WDG is the Washington Blade’s media partner in Israel. WDG originally published this article on Friday.

JERUSALEM — Upwards of 30,000 people on Thursday marched in the Jerusalem Pride and Tolerance Parade, which marked the beginning of Pride month in Israel.

The parade, organized by the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance, began with the traditional gathering at Gan Happamon. Many politicians also came to support and encourage the marchers.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid, who chairs the Yesh Atid party, in his speech referred to the counterprotest the Lahava movement organized near the parade’s starting point. Several dozen LGBTQ and intersex rights opponents participated in the protest.

“Outside are standing, like every year, the wretched thugs of Lahava movement, demonstrating against us,” said Lapid. “Only this year these people are no longer just a ridiculous bunch of dark extremists — they are part of the government. Bezalel Smotrich, (Internal Security Minister) Itamar Ben-Gvir [and] Avi Maoz, are trying to push us all back into the closet, to the dark closet of their foreknowledge. In Israel there is not one fight for democracy and a separate fight for LGBT rights. It’s the same struggle against those enemies. in the name of those values. Those who attack Israeli democracy attack the LGBTs, those who attack the LGBTs attack democracy.”

Benny Gantz, chair of the National Unity Party, referred to the need to hold parades in the capital. 

“We won’t have to march when in this parade we won’t need security, we won’t need snipers and undercover policemen. We won’t have to walk when each and every one can walk in any neighborhood they want, holding hands like any couple. We will not have to march when gay will not be a curse in school but simply self-determination, when each and every one can fill out any government form according to what he is,” he said. “We will not have to march when a prime minister in Israel would not think of giving the keys to the education system to a dark racist and allocating hundreds of millions to oversee liberal education programs. I am ashamed of this and I tell you that even at the most difficult political price, I will never do such a thing. We will not have to march when there are no racists in the government. Such people would be denounced and would not be elected, not because of the law — but because no one would want to elect them. We won’t have to step when simple love won’t be complicated or will be as complicated as any simple love.”

At the end of the gathering, the marchers began marching towards Independence Park where Ran Danker, Ivri Lider, Roni Duani, Rinat Bar and others were performing.

More than 2,000 police officers and soldiers, visible and hidden, secured parade participants with the assistance of reinforcements and volunteers. 

As with every year, the police commissioner and the Minister of internal Security came to the parade area to examine the work of the police in the field. But unlike previous years, Ben-Gvir was received with shouts of “shame.” Ben-Gvir came to supervise the parade, despite a prior demand from the parade organizers that he refrain from doing so.

“In my position as a minister, I do and will do everything so that there is no crazy case, as was the case with the murder of Shira Banki,” said Ben-Gvir, “My policy is to give freedom of speech to those who oppose the parade, even to those who speak against the parade, that is their right. They are not breaking the law yet. Our job on this day is to allow the parade and protest, this is democracy, this is the beautiful mosaic in the state of Israel and this is how I act as minister of national security.”

Several serious incidents of violence against the LGBTQ community took place after the parade ended and marchers dispersed. In one of them, boys and young men were seen setting Pride flags on fire, and in the second, a group of young people attacked a number of LGBT people near Jerusalem’s Central Station. They shouted at them to “go back to Tel Aviv, you son of a bitch.”

“This is a resounding slap in the face that reminds us that no matter how much we spread light, the struggle is not over yet, and the hatred towards us exists and understands,” Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance said in response to the violence. “In Jerusalem those who walk around the city tonight, are asked to be alert and take care of themselves. Don’t worry, we will win.”

“The Jerusalem parade is the strongest expression of our opposition to hatred, and to the plans of the hate lobby to fight in our community,” Hevruta, an LGBT religious organization, said. “Even hundreds of millions of shekels, the authority and standards of Avi Maoz and the Noam party will not be able to extinguish our love for God, for who we are and for our families.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday won re-election.

Erdoğan, a former Istanbul mayor who has governed Turkey since 2003, defeated Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in the presidential election’s second round by a 52-48 percent margin. The Associated Press notes Erdoğan will remain in office until at least 2028.

Turkish authorities over the last decade have increasingly cracked down on LGBTQ and intersex activists in the country.

Police in 2015 used tear gas and water cannons against people who were about to participate in an Istanbul Pride march. Authorities in 2017 arrested nearly two dozen people who defied a ban on Pride events in the city.

Police in Ankara, the Turkish capital, on May 10, 2019, arrested 18 students and an academic who participated in a Pride march at the Middle East Technical University. They faced up to three years in prison, but a court in 2021 acquitted them. Police in 2022 violently broke up a Pride parade at the same Ankara university.

The State Department in 2021 criticized Turkey after police once again used tear gas to disperse Istanbul Pride march participants near the city’s Istiklal Avenue. Security forces last June arrested more than 370 people who tried to participate in another Istanbul Pride march.  

Fourteen Turkish LGBTQ and intersex rights organizations in a joint statement they issued ahead of Sunday’s election noted both Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu “resorted to hate speech during the election process.”

“The election period is long and painful for all of us,” reads the joint statement the May 17 Association, SPoD (Social Policy, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Studies Association), Ankara Rainbow Families Association (GALADER), the Young Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans Intersex Youth Studies and Solidarity Association, the HEVI LGBTI+ Solidarity Association, Kaos GL, the Red Umbrella Association, Lambda Istanbul, LGBTI+ Families and Relatives Association, Mersin 7 Colors LGBT, Muamma, the Free Colors LGBTI+ Solidarity Association, the Pink Life LGBTI+ Solidarity Association and ÜniKuir issued. “The bitter pills we swallowed during the election are now overflowing the cup. Before the elections and during the first round of the elections, LGBTI+ people were often targeted and the focus of hate speech, while racism and refugee hostility also dominated in the second round.”

