Drop whatever you are doing and watch Oriented (2015) on Netflix. Possibly the most un-pinkwashed piece about queer Palestinian youth I have ever seen.
[ID: Several images of a young Palestinian man speaking to a room of people. He says, “I’ll start with a story that happened recently. A few months ago I receivec a call from a BBC journalist. He said, ‘We want your story. We’re sure you’ve suffered…’ So I said to him, ‘Wait a second… I think you’re speaking to the wrong guy. My parents know about me, and have accepted me, and entirely love and support me. So, I’m not what you’re looking for.’ So then he said: ‘Oh. Perhaps you can find us another Palestinian who did suffer?’ And that really irritated me, because it feels that Israel and the West have monopolized the concept of liberalism and being out of the closet. For the first part of this lecture I want to introduce a new Palestinian generation that you haven’t yet had a chance to meet.” End ID.]
From the Wikipedia article on pinkwashing:
Pinkwashing is a term used by feminist theorists to describe the action of using queer rights to distract from violence or oppression by a country, government, or organization. In the context of LGBT rights, it is used to describe a variety of marketing and political strategies aimed at promoting products, countries, people or entities through an appeal to gay-friendliness, in order to be perceived as progressive, modern and tolerant. This phrase, in reference to LGBTQ rights, was coined by Sarah Schulman in her op-ed piece for the New York Times, “Israel and Pinkwashing”.
