Pride and Palestine demonstrators clashed on the streets of Winnipeg just one day into Pride month.
Winnipeg’s Pride parade was met with a blockade by self-identified queer pro-Palestinian activists who claimed there is “no pride in genocide.”
The activists, who said they disrupted the parade “in the traditions of Two-Spirit, queer and trans resistance,” made a series of demands to parade participants.
Demands include ending “complicity with genocide” by, among other things, having parade organizers “refuse to allow Zionist organizations that support the genocidal occupation of Palestine a platform or place in Pride events.”
They also want the parade to “divest from corporate pinkwashing” by having it “refuse sponsorship and participation in events for corporations and institutions that fund or profit from the occupation of Palestine and climate chaos.”
Activists also demanded that both the police and members of the military be banned from the parade and that the parade’s leadership “centre QTBIPOC leadership” by creating “spaces” for black people and committing to “the radical demands of Black Liberation and Freedom movements.”
“Pride began as a protest against police violence and the criminalization of queer and trans people,” the activists said in a statement. “It has strayed far from its revolutionary roots, so far that today we protest Pride itself and hold accountable those who claim to represent us.”
They believe Pride parades should be “a space of community building toward liberation, of celebration of radical queer and trans joy for all, particularly our BIPOC, unhoused, sex working, migrant, and disabled relatives.”
They added that “queer and trans love is resistance. An anti-racist Pride that rejects colonialism is possible. Our Two-Spirit, queer, and trans elders have shown us that revolutionary Pride is possible and necessary.”
The parade was held up by the queer pro-Palestinian activists for about 20 minutes.
In a statement to the media, Pride Winnipeg said it has “fully committed to working with all areas of the community, starting with regular consultations moving forward to ensure that our organization and its events represent the voices and the diversity of all 2SLGBTQ+ individuals that we are here to serve.”
Consultations will begin next week.
Winnipeg’s Pride parade was not the only Pride event disrupted by pro-Palestinian activists over the weekend.
Far-left activists in the United States disrupted the Philadelphia Pride parade, holding vandalized pride flags that read “no pride in genocide” and chanting “from the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever.”
New York Post reports that the pro-Palestinian activists were one point screaming “PPP, KKK, IOF they are all the same!”
The Post noted that while it was not immediately clear what the “PPP” chant referred to, it may have been the Philly Pride Parade, meaning the activists may have been linking the Pride parade to the Ku Klux Klan due to its supposed “complicity” in Israel’s effort to dismantle Hamas.
According to human rights watchdogs, Palestine is one of the worst places in the world to be LGBT.
LGBT database website Equaldex, which measures the current status of LGBT rights, laws, and freedoms as well as public attitudes towards LGBT people, ranks Palestine very low in their score.
According to polling, 95% of Palestinians oppose homosexuality, and 93% say society should not accept homosexuals.
Homosexuality is also a criminal offense in Gaza, and in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority police have banned activities by a LGBT rights groups.
Israel, on the other hand, has served as a safe haven for the LGBT people in the Middle East.
Despite this, some Canadian Pride organizers have opted to condemn Israel and show solidarity with Palestine, while other organizers have announced that Conservatives would be banned from their parades this year over Conservative premiers announcing new parental rights and gender policies.