Good Queer, Bad Queer

Pinkwashing as LGBTQ+ Citizen-Subjectification

Abstract

Since October 7, 2023, familiar heroes and villains in the long, bloody story of Palestinian struggle have reemerged in Western media narratives. Even as recycled frames once again take shape, the queer/LGBTQ+ community as a distinctive political constituency is a new(er) character in the over 75-year relationship between the United States and Israel. In this essay, I argue that The New York Times, a prominent voice in this violent history, utilizes pinkwashing as a process of permission structuring to rhetorically call forth a Good Queer citizen-subjectivity that requires the juxtaposition and erasure of the Bad Queer citizen: the queer Palestinian.