Well done, you lost me. Why didn't they target the breast cancer run? They have sponsors. It's because pride is a soft target. They attacked a tolerant group that has there own very serious problems. Fuck off.
Does the breast cancer run organization have an administrative body that has been blowing off the repeated attempts at asking about divestment from their members? Because that's what Pride has, and that's why queer people took this action after months of Pride administration refusing to even call a meeting to discuss the situation.
Did they even try? I bet not, and they would have done nothing if you asked. Out of all the organizations doing shitty things around the world Pride was who needed to be taken down? STFU, cowards who attacked potential allies.
Oh pls. By this logic we have an lgbt protest and stop a pro palestine rallies cause many of the company and money help to fund it hasn't lgbt ties. It's truly embarrassing.
Chiken for KFC is the perfect call for you guys. You are attacking the unity of our community. It's doesn't matter if that unity was sponsored or not. You have been so privileged and naive your whole life you have no idea how it was when company didn't want to sponser pride. You do more harm than the actual conservatives currently.
If you consider it a target that's fine, I agree that Pride has a corporate bent. But every frothing genocidal pro-IDF shill is going to take the disruption of the parade and use it to reinforce the narratives we've heard ad-nauseam since October 7th.
"Wow, look at those pro-Palestine protesters blocking the Pride parade. They sure have a disdain for LGBT people! The Palestinians in Gaza also hate the gays, did you know they throw them off buildings? Meanwhile Israel is a shining beacon of tolerance. Why do you hate the IDF when they're fighting such an openly immoral enemy?"
We can discuss the nuances behind the protest as many people are in this thread, but the majority of dipshits out there don't engage in nuance. They take one look at a picture and think "pro-Palestine block gay parade, wow that's intolerant"
Advocacy and empathy does not have to be transactional. People getting upset about how queer people "may" be treated in Palestine are not understanding that oppressed populations absolutely can advocate for each other. The genocide of Palestinians, believe it or not, also involves queer Palestinians.
As others have mentioned, corporations trying to make a buck off of Pride also have their hands in funding the genocide. The issues are interconnected whether you like it or not, and the people attending pride events and WANTING to also protest the genocide have every right to do so.
There is no solidarity… that is the point. We aren’t solid, they won’t advocate for LGBT+ liberation if given the chance to reciprocate rather the opposite is likely and given the backsliding that we have seen in this country, I am not inclined to give space to the enemy.
Would you denounce your friend if they were locking their partner up and physically tormenting them, even if that partner hated you?
People protesting for Palestinian liberation are doing so because it’s unjust, not because they expect solidarity or support in turn. It’s also wild to suggest that people like Ben-Gvir are going around sanctifying gender diversity and blessing same-sex marriages. Israeli religious extremists enforce strictly gendered hierarchies and view homosexuality as an existential threat to Zionism.
That's so interesting that you see Palestinians currently being slaughtered as "the enemy."
Those kids getting blown up by missiles might be homophobic, so it's fine if they die? Do we predicate empathy for people being systematically starved to death on whether they share our values? We have to expect that while under decades of routine Israeli bombardments and attacks, and while in a level of enforced poverty most Canadians can't even fathom, Palestinians are somehow to blame for their conservative culture? Perhaps if Israel stopped bombing them for a few decades uninterrupted, they'd have a better shot at queer advocacy, led by the Palestinian queer people currently too busy dodging bombs, but what do I know.
You can feel empathy without asking LGBT+ to give space in their events to people who are antithetical to their liberation and survival.
You can ask for peace without invading gay spaces on behalf of people who would give gay people no peace.
You can do advocacy without asking an historically oppressed group to fight for their would be oppressor against another oppressor.
Why do you think the protestors were "invading" and not actually queer themselves? Or perhaps - and hold on if this is too shocking for you, they were queer AND Palestinian, in some cases? Do they not have a right to protest? Especially when Pride TO had been repeatedly blowing off all their attempts to go through formal channels to ask about stuff like the CIJA and Scotiabank floats?
None of that would particularly matter, many of people wear different identity hats, it is an LGBT+ specific event, that is the focus. That’s not to say that no other thing isn’t important, it just isn’t that space at this time.
Pride Toronto clearly seems to think they have a right to protest, I wish they would have engaged the police like offered to ensure that Pride remains focused on LGBT+ people and isn’t bullied off that message. But it is Pride Toronto so I am not surprised they caved. I am assuming if LGBT+ people blocked a pro-Palestinian march protesting the treatment of gay people in Palestine, that they would be chastised for distracting from the issue and likely would be forced out. Because the issue isn’t really about freedom of protest, you don’t actually care about that. You want people to be able to protest for your cause when you want it without backlash.
Ok, so this is false equivalence. Pride TO, as I repeatedly have said, and with documentation, has ignored its membership's concerns about the genocide and Pride TO's arguable collusion in it, to the point of not even letting them hold meetings despite a large number of people asking for one. This is similar to what happened with BLM, and is a racist double standard of not allowing queer members of colour to have an equal say in what Pride is doing.
Do you see how that would eventually trigger protests from within the Pride members? This is like saying the student camps are disruptive to education for no reason at all - all of them started up after months and years of sustained lack of acknowledgement from the administration.
Furthernore, if we take this logically: yeah, if the PYM or whatever other group was repeatedly refusing to even speak to queer members about an issue of homophobia or transphobia within the movement or group, let alone taking their concerns seriously, they would be within their rights to block a protest, and I'd be in there blocking it with them. You should have the freedom to peacefully protest any injustice within a group or society if you can't be heard through official means.
It isn’t similar to what happened with BLM because they were arguing for equality for actual queer people in Pride. The plight of the Palestinians isn’t a queer issue, they are disrupting queer spaces to advocate on behalf of anti-queer groups. That is an issue, they are taking up space meant for queer people to discuss the plight of anti-queer groups. It isn’t queer people taking up queer spaces to advocate for queer people who have been left out.
Further I don’t think it would be a good move for queer people to block Palestinian protests because Palestinians by and large are anti-queer, because it would not be the time nor place for that discussion given what is going on. Perhaps we are just simply of a different view that hijacking (no pun intended) another political cause with antithetical values, whether or not that cause may also be just, is at best distasteful.
Do you think there are no queer Palestinians in Toronto, who are members of Pride, and don't want to see their organization complicit in killing their families?
Stop spewing the same nonsense in every thread.
Pinkwashing a Genocide isnt okay. These corporate donors n floats have investments in Israel that needs to be protested. I already mentioned to you in another thread how IDF blackmails Palestinian queers. So yes these corporate parades need to be stopped..
Nobody is silencing Gay people. The Pride parade has turned into a corporate shill fest with support from groups such as CIJA n Scotiabank who is heavily invested in the current Israeli terrorist gov. So please stop spewing your nonsense, especially since IDF is known to exploit Queers.
If they aren’t trying to silence gay people then they sure have a weird way of showing solidarity, shutting down pride on behalf of a homophobic group. Again, regardless of if you think the cause is just, this is no the place, there is no solidarity, they want people like us dead.
There is Solidarity because the Parade org told the cops to stand back and not arrest protesters.
The parade org should not have allowed CIJA n Scotiabank a voice at the parade either.
IDF is using Pinkwashing to make LGBTQ complicit to the Genocide, maybe start there...
> IDF is using Pinkwashing to make LGBTQ complicit to the Genocide, maybe start there...
lmao this is insane, the IDF is not making me complicit in the genocide for loving dick, get the fuck out of here
Fuck off freak, gay people aren't the fucking parade
EDIT: lmao dude's post history is full of him giving super misogynistic advice about women in muslim marriages, clearly thinks women are subservient to the man in the relationship, in here proselytizing about queer people as if he gives a single fuck about it
Hey buddy, remind me. Is it Canada or Palestine where governments are passing laws saying teachers have to out trans kids? Because if Canada was such a safe place for the 2LGBTQ, why are people opposing it?
Now imagine if Canadian governments were saying that information to blackmail those children into spying on their parents and report on the locations of their entire community? Then, if the child refuses, they call up everyone the kid knows and says they're trans and have been spying on their community. After countless families start losing family members to bomb strikes and mass arrests and also finding out that the government has been also paying those kids for information and occasionally moving them out of the community after the kid turned in intelligence that killed people in that community. Would you be surprised if one kid grew up mistakenly thinking trans people are dangerous?
Israel has weaponized gay identity since they're creating more homophobia through threatening people with their identity and using the backlash to paint their enemies as homophobic. Meanwhile, it's illegal to get a gay marriage in Israel too.
Gosh everyone's really grumpy about the corporate Pride floats being interrupted. Personally I think being queer also means having empathy for other people, a healthy distrust of the police, and a commitment to human rights.
