Homophobic abuse: anti-Israel Westerners referred to me today at a protest as a “loser lesbian”

Today I counterprotested yet another anti-Israel protest on Queen Street (specifically, the one protesting Brian Tāmaki) with a sign saying WESTERNERS WHO ATTEND PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTS WITH TRANSGENDER FLAGS ARE HYPOCRITES.

Almost immediately I was accosted by members of the LGBTQI+ community who were there with trans flags. I was asked if I was queer. I said yes. They then called me a “self-hating lesbian” (purely for holding the sign in question) and said I was not representative of the LGBTQI+ community, before swiftly attempting to block my sign from view with a kheffiyeh.

The protest continued up Queen Street and so I followed silently with my sign. Eventually when we came to a stop in a nearby park I sat down with my sign in the shade. Some of the protesters discussed who should stand in front of me to block people’s view of my sign and one of them said “I’ve got it. I have experience dealing with loser lesbians.”

I took a video of them blocking me from view with a sign which is briefly visible at the start of the following video saying (hilariously, because it made my point) “Queer as in: free Palestine! Death to the IOF! ACAB! TRANS RIGHTS! FUCK BRIAN TĀMAKI! TOITŪ TE TIRITI!” Video footage is here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/glC-vdkVQ4s To my deep amusement, when they saw I was recording they swiftly turned the sign around so that the above caption was not visible.

I then asked them to confirm that they had referred to me as a “loser lesbian”. The person I was addressing denied that she had been the one to say that. I asked her whether she would agree that calling someone a loser lesbian is homophobic. She refused to reply. I caught this exchange on video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/glC-vdkVQ4s

These people are hypocrites of the highest order. Despite being queer themselves, they are no true allies of LGBTQI+ people. If their concern for LGBTQI+ people were sincere they would apply it in countries most in need of that advocacy. Not only that, but they are willing to engage in homophobic abuse of queer people like me who disagree with them, while at the same time accusing me of being the one who is self-hating. The intellectual dishonesty is limitless.

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