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pinkwashing
Pride Month Rainbow-Washing Has Always Been a Scam
Corporate executives must be held accountable for their exploitative behavior, and we need to push lawmakers to incentivize corporate decision-making that aligns with the interests of workers, communities, and the planet.
Jun 29, 2024
As June approached this year, queer people across the U.S. braced for the typical rainbow-washing we have seen corporate America push at all our local retailers in recent years. However, this year, many queer people were surprised to see so many companies pull back on their outward support of the LGBTQ+ community. Popular brands like Target, Nike, and North Face chose not to release or scale back Pride merchandise this year. In fact, several large corporations have stopped changing their logos to rainbow alternatives and instead decided not to make any public acknowledgement of Pride.
This year, Pride Month is a reminder that voluntary initiatives will not save us.
So why does this corporate walkback feel like a bitter disappointment, despite general consensus in the queer community that corporations are just profiting off of the queer community during Pride month rather than making meaningful shifts year-round to dismantle discrimination and exclusion? It could be because this pullback shows yet again that corporations seem to only care about the queer community as far as it benefits their profits. (The same can and should be said for the BIPOC community, as corporations have also been walking back on their DEI commitments since 2021, the year after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.) This trend marks the highly concerning sentiment that it is no longer profitable to support queer people in the U.S.—that the fire against LGBTQ+ people has grown larger than our purchasing power.
Here’s the truth:
Companies like McDonald’s and Amazon profit off the the genocide in Gaza killing thousands of queer people, make massive campaign contributions to homophobic and transphobic politicians, crack down on worker unions, profit from the prison labor of a disproportionate number of BIPOC queer people, and increase homelessness, which also disproportionately affects BIPOC queer people. These large corporations are the same ones paying for Keke Palmer to join the stage of D.C.’s Capital Pride Festival to celebrate the month. Meanwhile, corporations that sponsor Pride events and/or change their logos to be rainbow are at the same time growing the wealth gap with exorbitant executive pay, unfair wages, anti-ESG campaigns—policies that directly contribute to homelessness, mass incarceration, and climate change.
This year, Pride Month is a reminder that voluntary initiatives will not save us. Corporate executives must be held accountable for their exploitative behavior, and we need to push lawmakers to incentivize corporate decision-making that is aligned with the interests of workers, communities, and the planet. Because at the end of the day, campaign finance reform, criminal justice reform, restrictions on buying up affordable housing, protecting the right to unionize, and regulating executive pay and stock buybacks, and a progressive tax code directly benefit the queer community made up of working people across the country more than any rainbow logo or product ever could.
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Why We Must Reject the Pinkwashing of Genocide in Gaza
For a gay high schooler living in the U.S., it is with extreme difficulty that I watch the American and Israeli governments exploit my sexual identity to excuse ongoing ethnic cleansing.
Feb 04, 2024
The Progress Pride Flag was never intended to fly over the corpses of dead Palestinians. Like many queer young people today, I have watched with paralyzing anger as the symbol of our liberation waves atop armed Israeli killing machines and our existence is commodified as justification for Israel's imperial violence. Israel has no right to wave any flag over the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Yet, for that flag to be colored with a rainbow is illustrative of the settler state's incorrect, dangerous rationale for carrying out its ongoing genocide.
In 2011, a New York Timesop-ed popularized the term pinkwashing, accusing Israel of using pro-LGBTQ rhetoric as a cover-up for itsillegal and brutal occupation of the Palestinian territory. The term describes how colonial powers like the U.S. and Israel use false acceptance of sexual minorities to distract from and justify rapid, brutal expansion. Any queer person who has been an advocate for the rights of Palestinians has encountered this phenomenon: “Try living in Palestine for a day and see how you like it,” online colonialist apologists tell us. “Where are the pride flags in Gaza?”
The point of LGBTQ advocacy has never been the indiscriminate bombing of school children.
These remarks are a result of a targeted Israeli marketing campaign that has been defending its ongoing genocide since 2005. The 88 million dollar program, called ‘Gay Israel’ or ‘Brand Israel,’ is a global effort to “underscore [Israel’s] diversity in a population that tends to judge Israel harshly, solely on its treatment of Palestinians."
The Narrative’s Lies
As Israel and its associated settler colonies market themselves as “gay havens,” they perpetuate the flip side narrative as well—that Palestinians are a barbaric and homophobic population of uncivilized heathens. The narrative itself is anerasure of Palestinian queer life and Israel’s oppression of LGBTQ residents. It ignores that Western colonialism has historically led to worse treatment of LGBTQ minorities in colonized regions. When the British claimed “Mandate Palestine” in 1920, they passed sweeping anti-gay legislation that still governs homosexual relationships in Gaza today. Throughout history, in the name of bringing civilization to Middle Eastern communities, colonialists have criminalized queerness and facilitated queer oppression.
Moreover, Israel itself has punished LGBTQ identities since the state’s birth. The current Netanyahu administration has positionedhomophobicleaders at the peaks of the Israeli government, refuses to legalize gay marriage, and faces rampant rates ofanti-LGBTQ sentiment in the country. Israel cannot be considered a pro-gay force for freedom as it continues the erasure of Palestinian queer life, facilitates an ongoing genocide, and furthers anti-queer lawmaking.