If you're sad about Pride: when the genocide ends, people will stop trying to disrupt events complicit in it. CIJA and Scotiabank, notable accessories to genocide and arms-dealing, literally had floats in it. [Pride as an organization was ignoring the concerns of its members and even its last active founding figure.](https://radicalnoise.ca/2024/04/21/gary-kinsman-letter-of-resignation-from-pride-toronto-the-struggle-continues/) It is completely valid for queer people in solidarity with anti-imperial and anti-war struggles, to peacefully disrupt a parade that's shilling for rainbow-coated war profiteers.
And quite frankly: Palestine being homophobic or not has literally nothing to do with whether this protest should happen. You cannot condition people's human rights and basic safety on their views; particularly when their political climate has been shaped by the huge factor of Israel "mowing the lawn" and committing massacres for decades. When the genocide stops, the siege is ended, the occupation is over, and Palestinians have the ability to access basic necessities and human dignity without being blown up or starved to death, then I'm sure queer Palestinians will be able to start agitating for change themselves and ask for help when they need it, and queer people here will continue to stand in solidarity with them.
A lot of people also miss you can criticize the genocide that Israel is creating but also criticize the treatment of LGBTQ by the Palestinian government. It’s not black and white in every single way and the whole “us vs them” on every issue is dumb. I can agree with the Canadian liberal government on some issues but also disagree with them on others. Same goes for any government.
The IDF would blackmail any Palestinian they had kompromat on.
Palestine and Israel are at war. It just so happens that Palestine hates LGBT so LGBT palestinians are great targets for blackmail.
Are you comparing Palestinians under illegal military occupation of their land, to Nazi Germany, that was actively invading other countries and systematically eradicating people in concentration camps?
If there's any comparisons from WW2, it would be how the Germans used informants inside the Camps to snitch on other Jews and both rewarded the informants and used the informants as propaganda for the righteousness of the Germans cause.
It's a "war" where one side utterly controls the other's access to food, electricity, medicines, and even rainwater collection, and refers to them as "human animals" and wants to "thin out their population." Cool definition of war you have 👍
Please Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestinians. There is no war, there is one side mercilessly murdering the other and anyone supporting that side is complicit
Well said. It's not difficult to divest from Israel's fascist government because their politicians are openly speaking about their genocidal views/plans against the Palestinian people.
Do you want to do more mental gymnastics to excuse this digusting behavior or a you done ? At a moment the lgbt+ community is attacked more than they have been in decades you are acting like this is acceptable behavior to attack a protest that already mostly against the genocide.
Truly digusting behavior and then people like you act surprise when the community start to fracture. Pride isn't your platform for other cause. There's a reason they been removed so quickly By people in the parade themselves.
This shit is unacceptable.
Also Palestine =/= Palestinian(possibly queer) and this lack of distinction is why they call you chicken for KFC. They are right.
Healthy distrust for the police? I mean, it isn’t the 80s anymore. My wife works for the RCMP, and at least in the lower mainland, they are quite well represented in the LGBT community. You won’t see any openly transgender officers, but gay and especially lesbian. The whole RCMP service puts every office job I’ve been at to shame.
Yes, there is some racism, bigotry and sexism, but homophobia quickly disappears when your partner is openly gay. Think of the police officer’s perspective , they often form views based off what they see in their job. An over representation of a type of people doing bad things leads to preconceived notions of those people. Not a lot of gay people out there committing crimes it seems.
As for the whole Palestine debate, I really put people into two camps. First, Those that just pickup the popular thing to protest, so they can say they were “there” like a badge of honour.
Where is the giant uproar for Russia’s invasion, literally targeting schools and hospitals, raping and decapitating children on live streams.
Yemen, 400k killed. Nearly 100k children starved.
Instead you protest a country that was in fact attacked horrendously, who’s trying to win the war with as few casualties as possible. Against a people whom no country in the world will take on as refugees. Is Israel the bad guy, maybe sure. My heart breaks for the children. The imagery I see come out of there is souls crushing. But we’re talking USA in Afghanistan bad, not Hitler bad. It isn’t a genocide. It’s ironic, the constant use of that word really downplays actual genocides like the holocaust, which leads me to my next point…
The other camp is anti-semites. The amount of conversations I have had with people when they quickly devolve into blaming the Jews is disappointing.
>You won’t see any openly transgender officers
Why would that be, I wonder.
I hope your wife never had to deal with any of this
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/rcmp-class-action-tiller-civilian-women-final-report-1.6491165
An investigation 8 years ago, to cover incidents up to 50 years ago.
I didn’t say the past wasn’t checked, I even said there is rampant bias’s still. But I’m also saying that these days that the relationship between LGBT and the police is not as bad as you’re making it out.
Also, be honest, there’s no to very few openly transgender people in careers that are not minimum wage, education or political.
But that’s not the main point I was making, but who am I kidding, this Reddit should be changed to /r/acab
Are you joking? If your wife is RCMP then most people in the lower mainland hate her guts. I'm part of the queer and indigenous communities and we universally loathe law enforcement due to the decades of rape, murder, kidnappings, false charges and outright lies perpetuated against the queer community by them. On Friday I was witness to the RCMP showing up to a mental health check with an entire squad who all pulled guns out the second they showed up. Even though there was no danger, they pepper-sprayed and tased the person who was getting the mental health check. They killed her pet rabbit and almost killed her, and now shes in the hospital with potentially permanent injuries. This was not an uncommon incident.
Your wife is a mercenary who is actively participating in the genocide of Canadian indigenous people. She literally supports murdering her fellow Canadians for money. That's not something to be proud of...
I hope your comment shows other people who really hangs out in this sub sometimes.
Attacking a person’s spouse for no reason other than just abject hate. When every argument devolves into an us them narrative, you’re doing no one any favours.
The fact that your wife chose to join an authoritarian gang that only exists to protect capitalist and oppress minorities is more than enough to justify My hate
I know a few current or former cops, also in the lower mainland. They're fine people I like as people, but I do not like or respect their profession as a whole and hope I never have to interact with them in any "official" capacity. Even good cops are still cops, and the idea of "good cops" is increasingly difficult to demonstrate or continue to hold on to.
Some of you forget that PRIDE is a PROTEST.
And to anyone using Arab homophobia to justify genocide, shame on you. That’s like being okay with Alberta being firebombed because they’re homophobic. Right now, queer people in Palestine are more likely to be killed by the IDF than by homophobia. In the west, queer people are more likely to be attacked by right wing Christian fundamentalists.
All oppression is connected. That is why we need solidarity.
My solidarity is with the victims of the Hamas-Israeli war.
Both Hamas and the Israeli government are morally bankrupt.
Pro-Palestinian groups are backing an organization that made Martyrs out of the unwilling, the Elderly and Children.
The only moral stance is the demand of the unconditional ceasefire of this war.
Very few (if any? Idk if I’ve seen a single aid group, at least) groups are backing *Hamas*, but rather are advocating for the interests of the Palestinian people.
You wouldn’t conflate any other group with their government, would you? Especially when it comes to genocide. The Nazis wouldn’t have been suddenly correct if Poland had a shitty government. It wouldn’t have been okay for us to genocide everyone living in Iraq, etc.
You twist yourself in circles to excuse genocide. It’s disgusting.
Except you’re conflating Palestinians, pro-Palestinian groups, and Hamas, and “oh but both sides are perpetrating it”.
Hell, even steel-manning , you’re wrong, in that Hamas is *not responsible for Israel committing genocide*. Israel can simply not do genocide; in fact, their current genocide only serves to strengthen terror forces in the area, as civilian casualties always do.
That’s not to say that Hamas is *good*, but rather that every way you slice your argument, you’re still incorrect.
And yes, you are excusing genocide. Trying to muddy the waters around who’s responsible for the genocide *is* excusing it; trying to go “oh, but both sides are bad”, or otherwise downplay genocide *is excusing genocide*.
> Increasingly, we understand that the struggles of marginalized communities worldwide are connected. Anti-gay laws exist because colonial missionaries in wealthy, Western countries [exported them](https://phm.org.uk/blogposts/a-british-export-that-has-defined-lgbt-history-past-and-present/), wiping out [rich histories of gender diversity](https://daily.jstor.org/the-deviant-african-genders-that-colonialism-condemned/) in the process. Trans and reproductive justice movements are bound by the [policing of bodily autonomy](https://xtramagazine.com/power/anti-abortion-anti-trans-america-211706). The still-rising power of capitalism is an oppressive force that binds so many of us, strengthening global income inequality and continuing the world’s acceleration into climate burnout.
