artists have continued across the country.

“It’s the exact same people, it’s the exact same money, it’s the exact same systems who are pushing for anti-Palestinian policies and pushing for anti-trans policies,” says Yaffa.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, national conservative leaders and organizations have been central to the rapid advancement of anti-trans bills — and have also backed efforts to escalate ethnic cleansing within Gaza. The Heritage Foundation, the infamous think tank behind Project 2025, has long proposed significant rollbacks to civil rights protections for transgender Americans — many of which we’ve already seen enacted by the Trump administration — and its Project Esther proposal recommends the visa revocation and subsequent deportation of students on U.S. campuses who express criticism of Israel. Conservative spending on both issues has ballooned; AIPAC successfully funded the effort to defeat Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the most expensive U.S. House primary in American history, while the biggest political donation in American history has been linked to funding efforts for anti-trans lobbying organizations.

For queer and trans organizers advocating on behalf of Palestine, the threat posed is doubly insidious. In March, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene brought a photo of Lil Miss Hot Mess to a congressional hearing, labeling them a ​“monster.”

“For me, the intersection of [performing with] Drag Story Hour, being a public university professor, and also being relatively public as an anti-Zionist Jew means it’s a particular nexus of targeting,” Lil Miss Hot Mess explains.

Regardless, queer pro-Palestine organizers are continuing to mobilize, rallying the queer community in defense of Palestinians facing bombing and famine in Gaza, and in support of their allies in the United States facing targeted attacks from government and neighbors alike.

This year’s Pride will be unique terrain for queer folks, Palestinian Americans and their allies. Recent months have seen a barrage of executive orders and inflammatory rhetoric targeted at both groups, leading many of the same corporations who have controversially had a heavy presence at Pride festivals in recent years to withdraw ahead of June; recent Forbes reporting states that nearly 20% of U.S. corporations are scaling back their Pride presence. This reversal, spurred by a harshening political and cultural climate, awkwardly creates an opportunity to return Pride back to its more radical roots — a Pride not stained by parade floats representing weapons manufacturers profiting off of wars abroad or pharmaceutical companies who were complicit in the devastating AIDS epidemic.

How will pro-Palestine organizers take advantage of this moment? Some are finding that drag may in fact be their superpower in this fight. 

“Drag performers, by definition, are highly visible,” Lil Miss Hot Mess says. ​“We make a profession of being loud, sparkly and over the top. … As drag performers, we have a lot of skills in being community leaders on a very local, somewhat humble, level.”

“The drag community is still alive, it’s still radical and is still standing up for what’s right,” Ganuush says. ​“How would it look like if [the Nakba] never happened? If we had drag artists performing in Palestine? How can we take
on some of our traditions and just transform them into the future, as if we’re living in a very utopian world? … Drag is a hope.”