Too Jewish for Pride?

May 2025, day 591 of the war.

We all think that all we ever want, all of us, we all must want to be free. The heartbreak is realizing that this isn’t true. But I do believe that all of us love to feel free. If only for a few moments. LGBTQ people understand this longing for freedom to be ourselves. The entire gay bar scene culture was founded on this desire. A place to gather to feel free and enjoy safety in numbers. For many of us who don’t fit into gender conforming roles, our homes have become our sanctuary, especially post COVID, home is where we can let our guard and armour down, home is where we are supposed to feel safe and free.

We are just a few weeks away from Pride Season, it’s like high holy days for the LGBTQ community. We love to celebrate our pride and culture and freedom at every Pride parade and festival around the world, especially when there are safety in numbers.

I have either marched or performed at several Pride festivals in the United States and Canada and my creative work has been featured at Pride festivals around the world. I have participated in Dyke and Trans Marches in the past, as a performer, sponsor, and fundraiser. I have produced Pride festivals in the past and I know that the tone is set and the welcome vibe is set by who is running the show. If Dyke and Pride Marches are publicly targeting a group of people to ban them, don’t stay quiet. That’s what a lot of Germans did.

The Pride festival march and festival where I felt totally free was at the Tel Aviv Pride festival in 2017 when I last had the opportunity to travel and experience the magic that is Israel. As a Trans masculine queer who is out and also who identifies with my Jewish heritage, I felt truly myself in Tel Aviv. I met so many amazing people who were coming from near and very far to be able to feel free. I met a young man from Uganda who says he dreams of going to New York City or San Francisco one day but Tel Aviv was a lot closer for him to get to and to be able to afford, and where he knew he could celebrate being his true self for a few days without fear of jail or death. I met an Israeli Trans soldier who was proudly serving in the IDF and unlike in the United States now under Trump, many Trans soldiers serve with honour in Israel and many displayed heroic and epic courage on October 7th.

I am unapologetically queer, I have marched in the streets and done acts of civic disobedience for justice and equality since the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when AiDS was raging . I am a trans masculine Butch and am happily married to a Femme Queer woman. Together we are proudly raising a family of strong Black men. I have always shown up for many people and causes, especially immigrants. My Father and my Grandparents were immigrants, English wasn’t their first language, they were refugees. I have always had an affinity for the immigrant experience. I protested Trump’s first Muslim ban in 2017 at SFO, because I firmly believe in equality under the law and freedom of religion and cultural identity. I also was intentional about meeting with Muslims and breaking bread, from tables in California to Ramallah in the West Bank.

It would be a great time for many non-Jews to reach out to Jewish friends, especially the quieter ones and check in if they are feeling okay and feeling safe about going to Pride. Support them as best as you can and don’t let the extremist voices drown out everyone else.

I will always passionately speak up for freedom and diversity. I am proud to have had Jewish grandparents. They survived the Holocaust when many other family members including their parents, were murdered by the Nazis. Their so called white privilege didn’t save them under the Nazi’s race laws.

I unapologetically believe in Zionism which means independence, self determination, celebration and commemoration of indigenous heritage, cultural history, and shared identity. Zionism is about freedom and a celebration of diversity.  NYC Dyke March wants to give their proceeds to Within Our Lifetime, the organization that publicly celebrated October 7th and that has previously partnered with Samidoun, another organization banned in the US and Canada for its alleged terrorist ties.

We hear the usual brainwashed and uneducated voices calling for ‘no zionists allowed’ at Pride parades and festivals. You might as well say the quiet part out loud, what these dictators mean to say is ‘no Jews allowed.; Do not let this stand. Do not let these voices be the loudest. This is like allowing TERFs to ban all Trans people from attending a Pride celebration or a Dyke March. They are not spelling it out but what they mean is don’t you dare show up with a Star of David on, or a yarmulke, or a pride flag with a Star of David on it or an Israeli flag, or show any visible signs of being Jewish, and if pushed, for you to be accepted amongst these dictators, you must swear to be anti Israel and anti Zionist. It reeks of xenophobia, anti-semitism, harassment, intimidation, bullying, targeting, and incitement to violence. It’s like what Hitler did in Germany in the 1930’s leading up to World War 2. Pride is about celebrating diversity and standing strong in numbers for safety and that beautiful feeling of feeling free. To make Jewish queer people feel unwelcome and unsafe at a Pride festival has no place in LGBTQ culture, history, identity, and celebrations.

Every Pride festival that is proclaiming publicly and/or posting online about banning Zionists need to have a spotlight on their priorities and funding as they provoke and incite anti-semitic propaganda. This ancient hatred used to be about religion, then it was racial, now it’s about Israel, it’s all the same thinly cloaked hatred that shouldn’t be tolerated. Music festivals proclaim Free Palestine but never Free Palestine from Hamas, all while other music festival attendees are being held in cages 40 meters below the ground in dungeon tunnels by terrorists who have starved and tortured them. Don’t normalize Jew hatred. Anywhere. Ever.