Does palestine hate gay people
An analysis of recent data in Palestine indicates a widespread and severe resistance to LGBTQ+ rights, a situation that is deeply troubling to human rights advocates.
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Same-sex marriage in Palestine
?Same-sex marriage in Palestine is unrecognized.
Right to change legal gender in Palestine
?Right to change legal gender in Palestine is illegal.
Gender-affirming care in Palestine
?Gender-affirming care in Palestine is restricted.
While gender affirming healthcare is provided in Israel, the oppressive laws restricting movement for Palestinians inhibits their ability to access such in the occupied territories.
Legal recognition of agender gender in Palestine
?Legal recognition of genderqueer gender in Palestine is not legally recognized.
LGBT discrimination in Palestine
?LGBT discrimination in Palestine is illegal in some contexts.
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Last updated: 17 December 2024
Types of criminalisation
- Criminalises LGBT people
- Criminalises sexual activity between males
Summary
Same-sex sexual activity is prohibited in Gaza under the British Mandate Criminal Code Ordinance 1936. The relevant provision carries a maximum penalty of ten years’ imprisonment. Only men are criminalised under this law.
The law was inherited from the British. It continues to be in operation in Gaza today, though it is not in force elsewhere in Palestine.
There is little evidence of the law being enforced, and it appears to be largely obsolete in practice. However, an incident in 2017 saw an author being threatened with prosecution for writing a novel which included LGBT themes. There do not appear to be any other reports of enforcement of the criminalising regulation or other laws. Nevertheless, the mere existence of this provision is itself a violation of human rights and underpins further acts of discrimination (see further).
Law and Leg
On January 28, short-lived more than a week after Israel concluded its brutal military campaign against the Gaza Strip, James Kirchick published the latest installment in his growing corpus of articles about tolerant, gay-friendly Israel and homophobic, "Islamofascist" Palestine. Although Kirchick has published essentially the same article under different titles -- "Palestine and Gay Rights" and "Palestinian Anti-Gay Atrocities Demand Attention" -- and although he regurgitates the alike flimsy, unsupported arguments in all of these articles, we do not note to question his intellectual prowess or journalistic qualifications. In fact, Kirchick’s diatribe against Palestinians and the "radical" gay activists who support them would not warrant a response if it did not, in our view, represent something much bigger and more dangerous.
We are two people who come from very different places with very different histories: one of us, Haneen Maikey, is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and the director of Al-Qaws ("the rainbow" in Arabic) for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society (alqaws.org), and the other, Jason R
‘No pride in occupation’: lgbtq+ Palestinians on ‘pink-washing’ in Gaza conflict
When Daoud, a veteran queer activist, recently walked past rainbow flags hung for Pride month in the old port city of Jaffa, a historic centre of Palestinian culture, he was overcome by a wave of revulsion.
The most famous symbol of LGBTQ+ liberation has been so co-opted by the Israeli state that to a gay Palestinian like him it now serves only as a reminder of the horror unfolding just 60 miles south.
Last November, Israel’s government posted two images from Gaza on its social media account. One shows Israeli soldier Yoav Atzmoni, in battle fatigues, in front of buildings reduced to rubble by Israeli airstrikes. He holds a rainbow flag with a hand-scrawled message: “In the name of love”.
In the second he poses beside a tank, grinning as he displays an Israeli flag with rainbow borders. “The first ever Lgbtq+ fest flag raised in Gaza,” the caption for both images reads.
At the day, Israeli attacks had killed more than 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 4,000 children, according to Gazan health ministry figures. The toll has now risen to over 37,000, and more than a million people are on
Palestinian Territories
In Palestine, the legality of same-sex sexual activity is mixed. In the West Bank, same-sex sexual activity between men was decriminalized in 1951, while in Gaza, under the British colonial-era criminal code, same-sex sexual activity can be interpreted as illegal. In 2019, Palestinian police banned LGBTIQ groups from hosting events and activities in the West Bank, although this decision was later rescinded due to backlash. There hold been reports of violence and discrimination against LGBTIQ people in recent years. LGBTIQ civil community organizations exist in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, but registration as openly LGBTIQ is challenging. Palestinian-led LGBTIQ organizations hold also faced challenges in registering in Israel.
Like all Palestinians, LGBTIQ Palestinians have been deeply impacted by Israeli attacks on Gaza, including attacks on health care infrastructure. Outright has called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and Israel to hinder a further humanitarian catastrophe and deficit of lives, while recognizing that “crisis situations often own a disproportionate impact on LGBTIQ people.”
*Outright research indic