How can we understand “Queers for Palestine?”
If you hang out in gay bars long enough, you will find that the LGBT community transcends and includes nearly every type of person from every walk of life. Unlike other minority groups, the LGBT community can be truly diverse. Individuals from every race, religion, political philosophy, and socioeconomic class find their way into our community. Different racial groups are, unfortunately, often separated by class. Religious groups can sometimes be constrained by race and geography. However, those who associate with the LGBT+ acronym come from nearly every stripe.
Just like the rest of the Western world, the LGBT community has had a varied response to Hamas’ attack on Israel. For many, this was difficult to understand. People, both inside and outside of the gay community, were shocked to see “Queers for Palestine” marching side by side with the same people who want to “globalize the intifada” and bring “death to America.” The phenomenon made its way onto social media, the podcast circuit, and even mainstream media sources. Many were confused as to why members of this community would align with a group that is aligned with people, cultures, countries, and religions that would gladly kill them. Others mocked the movement, citing the infamous meme— Chickens for KFC— pictured above.
As a therapist, I could not resist getting curious about the psychological subjectivities of these kinds of individuals. It’s tempting— but inaccurate— to dismiss Queers for Palestine as “insane” or “brainwashed.” In the psychological field, words like “crazy” are meaningless because they are not precise. If we can be more precise, we can better understand people who seem to have “lost their minds.” Whether you like it or not, people like this are real. If you’re a member of the LGBT community, these people are part of your community, and to better navigate our community, you need to understand them. If you’re an ally, this phenomenon must be important to you, too. If political powers have no problem using Jewish people or the LGBT community as pawns, you can safely assume they would have no problem using you or your group as well. The Queers for Palestine phenomenon offers a timely and important opportunity to better understand our shifting cultural dynamics around identity and politics in the Western world.
Who is a “Queer For Palestine?”
Before we discuss what makes them tick, let’s clarify who I am referring to when I say “Queers for Palestine” (QFP). It is not my assessment that someone is QFP just because they:
show sympathy for dying civilians in Gaza,
oppose Israel’s strategy in wartime,
support a two-state solution,
or are generally humanitarian.
Such individuals don’t like war. To be clear, I don’t like war, either.
I’m focused on the people who are vehemently anti-Israel. These people may or may not be explicitly antisemitic, but their position on the conflict between Israel and Hamas is clear: they want Hamas (or “Palestine”) to win. They may, or may not, proudly communicate that belief to people in their lives, both on and off social media. They boast this belief despite the reality that Israel is the only safe haven for LGBT individuals in that area of the world.
They’re Not Crazy, They’re “Progressive”
In private practice, it is helpful to assume— when assessing a patient you don’t understand— that they have good reasons for their behaviors and beliefs. Before I offer a psychological interpretation of my peers who support Palestine, I want to entertain the idea that they are not crazy. Their politics are just different.
QFP’s perspective lies in the difference between being liberal and being progressive, a topic I have written about before. Not everyone on the left is liberal. Many on the left identify as progressive and believe that liberals should be more extreme in their leftist stances. For example, while a liberal may feel good that a policy can help alleviate the burden of being socioeconomically disadvantaged, progressives feel that this is insufficient. They think the entire system needs to be reformed so nobody is left out.
Many progressives believe all forms of oppression are interconnected. By emphasizing something called intersectionality, they describe the oppression of gay people as entangled with all other forms of oppression— like the oppression of Palestinians. For progressive queers like this, the fact that Palestinians or some sects of Islam would happily kill them for being gay does not matter because they believe that by liberating all people, all people will be free.
Progressives criticize what they see as a selective application of liberal values. They argue that supporting LGBT rights while excusing other human rights violations (like war casualties) is a form of selective liberalism that ultimately undermines the credibility of leftist politics in general. For example, progressive activist Matthew Bernstein (@mattxiv) wrote on Instagram: “If every single Palestinian was homophobic… I would still be against bombing them… Palestine does not need to be a progressive utopia for genocide to be wrong.” Matt’s caption reads, “solidarity explained,” emphasizing the aforementioned talking points about intersectionality.
The fact that Matt is misapplying the term “genocide” is a different matter and one not relevant to most progressives. Many progressives do not believe in objective truth; instead, they believe that all language, science, policies, and nearly everything that exists is based on inequitable power structures, so they will say/do/believe anything they can to “correct” those power structures. It does not matter to them if they misuse a term like genocide. For many progressives, the ends justify the means.
QFP ≠ Mental Illness
In my research on this topic, I encountered many ways to use psychology to analyze QFP. I was surprised to conclude that many do not hold up to scrutiny. For example, some believe that being queer and supporting Palestine is a manifestation of internalized homophobia. While this could be possible, it does not explain why many people feel the urge to align themselves with the Palestinians and Islam but not the far-right or Christianity. After all, when someone has internalized homophobia, you often see it manifest in multiple domains. For example, they may also engage in other types of reckless behavior in an expression of their internalized hatred.