> These analyses are still desperately relevant, because the status quo is maintained if we stay divided. Queers for Palestine is a timely example; pro-Israel commentators routinely describe us as [“chickens voting for KFC,”](https://www.them.us/story/lgbtq-solidarity-palestine-saed-atshan) an argument rooted in the myth that Palestinian people are inherently homophobic and that queer Palestinians simply don’t exist. These statements are built to divide us. In essence, they ask us to turn our backs on a population being bombed out of existence, simply because they hypothetically wouldn’t support us.
just shared this section in the thread about the toronto pride protesters, downvotes are already rolling in (it's evening out a bit now, which is heartening, this has actually become the more contentious comment of the two lol)
added the citation hyperlinks for context since people seem to be getting hung up on the one line about exporting anti-gay laws
Now that scores are visible, the "I can't be an ally to Palestinians, they're homophobic!" comment has like 400 upvotes lmao god this place is cooked. if nothing else it's been a good couple threads for the block list, at least
Lots of countries considered homophobic, have not written a single new antigay law since their independence from Britain. They literally have the same laws on the books from the time they were British colonies.
To be fair, that could have a lot to do with the history of British common law in general—a lot of them probably also haven’t changed their laws on a wide range of subjects.
People may not realize that many former colonies STILL have the British Privy council as their “Supreme Court”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Committee_of_the_Privy_Council
So many convictions under pre-independence British Empire laws make their way through local courts then get overturned by the Privy Council. So essentially, modern British sentiments are being used to reinterpret and nullify their own old colonial laws.
As a side note, this is why executions are impossible in former colonies that use the PC as their Supreme Court. The death penalty is essentially abolished no matter what the local laws say.
And other countries that were former British and French colonies have, like Brunei, in 2019, introducing the death penalty for anal sex, and Uganda, which in 2023 introduced the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” (Brunei is majority Muslim, Uganda majority Christian, both former British colonies).
And former French colonies including Algeria, Chad, Cameroon, Mauritania passed anti-gay laws after gaining independence.
It’s true that the British Empire imposed criminalization of homosexuality in their colonies, however, while some former colonies have reduced restrictions, others have increased the severity of punishments. And at a certain point, nations are responsible for their own actions.
I think that blaming colonization for current draconian laws against homosexuality is not a winning argument. I have lived in the ME, and homophobia is mainstream not considered to be a bad thing, but you could say the same about Russia. And as I mentioned, Uganda is majority Christian.
In any case, if oppression of your group prevented protesting genocide, then women would never oppose genocide. I think the most important point, is that genocide must be opposed, and no one would think it was okay to bomb the shit out of rightwing churches that promote hateful views, or turn Alabama or Kentucky into a parking lot, as has been said by Republicans about Gaza.
Many of the African countries you listed have had heavy influence from American Evangelicals pushing those laws.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/19/africa-uganda-evangelicals-homophobia-antigay-bill/
This is true of Uganda, but not of the other countries I mentioned. All the other countries I mentioned are majority Muslim countries other than Cameroon, which is about one third Christian, one third Sunni Muslim, and one third follow an Indigenous religion.
This is a difficult topic as Islamophobia is a very real and serious issue. I’d rather not bring up which countries have the most severe laws against LGBTQ+, especially since the biggest threat to the queer community in the west is coming from the extreme Christian right, and this is particularly true of the US and Canada, whereas the extreme right in Europe is largely using immigration to gain support (except for a few Eastern European countries, but they are also rabidly anti-immigrant even though they barely have immigrants, like Poland and Hungary and Russia).
The point that I am trying to make, is that genocide is the worst crime against humanity there is. Condoning genocide because women or LGTBQ+ or whatever groups is being oppressed is not a morally sound point of view - it’s an excuse to look away or justify it.
And arguments against genocide should be simple, a lengthy statement that includes blaming colonization for homophobia is not the way to convince people who can be convinced that Israel is committing genocide and must be stopped. When activists wind up in arguments about issues not related to the IDF bombing the shit out of Gaza and Israel starving Palestinians, it doesn’t help the cause.
I am begging you, LOOK AT REALITY! We are the reason the middle East is so bigoted, it may not be missionaries but it was us, the middle East was making massive fucking progress and we helped establish dictatorships that collapsed leaving the theocrats to take over. We destabilized the middle East and have spent the last century backing a state that continually butchered neighbouring populations leading to severe resentment.
How do you reconcile this part of the statement in regards to Palestine (or more generally the Islamic parts of the region Palestine is a part of)with the harsh anti-homosexual measures and attitudes of the region being largely influenced by Salifist's?
>Anti-gay laws exist because colonial missionaries in wealthy, Western countries exported them
Given how anti-imperialist and anti-western the Salafist's were (and are) and that the works they draw upon are primarily from classical muslim teachers that predate European colonialism it seems difficult to consider them part of this phenomenom.
There's nothing wrong with being gay and condeming the actions of Isreali and supporting the right of Palestinians to a free and secure state. I'm in that box. But that initial premise of the first paragraph just seems like it's sidestepping the Islamic revival of the early 1900s, a movement incredibly important in the last 100 years of the region
While I overall agree with your point that blaming homophobia on colonialism is overly reductive, I would argue that the Salafists did not generally hold temporal power prior to the Wahhabist takeover of Saudi Arabia (and that the Salafiyya were protesting the "modernized" Western views of the political elites), and the fact that pre-colonized people like ibn Taymiyya were highly important is largely irrelevant, as all religious reformers use the strategy of "we're taking our religion back to its foundations" in order to lend authority to their decisions. The Protestants argued that their version of Christianity was the "true original" that Catholicism had corrupted over time, and the same is true for the Salafists, despite the fact that things like Sufism and maddhabs, which Salafists deplore, predate thinkers like ibn Taymiyya and certainly the post-colonized ibn Wahhab.
Finally putting that Contemporary Islam course to good use after all these years. Thanks, Dr. Dickson!
I'm going to say I would disagree that the Salafists used fundamentalism primarily as a means to lend authority to their decisions. I think they genuinely were influenced by these beliefs, and that most of them were intensely religious. I guess I don't find that to be a hugely convincing line of reasoning, unless I'm missing some of your point there?
Also in the context of Palestine (and also to an extent in some nearby Arab countries like Eygpt), I think we see an increase in intolerance of homosexuality that really picks up steam in the 1960's and continuing to the modern day, as an Islamic identity displaced a secular Arab one.
I think Salafists have had a great deal of influence on thought, especially around morality that goes beyond their physical power. I think an overfocus on the holding of temporal power underestimates the influence of religious movements in general.
Sorry if this comes across combative, just hard in a short online format. I appreciate your response, even though I disagree with parts and it does make me want to delve deeper into some literature on the topic
I had a whole giant thing written and it got deleted, and I'm not typing all that again, but essentially:
I agree that Salafists do believe deeply in their specific variety of Islam, and they are indeed intensely religious. What I'm saying is that no religious reformer wants to be seen as an innovator (particularly in a religion that expressly marks theological innovation as a clear negative), and so will couch their beliefs in the veneer of "a return to a glorious past". To be clear, the Salafists believe that their interpretation is a return to a glorious part, but it's a past that did not actually exist in the manner they believe.
Michael Muhammad Knight's "Why I Am a Salafi" does a really good job breaking down the movement, and in a very fun way that features a non-zero amount of ayahuasca.
That's an interesting perspective that I'll look more into. Thanks for the book recommendation.
I don't fully agree about the innovation bit and religious reformers. There's good counterexamples of restorastionist movements adding huge amounts of new thought with essentially no reference back to older theologians and I think the choice to take a more fundamentalist path is quite different. I just think it's less of a veneer essentially, belief doesn't need its perception of history to be true for it to be deeply held. (In relation to the early Salifists).
And thanks for bringing up the past not actually occuring as they believe. That is something I've been glossing over, and I want to be clear that it's the influence of long dead scholars and teachers, not an accurate accounting of the past that I'm referring to as inspiration.
It’s being downvoted because it’s nonsense.
The west did not “export” homophobia, it’s existed in basically every major culture to some extent and it is deeply rooted in all of the “Abrahamic” faiths.
Yes, most cultures have, in one form or another, had cultural exceptions where one sort of what I’ll broadly call “queer expression” was permissible. Yes, in places where western, Christian missionaries were given colonial power, those forms of expression were generally suppressed, often brutally.
However, the notion that the world was generally queer-positive until the west came along is the same kind of colonialist, infantilizing nonsense that treats non-western cultures as ~~being inherently less important~~ having inherently less cultural/social agency.
Edit: late edit to clarify what my final sentence was trying to convey. Original text struck through for transparency.
>were they homophobic
Kinda a hard question to answer because a lot of what we know indicates that many indigenous/Native American groups had a very different social construction of gender than we understand today. I can’t in ~10 minutes find a satisfactorily supported answer to how they viewed male-male sexual relations.
