Category — LGBT/Queer Action

Tel Aviv, Israel, October 11, 2009

On Sunday afternoon local Palestinian and Jewish LGBT\queer activists held a protest against promoting LGBT tourism to Israel in front of the Tel Aviv gay center. The protesters intercepted a group of travel agents and other guests attending a conference that took place inside the gay center. The conference was organized by various Israeli institutes and International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA).

While entering, the guests went by the protesters, who were wearing T-shirts that read “QUEERS VISIT PALESTINE, NOT THE OCCUPIERS & OPPRESSORS”. Some of the protesters faces were covered with dirt, contrasting the concept of a “tourist attraction,” putting themselves on display, not as shining examples of gay Israeli privilege but as wounded dirty queers, embodying the ugly side of the occupation being masked by the gay tourism initiative.

Haneen, one of the protesters said: “These conferences are trying to create an aesthetic facade that everything is rosy, when minutes from here there is poverty, exploitation, discrimination and occupation. We are against an event that bluntly deny and hide the dirt of our realities. It is our duty as queers not to overlook the oppression of others and to engage in their struggles”.

“At a time when Israel still holds Gaza under siege, controls, segregates and divides the West Bank - there is no place for a ‘business as usual’ attitude”, added Ayala Shani.

Yosef/a Mekyton said: “Portraying Tel Aviv as safe and tolerant for LGBTQ people is done also by silencing the daily violence we experience in this city and strive to oppose”.

Watch Video

ISSUED BY:
Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, Toronto
Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Queer BDS activists from Israel

On October 10-16, 2009, the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) is planning to hold a tourism conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, aimed at boosting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) leisure tourism to Israel. The audience of this conference is expected to be made up mostly of travel agents who specialize in promoting LGBT tourism. With this conference IGLTA, in cooperation with an Israeli LGBT organization, the Aguda, will give its symbolic and financial support to a state that continually occupies, oppresses and dispossess millions of Palestinians and murders and imprisons many thousands of them.

We, queer activists and groups, call on LGBTQI people and friends around the world to join us in our protest against IGLTA’s promotion of leisure tourism to apartheid Israel. We demand that IGLTA cancel its planned conference in Israel and cease any promotion of tourism to this country.

For some time now, Israeli officials and organizations such as the Aguda, who are cooperating closely with IGLTA, have been promoting LGBT tourism to Israel through false representations of visiting Tel Aviv as not taking sides, or as being on the “LGBT” side, as if LGBT lives were the only ones that mattered. It is implied that it’s okay to visit Israel as long as you “believe in peace,” as if what is taking place in Palestine/Israel is merely a conflict between equals, rather than an oppressive power relationship. Consistent with globalization’s tendency to distance the “final product” from the moral implications of the manufacturing process, LGBT tourists are encouraged to forget about politics and just have fun in a so-called gay-friendly city.

This Zionist propaganda disguises the reality of anti-LGBT violence. Last month’s Tel Aviv shooting in a gay center has reminded us that it is not as friendly as it is depicted to be. Since that attack, numerous reports have been released on the prevalence of violence against LGBT people in Israel, including a state official report suggesting that “80% of gay teens in Israel suffer some sort of sexual orientation-related abuse” (Ynetnews.com). [Read more →]

On the evening of August 1st in Tel Aviv, someone entered a youth group meeting at a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community center and opened fire, killing two people and injuring many more, some critically.

We mourn the loss of those killed and injured, and are outraged by this homophobic violence. As people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and/or queer (LGBTQ), we empathize with the pain, fear, and rage that friends, loved ones, and communities are experiencing. We are heartened that people all over the world are coming together to mourn these deaths and to stand against the violence and hatred that caused them. May this loss compel us towards greater justice, compassion and humanity!

As people who reject the Zionist premise of safety based on violence and isolation of people from each other, we cannot subscibe to the representation of this crime as an isolated event, separated from the violence that pervades the state of Israel. To sincerely engage with the question of building true safety, we must recognize the systemic aspects of this incident. Israel is marketed as a gay-friendly tourist destination and a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. In fact, LGBTQ people of all ethnicities and religions face discrimination and violence in Israel, just as we do in all other parts of the world. [Read more →]

How would you respond if South Africa’s then apartheid regime was to promote one of its “black-free” areas as a gay and lesbian tourism travel destination? Wouldn’t you be outraged if along with it, the apartheid regime’s advocates would launch a sophisticated racist propaganda presenting it as actually very liberal and open-minded? This is practically what happens these days with Tel Aviv and its promotion as a gay and lesbian tourist destination.

Apartheid’s New Clothes
Zionist propaganda has been engaged for years in promoting Israel as open and liberal through images of a flourishing gay and lesbian community as opposed to racist depiction of Palestinian society as flat and demonic. The subtext (and many times explicit text) of such propaganda refers to the Israeli society as western and enlightened in order to enable identification with it within the western world. Thus, it proceeds through ignoring Israel’s continuous violent assault, dispossessing and oppression of Palestinians within a racist segregation system (apartheid), whether they are gay or not - or otherwise referring to parts of it as “predicament” or “situation”.