Pinkwashing amid Genocide in Gaza
Today, a glance at Israeli social media shows “In the name of love” written across a pride flag, flown over rubble in Gaza. Another scroll shows the Star of David printed onto a rainbow flag proudly held in front of an armed Israeli military tank. “Under Hamas, being gay means death. The hidden Palestinian LGBTQ+ community can be HOPEFUL as soon they will live and love free of Hamas,” the posts decry. These common criticisms that pit the queer community against Palestinians miss the mark entirely. Queer advocates uniquely align themselves with the Palestinian cause because our oppression overlaps.
The idea that a violent invading army can be the catalyst to end all homophobia in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is as absurd as it is dangerous. Academics and journalists are already realizing how perilous pinkwashing as a practice can be, as it leads to queer people of color internalizing that our liberation is necessarily tied to the erasure of Palestinian culture. As this siege is consistently positioned as a battle for civilization and the preservation of Western society, LGBTQ citizens must refuse the Israeli government's attempt at forcing us into defending the state’s genocidal militarism.
For a gay high schooler living in the U.S., it is with extreme difficulty that I watch the American and Israeli governments exploit my sexual identity to excuse ongoing ethnic cleansing. LGBTQ-identifying kids and students across the country are now being made to reckon with our government’s insistence on killing children in our names. In every discussion on the topic, it becomes clear that not only are we made to live in this country knowing that our government is funding and enabling genocide, but we also must be reminded that our queer existence is being used every day to justify it.
A generation’s worth of high schoolers like myself are growing up in institutions that weaponize our inalienable identities for violent colonial expansion.
The point of LGBTQ advocacy has never been the indiscriminate bombing of school children. The point of LGBTQ advocacy has never been to displace 1.5 million people, nor to kill 26,000 Palestinians—innocent men, women, and children—in cold blood. It has never been to destroy 70% of Gazan homes. Regardless of what the IDF has to say, the largest cause of death for a queer Palestinian is an Israeli bomb. The worst oppressor of queer Palestinians is the Israeli occupation.
It is time that Americans and the rest of the outside world reject the Israeli narrative that queer rights are mutually exclusive with Palestinian lives. When I, and people like me, advocate for Palestinian people’s right to life, it is not our job to defend our existence as members of a sexual minority. Israel’s siege has never been for our rights, and genocide can never be justified in our names.
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'Pinkwashing': Just Stop Oil Blocks London Pride Parade in Sponsorship Protest
'These partnerships embarrass the LGBTQ+ community at a time when much of the cultural world is rejecting ties to these toxic industries'
Jul 01, 2023
Just Stop Oil protesters temporarily blocked London’s Pride Parade Saturday afternoon to protest the event accepting sponsorship money from “high-polluting industries.”
Pride faced accusations of “pinkwashing” over its decision to make United Airlines the headline sponsor of this year’s event.
Seven protesters were arrested at 1:30 pm after blocking the road in front of a Coca-Cola truck. Coca-Cola is seen as the world's biggest plastic polluter.
LGBTQ+ members of Just Stop Oil called on organizers to condemn new oil, gas, and coal licenses and stop allowing the inclusion of floats from these corporations in the parade.
James Skeet, a Just Stop Oil spokesperson, said in a statement:
“Pride was born from protest. It speaks to how far we’ve come as a community, that high-polluting industries and the banks that fund them, now see Pride as a useful vehicle for sanitizing their reputations, waving rainbow flags in one hand whilst accelerating social collapse with the other. It is queer people, and particularly queer people of color in the global south, who are suffering first in this accelerating social breakdown. What would those who instigated the gay liberation movement during the Stonewall riots in 1969, make of the corporatized spectacle Pride has now become?"
“These partnerships embarrass the LGBTQ+ community, at a time when much of the cultural world is rejecting ties to these toxic industries. We call on Pride to remember the spirit in which it was founded and to respect the memory of all those who fought and died to secure the rights we now possess whilst taking the necessary steps to protect our community long into the future.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan speaking before the parade said:
“I agree with protesting in a way that is lawful, safe, and peaceful. I think that Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil are really important pressure groups trying to put power on those who have power and influence."
“I fully support the right to protest. It’s really important to recognize the joy of democracy is protest."
“I am somebody who feels quite passionately that we have to tackle the climate emergency. And I feel quite passionately about encouraging people to join the movement to tackle the climate emergency. In my view, protest should be peaceful, lawful, and safe.”
Peter Tatchell, the legendary LGBTQ+ rights campaigner, and prominent member of the Gay Liberation Front and the civil resistance group OutRage! Said:
“I helped organize the first Pride in the UK in 1972 and have attended every Pride London march since then. Pride was always meant to be both a celebration and a protest. From the outset, we stood in solidarity with other struggles for freedom and social justice, against corporate pinkwashing and all forms of exploitation. We saw queer liberation as just one aspect of a wider liberation movement.”
“Climate destruction is destroying communities, jobs, homes and lives across the world, especially in poorer countries. Fossil fuels are endangering the survival of humanity – including LGBTQ+ people. Our community must not collude with environment, species and climate destroying companies.”
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