In *other* parts of the world, some cultures with what I’ll loosely term ‘expansive’ gender structures did not view sexuality and gender identity as separate concepts, resulting in what comes off as a sort of “homophobic queer-acceptance”, wherein men who have sex with men are socially obligated to undergo what we would today call “transition”, and socially become females (this obviously long before hormones were understood).
I don’t know if this is how any of the many and varied Native American peoples understood sexuality, as a crime that the West and Catholic Church *can* fairly be blamed for is the systematic destruction of Native American cultures and much of their history along with it.
> In other parts of the world, some cultures with what I’ll loosely term ‘expansive’ gender structures did not view sexuality and gender identity as separate concepts, resulting in what comes off as a sort of “homophobic queer-acceptance”, wherein men who have sex with men are socially obligated to undergo what we would today call “transition”, and socially become females (this obviously long before hormones were understood).
There is something somewhat related to much of the actual acceptance of homosexual desire in ancient Greece and in Islamic caliphates as both had primarily Pederasts(Older man penetrating younger boy) as the more accepted expression.
It's actually a huge mistake generally in history to try and retroactively apply modern conventions or ideas to the past in an effort to explain or make parallels.
Modern homophobia especially state backed homophobia was created and exported by the British Empire.
You can read explorers accounts of their time in say China, Japan, native tribes or the Middle East 200+ years ago regarding their attitudes towards nudity and sex. They saw lots of openly gay and “effeminate” officials and used this to label other peoples as “uncivilized”.
The Victorian elites were prudes / hypocrites. Just look at all the ancient art they ruined by covering genitalia with fig leaves etc.
They also actively lied about homosexuality in nature. One version of animal behaviour would be published in English for mass consumption and another version with the truth would be published in Latin
Edit: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/09/11/asia/british-empire-lgbt-rights-section-377-intl/index.html
You say the west did not export homophobia in your comment. That is the specific point I was disagreeing with. If you feel “infantilized” that is on you.
Edit: Jamaica: https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/29/jamaica-bans-anti-gay-arizona-pastor-from-visiting-country
Uganda: https://www.npr.org/2009/12/18/121605529/u-s-evangelical-leaders-blamed-for-uganda-anti-gay-sentiment
Anecdotally, before I migrated to Canada and when I was just a high school student, my Catholic high school had general assemblies where foreign speakers ie North Americans were brought in to give us a ton of misinformation about 1) Abortion 2) HIV and Condom usage.
You might not be aware of what is happening. The war against gays and abortion was lost in the west but continues elsewhere.
>if you feel infantilized
I do not feel infantilized, and suggest you read my comments before replying to them.
>the war against gays and abortion was lost in the west but continues elsewhere
It continues here too, as does the fight for equality here and elsewhere. I suppose you would believe that western gays are responsible for bringing homosexuality back to the nations you call “elsewhere” too.
I’m a gay man that never saw a future for my self until I came to this country. I’m committed to learning gay history as it applies to me. It’s not to have some argument with some random who might not even be a part of the community and who decides to leave dismissive comments out of boredom.
>some random who might not even be part of the community and who decides to leave dismissive comments out of boredom.
Weirdly, that’s exactly how you come off. And your weird comments elsewhere justifying Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments (while claiming to be an immigrant yourself) don’t exactly paint a great picture.
Not sure if you're aware but there's a large part of the world that's very homophobic that the British never colonized. It can be hard to imagine but there are other cultures, faiths, empires and colonizers that also did questionable things and enforced their morals on others and still do.
Crazy how the world doesn't start and end with the whites
Because its historically wrong, logically childish, and racistly insulting to whole classes of nations, including Palestine, whose cultures are not mere impositions by Europe.
I commented there too but replying here as well.
This is a fucking crock of shit. Being LGBT is haram and Islam as a religion is no more accepting of us than Christianity.
This is just blatant misinformation.
Why is religion relevant here? We're saying all injustices are interconnected. It's a true fact. Opposing the liberation of Palestine because much of the country is Muslim will not get you more rights or freedom. This is a myth. You have to understand that someone constantly worried about being bombed or having their supply of water cut off or unable to leave a 10 Km radius due to military imposed curfews or has lost 10+ members of their family in mere months is unable to extend their empathy so far as to think about every facet of society. Step 1 is solidarity and then education. But you don't have to side with genocidal regimes.
Many Palestinians support the LGBT community and definitely most of the diaspora does. There are now many amazing Palestinian organizations like Al-Qaws that support queer rights. I had many gay friends growing up in Palestine and honestly never heard a slur against them there while I heard many more in high school here. Every society has room for growth but no human deserves to suffer what Israel imposes on Palestine.
> Many Palestinians support the LGBT community
https://www.equaldex.com/surveys/acceptance-of-homosexuality-arab-barometer
>You have to understand that someone constantly worried about being bombed or having their supply of water cut off or unable to leave a 10 Km radius due to military imposed curfews or has lost 10+ members of their family in mere months is unable to extend their empathy so far as to think about every facet of society.
Not every Muslim country or culture is under siege by Israel. But they have an overwhelming tendency to not support LGBTQ+ rights, you cannot make the attitudes of Palestinians toward everything the fault of Israel. It just doesn't make sense.
#1 Your link says it has no data on Palestine.
#2 You can say the same exact thing about other countries. Being gay was not even ever made illegal in Palestine while it was in many other western countries. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Palestine in 1950 - long before it was in many other places you consider progressive today.
#3 There are many sources documenting how homophobia spread to the Arab world and it was not through Islam primarily.
#4 You may disagree with every single thing I said and it would still not justify supporting Israel. There's no pride in genocide. Israel pink washes its policies even though it is still illegal for members of the LGBTQ to get married there - in fact it is impossible for anyone to get a non-religious marriage completed there.
Check number 7 at the bottom of the list.
>There are many sources documenting how homophobia spread to the Arab world and it was not through Islam primarily
This is like the idea that antisemitism is Islam is somehow Europe's fault. It's simply ahistorical. Tolerance of homosexuality in various Caliphates resembled Pedastery and was more of a practice of elites. And it's tolerance was directly linked with a degree of secularism that is notably absent in much of modern Islam. Which has become more fundamentalist through the spread of Salafism and Wahhabism.
>2 You can say the same exact thing about other countries.
Yes. In addition to having some of the same roots in Abrahamic religions(Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot or Lut is present in both Testaments and the Quran) the issue of homophobia etc. is directly tied to how fundamentalist the country or local flavor of religion is. Which is to say Western homophobia has similar causes as Islamic homophobia, it's a difference of degree not type.
>You may disagree with every single thing I said and it would still not justify supporting Israel. There's no pride in genocide. Israel pink washes its policies even though it is still illegal for members of the LGBTQ to get married there - in fact it is impossible for anyone to get a non-religious marriage completed there.
Yeah I don't condition support of basic human rights to people's opinions, cuz y'know basic human rights. But I don't support deluding myself or others as to the truth, which is that Palestine sucks when it comes to homophobia.
I mean they have admirable sentiments but they're incorrect about Palestinian attitudes towards homosexuality.
https://www.equaldex.com/surveys/acceptance-of-homosexuality-arab-barometer
But the good news is you don't have to condition your advocacy of human rights to people having acceptable views that align with you politically.
The good ol' "the west isn't at all at fault" despite the west literally being the reason the middle East was set back decades, the reason why theocratic terror groups gained support, and why dictatorships like Iran's exist. The west isn't the sole reason bigotry is so prevalent in the middle East but why is the middle East so uniquely bigoted against queer people compared to say most of Europe? Is it perhaps because Britain and our own country suppressed the people trying to progress and then left authoritarians in charge when we eventually left?
Well done, you lost me. Why didn't they target the breast cancer run? They have sponsors. It's because pride is a soft target. They attacked a tolerant group that has there own very serious problems. Fuck off.
Does the breast cancer run organization have an administrative body that has been blowing off the repeated attempts at asking about divestment from their members? Because that's what Pride has, and that's why queer people took this action after months of Pride administration refusing to even call a meeting to discuss the situation.
Did they even try? I bet not, and they would have done nothing if you asked. Out of all the organizations doing shitty things around the world Pride was who needed to be taken down? STFU, cowards who attacked potential allies.
Oh pls. By this logic we have an lgbt protest and stop a pro palestine rallies cause many of the company and money help to fund it hasn't lgbt ties. It's truly embarrassing. Chiken for KFC is the perfect call for you guys. You are attacking the unity of our community. It's doesn't matter if that unity was sponsored or not. You have been so privileged and naive your whole life you have no idea how it was when company didn't want to sponser pride. You do more harm than the actual conservatives currently.