StandWithUs (SWU), a US based Zionist organization affiliated to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, has taken this propaganda a step forward, combining it with promotion of gay and lesbian tourism to Israel. In June 2009 a Tel Aviv conference called iPride was launched by SWU, inviting “prominent figures” within gay and lesbian communities throughout the western world to participate in a three day seminar as well as in Tel Aviv’s pride parade. [Read more →]

A new list was created to facilitate relations between LGBTQI people and their friends around the world interested in solidarity with Palestinians by learning, promoting and actualizing the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

About The BDS Initiative
The Nakba (1948’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine during the formation of Israel) still occurs for 61+ years to this very day. Millions of Palestinian are living as stateless refugees. Gaza is the world’s largest open prison, forcefully separated even from the West Bank. The West Bank itself is divided into separate segregated areas, sometimes even sole cities - by the apartheid wall, apartheid (Jewish only) roads, and a set of blockades and checkpoints.

[Read more →]

Originally posted at http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2009/06/105851.html

Gang of queers force Nazi out of Albany Pride march.

We found 41 year old “Spanish Blue Blood,” a self proclaimed
“stormtrooper” of the National Socialist Movement and senior moderator
of the NSM’s official party forum, sitting on a bus bench waiting for
a crew that never showed. The second he saw us he split for the street
but didn’t get far til we caught up with him and gave him what he
deserved.

“Spanish Blue Blood,” who lives in the Colonie area of Albany, had
been trying for weeks to draw up enough people to stage a counter
protest of Albany’s Capital Pride march but apparently he couldn’t
even get a single person out. He recently celebrated his 41st birthday
on June 9th so we delivered some belated gifts-in the form of tightly
balled fists. The gang beat him until the cops showed and we made our
way back into the park with no arrests.

-A motley crew of queers, anti-fascists, and anarchists

http://www.bostondykemarch.com/

This year’s Boston Dyke March is on Friday, June 12, 2009 at 6pm.
Please sign up on our meetup site and/or facebook profile to keep up to date.

Every year, we gather at the Boston Common Gazebo at 6:00 p.m. The march route is posted here.

Everyone is invited and welcome to march.

The International Queer Solidarity Network calls for a European mobilization, with support from the United States, that will stand in solidarity with Queer Bulgaria. On June 28th 2008, neo-Nazi groups aggressively attacked the first LGBTQ Pride march in Sofia, Bulgaria. A week before the march, the Bulgarian National Alliance, the most visible nationalist organization in the country, called for a “week of intolerance.” The BNA strongly encouraged nationalistic groups to organize themselves against the right of the queer community in Bulgaria to peacefully march, which resulted in loosely organized violence during the festivities.

BNA members and other neo-Nazis threw molotov cocktails and small explosives at the participants of the Pride march. Fortunately, no injuries were reported. However, more than eighty skinheads, including Boyan Rasate (head of the BNA) were arrested for their attempted harm and direct violence toward pride participants. This year neo-Nazi groups are once again organizing themselves against the march and Bulgarian queers’ ability to defend their human rights. The Bulgarian government not only tolerates but also encourages such attitudes. Two of the parties in the Parliament of Bulgaria are nationalistic and one of them, Ataka, called for “the men to beat up the gays.”

In addition, the Prime Minister of Bulgaria and head of the “socialist” party, Sergei Stanishev, subtly, through hidden sparks of hatred, said that he did not like the “manifestation and demonstration of such orientations.” Even though the rights of LGBTQ people in Bulgaria are protected by the constitution, this is yet more empty rhetoric in the hands of the powerful. The queer community refuses to give up its rights to a free assembly. There will be another Pride march on the 27th of June 2009. Let’s unite and stand together against the homophobic and transphobic state of Bulgaria and growing neo-Nazism in Europe.

The International Queer Solidarity Network calls for a European mobilization, with support from the United States, that will stand in solidarity with Queer Bulgaria. For more information on how you can help you can contact: iqsn@riseup.net or sofiagaypride2009@gmail.com If you cannot attend the Pride, visit www.iqsn.org for more information on how you can help.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6oz3yeW5yo

e-mail: iqsn@riseup.net

This is a draft that came out of our special QWB meeting this past Sunday. We projected what I had drafted up onto a white sheet, and tore it to bits point-by-point, having some very engrossing  conversations in the process. This is a collaborative document, and will become increasingly so as we continue to revise it indefinitely and write at length about each point in queer voices. Within a week, we will be wrapping up the next issue, which will include this draft, plus perhaps a few amendments. The only major addition that is still needed is a list of labels that queerfolk of all types use to describe themselves. They may describe your gender, sexuality, style, attitude, appearance, or anything else that may be used to describe a person’s uniqueness.