Others try to make sense of QFP by citing that they must have the “savior complex”— a rigid personality structure in which a person believes they are responsible for helping others. Essentially, some hypothesize that those who are QFP have a deeply held belief that they must help or advocate for anyone who is suffering, regardless if they can actually benefit those in question. Again, while this might be true for some people, it does not adequately explain why QFP are concerned with Palestinian suffering and not Jewish suffering. It does not explain how these activists often neglect to mention terrorism or the role of Hamas. I think the savior complex analysis is better suited for people who are generally humanitarian. Plenty of activists are against the war without being anti-Israel or pro-Palestine. When interviewing individuals identifying as QFP, their motivations seem more complex than merely wanting to save people. Many people, even people who pro-Israel in the technical sense, care about the liberation for the Palestinian citizens. They advocate for their freedom without advocating in alignment regimes that do not just threaten the LGBT community, but the western world.
Another erroneous psychological interpretation is that QFP individuals have a personality disorder. There simply isn’t enough evidence for this. While QFPs display significant black-and-white thinking (“splitting”), something present in many personality disorders, political activism is not often nuanced in its rhetoric. Similarly, a symptom of borderline personality disorder— feeling emotions deeper and longer than other people— is observable in people who are greatly affected by footage of women and children dying. Yet live social media footage of war is an extraordinary situation - one that society has never dealt with before - and it is normal for people to feel deeply in response.
In order for a diagnosis of mental illness to be sufficiently acceptable, there must be recurring dysfunctional behavior across different contexts. On this measuring tool, QFPs are not clinically dysfunctional. While it’s strange that they are aligning themselves with groups that would not support them in response (radical Islam), strangeness is not a mental disorder, even when it’s profane. If there were documented instances of QFPs being threatened or physically beaten at rallies by followers of radical Islam, yet QFPs insist they align themselves with such people anyways, that could be sufficient evidence for a deeper psychological problem. However, I am not aware of any QFPs being attacked or threatened for being gay at rallies.
It could be argued that QFPs’ support is just misplaced compassion or empathy. Dr. Jon Haidt, a social psychologist who studies the psychology of morality, has noted that those on the far-left prioritize harm-reduction and fairness over moral attributes such as in-group loyalty or respect for authority. Since war is rarely harmless or fair, this could explain why some QFP show antagonism against Israel despite Israel being gay-friendly and a US ally. However, again, this framework better explains those who are generally against war, no matter the side you find yourself on. It also certainly does not justify citing mental illness as a proper interpretation of QFP’s beliefs.
Some interpreted QFP’s behavior as alignment with the idea “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Perhaps QFPs see Israel as being aligned with right-wing America. Given that the right wing has historically and presently been a political enemy of many LGBT groups, it makes sense that QFPs see this as an opportunity to “stick it” to the political groups that have aggrieved them. Because radical Islam is an enemy of LGBT liberation, supporting Hamas/Palestine requires cognitive dissonance, but that doesn’t implicate QFPs as mentally ill. Furthermore, dominant progressive philosophies such as intersectionality soothe this cognitive dissonance. Consequently, QFPs can feel more comfortable aligning with a religion that would happily have them killed.
A Matter of Immaturity
In my research to understand QFPs, the word that kept coming up for me was immature. Sometimes, people understand the word immature to be an insult, but it’s not. Everyone is immature at some point, in some way, in their lives. Everyone develops through their lifespans at different rates. The same is true of our political beliefs and political identities.
Studies on political identity development are limited, but psychologists have specified different ways a person’s political identity materializes. Why Youth Vote, by Bobbi Gentry, discusses how this works. While some people avoid engaging in politics altogether, many try on different identities. Gentry terms this phase of experimentation as exploration. Others adopt an identity without going through the exploration phase. Gentry describes this latter group as having Somewhat Developed Identities, implying that their identity is not necessarily their own. They may have adopted their parent's identity, that of another role model, or as a reaction to one particular issue area (e.g. Palestine).
If someone completes the exploration phase, they may achieve what Gentry calls Fully Developed Status. People within this group determine how they fit into society—either they pick an identity that fits within the culture, or they reject the options available. The former is more likely to identify with a current political party, while the latter is more likely to be an independent.
Gentry’s research reveals that political identity exploration is normative. In fact, experimentation can lead to more conscious and intentional political engagement. In theory, a young gay person who had a phase as a QFP will be a better political actor than someone who simply parroted what was popular or how their parents raised them. Of course, this assumes their activism for Palestine is part of the exploration phase. Otherwise, they may be only somewhat developed.