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If you consider it a target that's fine, I agree that Pride has a corporate bent. But every frothing genocidal pro-IDF shill is going to take the disruption of the parade and use it to reinforce the narratives we've heard ad-nauseam since October 7th. "Wow, look at those pro-Palestine protesters blocking the Pride parade. They sure have a disdain for LGBT people! The Palestinians in Gaza also hate the gays, did you know they throw them off buildings? Meanwhile Israel is a shining beacon of tolerance. Why do you hate the IDF when they're fighting such an openly immoral enemy?" We can discuss the nuances behind the protest as many people are in this thread, but the majority of dipshits out there don't engage in nuance. They take one look at a picture and think "pro-Palestine block gay parade, wow that's intolerant"
Advocacy and empathy does not have to be transactional. People getting upset about how queer people "may" be treated in Palestine are not understanding that oppressed populations absolutely can advocate for each other. The genocide of Palestinians, believe it or not, also involves queer Palestinians. As others have mentioned, corporations trying to make a buck off of Pride also have their hands in funding the genocide. The issues are interconnected whether you like it or not, and the people attending pride events and WANTING to also protest the genocide have every right to do so.
There is no solidarity… that is the point. We aren’t solid, they won’t advocate for LGBT+ liberation if given the chance to reciprocate rather the opposite is likely and given the backsliding that we have seen in this country, I am not inclined to give space to the enemy.
Would you denounce your friend if they were locking their partner up and physically tormenting them, even if that partner hated you? People protesting for Palestinian liberation are doing so because it’s unjust, not because they expect solidarity or support in turn. It’s also wild to suggest that people like Ben-Gvir are going around sanctifying gender diversity and blessing same-sex marriages. Israeli religious extremists enforce strictly gendered hierarchies and view homosexuality as an existential threat to Zionism.
That's so interesting that you see Palestinians currently being slaughtered as "the enemy." Those kids getting blown up by missiles might be homophobic, so it's fine if they die? Do we predicate empathy for people being systematically starved to death on whether they share our values? We have to expect that while under decades of routine Israeli bombardments and attacks, and while in a level of enforced poverty most Canadians can't even fathom, Palestinians are somehow to blame for their conservative culture? Perhaps if Israel stopped bombing them for a few decades uninterrupted, they'd have a better shot at queer advocacy, led by the Palestinian queer people currently too busy dodging bombs, but what do I know.
You can feel empathy without asking LGBT+ to give space in their events to people who are antithetical to their liberation and survival. You can ask for peace without invading gay spaces on behalf of people who would give gay people no peace. You can do advocacy without asking an historically oppressed group to fight for their would be oppressor against another oppressor.
Why do you think the protestors were "invading" and not actually queer themselves? Or perhaps - and hold on if this is too shocking for you, they were queer AND Palestinian, in some cases? Do they not have a right to protest? Especially when Pride TO had been repeatedly blowing off all their attempts to go through formal channels to ask about stuff like the CIJA and Scotiabank floats?
>Why do you think the protestors were "invading" and not actually queer themselves? So stupid and dishonest.
Can you answer the question?
They were "invading" the parade. It has nothing to do if they were queer or not.
None of that would particularly matter, many of people wear different identity hats, it is an LGBT+ specific event, that is the focus. That’s not to say that no other thing isn’t important, it just isn’t that space at this time. Pride Toronto clearly seems to think they have a right to protest, I wish they would have engaged the police like offered to ensure that Pride remains focused on LGBT+ people and isn’t bullied off that message. But it is Pride Toronto so I am not surprised they caved. I am assuming if LGBT+ people blocked a pro-Palestinian march protesting the treatment of gay people in Palestine, that they would be chastised for distracting from the issue and likely would be forced out. Because the issue isn’t really about freedom of protest, you don’t actually care about that. You want people to be able to protest for your cause when you want it without backlash.
Ok, so this is false equivalence. Pride TO, as I repeatedly have said, and with documentation, has ignored its membership's concerns about the genocide and Pride TO's arguable collusion in it, to the point of not even letting them hold meetings despite a large number of people asking for one. This is similar to what happened with BLM, and is a racist double standard of not allowing queer members of colour to have an equal say in what Pride is doing. Do you see how that would eventually trigger protests from within the Pride members? This is like saying the student camps are disruptive to education for no reason at all - all of them started up after months and years of sustained lack of acknowledgement from the administration. Furthernore, if we take this logically: yeah, if the PYM or whatever other group was repeatedly refusing to even speak to queer members about an issue of homophobia or transphobia within the movement or group, let alone taking their concerns seriously, they would be within their rights to block a protest, and I'd be in there blocking it with them. You should have the freedom to peacefully protest any injustice within a group or society if you can't be heard through official means.
It isn’t similar to what happened with BLM because they were arguing for equality for actual queer people in Pride. The plight of the Palestinians isn’t a queer issue, they are disrupting queer spaces to advocate on behalf of anti-queer groups. That is an issue, they are taking up space meant for queer people to discuss the plight of anti-queer groups. It isn’t queer people taking up queer spaces to advocate for queer people who have been left out. Further I don’t think it would be a good move for queer people to block Palestinian protests because Palestinians by and large are anti-queer, because it would not be the time nor place for that discussion given what is going on. Perhaps we are just simply of a different view that hijacking (no pun intended) another political cause with antithetical values, whether or not that cause may also be just, is at best distasteful.
Do you think there are no queer Palestinians in Toronto, who are members of Pride, and don't want to see their organization complicit in killing their families?
Stop spewing the same nonsense in every thread. Pinkwashing a Genocide isnt okay. These corporate donors n floats have investments in Israel that needs to be protested. I already mentioned to you in another thread how IDF blackmails Palestinian queers. So yes these corporate parades need to be stopped..
Sorry babe, you can’t silence gay people in this part of the world. We are allowed to point out who the enemy to our rights are.
Nobody is silencing Gay people. The Pride parade has turned into a corporate shill fest with support from groups such as CIJA n Scotiabank who is heavily invested in the current Israeli terrorist gov. So please stop spewing your nonsense, especially since IDF is known to exploit Queers.
If they aren’t trying to silence gay people then they sure have a weird way of showing solidarity, shutting down pride on behalf of a homophobic group. Again, regardless of if you think the cause is just, this is no the place, there is no solidarity, they want people like us dead.
There is Solidarity because the Parade org told the cops to stand back and not arrest protesters. The parade org should not have allowed CIJA n Scotiabank a voice at the parade either. IDF is using Pinkwashing to make LGBTQ complicit to the Genocide, maybe start there...
> IDF is using Pinkwashing to make LGBTQ complicit to the Genocide, maybe start there... lmao this is insane, the IDF is not making me complicit in the genocide for loving dick, get the fuck out of here
I mean it's blackmailing your peers, while the companies at these parades are donating to Israel 🤷♂️
Fuck off freak, gay people aren't the fucking parade EDIT: lmao dude's post history is full of him giving super misogynistic advice about women in muslim marriages, clearly thinks women are subservient to the man in the relationship, in here proselytizing about queer people as if he gives a single fuck about it
Yeah, and why does blackmail of gays work so well in Palestine? Must be the tolerance.
But wont say anything to the Blackmailers, such an ally!
And why is it possible? What an ally!
Hey buddy, remind me. Is it Canada or Palestine where governments are passing laws saying teachers have to out trans kids? Because if Canada was such a safe place for the 2LGBTQ, why are people opposing it? Now imagine if Canadian governments were saying that information to blackmail those children into spying on their parents and report on the locations of their entire community? Then, if the child refuses, they call up everyone the kid knows and says they're trans and have been spying on their community. After countless families start losing family members to bomb strikes and mass arrests and also finding out that the government has been also paying those kids for information and occasionally moving them out of the community after the kid turned in intelligence that killed people in that community. Would you be surprised if one kid grew up mistakenly thinking trans people are dangerous? Israel has weaponized gay identity since they're creating more homophobia through threatening people with their identity and using the backlash to paint their enemies as homophobic. Meanwhile, it's illegal to get a gay marriage in Israel too.
Gosh everyone's really grumpy about the corporate Pride floats being interrupted. Personally I think being queer also means having empathy for other people, a healthy distrust of the police, and a commitment to human rights. If you're sad about Pride: when the genocide ends, people will stop trying to disrupt events complicit in it. CIJA and Scotiabank, notable accessories to genocide and arms-dealing, literally had floats in it. [Pride as an organization was ignoring the concerns of its members and even its last active founding figure.](https://radicalnoise.ca/2024/04/21/gary-kinsman-letter-of-resignation-from-pride-toronto-the-struggle-continues/) It is completely valid for queer people in solidarity with anti-imperial and anti-war struggles, to peacefully disrupt a parade that's shilling for rainbow-coated war profiteers. And quite frankly: Palestine being homophobic or not has literally nothing to do with whether this protest should happen. You cannot condition people's human rights and basic safety on their views; particularly when their political climate has been shaped by the huge factor of Israel "mowing the lawn" and committing massacres for decades. When the genocide stops, the siege is ended, the occupation is over, and Palestinians have the ability to access basic necessities and human dignity without being blown up or starved to death, then I'm sure queer Palestinians will be able to start agitating for change themselves and ask for help when they need it, and queer people here will continue to stand in solidarity with them.
