Yes, I Am One Of Those "Queers For Palestine"

“Queers for Palestine.”

There it is. The phrase that makes certain people roll their eyes, crack jokes about “chickens for KFC,” and smugly inform me that Palestinians would throw me off a roof because I’m a gay trans man. The implication is obvious: that compassion should be transactional. That human rights only belong to people whose politics, religion, or culture align perfectly with mine. That if a population contains homophobes and transphobes, then watching them be bombed, starved, displaced, and slaughtered by the thousands should somehow feel acceptable to me.

No. Fuck that shit.

In the weeks following the October 7th attacks in 2023, I was horrified. I still am. Hamas murdered Israeli civilians attending a music festival and committed atrocities that were barbaric and indefensible. Nothing about my political evolution has changed that. I do not support Hamas. I think they are terrorists. I think their antisemitism is vile and murderous. I think wanting Jews dead is evil.

But as the months dragged on, it became increasingly obvious to me that October 7th had become a pretext for what Netanyahu and the Likud government wanted to do anyway. The scale of destruction in Gaza, the indiscriminate bombing, the rhetoric from Israeli officials, the dehumanization of Palestinians, the destruction of infrastructure, the starvation, the displacement, the dead children piling up by the thousands, all of it pointed toward something horrifyingly clear.

Genocide.

And once I reached that conclusion, I could not unsee it.

I started studying the conflict more deeply instead of relying on slogans or tribal loyalty. I read history. I listened to Palestinians. I listened to anti-Zionist Jews, post-Zionist Jews, Israeli peace activists, historians, journalists, aid workers. The more I learned, the more sympathetic I became to the Palestinian side.

That does not mean I suddenly support Hamas. People act like there are only two possible positions: blind support for the Israeli government or enthusiastic support for Islamic extremism. Reality is more complicated than that. You can oppose Hamas and still recognize that Palestinians are human beings living under horrific conditions. You can condemn terrorism and still condemn collective punishment. You can care about Jewish safety while also caring about Palestinian freedom.

By 2024, I identified as post-Zionist. By 2026, I identify as Diasporist. As a Diasporist, my home is here, aliyah is not some ideal to aspire to. But I understand the emotional and historical reasons Israel exists. Jews have endured centuries of expulsions, pogroms, ghettos, and genocide. The Holocaust happened within living memory. Antisemitism is exploding again across the world right now. I do believe Israel has a right to exist. I do not support ethnically cleansing Israeli Jews from the land. I think that would be monstrous and cruel, and it would simply create another atrocity layered atop the Nakba rather than healing anything. 

What I want is equal humanity.

I want a future where Jews and Palestinians both have safety, dignity, equal rights, and self-determination. I want a future where there is a law of return for both peoples. I want a future where children are not raised amid checkpoints, rockets, bomb shelters, rubble, revenge fantasies, and endless funerals.

Apparently that makes me "one of those queers for Palestine.”

Good.

The thing that infuriates me most about the “they’d throw you off a building” argument is how morally bankrupt it is. First of all, whether or not any given Palestinian supports LGBT rights, they are still a human being. Full fucking stop. Human rights are not conditional upon passing my personal ideological purity test.

If I saw a family homeless and hungry after a fire or hurricane, I would not interrogate them about their stance on trans healthcare before donating. If a child was trapped under rubble after an earthquake, I would not ask whether their parents support same-sex marriage before helping dig them out.

Why the fuck should Palestinians be different?

People say this shit with such casual cruelty too. As if queer people are supposed to respond to mass death with a shrug because some of the victims might not approve of us. Imagine telling me I should celebrate civilian slaughter because some civilians come from conservative religious cultures. That logic is psychotic.

By that standard, should I be okay with nuking Florida or Texas because those places are dangerous for LGBT people? Of course not. I don’t stop believing human beings deserve food, shelter, safety, and basic dignity because I disagree with them politically or socially.

I'm a Jewish convert who was raised fundamentalist Christian in America. I know plenty of anti-LGBT people right here in the United States. Some of them are my own relatives and they vote for politicians who would happily strip away my rights. I still don’t think they deserve to be massacred.