The statement also described the presidential election as a “referendum.”

“This election is a referendum on whether the 12th president’s rule will continue or not, whether the one-man regime in the country will come to an end or not,” it reads. “Yes, we will continue to be in the opposition regardless of the outcome. But this election is also the election of under which conditions and against whom we will oppose from now on.”

Media reports indicate Erdoğan in his victory speech criticized the Turkish opposition “for being pro-LGBT.”

Erdogan rallies against the Turkish opposition for being pro-LGBT in his victory speech

“CHP, HDP and all others are pro-LGBT. But LGBT cannot infiltrate among us. We will be reborn. The family is sacred. The violence against women is forbidden”

pic.twitter.com/ynIQQoHANf

— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) May 28, 2023

One activist with whom the Washington Blade spoke on Monday said Erdoğan “unfortunately” won re-election.

“LGBTI activism in Turkey will be even more threatened,” said the activist.

Amid the ongoing protests in Iran, LGBTQ and other minority voices must be centered in the fight for equal rights, activists said during an Instagram Live discussion hosted by Planned Parenthood Global on Friday.

The group organized the event as part of its “This Is Brave” campaign, an initiative that endeavors to “show the connection across social justice movements,” Planned Parenthood Global Senior Director of Global Communications Crister Delacruz told the Washington Blade by phone on Friday.

“For example,” she said, “sexual and reproductive rights are connected to the fight for LGBTQ equality: Just like anyone else, members of the LGBTQ community around the world who need access to sexual and reproductive healthcare.”

Protests, many led by women and other marginalized groups, erupted in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody last September. Amini was detained by authorities for allegedly violating rules governing how women can dress.

The demonstrations continued over the subsequent months despite violent crackdowns from the Iranian government, earning the attention of the international community and prompting the U.S. Senate to introduce a resolution condemning the country’s “systemic persecution of women and peaceful protestors.”

Joining Friday’s discussion were Priscillia Kounkou Hoveyda, a human rights lawyer and founder of the Collective for Black Iranians, and Cyrus Veyssi, a digital creator and online strategist with a substantial following on social media platforms. Donya Nasser, a former member of the Planned Parenthood Global Advisory Board and current board member of Planned Parenthood’s Mar Monte (Calif.) affiliate, moderated the conversation.

Veyssi, a queer and nonbinary “child of the diaspora” who grew up in the U.S., said they have “countless friends who live in secrecy in Iran,” people who in some cases “have to spend every weekend in a jail” or were forced to flee the country, often with help from groups like the International Railroad for Queer Refugees (formerly known as the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees.)

Social media, Veyssi said, “has allowed people in the West to see what is happening in Iran.” And given their sizable platform and privileged position living safely in America with economic security, Veyssi said they feel it is their responsibility to “share as much as I can.”

Especially so since so many other LGBTQ activists who share content about or are otherwise engaged on social media with issues concerning the turmoil in Iran have experienced shadow-banning, Veyssi said, referring to the phenomenon by which a user’s posts are artificially depressed so they reach fewer followers than they otherwise would.

On Wednesday, Veyssi provided a written statement to The Washington Blade in response to a question concerning the nature of any misconceptions they have observed among Americans when it comes to the struggle for equal rights in Iran.

Noting that they are not positioned to speak on behalf of Iranians who still live in the country, Veyssi said they have observed that one “main misconception is not understanding the nuance between the violent and oppressive government in Iran and that of our culture.”

This extends to the treatment of LGBTQ people and identities, they said. “There is a lot embedded within our history that suggests how open minded – specifically among gender and sexuality expressions – our people have been.”

“From subversive poetry that illustrates queer love to even beauty trends that contrast with western ideals of masculinity and femininity, queerness has always been a facet of social experiences in Iran” Veyssi said.

“I wish more people understood that LGBTQIA+ rights is part of the larger movement towards freedom in Iran right now,” they added, “and that resistance in Iran can simply look like waking up and choosing to go about your day as your true self, something that many people have died for and are fighting for.”

Kounkou Hoveyda, who is Congolese, Iranian and French, recounted the story of a 24-year-old man who was “arrested and tortured in detention” for fighting for “the right to be who he is.” Even LGBTQ Iranians who choose not to engage in demonstrations or speak out against the government “are in a constant state of alert,” said Kounkou Hoveyda, who identifies as queer.

Among outside observers in the West, many never think to ask themselves whether Iranians engaged in the protests and movements for social and political equality may be transgender or nonbinary, Kounkou Hoveyda said — adding that Iranians are “just as layered as any other group of people” even when living under a regime that works to censor out their marginalized identities.

It is also incumbent on the allies of marginalized minority communities to speak out on their behalf, Veyssi said. “I want the 40-year-old white woman living in Nebraska posting about Iran” because she will have access to and influence with an audience whom less privileged groups may never be able to reach, they said.

Likewise, even in cases where matters like the treatment of women do not impact them directly, Veyssi said, “I will show up for whoever needs it, and it’s not just about what’s happening right now” in Iran. For example, they said, one must show up for women in the U.S. who are battling for bodily autonomy.

Veyssi credited Planned Parenthood Global for providing the opportunity for him and the other speakers to address these issues, which they said corporations and other powerful institutions have often shied away from.

“So many brands and companies want to avoid it,” they said, but what’s happening in Iran is not a political or partisan matter. Rather, Veyssi said, this is about freedom and one must confront the question of whether to stand up for that or stand in the way by remaining silent.

As the international arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Planned Parenthood Global has worked overseas for 50 years to break down barriers to health care and champion the brave people putting their safety on the line each and every day for reproductive freedom.