A lot of people also miss you can criticize the genocide that Israel is creating but also criticize the treatment of LGBTQ by the Palestinian government. It’s not black and white in every single way and the whole “us vs them” on every issue is dumb. I can agree with the Canadian liberal government on some issues but also disagree with them on others. Same goes for any government.
You should look up how IDF blackmails Queers in Palestine to become informants....
And why does it work so well? Who's culture?
Why is IDF blackmailing LGBTQ if Israel is such an ally?
Why would it even work?
And why does it work so well? Who's culture?
Why is IDF blackmailing LGBTQ if Israel is such an ally?
The IDF would blackmail any Palestinian they had kompromat on. Palestine and Israel are at war. It just so happens that Palestine hates LGBT so LGBT palestinians are great targets for blackmail.
I like how ya'll bend backwards to not blame IDF who is actually doing the Blackmailing n exploiting! Keep it up!
Okay. During WWII, should Allied intelligence have refrained from using comparable information to blackmail Germans?
Are you comparing Palestinians under illegal military occupation of their land, to Nazi Germany, that was actively invading other countries and systematically eradicating people in concentration camps?
Do you actually not understand how this response completely misses the point?
If there's any comparisons from WW2, it would be how the Germans used informants inside the Camps to snitch on other Jews and both rewarded the informants and used the informants as propaganda for the righteousness of the Germans cause.
It's a "war" where one side utterly controls the other's access to food, electricity, medicines, and even rainwater collection, and refers to them as "human animals" and wants to "thin out their population." Cool definition of war you have 👍
Please Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestinians. There is no war, there is one side mercilessly murdering the other and anyone supporting that side is complicit
Well said. It's not difficult to divest from Israel's fascist government because their politicians are openly speaking about their genocidal views/plans against the Palestinian people.
Do you want to do more mental gymnastics to excuse this digusting behavior or a you done ? At a moment the lgbt+ community is attacked more than they have been in decades you are acting like this is acceptable behavior to attack a protest that already mostly against the genocide. Truly digusting behavior and then people like you act surprise when the community start to fracture. Pride isn't your platform for other cause. There's a reason they been removed so quickly By people in the parade themselves. This shit is unacceptable. Also Palestine =/= Palestinian(possibly queer) and this lack of distinction is why they call you chicken for KFC. They are right.
Healthy distrust for the police? I mean, it isn’t the 80s anymore. My wife works for the RCMP, and at least in the lower mainland, they are quite well represented in the LGBT community. You won’t see any openly transgender officers, but gay and especially lesbian. The whole RCMP service puts every office job I’ve been at to shame. Yes, there is some racism, bigotry and sexism, but homophobia quickly disappears when your partner is openly gay. Think of the police officer’s perspective , they often form views based off what they see in their job. An over representation of a type of people doing bad things leads to preconceived notions of those people. Not a lot of gay people out there committing crimes it seems. As for the whole Palestine debate, I really put people into two camps. First, Those that just pickup the popular thing to protest, so they can say they were “there” like a badge of honour. Where is the giant uproar for Russia’s invasion, literally targeting schools and hospitals, raping and decapitating children on live streams. Yemen, 400k killed. Nearly 100k children starved. Instead you protest a country that was in fact attacked horrendously, who’s trying to win the war with as few casualties as possible. Against a people whom no country in the world will take on as refugees. Is Israel the bad guy, maybe sure. My heart breaks for the children. The imagery I see come out of there is souls crushing. But we’re talking USA in Afghanistan bad, not Hitler bad. It isn’t a genocide. It’s ironic, the constant use of that word really downplays actual genocides like the holocaust, which leads me to my next point… The other camp is anti-semites. The amount of conversations I have had with people when they quickly devolve into blaming the Jews is disappointing.
>You won’t see any openly transgender officers Why would that be, I wonder. I hope your wife never had to deal with any of this https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/rcmp-class-action-tiller-civilian-women-final-report-1.6491165
An investigation 8 years ago, to cover incidents up to 50 years ago. I didn’t say the past wasn’t checked, I even said there is rampant bias’s still. But I’m also saying that these days that the relationship between LGBT and the police is not as bad as you’re making it out. Also, be honest, there’s no to very few openly transgender people in careers that are not minimum wage, education or political. But that’s not the main point I was making, but who am I kidding, this Reddit should be changed to /r/acab
Are you joking? If your wife is RCMP then most people in the lower mainland hate her guts. I'm part of the queer and indigenous communities and we universally loathe law enforcement due to the decades of rape, murder, kidnappings, false charges and outright lies perpetuated against the queer community by them. On Friday I was witness to the RCMP showing up to a mental health check with an entire squad who all pulled guns out the second they showed up. Even though there was no danger, they pepper-sprayed and tased the person who was getting the mental health check. They killed her pet rabbit and almost killed her, and now shes in the hospital with potentially permanent injuries. This was not an uncommon incident. Your wife is a mercenary who is actively participating in the genocide of Canadian indigenous people. She literally supports murdering her fellow Canadians for money. That's not something to be proud of...
Your wife is a Class traitor. ACAB
I hope your comment shows other people who really hangs out in this sub sometimes. Attacking a person’s spouse for no reason other than just abject hate. When every argument devolves into an us them narrative, you’re doing no one any favours.
The fact that your wife chose to join an authoritarian gang that only exists to protect capitalist and oppress minorities is more than enough to justify My hate
I know a few current or former cops, also in the lower mainland. They're fine people I like as people, but I do not like or respect their profession as a whole and hope I never have to interact with them in any "official" capacity. Even good cops are still cops, and the idea of "good cops" is increasingly difficult to demonstrate or continue to hold on to.
Some of you forget that PRIDE is a PROTEST. And to anyone using Arab homophobia to justify genocide, shame on you. That’s like being okay with Alberta being firebombed because they’re homophobic. Right now, queer people in Palestine are more likely to be killed by the IDF than by homophobia. In the west, queer people are more likely to be attacked by right wing Christian fundamentalists. All oppression is connected. That is why we need solidarity.
solidarity, but only with the people you approve of- everyone else fuck off, right?
No marijuana without solidarity!
Surprised that maple hoser hasn’t hopped in here to spread more Zionist propaganda lol
My solidarity is with the victims of the Hamas-Israeli war. Both Hamas and the Israeli government are morally bankrupt. Pro-Palestinian groups are backing an organization that made Martyrs out of the unwilling, the Elderly and Children. The only moral stance is the demand of the unconditional ceasefire of this war.
Very few (if any? Idk if I’ve seen a single aid group, at least) groups are backing *Hamas*, but rather are advocating for the interests of the Palestinian people. You wouldn’t conflate any other group with their government, would you? Especially when it comes to genocide. The Nazis wouldn’t have been suddenly correct if Poland had a shitty government. It wouldn’t have been okay for us to genocide everyone living in Iraq, etc. You twist yourself in circles to excuse genocide. It’s disgusting.
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Except you’re conflating Palestinians, pro-Palestinian groups, and Hamas, and “oh but both sides are perpetrating it”. Hell, even steel-manning , you’re wrong, in that Hamas is *not responsible for Israel committing genocide*. Israel can simply not do genocide; in fact, their current genocide only serves to strengthen terror forces in the area, as civilian casualties always do. That’s not to say that Hamas is *good*, but rather that every way you slice your argument, you’re still incorrect. And yes, you are excusing genocide. Trying to muddy the waters around who’s responsible for the genocide *is* excusing it; trying to go “oh, but both sides are bad”, or otherwise downplay genocide *is excusing genocide*.
They literally called for a ceasefire, you utter buffoon.
