Pinkwashing (LGBT)

In 2013, the Human Rights Campaign officially endorsed comprehensive immigration reform, and committed to helping immigrants as they seek health and safety, asylum, or citizenship.[3] The endorsement came days after an incident where a gay immigrant activist was prevented by HRC from discussing his legal status at a Supreme Court rally, mistreatment for which HRC later issued an apology. The Huffington Post described the HRC's actions as pinkwashing, "making immigration reform look pro-gay to garner LGBT support in order to mask the severe drawbacks of the legislation"—drawbacks such as funding to support enforcement, deportation, and further US militarization.[4]

In 2012, Jason Kenney, Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, was accused of pinkwashing, after an email titled "LGBT Refugees from Iran" was sent to thousands of Canadians. The message contained additional recent comments by John Baird, Minister of Foreign Affairs, about Canada's stand against the persecution and marginalization of gays and lesbian women around the world. A group of activists claimed that it "is a poor attempt at 'pinkwashing' the Conservative government's obvious desire to encourage war with Iran".[5]

Homonationalism is a term coined by Jasbir Puar in her book Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times published in 2007 to refer to the processes by which some powers selectively agree with the claims of sexual minorities and exploit them to justify racism, xenophobia (rejection of foreign people), and aporophobia (rejection of the poor).[6][7][8] In short, this is the intersection between gay identities and nationalist ideology.[9] Homonationalism shaped the concept of pinkwashing and the two terms are often used together as tools to explain the actions of countries. Puar writes in a later article, Rethinking Homonationalism, that the two terms are not parallel but rather pinkwashing is able to exist because homonationalism exists.[10]

According to Omar G. Encarnación, a professor of Political Studies at Bard College, the Obama administration was accused by some critics of pinkwashing "to distract from other unsavory policies such as the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants and the failure to prosecute those responsible for the human rights abuses of the Bush administration's War on Terror".[11] Pinkwashing in the United States, according to author Stephan Dahl from the University of Hull, is centered around pride merchandise created and sold by companies that do nothing for queer people.[12] This feeds a "big business small community" relationship and seems beneficial when in reality there is nothing changing legally for queer people through this practice.[12] Some scholars also raise the issue of pinkwashing as it relates to settler colonialism in the United States and ongoing sovereignty issues for indigenous peoples.[8]

Anarcho-queer collective Mashpritzot hold a "die-in" protest against "Israeli pinkwashing" and the perceived homo-normative priorities of the LGBT support centre in Tel Aviv.

Sarah Schulman, a writer and professor at the City University of New York, claims Israeli government public relations campaign exploits Israel's LGBT-friendliness to promote perceptions of Israel as a modern democracy, a secure place for investment, and a sunny tourist destination.[13] The Israeli marketing claims that LGBT people have more freedom in Israel than in most places, and paints the state as an ideal place for queer couples to vacation without fear of oppression. The campaign has specifically targeted gay men between the ages of 18 to 34.

Schulman argues Israel does not have laws that benefit LGBT people more than in other countries, and some politicians in Israel are homophobic, like in any other country. She takes issue with the promotion of LGBT rights, as it may lead to people assuming that Israel is liberal when it may violate other human rights, and that Israel's alleged pinkwashing negatively affects LGBT people, as well as Palestinians, by suppressing demands for political change.[1] In August 2011, The Jerusalem Post reported the Foreign Ministry was promoting Gay Israel as part of its campaigns to counter the negative stereotypes that many liberal Americans and Europeans have of Israel.[14]

Opponents of Israel like Jasbir Puar, an associate professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, cite the Israeli government's comparison of LGBT rights in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories as an example of pinkwashing. Citing WorldPride, which Jerusalem hosted in 2006, she writes: "Within global gay and lesbian organising circuits, to be gay friendly is to be modern, cosmopolitan, developed, first-world, global north, and, most significantly, democratic."[15] Joseph Massad, associate professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, has written that the Israeli government "insist[s] on advertising and exaggerating its recent record on LGBT rights ... to fend off international condemnation of its violations of the rights of the Palestinian people".[16][17]