A lot of the people in the Jewish community who have told me "Palestinians would kill you", implying that I should thus be A-OK with the genocide, are also the same people who say Charlie Kirk (a rabid homophobe and transphobe) shouldn't have been killed for his beliefs. Nu? Which is it?

Furthermore, people act as though human beings are frozen in amber forever, incapable of growth, empathy, or change, and I know from personal experience that this simply is not true. My own mother was deep into MAGA ideology for a decade and eventually, in 2025, denounced Trump, apologized to me for her transphobia, and registered to vote Democrat. People can be de-radicalized. People can soften. People can have their worldview cracked open by unexpected compassion. So even if there are Palestinians who genuinely hate LGBT people, why should I assume that hatred is immutable? Maybe seeing queer people defend their right to self-determination plants a seed. Maybe it complicates the propaganda they have heard about us. Maybe it forces them to confront the reality that gay and trans people are human beings capable of solidarity and mercy.

Here's what I know: bombs do not create tolerance. Starvation does not create enlightenment. If you want people to stop seeing each other as monsters, someone has to begin acting like the other side is still human.

And honestly, the idea that Israel is some kind of flawless queer utopia is propaganda. Yes, Tel Aviv has Pride parades. Yes, there are queer spaces and nightlife. Nobody is denying that. But the hasbara version of Israel as an LGBT paradise surrounded by primitive barbarians leaves out a hell of a lot.

Israel has a massive religious Zionist movement. Some of the rhetoric coming from parts of that movement toward LGBT people is horrifying. There are politicians and rabbis who have openly compared queer people to abominations, pushed anti-LGBT positions, or aligned themselves with deeply reactionary social policies. Religious conservatives in Israel are not some tiny fringe. They are politically powerful and demographically growing. The ultra-Orthodox and religious Zionist populations have very large families and increasing influence over Israeli politics.

People love to point at Tel Aviv while pretending the rest of the country doesn’t exist.

I had a friend in 2024 who told me that if Trump got re-elected, he planned to move to Israel because he thought he’d be safer there as a transmasc Jew of color. I understood his fear. I really did, and still do. Antisemitism and transphobia in America are terrifying. But based on everything I know about Israel, I disagreed with him completely. I don’t think Israel is some magical refuge from bigotry. I think for many queer and trans Jews, especially visibly queer and trans Jews, it would simply be a different flavor of the same shit with the added stress of culture shock, militarization, and constant conflict.

That does not mean I hate Israel. It means I reject nationalist mythology.

I reject the idea that supporting Palestinian freedom somehow makes me a traitor to my people. I reject the idea that Jewish safety can only be built atop Palestinian suffering. I reject the idea that criticizing a government committing atrocities means I want Jews exterminated. That binary thinking is poison.

People who identify as Zionists often say, “All Zionism means is the Jewish right to self-determination.”

Okay.

Then are Palestinians not entitled to self-determination too?

Do they not deserve homes? Freedom of movement? Political autonomy? Safety? Dignity? The ability to raise children without drones overhead and walls surrounding them?

Because if self-determination only applies to one group, then what you are defending is supremacy, not justice.

And as a Jew, I cannot square that with Torah.

Torah commands us over and over to remember the stranger, because we were strangers in Egypt. We are commanded to pursue justice. We are commanded to treat others as we ourselves would want to be treated. “Others” does not mean “our own kind only.” It does not mean “people who agree with us politically.” It does not mean “people who are sufficiently progressive.”

The memory of Jewish suffering is supposed to deepen our compassion, not narrow it.

I am pro-Palestine because I am pro-peace. I am pro-Palestine because I do not believe children should be buried under rubble. I am pro-Palestine because I think ethnic supremacy destroys the soul of everyone involved. I am pro-Palestine because endless occupation and violence are not making Jews safer. I am pro-Palestine because I refuse to surrender my humanity to nationalism.

And yes, I am still Jewish. Deeply Jewish.

Not despite this, but because of it.