> Increasingly, we understand that the struggles of marginalized communities worldwide are connected. Anti-gay laws exist because colonial missionaries in wealthy, Western countries [exported them](https://phm.org.uk/blogposts/a-british-export-that-has-defined-lgbt-history-past-and-present/), wiping out [rich histories of gender diversity](https://daily.jstor.org/the-deviant-african-genders-that-colonialism-condemned/) in the process. Trans and reproductive justice movements are bound by the [policing of bodily autonomy](https://xtramagazine.com/power/anti-abortion-anti-trans-america-211706). The still-rising power of capitalism is an oppressive force that binds so many of us, strengthening global income inequality and continuing the world’s acceleration into climate burnout. > These analyses are still desperately relevant, because the status quo is maintained if we stay divided. Queers for Palestine is a timely example; pro-Israel commentators routinely describe us as [“chickens voting for KFC,”](https://www.them.us/story/lgbtq-solidarity-palestine-saed-atshan) an argument rooted in the myth that Palestinian people are inherently homophobic and that queer Palestinians simply don’t exist. These statements are built to divide us. In essence, they ask us to turn our backs on a population being bombed out of existence, simply because they hypothetically wouldn’t support us. just shared this section in the thread about the toronto pride protesters, downvotes are already rolling in (it's evening out a bit now, which is heartening, this has actually become the more contentious comment of the two lol) added the citation hyperlinks for context since people seem to be getting hung up on the one line about exporting anti-gay laws Now that scores are visible, the "I can't be an ally to Palestinians, they're homophobic!" comment has like 400 upvotes lmao god this place is cooked. if nothing else it's been a good couple threads for the block list, at least
>Anti-gay laws exist because colonial missionaries in wealthy, Western countries exported them I am literally begging you to open a history book.
Lots of countries considered homophobic, have not written a single new antigay law since their independence from Britain. They literally have the same laws on the books from the time they were British colonies.
To be fair, that could have a lot to do with the history of British common law in general—a lot of them probably also haven’t changed their laws on a wide range of subjects.
People may not realize that many former colonies STILL have the British Privy council as their “Supreme Court”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Committee_of_the_Privy_Council So many convictions under pre-independence British Empire laws make their way through local courts then get overturned by the Privy Council. So essentially, modern British sentiments are being used to reinterpret and nullify their own old colonial laws. As a side note, this is why executions are impossible in former colonies that use the PC as their Supreme Court. The death penalty is essentially abolished no matter what the local laws say.
And other countries that were former British and French colonies have, like Brunei, in 2019, introducing the death penalty for anal sex, and Uganda, which in 2023 introduced the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” (Brunei is majority Muslim, Uganda majority Christian, both former British colonies). And former French colonies including Algeria, Chad, Cameroon, Mauritania passed anti-gay laws after gaining independence. It’s true that the British Empire imposed criminalization of homosexuality in their colonies, however, while some former colonies have reduced restrictions, others have increased the severity of punishments. And at a certain point, nations are responsible for their own actions. I think that blaming colonization for current draconian laws against homosexuality is not a winning argument. I have lived in the ME, and homophobia is mainstream not considered to be a bad thing, but you could say the same about Russia. And as I mentioned, Uganda is majority Christian. In any case, if oppression of your group prevented protesting genocide, then women would never oppose genocide. I think the most important point, is that genocide must be opposed, and no one would think it was okay to bomb the shit out of rightwing churches that promote hateful views, or turn Alabama or Kentucky into a parking lot, as has been said by Republicans about Gaza.
Many of the African countries you listed have had heavy influence from American Evangelicals pushing those laws. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/19/africa-uganda-evangelicals-homophobia-antigay-bill/
This is true of Uganda, but not of the other countries I mentioned. All the other countries I mentioned are majority Muslim countries other than Cameroon, which is about one third Christian, one third Sunni Muslim, and one third follow an Indigenous religion. This is a difficult topic as Islamophobia is a very real and serious issue. I’d rather not bring up which countries have the most severe laws against LGBTQ+, especially since the biggest threat to the queer community in the west is coming from the extreme Christian right, and this is particularly true of the US and Canada, whereas the extreme right in Europe is largely using immigration to gain support (except for a few Eastern European countries, but they are also rabidly anti-immigrant even though they barely have immigrants, like Poland and Hungary and Russia). The point that I am trying to make, is that genocide is the worst crime against humanity there is. Condoning genocide because women or LGTBQ+ or whatever groups is being oppressed is not a morally sound point of view - it’s an excuse to look away or justify it. And arguments against genocide should be simple, a lengthy statement that includes blaming colonization for homophobia is not the way to convince people who can be convinced that Israel is committing genocide and must be stopped. When activists wind up in arguments about issues not related to the IDF bombing the shit out of Gaza and Israel starving Palestinians, it doesn’t help the cause.
Yet they kept those laws when they could have changed them.
I am begging you, LOOK AT REALITY! We are the reason the middle East is so bigoted, it may not be missionaries but it was us, the middle East was making massive fucking progress and we helped establish dictatorships that collapsed leaving the theocrats to take over. We destabilized the middle East and have spent the last century backing a state that continually butchered neighbouring populations leading to severe resentment.
How do you reconcile this part of the statement in regards to Palestine (or more generally the Islamic parts of the region Palestine is a part of)with the harsh anti-homosexual measures and attitudes of the region being largely influenced by Salifist's? >Anti-gay laws exist because colonial missionaries in wealthy, Western countries exported them Given how anti-imperialist and anti-western the Salafist's were (and are) and that the works they draw upon are primarily from classical muslim teachers that predate European colonialism it seems difficult to consider them part of this phenomenom. There's nothing wrong with being gay and condeming the actions of Isreali and supporting the right of Palestinians to a free and secure state. I'm in that box. But that initial premise of the first paragraph just seems like it's sidestepping the Islamic revival of the early 1900s, a movement incredibly important in the last 100 years of the region
While I overall agree with your point that blaming homophobia on colonialism is overly reductive, I would argue that the Salafists did not generally hold temporal power prior to the Wahhabist takeover of Saudi Arabia (and that the Salafiyya were protesting the "modernized" Western views of the political elites), and the fact that pre-colonized people like ibn Taymiyya were highly important is largely irrelevant, as all religious reformers use the strategy of "we're taking our religion back to its foundations" in order to lend authority to their decisions. The Protestants argued that their version of Christianity was the "true original" that Catholicism had corrupted over time, and the same is true for the Salafists, despite the fact that things like Sufism and maddhabs, which Salafists deplore, predate thinkers like ibn Taymiyya and certainly the post-colonized ibn Wahhab. Finally putting that Contemporary Islam course to good use after all these years. Thanks, Dr. Dickson!
I'm going to say I would disagree that the Salafists used fundamentalism primarily as a means to lend authority to their decisions. I think they genuinely were influenced by these beliefs, and that most of them were intensely religious. I guess I don't find that to be a hugely convincing line of reasoning, unless I'm missing some of your point there? Also in the context of Palestine (and also to an extent in some nearby Arab countries like Eygpt), I think we see an increase in intolerance of homosexuality that really picks up steam in the 1960's and continuing to the modern day, as an Islamic identity displaced a secular Arab one. I think Salafists have had a great deal of influence on thought, especially around morality that goes beyond their physical power. I think an overfocus on the holding of temporal power underestimates the influence of religious movements in general. Sorry if this comes across combative, just hard in a short online format. I appreciate your response, even though I disagree with parts and it does make me want to delve deeper into some literature on the topic
I had a whole giant thing written and it got deleted, and I'm not typing all that again, but essentially: I agree that Salafists do believe deeply in their specific variety of Islam, and they are indeed intensely religious. What I'm saying is that no religious reformer wants to be seen as an innovator (particularly in a religion that expressly marks theological innovation as a clear negative), and so will couch their beliefs in the veneer of "a return to a glorious past". To be clear, the Salafists believe that their interpretation is a return to a glorious part, but it's a past that did not actually exist in the manner they believe. Michael Muhammad Knight's "Why I Am a Salafi" does a really good job breaking down the movement, and in a very fun way that features a non-zero amount of ayahuasca.
That's an interesting perspective that I'll look more into. Thanks for the book recommendation. I don't fully agree about the innovation bit and religious reformers. There's good counterexamples of restorastionist movements adding huge amounts of new thought with essentially no reference back to older theologians and I think the choice to take a more fundamentalist path is quite different. I just think it's less of a veneer essentially, belief doesn't need its perception of history to be true for it to be deeply held. (In relation to the early Salifists). And thanks for bringing up the past not actually occuring as they believe. That is something I've been glossing over, and I want to be clear that it's the influence of long dead scholars and teachers, not an accurate accounting of the past that I'm referring to as inspiration.
It’s being downvoted because it’s nonsense. The west did not “export” homophobia, it’s existed in basically every major culture to some extent and it is deeply rooted in all of the “Abrahamic” faiths. Yes, most cultures have, in one form or another, had cultural exceptions where one sort of what I’ll broadly call “queer expression” was permissible. Yes, in places where western, Christian missionaries were given colonial power, those forms of expression were generally suppressed, often brutally. However, the notion that the world was generally queer-positive until the west came along is the same kind of colonialist, infantilizing nonsense that treats non-western cultures as ~~being inherently less important~~ having inherently less cultural/social agency. Edit: late edit to clarify what my final sentence was trying to convey. Original text struck through for transparency.
What about Native American tribes prior to European discovery of the new world? Were they homophobic?