[Read more →]

Dear Friends and Allies,

This is a draft of a statement I’ve written as some kind of “about us” for QWB, coming out of the brief opinion piece I posted recently about taking it to the next level. We will be meeting on Sunday at 5:30pm at Metropolitican Community Church, 155 Wyllys St to discuss this more. If you can’t make it, please post your reactions and we will take them into account.

The idea behind this is something that is comprehensive, sets us apart, and is written in accessible language.

• We are a collective of people with diverse backgrounds, ages, identities and a variety of progressive political outlooks. We are committed to creating a welcoming space for political action with a solid foundation of respect.

• We want a free world based on equality, education and healthy relationships. We believe in each person’s right to free expression of gender and sexuality, based on the desires of the consenting individual, not by other peoples’ definitions and prejudices.

• We oppose the violence and discrimination in our communities, workplaces and schools against anyone regardless of their sexuality, disability, gender, ethnicity, race, spirituality or national origin. We will stop all efforts to terrorize us into submission here in Connecticut, elsewhere in the United States, and around the world–we are here, there and everywhere.

• We seek to build grassroots power to directly confront injustice and inequality. We seek to create new liberating cultures based on the value of difference, free of domination and ignorance.

• We reject injustice in all its forms, be it military occupation, police brutality, [fascist?] mob violence or corporate tyranny. We take sides. We fight for concrete improvements in the quality of life for all poor and working people, winning demands from the ruling class, and never collaborating with them. We want Queer Revolution for a better tomorrow.

Written by Dykonoclast

At 9AM on Tuesday April 28th, somewhere between 50-70 people came to the iconic Park Street Church across from Boston Common to attend an Exodus Ministries training.  Attendees watched a video wherein ‘former homosexuals’ and ‘former lesbians’ spoke of the power of god to heal ’sexual brokenness’ and restore heterosexual desires to the most fallen of souls.  During the ‘male homosexuality’ portion of the training, ‘former homosexual’ Jeff Buchanan shared his experience of having turned from his homosexual past, as well as the causes of male homosexuality, which include resentment of male authority and lack of bonding with fathers.  [Read more →]

COME OUT- COME OUT - FROM WHEREVER YOU ARE !

Fenced Out!

 

Join us to view Fenced Out a video from FIERCE NYC. Fenced OUT documents the struggle of LGBTSTQ youth of color to save the Christopher Street pier and the West Village from re-development and gentrification. While researching the history of the pier, FIERCE members discovered past generations of queer peoples’ fight for use of public spaces at Christopher Street and the piers. We have continued to use the documentary as a public education tool to raise awareness about the increasing displacement, violence, and criminalization experienced by LGBTSTQ youth of color. [Read more →]

On Tuesday, December 16th, there was a rally held in Boston in solidarity with the uprisings all over Greece. We protested outside the Greek consulate in a show of solidarity with all vicitims of state violence. This is the speech that I gave. (If you’ve been reading my posts you might notice that some of it was lifted from my speech at the Transgender Day of Remembrance.)

Dear comrades, it’s incredible to be here today! My name is Saffo, and I am a radical queer tranny from Providence, Rhode Island. I am part of the upcoming What Queer? radical queer collective in Providence. As I’m sure you all know, on Saturday, December 6th, 2008, the cops in Athens shot and killed a 15-year-old boy named Alexandros Grigoropoulos. I want to start by offering a moment of silence for the memory of Alexandros. (Thank you). To many of us, the violence of the Greek police is something that rings true to our own lives and experiences with the police in the United States and elsewhere. It is, in part, this commonality that brings us here today. This solidarity that we feel for those who are brutalized by the state, by any state, anywhere. We know that this kind of violence happens every day. But this time, the people struck back! These are incredible times we are living in. For instance, if you had asked me 2 years ago if I thought that today we’d see a union successfully occupying a factory in the United States, I would have said no way. I would have said, things like that happened in Argentina, but they would never happen here. But they did it! If you had asked me a year ago, would a group of queers ever dare to take direct action against a right-wing churhch, I would have said no. But they did! So here’s to the workers in Chicago. Here’s to Queers Bash Back! And here’s to the masses of anarchists, university students, high school students, and youth who have taken to the streets in Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Crete, and all over Greece. It’s looking more and more every day that a revolution may really be just around the corner. [Read more →]

In the evening hours of Saturday, November 22nd, anonymous
BB! Memphis operatives called in to request that a hearse,
a casket, and a dozen pink daisies be delivered to Officer
Bridges McRae, Duanna Johnson's attacker, as he dressed for
church on Sunday.

A note attached to the flowers read;

"See you soon...
-Duanna
BB!"
---
Officer Bridges McRae is responsible for beating Duanna
Johnson with handcuffs and fists just months prior to her
"mysterious" death. It is clear that McRae and others in
the notoriously anti-trans/queer Memphis Police Department
had it out for Duanna. Bash Back! News, clandestine queers,
and above ground activists know that the MPD murdered Duanna.
Anyone who denies this fact is living the bubbble that Bash
Back! is dedicated to bursting.