The most cogent way for me to rationalize QFPs is to note that they are likely in their exploration phase of political identity development or somewhat developed.
A Case of Ideological Possession
Gentry’s work on Somewhat Developed Political Identities reminds me of the concept of Ideological Possession. Initially attributed to Carl Jung and recently popularized by Jordan Peterson, the best way to understand ideological possession is as follows: someone is ideologically possessed when you can map out their entire belief system based on their ideology. Consequently, if you understand their ideology, you can predict everything they will say in response to a particular issue. In conversation, instead of talking to the person, you are talking to the ideology that possesses them.
It is not surprising that someone who is gay feels pulled towards progressive ideologies. For a long time, these ideologies were most supportive of issues such as gay marriage or employee protection, and progressive ideology still makes sense for some of these issues.
You can tell when someone is ideologically possessed when they continue to parrot their ideology’s talking points despite evidence to the contrary. For example, not a single QFP individual I interviewed or studied could justify their stance against Israel when confronted with the fact that gay people are killed by Palestinians (not just Hamas terrorists), and Tel Aviv hosts the largest Pride in Continental Asia. All they did was minimize and dismiss data points that did not fit into their ideology while focusing on those that aligned with it.
I know these people were possessed because each conversation I had with them followed the same pattern. If I asked if they were scared that their activism would help push more centrists and moderates to vote for Donald Trump or some unknown right-wing authoritarian figure, they would repeat their same ideas— principles of nonviolence and a belief in intersectionality. Ironically, intersectionality has recently stopped including Jews and Israelis.
Maybe They Just Need a Hug
How do you interact with the gay person in your life who has suddenly become staunchly anti-Israel and believes Hamas are freedom fighters? The gay man in me is tempted to tell you to tell them to f*ck off. The therapist in me knows there’s a more effective way to communicate. The best thing you can do may just be to hug them.
When I was younger, I had a phase where I thought I was a Republican. I grew up in California and attended Wesleyan University, one of the most progressive higher education institutes. Any time I had a critique of the radical left, I was told I was a bigot, a closet conservative, a self-hating gay man, a Nazi, and a myriad of other insults. Naturally, when you are told something many times, you believe it. Then I learned the truth— I am not a Republican for two reasons. First, I have yet to vote for one. Second, I understand that season of my life was normative political identity exploration. What I needed then was a hug and to be told it was okay to have questions about far-left activism without losing my “liberal” identity. But I never received this, so I rebelled against the viewpoints of those who insulted me.
My assumption is that the intensely anti-Israel activists are not getting hugs from their progressive circles. Instead, they feel pressure to double down on their views or risk being shunned, so it makes sense why they would double down. The situation between Israel and Hamas is heartbreaking, and few people are emotionally equipped to process what is happening. Under this stress, it makes sense for people to persist in what they know, which, in this case, is parroting progressive talking points.
Queer ≠ LGBT
As a therapist, I have found that oftentimes, the more fancy the analysis, the less helpful it often is for understanding people. Understanding Queers for Palestine is no different. I was expecting something juicy like trauma or a thinking disorder, but I have found that many of the people who are QFP are very conscious and intentional about what they do. Perhaps many are immature or ideologically possessed, but this hardly makes them unique.
My exploration did highlight one interesting thing that must be further explored. I have discovered that the word “queer” has multiple meanings. For some people, it’s about being gay, lesbian, trans, or something not heteronormative. For others, it’s about radical, progressive politics– being anti-normative. The sociologist Joshua Gamson notes that the LGBT community itself has historically been divided between two groups. In one group, gay people who want to be seen as ordinary members of society and accepted for being themselves. These people are sometimes called assimilationists. The other group is those who see themselves as inherently separate from society and want to upend the social order. They want a revolution.
The Queers for Palestine in Joshua Gamson’s latter group– those that want to upend the social order– seem to be intentional about strategically aligning themselves with Radical Islamism to destabilize society for their own political goals. People like this do not need a hug. They are not mentally ill. They are not psychologically troubled. They are not immature. They are not exploring their political identity. They are siding with a movement that has members who would kill their fellow LGBT compatriots in the process.
If I were to be a queer revolutionary, radical Islamists are not the partners I would choose. Any argument to the contrary is not just ignorant; it’s arrogant– so arrogant that it’s dangerous. You may have noticed that I use the acronym LGBT instead of LGBTQ in this article. That was intentional. If you are going to side with an ideology that wants us dead because it makes you feel like a progressive and enlightened person, I don't want you associating with this spectrum of identity to which I belong. This is especially true if they are not even gay, bi or trans, but are simply co-opting a movement for their own agenda. Let’s not forget that in honor of Pride Month 2022, it was a Palestinian-Islamic scholar– not Hamas– who preached a sermon that gay people should be “thrown off roofs and then stoned.”