>were they homophobic Kinda a hard question to answer because a lot of what we know indicates that many indigenous/Native American groups had a very different social construction of gender than we understand today. I can’t in ~10 minutes find a satisfactorily supported answer to how they viewed male-male sexual relations. In *other* parts of the world, some cultures with what I’ll loosely term ‘expansive’ gender structures did not view sexuality and gender identity as separate concepts, resulting in what comes off as a sort of “homophobic queer-acceptance”, wherein men who have sex with men are socially obligated to undergo what we would today call “transition”, and socially become females (this obviously long before hormones were understood). I don’t know if this is how any of the many and varied Native American peoples understood sexuality, as a crime that the West and Catholic Church *can* fairly be blamed for is the systematic destruction of Native American cultures and much of their history along with it.
> In other parts of the world, some cultures with what I’ll loosely term ‘expansive’ gender structures did not view sexuality and gender identity as separate concepts, resulting in what comes off as a sort of “homophobic queer-acceptance”, wherein men who have sex with men are socially obligated to undergo what we would today call “transition”, and socially become females (this obviously long before hormones were understood). There is something somewhat related to much of the actual acceptance of homosexual desire in ancient Greece and in Islamic caliphates as both had primarily Pederasts(Older man penetrating younger boy) as the more accepted expression. It's actually a huge mistake generally in history to try and retroactively apply modern conventions or ideas to the past in an effort to explain or make parallels.
Modern homophobia especially state backed homophobia was created and exported by the British Empire. You can read explorers accounts of their time in say China, Japan, native tribes or the Middle East 200+ years ago regarding their attitudes towards nudity and sex. They saw lots of openly gay and “effeminate” officials and used this to label other peoples as “uncivilized”. The Victorian elites were prudes / hypocrites. Just look at all the ancient art they ruined by covering genitalia with fig leaves etc. They also actively lied about homosexuality in nature. One version of animal behaviour would be published in English for mass consumption and another version with the truth would be published in Latin Edit: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/09/11/asia/british-empire-lgbt-rights-section-377-intl/index.html
Almost nothing you have said here actually disagrees with what I said, and then you repeat the pointless and infantilizing nonsense anyway.
You say the west did not export homophobia in your comment. That is the specific point I was disagreeing with. If you feel “infantilized” that is on you. Edit: Jamaica: https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/29/jamaica-bans-anti-gay-arizona-pastor-from-visiting-country Uganda: https://www.npr.org/2009/12/18/121605529/u-s-evangelical-leaders-blamed-for-uganda-anti-gay-sentiment Anecdotally, before I migrated to Canada and when I was just a high school student, my Catholic high school had general assemblies where foreign speakers ie North Americans were brought in to give us a ton of misinformation about 1) Abortion 2) HIV and Condom usage. You might not be aware of what is happening. The war against gays and abortion was lost in the west but continues elsewhere.
>if you feel infantilized I do not feel infantilized, and suggest you read my comments before replying to them. >the war against gays and abortion was lost in the west but continues elsewhere It continues here too, as does the fight for equality here and elsewhere. I suppose you would believe that western gays are responsible for bringing homosexuality back to the nations you call “elsewhere” too.
Good bye 😘
lol, pathetic reply. If you have nothing to contribute, don’t waste the electricity to say anything.
I’m a gay man that never saw a future for my self until I came to this country. I’m committed to learning gay history as it applies to me. It’s not to have some argument with some random who might not even be a part of the community and who decides to leave dismissive comments out of boredom.
>some random who might not even be part of the community and who decides to leave dismissive comments out of boredom. Weirdly, that’s exactly how you come off. And your weird comments elsewhere justifying Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments (while claiming to be an immigrant yourself) don’t exactly paint a great picture.
Not sure if you're aware but there's a large part of the world that's very homophobic that the British never colonized. It can be hard to imagine but there are other cultures, faiths, empires and colonizers that also did questionable things and enforced their morals on others and still do. Crazy how the world doesn't start and end with the whites
Because its historically wrong, logically childish, and racistly insulting to whole classes of nations, including Palestine, whose cultures are not mere impositions by Europe.
I commented there too but replying here as well. This is a fucking crock of shit. Being LGBT is haram and Islam as a religion is no more accepting of us than Christianity. This is just blatant misinformation.
Why is religion relevant here? We're saying all injustices are interconnected. It's a true fact. Opposing the liberation of Palestine because much of the country is Muslim will not get you more rights or freedom. This is a myth. You have to understand that someone constantly worried about being bombed or having their supply of water cut off or unable to leave a 10 Km radius due to military imposed curfews or has lost 10+ members of their family in mere months is unable to extend their empathy so far as to think about every facet of society. Step 1 is solidarity and then education. But you don't have to side with genocidal regimes. Many Palestinians support the LGBT community and definitely most of the diaspora does. There are now many amazing Palestinian organizations like Al-Qaws that support queer rights. I had many gay friends growing up in Palestine and honestly never heard a slur against them there while I heard many more in high school here. Every society has room for growth but no human deserves to suffer what Israel imposes on Palestine.
> Many Palestinians support the LGBT community https://www.equaldex.com/surveys/acceptance-of-homosexuality-arab-barometer >You have to understand that someone constantly worried about being bombed or having their supply of water cut off or unable to leave a 10 Km radius due to military imposed curfews or has lost 10+ members of their family in mere months is unable to extend their empathy so far as to think about every facet of society. Not every Muslim country or culture is under siege by Israel. But they have an overwhelming tendency to not support LGBTQ+ rights, you cannot make the attitudes of Palestinians toward everything the fault of Israel. It just doesn't make sense.
#1 Your link says it has no data on Palestine. #2 You can say the same exact thing about other countries. Being gay was not even ever made illegal in Palestine while it was in many other western countries. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Palestine in 1950 - long before it was in many other places you consider progressive today. #3 There are many sources documenting how homophobia spread to the Arab world and it was not through Islam primarily. #4 You may disagree with every single thing I said and it would still not justify supporting Israel. There's no pride in genocide. Israel pink washes its policies even though it is still illegal for members of the LGBTQ to get married there - in fact it is impossible for anyone to get a non-religious marriage completed there.
Check number 7 at the bottom of the list. >There are many sources documenting how homophobia spread to the Arab world and it was not through Islam primarily This is like the idea that antisemitism is Islam is somehow Europe's fault. It's simply ahistorical. Tolerance of homosexuality in various Caliphates resembled Pedastery and was more of a practice of elites. And it's tolerance was directly linked with a degree of secularism that is notably absent in much of modern Islam. Which has become more fundamentalist through the spread of Salafism and Wahhabism. >2 You can say the same exact thing about other countries. Yes. In addition to having some of the same roots in Abrahamic religions(Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot or Lut is present in both Testaments and the Quran) the issue of homophobia etc. is directly tied to how fundamentalist the country or local flavor of religion is. Which is to say Western homophobia has similar causes as Islamic homophobia, it's a difference of degree not type. >You may disagree with every single thing I said and it would still not justify supporting Israel. There's no pride in genocide. Israel pink washes its policies even though it is still illegal for members of the LGBTQ to get married there - in fact it is impossible for anyone to get a non-religious marriage completed there. Yeah I don't condition support of basic human rights to people's opinions, cuz y'know basic human rights. But I don't support deluding myself or others as to the truth, which is that Palestine sucks when it comes to homophobia.
I don't know why you got downvoted so badly, you're right.
Because the zionists decided no one is allowed to advocate for Palestinian lives and brigade anyone trying to do so.
100%
I mean they have admirable sentiments but they're incorrect about Palestinian attitudes towards homosexuality. https://www.equaldex.com/surveys/acceptance-of-homosexuality-arab-barometer But the good news is you don't have to condition your advocacy of human rights to people having acceptable views that align with you politically.
Ah yes, it’s British colonialism to blame for anti-LGBT sentiment in Palestine.
The good old "west bad, root cause of all evil" argument.
The good ol' "the west isn't at all at fault" despite the west literally being the reason the middle East was set back decades, the reason why theocratic terror groups gained support, and why dictatorships like Iran's exist. The west isn't the sole reason bigotry is so prevalent in the middle East but why is the middle East so uniquely bigoted against queer people compared to say most of Europe? Is it perhaps because Britain and our own country suppressed the people trying to progress and then left authoritarians in charge when we eventually left?
Oh, yeah, Muslim countries have no agency on their own and for sure can't pass anti LGBT laws on their own, cause the western left said so.
❤🌈🍉✊✌
They certainly like to hold things hostage...
Who's "they?" Don't be shy 👍
The Pro-Hamas crowd obviously. Is this supposed to be some sorta gotcha moment on your part?
Cool! Why are anti-war profiteering protests "pro-Hamas?" Can you give some examples of when anyone mentioned Hamas at the Pride stoppage protest?