Anti-pinkwashing refers to the response that LGBT organizations have had to alleged pinkwashing. Lynn Darwich and Hannen Maikay, in their article "The Road from Antipinkwashing Activism to the Decolonization of Palestine", allege that accusations of pinkwashing against Israel have led to an intersection of queer rights movements and Palestinian rights movements in Palestine and other countries, despite ongoing discrimination and abuse of LGBT individuals within Palestinian controlled territories.[24] This is a strategy that has allowed the two activist groups to fight for one cause; however, it also places limits on both movements. Darwich and Maikay suggest that the anti-pinkwashing movement has to consider not only pinkwashing but also homonationalism, colonialism, and imperialism.[25]

In 2017, AP News Paris made pinkwashing allegations against Marine Le Pen, president of the French far-right political party National Front. She was gaining support from LGBT communities in the presidential election, despite the fact that Jean-Marie Le Pen, her father and the founder of the party, once condemned homosexuality as "a biological and social anomaly".[26] France legalized same-sex marriage in 2013,[27] which made the country the thirteenth worldwide to officially sanction couples in a gender-insensitive manner. However, LGBT communities were confronted with anti-gay movements such as a 2016 march by 24,000 people on the streets of Paris demanding that the law be repealed[28] and also criminal incidents involving gay victims such as the Orlando nightclub shooting, after which Marine Le Pen declared "how much homosexuality is attacked in countries that live under the Islamist jackboot".[26] Facing these threats and receiving "sympathy" from Le Pen, some LGBT voters started to advocate for the far-right party, with one supporter stating that "they'll be the first victims of these barbarians, and only Marine is proposing radical solutions".[26]

A campaign to develop public support for the Keystone Pipeline, which would transport Canadian oil through the United States, has been accused of pinkwashing for its argument that the project deserves support based on a comparison of Canada's record on LGBT rights compared to that of other oil-producing nations.[29] The campaign base at OpecHatesgays.com headlines its presentation: "Compare Canadian Ethical Oil to OPEC conflict oil".[30]

In 2014, BP launched "LGBT Careers Event", a move that was met with criticism as an attempt to pinkwash the conduct that led to Deepwater Horizon oil spill, described as "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced".[31]

In Australia, concern has been raised about the commodification of gay rights by major corporations.[32]

A coalition organized by several popular grassroots movements in Europe, including the English Defence League (EDL), mounted counter-jihad demonstrations in conjunction with LGBT Pride Week celebrations in Helsinki and Stockholm in July and August 2012.[33][34] However, these movements inspired a counter demonstration by an LGBT rights group called "Queers against Pinkwashing", which claimed that the counter-jihad march against Muslims was a clear example of pinkwashing and projected a fake support image for sexual minorities.[34] In an interview for Radio Sweden, Lisa Bjurwald, a Swedesh journalist and expert on European right-wing ideology, criticized the EDL for allying with the wrong people, as "Queers against Pinkwashing" are in fact against singling out one factor as if it were the source of all the relevant problems because such attempts do not benefit the LGBTQ community.[34] Feminist commentator Laurie Penny has warned of European far-right attempts to weaponise the issue of sexual assault against refugees and migrants.[35][36][37]

In June 2016, Organisation Intersex International Australia pointed to contradictory statements by Australian governments suggesting that the dignity and rights of LGBT and intersex people are recognized while, at the same time, harmful practices on intersex children continue.[38]

In August 2016, Zwischengeschlecht described actions to promote equality or civil status legislation without action on banning "intersex genital mutilations" as a form of pinkwashing.[39] The organization has previously highlighted evasive government statements to UN Treaty Bodies that conflate intersex, transgender and LGBT issues, instead of addressing harmful practices on infants.[40]

