A-Infos (en) Italy, Umanità Nova #22: Self-determination fagot. Beyond the logic of opposing camps. (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Minority subjectivities, and among these queer ones, have always been 
used in state or religious policies as part of the creation of an enemy. 
In more recent times we are witnessing a different phenomenon. In recent 
years, some governments which, even in the more or less distant past, 
have pursued policies of direct and explicit repression of queer people, 
have moved on to policies of assimilation and subsumption into the 
system. The result is that homophobic practices - which have not 
diminished at all in society - are accompanied by "tolerance" policies 
with the aim of weakening LGBTQIA+ struggles and bringing them back to a 
dimension in which they are useful for maintaining the status quo. 
Integration programs, diversity management, corporate sponsors at 
LGBTQIA+ pride events, the hairy patronage of institutions and 
authorities, not to mention the organized presence of police 
associations inside the marches are all summarized in the term "rainbow 
washing".

Certainly some battles for the granting of subjective rights, although 
they are partial battles, have the potential to improve the material 
living conditions of many people; however, concessions must always be 
seen as a starting point for other and further claims, and not as 
"victories" to be gratefully shared with institutional politics.

The benevolence shown in a paternalistic way by parties and governments 
towards fags fits into this scheme. Every concession towards us, or even 
simply the tolerance of our existence as minus habentes, is flaunted by 
governments and also by political parties traditionally opposed to the 
self-determination of bodies, as signs of a moral superiority and 
political maturity which is very useful for gaining credibility in some 
scenarios politicians. I am referring, for example, to the often 
surprising "concession" to hold LGBT parades in the capitals of 
decidedly homophobic states, at times when those governments needed to 
show a "decent" face, perhaps as part of an entry procedure into the 
European Union...

But every state that has undertaken an imperialist mission has always 
had to reconstruct itself as civilized and civilizing, and bearer of 
mythical values of "progress": in this way it has been possible to arm 
the armies to be sent to remote and "other" geographies, which in the 
imperial project are represented as populated by barbarians to be 
moralized and "child" peoples to be educated and converted. Colonization 
is therefore almost a favor done to indigenous peoples, and the 
civilizing mission a "burden" for the white man. Rainbow washing plays a 
fundamental role in this today, but in reality the path of exploitation 
is two-way: Putin's Russia and its satellites, together with the 
populist right almost everywhere, make abundant use of the bogeyman of 
gender theory as a signifier of a depraved world, pitted against its own 
healthy national morality, building the enemy against the backdrop of an 
epic battle of civilizations.

Already from the first stages of this phase of the conflict in Ukraine, 
propaganda images of the so-called "Unicorn Brigades" were spread (in 
reality these are individual LGBTQIA+ people who wear a particular badge 
on the regular army uniform) even though we know that - after an 
electoral campaign entirely aimed at the "Europeanisation" of Ukraine - 
parliamentarians from Zelensky's party have filed homophobic bills, not 
far from the well-known law against Russian LGBTQIA+ propaganda.

Israel too, has been showing off a particularly open mentality for much 
longer now, presenting Tel Aviv as an oasis of LGBTQIA+ well-being, thus 
adding a very large piece to the myth of the "only democracy in the 
Middle East", while at the same time maintaining religious components 
within it fundamentalists, whose elements have also been responsible for 
attacks and murders of LGBTQIA+ people and who have always played a 
decisive role in governments' power games. Recently the macabre image of 
the rainbow flag displayed on the rubble of Gaza has rightly horrified 
many people around the world, although I wonder if it was nothing more 
than further humiliation rather than a supposed "liberation".

Queer existences are therefore pulled into the middle even with polar 
opposite values, but always above the will of the people, and for ends 
that have little to do with their emancipation. But the scenario is more 
complex, in a mix of nationalisms and capitalist interests in which the 
voices of the people who are currently victims of conflicts, and who 
would also like to stage their own specific struggle, are lost in the 
logic of the alignments. For some queer people in Ukraine, fighting 
against Russia means fighting for survival as queers, and they identify 
their struggle with the ongoing war. The Kiev Pride, recently held in 
very difficult conditions, had among its demands - in addition to 
greater legal protections and equal marriage - also an increase in 
armaments for the army.

In Gaza, a territory where homosexuality is still banned by law, queer 
people experience the double oppression of being governed by a 
profoundly homophobic fundamentalist religious authority, and of being 
within a violent state of occupation, which in this phase has a clear 
objective of extermination. It is really difficult to envisage a 
somewhat positive scenario for them.

And it is therefore to all the people who experience gender oppression 
that our solidarity as queer anarchists goes, to their fight for 
survival and self-determination, without wanting to show them the way, 
but not even sparing criticism of Hamas and to its allies: not doing so 
means strengthening existing structures of oppression. Obviously this 
does not mean forcing anyone to give up their individual and collective 
traditions, beliefs and practices, which in Gaza as in the diaspora play 
a very important role in the identity of many people. Nor does it mean 
imposing our point of view on gender and sexuality, while we know that 
in non-Western societies there are and have been models of gender 
identities and roles different from ours, which were regularly repressed 
by colonial governments.

If the idea is established within the movement that any act carried out 
in a situation of "resistance to the oppressor" is justified, the doors 
will open to very dangerous consequences in the event of further 
degeneration of the conflict. Unfortunately, many elements much prefer 
to demonstrate their solidarity with Palestine by marching in the 
streets under the Iranian flag rather than under the Rainbow one. 
Rather, let us use our privilege if only to give voice and to offer an 
alternative vision that we can see precisely because we are not in the 
midst of a conflict. The queer transfeminist voice may be the most 
forceful, because it has always been capable of breaking state, 
religious and customs constructs; let us not leave our symbols and our 
demands in the hands of warmongers, and let us not give any politician a 
free hand in playing power games above our heads. The rainbow flag and 
queerness must be reclaimed by queer people with a view to total 
liberation and class struggle, snatching them away from states, armies, 
and anyone who wants to build homelands to defend on them.

Let us not forget that oppression on the basis of class and gender knows 
no borders, and that there are oppressed people, dissidents and 
deserters in Israel and Russia too. Our solidarity as queer anarchist 
people goes out to all dissidents, beyond any camp logic.

Julissa

https://germinalts.noblogs.org/post/2024/07/08/autodeterminazione-frocia-oltre-la-logica-dei-campi-contrapposti/
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