In the Intersection: Palestinian LGBT Media

We write this on the first day of a temporary ceasefire in Gaza (a ceasefire, it must be noted, that Israel is reported to have already broken several times (& reported even by the BBC)), that is set to last four days. Even as Palestinian hostages are returning home to their families, the settler colonial apartheid state is doing what it can to disrupt and destroy such moments of happiness. So, now is the time to be even louder than before, to make the ceasefire permanent and to call for the dismantling of the occupation. The number of dead in Gaza is over 20,000, with thousands more still trapped beneath the rubble. Almost 2 million people have been displaced in the past seven weeks.

Starting next week, Friends of Al-Aqsa are running a Palestine Awareness Week, full of events to keep Palestine in public consciousness. We wanted to post to coincide with that, and to specifically focus on LGBT media about Palestine. One of the common threads from Zionist actors seen in the past month and a half relates to the question of how the LGBT community can support a country where such existence is punished by death. But, as many more eloquent people have said, our struggle is one. No one is free until we are all free. And are there not also LGBT Palestinians who deserve our support? And to suggest that Israel is somehow a paradise for gay people is pinkwashing to the extreme (for example, there are reports of the IOF blackmailing gay Palestinians into betraying their people, and the excerpt Omar Sakr posts in this on instagram alone should tell you more than enough as well). As I said, there are people who’ve put this more fully, and more eloquently, than us, and we would stress you read their words: Autostraddle’s article from October, and The Nation’s from November.

So, this post. In here, you’ll find books (fiction, nonfiction & poetry), films & documentaries, & music, primarily from Palestinian creators (although, you’ll spot a couple of films where this isn’t the case, but the focus remains on Palestinians within them). Before we start, we’d also like to note the following two films which we didn’t include on the rec list: Polarized (2023), dir. Shamim Sarif & Polygraph (2020), dir. Samira Saraya. The reason for this was because, given the premise of each film, we would have preferred to be able to watch them before recommending, which we ultimately haven’t had time to do.

We hope you enjoy what’s in this post and urge you to keep talking about Palestine!

* indicates that the authors themselves are Palestinian (or diaspora), but the characters featured in the book may not be.

Books

Nonfiction

Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique by Sa’ed Atshan
Decolonial Queering in Palestine by Walaa Alqaisiya
Love is an Ex-Country by Randa Jarrar
Are You This? Or Are You This? by Madian Al Jazerah
Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts by Nada Elia

Fiction

The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher
You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat
Guapa by Saleem Haddad*
Belladonna by Anbara Salam*
A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar

Sambac Beneath Unlikely Skies by Heba Hayek
Muneera and the Moon by Sonia Sulaiman
Autumn Child by Sonia Sulaiman
Confetti Realms by Nadia Shammas*
The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan*

The Philistine by Leila Marshy
Nayra and the Djinn by Iasmin Omar Ata
Where Black Stars Rise by Nadia Shammas & Marie Enger*

Poetry

Birthright by George Abraham
The Specimen’s Apology by George Abraham
The Twenty-Ninth Year by Hala Alyan
To All the Yellow Flowers by Raya Tuffaha
Shell Houses by Rasha Abdulhadi

Blood Orange by Yaffa As
Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow. by Noor Hindi

Films & Documentaries

The Invisible Men (2012), dir. Yariv Mozer
Oriented (2015), dir. Jake Witzenfeld
Borekas (2020), dir. Saleh Saadi
Mondial 2010 (2014), dir. Roy Dib
Houria (2011), dir. Raafat Hattab

Sultana’s Reign (2023), dir. Hadi Moussally
Blessed Blessed Oblivion (2011), dir. Jumana Manna
In Between (2016), dir. Maysaloun Hamoud
Beyond the Frontlines (2017), dir. Alexandra Dols