Stephan Lefebvre of the Center for Economic and Policy Research has noted how the Obama administration, followed by the mainstream US media, has criticized Russia for its failure to provide basic civil liberties for its LGBT population. He contrasts that with the US government's failure to condemn the comparable record on LGBT issues on the part of US allies like Honduras, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the US government's failure to acknowledge progress on LGBT rights in Cuba. In his analysis, this constitutes pinkwashing, which he defines as "deliberately highlighting support for gay rights while ignoring or downplaying other relevant human rights issues".[41] Laurie Penny, an author and feminist activist, contrasted those who criticized Russia's LGBT policies during the Sochi Olympics with their silence on instances of homophobic treatment at their own countries' border crossings. She wrote:[42]

While western nations flap the rainbow flag defiantly in Russia's face, actual lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are being harassed and abused at their borders when they arrive seeking safety. Supporting the rights of LGBT people worldwide is to be commended, but if that sentiment is more than pinkwashing, it should be backed up by action at home.

• Homonationalism
• Cause marketing
• LGBT marketing
• Pinkwashing (breast cancer)
• Greenwashing
• Pink capitalism
• Straightwashing
• Purplewashing
• Redwashing
• Queerbaiting

• Atshan, Sa'ed (2020). "Global Solidarity and the Politics of Pinkwashing". Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1-5036-1240-2.
• Bidaseca, Karina (2020). "Sexualizar las fronteras: Pinkwashing y homonacionalismo en Palestina e Israel". Horizontes Decoloniales / Decolonial Horizons. 6: 121–140. doi:10.13169/decohori.6.2020.0121. ISSN 2422-6343.
• Blackmer, Corinne E. (2019). "Pinkwashing". Israel Studies. 24 (2): 171. doi:10.2979/israelstudies.24.2.14.
• Byrne, Rachael (2013). "Cyber Pinkwashing: Gay Rights under Occupation". The Moral Panics of Sexuality. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 134–148. ISBN 978-1-137-35317-7.
• Dreher, Tanja (2016). "Pinkwashing the past: gay rights, military history and the sidelining of protest in Australia". Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive): 116–136.
• Hartal, Gilly (2020). "Touring and obscuring: how sensual, embodied and haptic gay touristic practices construct the geopolitics of pinkwashing". Social & Cultural Geography: 1–19. doi:10.1080/14649365.2020.1821391.
• Lake, Nadine (2021). "'Corrective Rape' and Black Lesbian Sexualities in South Africa: Negotiating the Tensions between 'Blackwashing' and 'Pinkwashing' Homophobia". The Routledge International Handbook of Social Work and Sexualities. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-34291-2.
• Luibhéid, Eithne (2018). "Same-sex marriage and the pinkwashing of state migration controls". International Feminist Journal of Politics. 20 (3): 405–424. doi:10.1080/14616742.2018.1442735.
• Ritchie, Jason (2015). "Pinkwashing, Homonationalism, and Israel-Palestine: The Conceits of Queer Theory and the Politics of the Ordinary: Pinkwashing, Homonationalism, and Israel-Palestine". Antipode. 47 (3): 616–634. doi:10.1111/anti.12100.
• Shafie, Ghadir; Chávez, Karma R. (2019). ""Pinkwashing and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Campaign", May 25, 2016". Journal of Civil and Human Rights. 5/5: 32–48. doi:10.5406/jcivihumarigh.2019.0032. ISSN 2378-4245.
• Wahab, Amar (2021). "Affective Mobilizations: Pinkwashing and Racialized Homophobia in Out There". Journal of Homosexuality. 68 (5): 849–871. doi:10.1080/00918369.2019.1667158.
• Koray Yılmaz-Günay & Salih Alexander Wolter (2018). "Pinkwashing Germany? German Homonationalism and the "Jewish Card"". The Queer Intersectional in Contemporary Germany. Psychosozial-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8379-2840-2.

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