ILGA World said The Aguda’s proposal to hold the group’s next world conference in Tel Aviv had violated its aims and objectives, and it is now reviewing The Aguda’s larger compliance with the ILGA World constitution.
The Aguda’s bid had been due to be voted on at ILGA World’s conference this month in Cape Town, South Africa.
“We recognise the historical experience with apartheid and colonialism in South Africa: even the possibility of voting on such a bid in their home country would have been at odds with the unequivocal solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
The move follows an open letter by three Palestinian LGBTQ+ organisations to ILGA World last month, raising major concerns about how Israeli LGBTQ+ groups have historically helped “pinkwash” and divert attention from Israel’s crimes against Palestinians.
I’m from an Eastern European country that’s in the EU. LGBTQ people are still getting getting killed, although not by the government’s direct laws, but by the authorities’ unwillingness to take us seriously. I’m active in multiple queer organizations back home (I currently live abroad) and there are countless cases of police officers beating up gay and trans people (not at protests but in isolation, on the streets) with no subsequent investigations. Trans people are constantly brutalized and it is never taken seriously by anyone. It doesn’t even make the news. The government is spewing anti LGBT rhetoric because of it’s anti western stances, and that’s because the western neoliberal movement has coopted our movement and everyone else sees us as an extension of its politics/imperialism. There are also some very gruesome videos out of Ukraine with gay people being tied to trees and whipped with barbed wire. There are also cases of murders that have gone unsolved for years now. The only queer people you see there are the ones privileged enough to have better off families that can fend them from such acts of violence, and even that doesn’t always work. Many in our communities end up committing suicide because of this. And yes, there are a ton of LGBTQ murders even in Asia up to this day. Most of our community is stripped off any opportunity, they end up working as prostitutes and get brutalized by other civilians and authorities alike.