Every June, as rainbow boas and blue and pink banners unfurl, and jello shots and plastic cups of light beer tumble onto the streets, borne by tens of thousands of happy gays, a cultural battle ensues. Pride season is here, and everyone is pissed. On one side of the battle, you have the corporate gays, the nonprofit-industrial complex of LGBTQ organizations, the glitzy and boozy Pride parades and parties, and the representation of gay and trans identity as a fully assimilated, capitalism-compatible lifestyle.
On the other, you have all of us who recognize that Pride emerged from a legacy of anti-police uprising, militant queer solidarity, and a fiercely political stance on what it means to live as transgender, gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, intersex, nonbinary, or otherwise defiant of gender and sexuality norms. This is the original tradition of Pride — a radical protest for self-determination in opposition to mainstream values, a protest that has often angered and horrified “straight” society. This year’s Pride battle is marked by a particularly bloody line in the sand: the eight month and running genocidal attack on the Gaza Strip, perpetrated by the Israeli government, which frequently uses a tactic known as “pinkwashing” to push forward its global propaganda campaign .
According to the educational website Decolonize Palestine , “ Pinkwashing refers to when a state or organization appeals to LGBTQ+ rights in order to deflect attention from its harmful practic.
