Research shows that LGBT+ youth are more likely to experience homelessness than heterosexual youth. LGBT+ people make up only 10% of the youth population, yet account for 40% of America’s homeless youth population.

The #1 reported cause of homelessness among these youth is being deliberately kicked out of their home by family members due to them being LGBT+. To make matters worse, LGBT+ experience discrimination in employment as well. This increases the likelihood that those of us cut-off from support will be unable to pay rent and will become unhoused.

Those of us who are forced into homelessness suffer worse health outcomes than those of us who remain housed. The constant stress, exposure to the elements, and unstable financial situation wear down the body and mind. If you are unlucky enough to be both transgender and homeless, you will likely experience additional discrimination at shelters. This is because shelters often decide to turn transgender people away, rather than allowing them to stay with the correct gender.

Furthermore, the corrective system often opts to avoid the issue by keeping transgender people in isolation. Thus, members of our community risk what is considered a form of torture by the United Nations if they express who they truly are.

The People’s LGBT+ United Society recognizes that although most of us will never experience homelessness, the mere threat of it forces a much greater percentage of us into silence. Until there is better state support for LGBT+ youth experiencing homelessness, and until more work is done to combat anti-LGBT+ chauvinism, much of our community will spend a large portion of their lives in silence out of fear.

We stand in solidarity with those of us facing housing discrimination and call on our community to mobilize to the same ends.

One of the primary objectives of PLUS as a working class LGBT+ organization is to combat the imperialist pinkwashing that we see in so much of the western press when we’re hearing of developments in geopolitics. The term “pinkwashing” is one that many people I’ve talked to say they’ve never heard. Right away, however, they understand the meaning. Pinkwashing, like whitewashing or, as a better example, greenwashing, is the use of the LGBT+ community, movement, symbolism or oppression to bolster the interests of the imperialists.

Sometimes, it’s through defending the imperialist institutions and economies, claiming that they’re more LGBT+ friendly than before or are somehow advancing the cause of that community (the military industrial complex and intelligence agencies in the US are particularly guilty of this). Sometimes, it’s through attacking a country or group that opposes the west by implying or claiming that they are anti-LGBT+, and that military action or economic sanctions can be justified on that basis (similar to the cries to “save” the women and children in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, etc.) In any case, pinkwashing serves the imperialists, but doesn’t actually serve the LGBT+ community.

The war with the most media attention right now is the genocidal war that the Zionist Government of Israel is waging on the Palestinian people. In more than five months, more than 35,000 Palestinian people have been killed. While much of the war propaganda has focused on Hamas and the October 7th attack, there has been a campaign now and for years prior to pinkwash Israel/Palestine.

The term “pinkwashing” was initially used in the 80’s to refer to companies claiming to support women with breast cancer while profiting from cancer, but was actually recoined by a group of anti-Zionist LGBT+ people in San Francisco named “Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT)” in a 2010 piece for the Electronic Intifada publication, pointing to the Holocaust era pink-triangle for the reasoning behind the “pink” suffix. Since then, it has been used time and time again to refer to the Israeli government’s actions and rhetoric regarding LGBT+.

Since October, multiple Israeli publications have invoked pinkwashing to defend the Israeli government and attack Hamas, justifying collective punishment on Gaza. They claim that Israel is a haven for LGBT+ rights and that Hamas is violently oppressive of LGBT+ rights and should be opposed by LGBT+ groups on that basis. This propaganda fails to recognize that LGBT+ people do exist openly and publicly in Palestine and that occupation, blockades, sanctions, apartheid and bombing campaigns don’t help LGBT+ Palestinians or Israelis.

Israel has its own political challenges with the far-right threatening LGBT+ rights in the country, just like the Republican wave of anti-LGBT+ bills in state legislatures across the US. Zionism doesn’t serve LGBT+ people any better than NATO does, and neither could ever be justified in their military intervention against countries or people they claim are anti-LGBT+. We recognize that LGBT+ liberation is only to be found in the liberation of all oppressed people from imperialism, in the liberation of the working class, and that LGBT+ comfort in imperialist states is a privilege we can use and we can lose. PLUS unequivocally opposes the Israeli governments genocide and occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and stands with the Palestinian people, especially our Palestinian LGBT+ siblings.

This article was from the Stonewall Lives! Bulletin Spring Summer 2024 Edition that was just released. You can find the announcement of the bulletin and its full PDF at https://peopleslgbt.org/announcing-the-release-of-the-first-issue-of-stonewall-lives/

Included below is the PDF for the publication: