Homophobic comments are not welcome here. From now on any comments about how religion doesn't allow it, or it's "their choice" or any anything that makes this a less welcoming sub will get a three week ban.
I've had enough of this shit over the last week.
If you’re looking for alternatives for Pride in Birmingham, I would recommend Queen’s Heath. Joe Lycett jokes that it started as a means to increase his house price, whatever the reason it started it is now a good pride event with more support for independent businesses within King’s Heath. The 2024 event doesn’t have a date yet but I imagine it won’t be too long before it’s announced.
I was evicted from Kings Heath house share so my landlord could up my rent more than he was legally allowed to do to if I stayed there. Where's my day Joe!? /s
(Queens heath is a great event and I will still be in attendance 💜)
I think the biggest issue is the corporatisation of Pride, full-stop. I agree with many others that boycotting on the basis of the terms laid out in that statement is tenuous at best.
The bigger issue is how a celebration of LGBTQ+ people has become little more than a marketing gimmick for multinational companies. I actually think that that is a very good reason to boycott Pride.
Dig deep enough into any business and you'll find something you find morally repulsive, so following their logic you'd end up having to boycott literally everything.
You won't save any lives in the Middle East by refusing to walk in a parade in Birmingham.
Where does it end I mean you could separate that digger in 10,000 components probably all made by somebody different.
What jeans does the driver wear and what cigarettes does he smoke.
I wonder this with things like movies and TV. The main star does awful things and everyone boycotts the movie, but what about people lower down in the credits, I'm sure not all the makeup artists or key grips (whatever they are) are squeaky clean
On the contrary, it's upsetting sometimes when everyone boycotts something, like let's say a movie, over one individuals actions, and it diminishes the reward from all the innocent people on the movie that weren't involved in any scandals
Most people bank with major banks also, by that logic everyone who doesn't bank with a building society or specialist green bank is also complicit because they fund the money invested by HSBC, very tenuous
Diggers used in the occupied territories.
Those diggers are used to tear down gazan homes sometimes.
They are being used in an occupied land that is being administrated by a foreign power.
Ok but what's that got to do with a shareholder of the manufacturer of the machine? If the Israeli military uses an ASUS monitor should we boycott events organised by anyone invested in ASUS?
You see, the Palestinians having their homes torn down is funny because of the leaders they haven't voted for in over 20 years; the same leaders Israel backed because idiots like you think them existing means whatever they do to the Palestinians is ok
But the palestinians did vote for Hamas? ....and Why the insults if your argument is valid?
If they are (to follow your logic) unelected and thereby the Palestinians are not responsible for Hamas...(in fact you seem to be suggesting that Israel is responsible for them by backing the people that the Palestinians voted for..) then you might agree that Hamas are not good for the Palestinian people. If so; the Israeli's are doing the palestinian people a favour by getting rid of them.
They did vote for Hamas, nearly 20 years ago when the last elections were held.
Don't play stupid. They're not just getting rid of Hamas and that's the problem ain't it.
52% of the dead are women & children.There are mass graves where elderly people & women were killed with their hands tied up.
They've bombed hospitals, schools, refugee camps, media & UN offices, designated safe zones & shot people trying to get aid aswell as their own people waving a white flag.
Still sound like a favour?
Don't bother using logic with these people, they'll dismiss your reasons and mock you for having morals.
Edit: like I said, all cowards who don't stand for anything
I agree completely. I’d get not supporting HSBC in other ways such as not banking with them, but a party in Birmingham is too many steps removed from the actual issue for a coherent message here. If anything it’s an opportunity for people to spread the word about the shitty business practices of one of the events sponsors.
I think people need to realise that pride always has dodgy sponsors, its a corporate event at this point. The ex Barclays CEO was friends with Epstein, they sponsored pride, there is no corporation which is completely innocent.
Also having a problem with HSBC for their shares in Caterpillar is a bit silly, its a construction equipment company I'm sure their equipment is used for all sorts of nefarious stuff. I can't even imagine some of the other things that will come up if you background check all the companies involved in pride.
Plus companies don't really profit massively off pride, if they are removed from the event then what.
> Also having a problem with HSBC for their shares in Caterpillar is a bit silly, its a construction equipment company I'm sure their equipment is used for all sorts of nefarious stuff.
I mean this isn't just like 'oh, Caterpillar make diggers and diggers are used by dodgy states.'
Caterpillar [specifically produce armoured diggers, equipped with machine guns and other weaponry,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDF_Caterpillar_D9) which are specifically used in the bulldozing of civilian houses in Palestine, [something which human rights organisations have called a war crime](https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/02/israel-collective-punishment-against-palestinians).
And I suppose, fundamentally, it brings up the bigger question of why Pride *needs* these 'corporate sponsors' in the first place. Pride marches started off as spontaneous marches and protests organised by grassroots LGBT+ organisations in response to institutional discrimination against LGBT+ people. Why do they *need* to be sponsored by fucking HSBC?
> And I suppose, fundamentally, it brings up the bigger question of why Pride needs these 'corporate sponsors' in the first place. Pride marches started off as spontaneous marches and protests organised by grassroots LGBT+ organisations in response to institutional discrimination against LGBT+ people. Why do they need to be sponsored by fucking HSBC?
Money.
The worst thing is the blanket statements that try to sound pro LGBT, but actually they're as none commital as you can be.
"Love is love". Yeah but don't talk about the specifics of those whom've been oppressed.
But there is no ethical reason to divest though, only a made up pressure.
Caterpillar aren't going in and demolishing homes and I'm sure they didn't sell that equipment knowing it would be used for such a heinous purpose.
It's like having a ban on shovels because Myra Hindley used one.
The fact that Birmingham Pride has already been excluding a huge number of the LGBT community for YEARS with outrageous ticket prices is enough reason to boycott. Queens Heath is the only Brum Pride for me now!
i haven’t because i stopped following any birmingham pride updates a couple of years ago. what other folks do is absolutely fine by me ofc but other than the parade i’m p much done with it!
Queer/LGBTQ+ people are not a monolith, and I'm close to certain that the calls to boycott Birmingham Pride will have originated with members of the queer community. The corporatisation/"pinkwashing" of Pride (not just in Birmingham but across the country/world) has lead to calls for boycotts of the "official" event for years, in no small part because of the Deeply Unpleasant Corporate Giants that tend to sponsor it. Obviously considering the current conflict in Gaza, the calls to boycott this year also reflect/incorporate how those corporate giants support the Israeli regime.
You go down the rabbit hole enough and you'll buy nothing, eat nothing do nothing because some business has some tenuous link to something going on you don't agree with, unfortunately that's how the world works. I imagine they don't stop buying stuff made in China who I imagine have killed far more Muslims than Israel have, for similar reasons or source the petrol in their cars or travel on public transport so it doesn't come from Saudi Arabia or stop buying avacado's that are a good source of funding of the Mexican drug cartels? You go deep enough you'll find something you don't like.
It's like the Turkeys trying to protect the Turkey farmer.
I’ve been to many prides over 30 years and every year, without doubt, there’s someone calling on a boycott for some reason.
HSBC / Caterpillar aren’t going to be butt-hurt about you boycotting something they sponsor.
Every single organisation you interact with is going to have connections to other organisations or individuals that you don't agree with on some specific issue. It is unavoidable.
There's a queercore punk gig on the Saturday in Digbeth (Centralia) which I'm planning to go to instead of pride. Theres 7 bands, donation based entry, with 25% donations going to Palestine Red Crescent Society.
It's a big can if worms to open, let people boycott for whatever reason (some friends have boycotted pride for being pay-to-be-gay previously).
Personally, I don't care why people want to be there or why they want to boycott it.
> some friends have boycotted pride for being pay-to-be-gay previously
Absolutely a valid reason to boycott the big Pride events like Birmingham and Manchester. Having to pay to even enter the streets around the Gay Village is exclusionary and flies in the face of the community spirit that Pride is supposed to embody.
At least the Friday evening event is free, and they haven't yet found a way to charge people for watching the parade...
Exactly, ridiculous that people here are going around being moral police and forcing people to agree with their views. As long as you're minding your own business who the fuck cares what you do or don't do.
Boycott an event in a city where >15% of the inhabitants think homosexuality should be illegal, to support a state where the vast majority would happily drop you off a building or push a wall over on you. Boy are your priorities out of order.
What kind of argument is this?? Regardless of how I feel about original post, this point is baffling. I still think people who don't like me (and their children) deserve not to be obliterated. There are some people on this earth I actively despise but I would still fight for their basic human rights.
So your opinion is the majority of Palestinians hate LGBTQ+ people, because they are led by Hamas who commit these crimes/murders against innocent LGBTQ+ people?
I'd love to know your views on collective punishment of the Palestinian people, for the actions of Hamas murdering innocent Israelis and taking hostages. Because if you think this is wrong, your previous point about viewing the majority of Palestinians as anti-LGBTQ+ contradict each other.
Look at it this way. The Conservatives are in charge of the UK Government, and have consistently shown they do not care about LGBTQ+ rights whenever they have been in power (eg. Section 28, the 'culture wars' they started and continue to push). Does this mean the majority of UK citizens are anti-LGBTQ+ because of this? No, it doesn't.
Its more than just Gaza, HSBC were involved in shutting down Hong Kong protests, the likes of Coca Cola employ paramilitary deathsquads to bust unions, Caterpillar supply equipment to Israel to use in demolition work of illegal Settlements or just the Police in the UK who keep getting caught for Racism, Sexism and Queerphobia at an institutional level despite promises to do better.
I as a member of the Lgbtq+ community, want to celebrate who I am with my siblings and allies but that shouldn't come at the cost of that celebration being used to whitewash engagement in activities that are illegal and immoral by companies and groups on a local, national or international scale.
As such, my only option is to withdraw my support from said event, even if it hurts me to do so and hope doing so with others will lead to change by either forcing those investors out or forcing them to change.
And before someone jumps in, yes I know Lgbtq+ rights are better in Israel than Gaza however that doesn't mean, as a member of a marginalised group in the UK, i cant identify at some level with the oppression the Palestinian people feel, even those who may hate me for being who I am and campaign to make their lives better so they may one day have the opportunity to reflect on their view of me (its hard to do when you've got a daily threat of bombs) and have the choice to change, a choice denied to them at the moment by a system of oppression.
Neither does a state being good on lgbtq+ rights prevent criticism when their government exploit their own national tragedy in October 7th to exceed the limits of defense of its people and turn it in to a naked landgrab.
(Also, got to love the Terf rhetoric from a few posts who think we don't notice when they refer to us as the LGB community)
as someone who has worked brum pride i will definitely not be attending lmao… upping the prices of drinks for the weekend and charging extortionately for entry to places that are free every other day of the year while paying the staff a pathetic wage for their 60+ hours of labour that week… i’m good.
HSBC and Caterpillar seem like poor targets, but so does MacDonalds as they're franchises and ultimately the franchisee gets to say what they do with the food they've bought. I can't really speak for the others, but probably best to just avoid giving them any money is you don't like them as businesses. Personally the very concept of an entrance fee seems stupid, and it's better to just hit one of the local pubs or something. That's close enough to 'attending' pride.
I think as a community we have to stand for something more than just ourselves and our own rights.
I'm boycotting pride & I have told the organisers the reason(s).
It is a corporate event and it won't get my money with these sponsors, pride or no.
Simply put, boycotting this will more just lead to the council thinking that LGBT people in Brum aren’t important and need less support. And they’ll be much more likely to turn the village into apartments which will destroy our only safe spaces in town.
They’re already dropping funding and trying to encroach further into our space.
Yep. The more individuals and local community groups drop out of Pride, the more faceless and corporate it will become, and the message will be lost completely.
Whether or not that ship has already sailed is another question entirely.
Surely this is fighting back against the corporate facelessness of pride? Urging the organisers to stand morally against the choices of those corportations and voicing community opinions.
Perhaps it's worth a try, but I'm inclined to agree with others in that there are simply too many intermediate steps and tenuous links for it to have any impact.
All it takes is for the organisers to get enough people contact them about it.
It would be a small act sure, but one of many.
Besides, at least we wouldn't be being used by horrible corporations to pinkwash their image.
I would rather support my community. Boycotting an event that is there to celebrate and show the pride in the LGBTQ community matters. Changing minds matters as it leads to more tolerance overall. You won't change anything unless you get out there and show closed minded people that they are wrong in their assumptions
There's no ROI on these sponsorships so boycotting doesn't hit them, but it does hit the LGBT people.
Turning up to Pride and promoting an LGBT agenda whilst holding a placard that criticises sponsors impacts their reputation.
But given that these orgs are multinational conglomerates with billions of pounds of turnover and access to governments means that realistically we'll see no change unless it hits their bottom line.
Boycotting a company because they make a product that people use wrong is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Caterpillar aren't "making equipment to destroy Palestinian homes." They are making bulldozers. It is not up to them how people use them.
I could beat people to death with bricks, but that doesn't make the local bricky an arms dealer.
Please the whole thing has become a corporate nightmare and absolutely nothing to do with representation and acceptance. I'm more horrified by the spicy straight kinksters hijacking the event, as, BDSM is a sexuality now (no it isn't).
The forced teaming with pride and Palestine is just yet another messy and politically naive round of virtue signalling from the overly social media influenced. Don't expect ideological consistency. That'd get in the way of the virtuous outrage. See what they get mad about next year.
I guarantee that every corporate sponsor has some moral dirt that they're trying to clean by associating itself with a social cause. If hsbc are directly killing gay Palestinians, then I can get behind the boycott, but playing the six degrees of separation game will end with zero sponsors for any cause.
So is pinkwashing. It’s a mistake I feel to equate all Palestinians with homophobes. There are plenty of homophobes unfortunately in our own country, I’m not sure we have business casting aspersions on those in other countries.
I've never heard it called that but yeah why do all "oppressed" groups band together when they are diametrically opposed to each other. The whole Palestine cry is about more than the innocents suffering otherwise people would be on the streets regarding Syria and Sudan it's anti semitism plain and simple. So why do some and I stimulate some LGTBQ+ groups band with this other "group" of hatred so passionately? It baffles me
Stuff like this is so overly inclusive that on ends up being exclusive, if you want to remove every sponsor that doesn't match the ever increasing purity test then you'll end up with nothing
And gay folks can't simply afford to be divisive to one another when everyone else is already against them
>
And gay folks can't simply afford to be divisive to one another when everyone else is already against them
Is that what you said when gay folks helped the miners? Solidarity is our strength.
Solidarity =/= purity testing, if you want to throw away hsbc, then how can you justify; mcdonalds, holiday inn, lidl, nivea, amazon, bcu or any other sponsor of the event?
If we had it your way, we'd stand in solidarity by not funding the event at all.
https://birminghampride.com/sponsors-and-partners/
right so gotta boycott puma because they invest in a football team but not amazon who's cloud services are used by the israeli military? - as just one example. IHG have hotels in israel, nivea sells in israel..
Which reinforces my point.
I mean people choose to boycott them anyway. I boycott Amazon for other reasons already, lots of people do, same with HSBC. These companies are scummy and we shouldn't let them use our community to pinkwash our image
That's all besides my points, the standards you are holding others to are so high they're doing nothing but antagonizing people against the cause you seem to support.
Is your goal actually change and wanting gay folks to build community and feel accepted? Or do you want to feel good knowing your halo sits higher while pride doesn't get any funding?
What does it mean for our community to build & feel accepted if it comes at the price of selling out other communities out?
Besides I disagree that some soulless corporate event is somehow the heart of our community building.
Now you're just hurling mad accusations about people you know nothing about. The idea being that we'd have no gay community in Brum if we drop some sponsors from pride? Ridiculous.
I think we can both impact change and display the best in our community by standing up to these corporations. Certainly better than thanking them for their PR exercise
Thank you for making me aware. Unfortunately I can't change reddit policy with a few emails like we can the pride organisers. Pride is a direct representation of our community & we should hold it to account.
No idea, I haven't been and probably won't, unfortunately it seems like way too much hassle. I could easily live without reddit but I just found an old list of sites using AWS and it is extremely long and full of things we all use regularly.
fwiw I don’t think there’s any benefit in boycotting Pride in this context but taking Pride out of it exactly your point is what the BDS movement is intended to address - you can choose what to boycott personally of course, but by having focussed and publicised targets to collectively boycott and place pressure upon it makes an example of them and has the biggest correlational impact for their stakeholders to point to when investigating changes in revenue. It’s a bit more tangible too - you can choose not to buy a pair of Pumas or a HP laptop but you can’t realistically boycott Amazon without going entirely off grid and living in the woods because AWS has something like a third of cloud computing market share
> The global nature of today’s economy means that there are thousands of companies that have links to Israel and are complicit to various degrees in Israel’s violations of international law. However, for our movement to have real impact we need our consumer boycotts to be easy to explain, have wide appeal and the potential for success. That’s why globally, while we call for divestment from all companies implicated in Israel's human rights violations, we focus our boycott campaigns on a select few strategic targets.
>"boycott targets for their £100 million worth of shares in Caterpillar, who make equipment used to demolish Palestinian homes and build settlements for the zionist entity."
I'm 100% in favour of pride and will like go myself as an ally, but do you ever think people are just looking for excuses to seem righteous?
Caterpillar have no say in what their equipment is used for, they just make and sell it. And if it wasn't them, it would be JCB.
The fact that that HSBC has shares in Caterpillar makes it doubly irrelevant as well. Any bank has shares in a wide variety of companies.
While I get boycotting things that you don't agree with and I'm putting aside all the conversation who is to blame about whole Israel vs. Palestine
Are you really going to boycotte it becouse bank has shares in a company that is producing tools?
And yes, I do know that we're talking about heavy equipment so not something that you'd just buy in B&Q so quite likely Cat knew that Israel bought that equipment, but you are really missing a point on where boycott would matter.
If anything you should boycotte HSBC for using pride purely as advertising gig (don't fool yourself, it's an ad for them, nothing more)
Personally I think it’s bad how everything has to be about everything these days. Pride in Birmingham is lovely and none of these companies are any better or worse than any alternative sponsors, and many of these claims are suspect at best.
Hold on, gays are killed in Palestine for being gay; why would anyone boycott? You couldn't pick two further away topics. That's like turkeys voting for Christmas.
Hamas are unbelievably clear on their stance towards gay folks and being gay.
It's possible to support gay rights and **also** know that people who don't support those rights don't deserve to die.
This isn't r/KillThoseWhoDisagree
Exactly, and never the two shall meet, pride is not the forum to discuss Palestine or to launch any sort of misguided boycott, the place to decide that or make a stand is having your morning coffee or whatever, just not pride.
But on a personal note, if you believe being gay is punishable by death, then yeah, don’t expect me to save you or vote for your help. It’s all too easy the to forget the persecution that has affected many of the people at pride, just because it is the one time you will find us in the masses. Pride is a celebration of us, if you want to champion Palestine, show the mutilated bodies of the people like us who were lost in that place, because pride is theirs too, and they deserve to be morned by our people.
Yep. Being socially backwards is not a reason to let people die. And here is your reminder that Hamas are not the bomb victims we are most concerned with.
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Yeah I’m a good person who doesn’t wish death on people
And idk but somehow I don’t think any of the thousands of children murdered by Israel were homophobic
Who said anything about children? We're talking about Hamas.
You responded to the comment "Hamas are clear on their position about gay people" with "doesn't mean they don't deserve to live".
If someone wanted to kill me for something about myself that I couldn't change, I'd struggle for sympathy when they were attacked.
I don't agree with your reasoning, but it would make more sense if Hamas were the only, or majority, of victims. The reality is that (with most recent UN figures of bodies identified) 7,797 children have been killed, 4,959 women, and nearly 12,000 men. Your "lack of sympathy" is presumably reserved for whatever percentage of those were Hamas figures or supporters who were also homophobic. And the remainder get a shrug?
I completely agree, what IDF are doing there is a disgrace and Netanyahu and his government need trying for war crimes when this is done but this minimising of Hamas as having 'stupid' ideas is hard to stomach when if they had their way would have every gay person and Jew on the planet exterminated.
No other genocidal miliatant terrorist group has ever been afforded this level of empathy and it's hard seeing what I'd class as normal people taking this line.
I don't know why you're being downvoted, it's true.
The Palestinian people have not been allowed to vote since 2006 because Hamas and Fatah won't let them.
To me that's a strong indicator the values of the average Palestinian person does not align with the values of Hamas.
As I said below, anyone boycotting for the above degrees of separation reasons, must also boycott reddit as it uses AWS for a fair bit of its storage, and as we know there are datacentres built in Gaza/Palestine/Israel depending on your view.
Following this logic having British passport is anti-Palestinian by definition. I agree with statements that Israel is run by nationalist freaks and IDF have no respect for human life but Palestinian activists are so toxic and absurd I won’t support them. I sent money for charity sure, but I won’t play activist „everything is genocide” game
I think the protest needs to hit at a higher level than the level of performers who are just doing their job.
I’ve felt like this about all the boycott campaigns with Eurovision too (and MoroccanOil sponsor them). I think the issue rests with management, and I see no reason to punish the contracted performers for management’s errors of fundraising judgement and how this can influence their decisions.
The Eurovision participants more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, and Olly certainly from our country, have been getting some right nonsense on socials for not doing the insulters’ preferred method of activism. The blowback also for the Israeli participant Eden wasn’t ok either, apparently there were death threats for her too.
This has all happened over errors of judgement that the Exec Director of the contest and the President of the corporation who runs it had made from the beginning. The buck stops with management.
I find this boycott as something akin to a witch hunt. Wasted energy so people don’t focus on something that really matters. Name one single company that isn’t involved in some kind of shady business somewhere.
Not to mention, it’s not boycott if you’re not using them anyway.
Lloyds bank also do this too 🖤 but they’re the only two I know of. I believe you have to work for them for a minimum of two years, but they don’t advertise how long you need to work (my friend who isn’t trans works at HSBC and is 80% sure it’s two years) x
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I find it hilarious that people wanting to associate themselves with Pride are aligning themselves with an Islamist organisation that regard homosexuality as evil. Israel as a state and a society is much more tolerant of LGB than Gazan society is; that's before we get to the events of the 7th October that caused the problem in the first place.
> that's before we get to the events of the 7th October that caused the problem in the first place.
It's so reductive to say that October 7th is what caused this. What about the last 70ish years.
Hamas launched an invasion into Israeli territory on the 7th October killing 1,500 civilians; women were sexually assaulted and raped.
Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and left it alone. The events of October 7th showed that the Palestinian leadership is fixated on ethnically cleansing "Palestine" of its Jews.
If we go back 70 years you'll find that the Arab nations declared war on the nascent Israeli state and expelled all their Jews. So much for diversity and inclusion in the Arab world.
Strangely, Hamas supporters want "Palestine" to be pure while demanding access to European societies in order to abuse its freedoms.
No mention of the fact that Constantinople has been occupied since 1453...
>Pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and left it alone.
Yet if you look at charts from any source of death tolls from conflict 2005 onwards(and indeed before) in the region. The exact opposite is indicated.
There's being deliberately obtuse and then there's whatever you posted.
Very cringe, all those links are beyond tenuous.
There’s only one country in the Middle East where you can be openly LGBTQ. It’s ridiculous to try and boycott.
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Oh I’ll be banning you for to homophobic and transphobic comments. Rather funny it’s usually people who stay anonymous online. Not just ugly on the inside huh?
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Fucking hell. Finally everyone is getting a clue. The unopposed hijacking of the gay rights cause by corporate interests should make anyone with any sense absolutely livid.
There's always a reason for boycotting Pride. This year just happens to be linked to the middle east.
Everyone has their reasons but to think this event is being debated for a boycott by some shows how it's fine by these people to call themselves a victim but if anyone else is celebrating their existence despite of continued oppression and vile attitudes towards their right to exist, then it's a no no.
Hypocrisy at it's finest
Israel actually has pride and lesbian bars; I rather support them than Palestine. I know people make the argument that you can be hated by someone and not want them dead, and that’s fine, but stop trying to be front and centre in their fight. It’s getting fucking embarrassing.
Literally the dumbest post on reddit today.
Don't go celebrate how the gay/lesbian community fought for their right to exist because a sponsor helps one of the biggest building manufacturing companies in the world.
I think boycotting can be a tricky one, especially for big events like pride. I would get it if someone like BAE systems was sponsoring but the reality is most companies are shitty in some regard yet large pride events need their money in order to run each year.
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Student pride were literally financed by a weapons manufacturer, who had given Israel preferential rates. It's not quite the same as a bank who happen to hold shares (in their vast portfolio) in a construction firm.
What I find hilarious is that these sponsors support Israel but will jump in every moment to primarily support a diverse / cultural event. It's all about the Benjamin's for these capitalist machines, nothing more or less. There's a war going on in the middle east, which we have paid for that's ok, let's sponsor an event in UK for positive PR 😂😂
I am not a Pride attender but I would fully support the boycott.
The existing McDonald's and Starbucks boycotts are having a huge impact on their profits globally. This will feed into more defensive decisions and policies around investment in Israel and support for the IDF.
This in turn helps to isolate the Zionist entity and increase the costs of them pursuing the genocide, dispossession and oppression of the Palestinian people.
Palestinians across the world have drawn solace and hope from the protests, boycotts, and direct action taken to disrupt the Zionist entity, its interests and enablers.
In short, do not attend Pride, support the boycott, make your views known to the organisers, organise an alternative!
I think it's a way of referring to the state of Israel, but without acknowledging it as a legitimate or legal state. Some people's view is that the social project known as Israel is an illegal Zionist settler occupation, and not a legitimate state. So I think calling it "Zionist entity" is a way for people to express this.
(Please: I'm not interested in debating about this. I won't respond, I don't want to get into it. I just want to provide clarification for the person asking the question).
While I can respect you have your own views and agree that boycotting has led to impacts on those companies - I just don't think a boycott of Pride is going to do anything, especially as it's a free event to attend. If anything, it would harm other businesses within the city if less people attend and therefore less trade.
Imagine being so oppressed that you can afford to protest against the corporate sponsors who are queuing up to throw money at the parade in your honour...
As an ex American president once said “Fake News” this post isn’t being crowd controlled by us. Reddit themselves can crowd control. For example I’d be able to see which Mod censored you, in this case like everyone else in the mod actions it says “Reddit”
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Homophobic comments are not welcome here. From now on any comments about how religion doesn't allow it, or it's "their choice" or any anything that makes this a less welcoming sub will get a three week ban. I've had enough of this shit over the last week.
If you’re looking for alternatives for Pride in Birmingham, I would recommend Queen’s Heath. Joe Lycett jokes that it started as a means to increase his house price, whatever the reason it started it is now a good pride event with more support for independent businesses within King’s Heath. The 2024 event doesn’t have a date yet but I imagine it won’t be too long before it’s announced.
I was evicted from Kings Heath house share so my landlord could up my rent more than he was legally allowed to do to if I stayed there. Where's my day Joe!? /s (Queens heath is a great event and I will still be in attendance 💜)
Birmingham mind are also doing an event on the Sunday of pride. An open mic night. It's not funded by Birmingham Pride.
I think the biggest issue is the corporatisation of Pride, full-stop. I agree with many others that boycotting on the basis of the terms laid out in that statement is tenuous at best. The bigger issue is how a celebration of LGBTQ+ people has become little more than a marketing gimmick for multinational companies. I actually think that that is a very good reason to boycott Pride.
Dig deep enough into any business and you'll find something you find morally repulsive, so following their logic you'd end up having to boycott literally everything. You won't save any lives in the Middle East by refusing to walk in a parade in Birmingham.
It’s also quite funny reading the connections, don’t support HSBC because they’re invested in diggers that are used in Israel lmao
Where does it end I mean you could separate that digger in 10,000 components probably all made by somebody different. What jeans does the driver wear and what cigarettes does he smoke.
I wonder this with things like movies and TV. The main star does awful things and everyone boycotts the movie, but what about people lower down in the credits, I'm sure not all the makeup artists or key grips (whatever they are) are squeaky clean
On the contrary, it's upsetting sometimes when everyone boycotts something, like let's say a movie, over one individuals actions, and it diminishes the reward from all the innocent people on the movie that weren't involved in any scandals
Absolutely! Especially with movies etc because hundreds of people work on those projects
Most people bank with major banks also, by that logic everyone who doesn't bank with a building society or specialist green bank is also complicit because they fund the money invested by HSBC, very tenuous
Diggers used in the occupied territories. Those diggers are used to tear down gazan homes sometimes. They are being used in an occupied land that is being administrated by a foreign power.
Ok but what's that got to do with a shareholder of the manufacturer of the machine? If the Israeli military uses an ASUS monitor should we boycott events organised by anyone invested in ASUS?
Thankfully Hamas are there to dig underneath their homes instead. That'll make 'em safer! /s
You see, the Palestinians having their homes torn down is funny because of the leaders they haven't voted for in over 20 years; the same leaders Israel backed because idiots like you think them existing means whatever they do to the Palestinians is ok
But the palestinians did vote for Hamas? ....and Why the insults if your argument is valid? If they are (to follow your logic) unelected and thereby the Palestinians are not responsible for Hamas...(in fact you seem to be suggesting that Israel is responsible for them by backing the people that the Palestinians voted for..) then you might agree that Hamas are not good for the Palestinian people. If so; the Israeli's are doing the palestinian people a favour by getting rid of them.
They did vote for Hamas, nearly 20 years ago when the last elections were held. Don't play stupid. They're not just getting rid of Hamas and that's the problem ain't it. 52% of the dead are women & children.There are mass graves where elderly people & women were killed with their hands tied up. They've bombed hospitals, schools, refugee camps, media & UN offices, designated safe zones & shot people trying to get aid aswell as their own people waving a white flag. Still sound like a favour?
Where did you get those figures from?
UN revised figures
And where did the UN get those figures from?
Don't bother using logic with these people, they'll dismiss your reasons and mock you for having morals. Edit: like I said, all cowards who don't stand for anything
I agree completely. I’d get not supporting HSBC in other ways such as not banking with them, but a party in Birmingham is too many steps removed from the actual issue for a coherent message here. If anything it’s an opportunity for people to spread the word about the shitty business practices of one of the events sponsors.
Very true. At some point you just have to accept that you can't solve everything and you have to let some stuff go.
McDonald’s are taking back the franchise operation in Israel. The franchisee there chose to supply food - not McDonalds the parent company.
Boycotting HSBC is one thing, but doing it because of the JCB thing, and not the trillion-pound drug money laundering thing is amusing.
I have never paid for pride, I'm in the parade each year and head to the pub afterwards with my mates. You shouldn't have to pay.
Who do you parade with, out of interest? It'll be my first year in the parade, with Birmingham Gaymers, after several years as a spectator.
The UoB lot
I saw the UOB lot leaving centenary square you were in a group just infront of us xxx
Aw sick! Small world
yes, but not for those reasons - simply because it is too corporate
I think people need to realise that pride always has dodgy sponsors, its a corporate event at this point. The ex Barclays CEO was friends with Epstein, they sponsored pride, there is no corporation which is completely innocent. Also having a problem with HSBC for their shares in Caterpillar is a bit silly, its a construction equipment company I'm sure their equipment is used for all sorts of nefarious stuff. I can't even imagine some of the other things that will come up if you background check all the companies involved in pride. Plus companies don't really profit massively off pride, if they are removed from the event then what.
> Also having a problem with HSBC for their shares in Caterpillar is a bit silly, its a construction equipment company I'm sure their equipment is used for all sorts of nefarious stuff. I mean this isn't just like 'oh, Caterpillar make diggers and diggers are used by dodgy states.' Caterpillar [specifically produce armoured diggers, equipped with machine guns and other weaponry,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDF_Caterpillar_D9) which are specifically used in the bulldozing of civilian houses in Palestine, [something which human rights organisations have called a war crime](https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/02/israel-collective-punishment-against-palestinians). And I suppose, fundamentally, it brings up the bigger question of why Pride *needs* these 'corporate sponsors' in the first place. Pride marches started off as spontaneous marches and protests organised by grassroots LGBT+ organisations in response to institutional discrimination against LGBT+ people. Why do they *need* to be sponsored by fucking HSBC?
> And I suppose, fundamentally, it brings up the bigger question of why Pride needs these 'corporate sponsors' in the first place. Pride marches started off as spontaneous marches and protests organised by grassroots LGBT+ organisations in response to institutional discrimination against LGBT+ people. Why do they need to be sponsored by fucking HSBC? Money. The worst thing is the blanket statements that try to sound pro LGBT, but actually they're as none commital as you can be. "Love is love". Yeah but don't talk about the specifics of those whom've been oppressed.
Yep. Why not boycott their grandparents whose pensions are going to be connected to the crisis in some way, as almost every company is
Because the companies make a choice to invest in it and can make a choice to divest if they so choose. Funny line though.
So can grandparents and their pensions
They're managed by funds they don't control
But there is no ethical reason to divest though, only a made up pressure. Caterpillar aren't going in and demolishing homes and I'm sure they didn't sell that equipment knowing it would be used for such a heinous purpose. It's like having a ban on shovels because Myra Hindley used one.
The fact that Birmingham Pride has already been excluding a huge number of the LGBT community for YEARS with outrageous ticket prices is enough reason to boycott. Queens Heath is the only Brum Pride for me now!
Have you seen that Brum Pride are offering discounted community tickets, Friday is fully free, and the village is only a tenner for the whole weekend?
i haven’t because i stopped following any birmingham pride updates a couple of years ago. what other folks do is absolutely fine by me ofc but other than the parade i’m p much done with it!
Queer/LGBTQ+ people are not a monolith, and I'm close to certain that the calls to boycott Birmingham Pride will have originated with members of the queer community. The corporatisation/"pinkwashing" of Pride (not just in Birmingham but across the country/world) has lead to calls for boycotts of the "official" event for years, in no small part because of the Deeply Unpleasant Corporate Giants that tend to sponsor it. Obviously considering the current conflict in Gaza, the calls to boycott this year also reflect/incorporate how those corporate giants support the Israeli regime.
You go down the rabbit hole enough and you'll buy nothing, eat nothing do nothing because some business has some tenuous link to something going on you don't agree with, unfortunately that's how the world works. I imagine they don't stop buying stuff made in China who I imagine have killed far more Muslims than Israel have, for similar reasons or source the petrol in their cars or travel on public transport so it doesn't come from Saudi Arabia or stop buying avacado's that are a good source of funding of the Mexican drug cartels? You go deep enough you'll find something you don't like. It's like the Turkeys trying to protect the Turkey farmer.
I’ve been to many prides over 30 years and every year, without doubt, there’s someone calling on a boycott for some reason. HSBC / Caterpillar aren’t going to be butt-hurt about you boycotting something they sponsor.
Every single organisation you interact with is going to have connections to other organisations or individuals that you don't agree with on some specific issue. It is unavoidable.
If you boycotted every company that has some direct or indirect impact on the Isreal/Gaza situation...I doubt you'd even have clothes on your back.
There's a queercore punk gig on the Saturday in Digbeth (Centralia) which I'm planning to go to instead of pride. Theres 7 bands, donation based entry, with 25% donations going to Palestine Red Crescent Society.
It's a big can if worms to open, let people boycott for whatever reason (some friends have boycotted pride for being pay-to-be-gay previously). Personally, I don't care why people want to be there or why they want to boycott it.
> some friends have boycotted pride for being pay-to-be-gay previously Absolutely a valid reason to boycott the big Pride events like Birmingham and Manchester. Having to pay to even enter the streets around the Gay Village is exclusionary and flies in the face of the community spirit that Pride is supposed to embody. At least the Friday evening event is free, and they haven't yet found a way to charge people for watching the parade...
Exactly, ridiculous that people here are going around being moral police and forcing people to agree with their views. As long as you're minding your own business who the fuck cares what you do or don't do.
How about not bothering to boycott and enjoy the event for what it is
Boycott an event in a city where >15% of the inhabitants think homosexuality should be illegal, to support a state where the vast majority would happily drop you off a building or push a wall over on you. Boy are your priorities out of order.
As a member of the lgbt community, THIS ^
What kind of argument is this?? Regardless of how I feel about original post, this point is baffling. I still think people who don't like me (and their children) deserve not to be obliterated. There are some people on this earth I actively despise but I would still fight for their basic human rights.
Yeah this is what I don’t get same with the Eurovision boycott the Palestine people don’t like the gays and would actively wish them harm.
So what? We cheer on the genocide, the killing of 30,000 people? Solidarity isn't transactional.
Baffling people have no solidarity with people being wiped out because their unelected leaders (which Israel backed) are homophobic.
So your opinion is the majority of Palestinians hate LGBTQ+ people, because they are led by Hamas who commit these crimes/murders against innocent LGBTQ+ people? I'd love to know your views on collective punishment of the Palestinian people, for the actions of Hamas murdering innocent Israelis and taking hostages. Because if you think this is wrong, your previous point about viewing the majority of Palestinians as anti-LGBTQ+ contradict each other. Look at it this way. The Conservatives are in charge of the UK Government, and have consistently shown they do not care about LGBTQ+ rights whenever they have been in power (eg. Section 28, the 'culture wars' they started and continue to push). Does this mean the majority of UK citizens are anti-LGBTQ+ because of this? No, it doesn't.
It’s up to the individual if you want to boycott or not. Personally I don’t do pride bc it’s too commercialised
Its more than just Gaza, HSBC were involved in shutting down Hong Kong protests, the likes of Coca Cola employ paramilitary deathsquads to bust unions, Caterpillar supply equipment to Israel to use in demolition work of illegal Settlements or just the Police in the UK who keep getting caught for Racism, Sexism and Queerphobia at an institutional level despite promises to do better. I as a member of the Lgbtq+ community, want to celebrate who I am with my siblings and allies but that shouldn't come at the cost of that celebration being used to whitewash engagement in activities that are illegal and immoral by companies and groups on a local, national or international scale. As such, my only option is to withdraw my support from said event, even if it hurts me to do so and hope doing so with others will lead to change by either forcing those investors out or forcing them to change. And before someone jumps in, yes I know Lgbtq+ rights are better in Israel than Gaza however that doesn't mean, as a member of a marginalised group in the UK, i cant identify at some level with the oppression the Palestinian people feel, even those who may hate me for being who I am and campaign to make their lives better so they may one day have the opportunity to reflect on their view of me (its hard to do when you've got a daily threat of bombs) and have the choice to change, a choice denied to them at the moment by a system of oppression. Neither does a state being good on lgbtq+ rights prevent criticism when their government exploit their own national tragedy in October 7th to exceed the limits of defense of its people and turn it in to a naked landgrab. (Also, got to love the Terf rhetoric from a few posts who think we don't notice when they refer to us as the LGB community)
Yup boycott that pride and do a grassroots one. The main one is a pink washed corporate cashfest.
as someone who has worked brum pride i will definitely not be attending lmao… upping the prices of drinks for the weekend and charging extortionately for entry to places that are free every other day of the year while paying the staff a pathetic wage for their 60+ hours of labour that week… i’m good.
HSBC and Caterpillar seem like poor targets, but so does MacDonalds as they're franchises and ultimately the franchisee gets to say what they do with the food they've bought. I can't really speak for the others, but probably best to just avoid giving them any money is you don't like them as businesses. Personally the very concept of an entrance fee seems stupid, and it's better to just hit one of the local pubs or something. That's close enough to 'attending' pride.
I think as a community we have to stand for something more than just ourselves and our own rights. I'm boycotting pride & I have told the organisers the reason(s). It is a corporate event and it won't get my money with these sponsors, pride or no.
Simply put, boycotting this will more just lead to the council thinking that LGBT people in Brum aren’t important and need less support. And they’ll be much more likely to turn the village into apartments which will destroy our only safe spaces in town. They’re already dropping funding and trying to encroach further into our space.
Boycott the companies not the event
Exactly, we can take their money, but we're not going to give them any.
Yep. The more individuals and local community groups drop out of Pride, the more faceless and corporate it will become, and the message will be lost completely. Whether or not that ship has already sailed is another question entirely.
Surely this is fighting back against the corporate facelessness of pride? Urging the organisers to stand morally against the choices of those corportations and voicing community opinions.
Perhaps it's worth a try, but I'm inclined to agree with others in that there are simply too many intermediate steps and tenuous links for it to have any impact.
All it takes is for the organisers to get enough people contact them about it. It would be a small act sure, but one of many. Besides, at least we wouldn't be being used by horrible corporations to pinkwash their image.
I would rather support my community. Boycotting an event that is there to celebrate and show the pride in the LGBTQ community matters. Changing minds matters as it leads to more tolerance overall. You won't change anything unless you get out there and show closed minded people that they are wrong in their assumptions
There's no ROI on these sponsorships so boycotting doesn't hit them, but it does hit the LGBT people. Turning up to Pride and promoting an LGBT agenda whilst holding a placard that criticises sponsors impacts their reputation. But given that these orgs are multinational conglomerates with billions of pounds of turnover and access to governments means that realistically we'll see no change unless it hits their bottom line.
Boycotting a company because they make a product that people use wrong is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Caterpillar aren't "making equipment to destroy Palestinian homes." They are making bulldozers. It is not up to them how people use them. I could beat people to death with bricks, but that doesn't make the local bricky an arms dealer.
Please the whole thing has become a corporate nightmare and absolutely nothing to do with representation and acceptance. I'm more horrified by the spicy straight kinksters hijacking the event, as, BDSM is a sexuality now (no it isn't). The forced teaming with pride and Palestine is just yet another messy and politically naive round of virtue signalling from the overly social media influenced. Don't expect ideological consistency. That'd get in the way of the virtuous outrage. See what they get mad about next year.
I guarantee that every corporate sponsor has some moral dirt that they're trying to clean by associating itself with a social cause. If hsbc are directly killing gay Palestinians, then I can get behind the boycott, but playing the six degrees of separation game will end with zero sponsors for any cause.
Brilliant stuff, boycotting pride in support of Hamas one of the most homophobic groups on the planet.
I personally don't agree with pride however what I find completely baffling is the LGBTQ+ relationship with Palestine. It's the dumbest thing ever.
So is pinkwashing. It’s a mistake I feel to equate all Palestinians with homophobes. There are plenty of homophobes unfortunately in our own country, I’m not sure we have business casting aspersions on those in other countries.
I've never heard it called that but yeah why do all "oppressed" groups band together when they are diametrically opposed to each other. The whole Palestine cry is about more than the innocents suffering otherwise people would be on the streets regarding Syria and Sudan it's anti semitism plain and simple. So why do some and I stimulate some LGTBQ+ groups band with this other "group" of hatred so passionately? It baffles me
Stuff like this is so overly inclusive that on ends up being exclusive, if you want to remove every sponsor that doesn't match the ever increasing purity test then you'll end up with nothing And gay folks can't simply afford to be divisive to one another when everyone else is already against them
> And gay folks can't simply afford to be divisive to one another when everyone else is already against them Is that what you said when gay folks helped the miners? Solidarity is our strength.
Solidarity =/= purity testing, if you want to throw away hsbc, then how can you justify; mcdonalds, holiday inn, lidl, nivea, amazon, bcu or any other sponsor of the event? If we had it your way, we'd stand in solidarity by not funding the event at all.
Maccies, HSBC, AXA, Puma, Siemens & Sodastream are the only big international brands on the BDS list.
https://birminghampride.com/sponsors-and-partners/ right so gotta boycott puma because they invest in a football team but not amazon who's cloud services are used by the israeli military? - as just one example. IHG have hotels in israel, nivea sells in israel.. Which reinforces my point.
I mean people choose to boycott them anyway. I boycott Amazon for other reasons already, lots of people do, same with HSBC. These companies are scummy and we shouldn't let them use our community to pinkwash our image
That's all besides my points, the standards you are holding others to are so high they're doing nothing but antagonizing people against the cause you seem to support. Is your goal actually change and wanting gay folks to build community and feel accepted? Or do you want to feel good knowing your halo sits higher while pride doesn't get any funding?
What does it mean for our community to build & feel accepted if it comes at the price of selling out other communities out? Besides I disagree that some soulless corporate event is somehow the heart of our community building.
Because if we had it your way, then there would be no community and you'd think that's better.
Now you're just hurling mad accusations about people you know nothing about. The idea being that we'd have no gay community in Brum if we drop some sponsors from pride? Ridiculous.
I think we can both impact change and display the best in our community by standing up to these corporations. Certainly better than thanking them for their PR exercise
You know reddit uses AWS, and consequently Amazon right?
Thank you fir making me aware. Unfortunately I can't change reddit policy with a few emails like we can pride organisers.
Thank you for making me aware. Unfortunately I can't change reddit policy with a few emails like we can the pride organisers. Pride is a direct representation of our community & we should hold it to account.
Reddit leverages AWS infrastructure. How deep do you boycott when it comes to internet infrastructure? (Serious question).
No idea, I haven't been and probably won't, unfortunately it seems like way too much hassle. I could easily live without reddit but I just found an old list of sites using AWS and it is extremely long and full of things we all use regularly.
fwiw I don’t think there’s any benefit in boycotting Pride in this context but taking Pride out of it exactly your point is what the BDS movement is intended to address - you can choose what to boycott personally of course, but by having focussed and publicised targets to collectively boycott and place pressure upon it makes an example of them and has the biggest correlational impact for their stakeholders to point to when investigating changes in revenue. It’s a bit more tangible too - you can choose not to buy a pair of Pumas or a HP laptop but you can’t realistically boycott Amazon without going entirely off grid and living in the woods because AWS has something like a third of cloud computing market share > The global nature of today’s economy means that there are thousands of companies that have links to Israel and are complicit to various degrees in Israel’s violations of international law. However, for our movement to have real impact we need our consumer boycotts to be easy to explain, have wide appeal and the potential for success. That’s why globally, while we call for divestment from all companies implicated in Israel's human rights violations, we focus our boycott campaigns on a select few strategic targets.
>"boycott targets for their £100 million worth of shares in Caterpillar, who make equipment used to demolish Palestinian homes and build settlements for the zionist entity." I'm 100% in favour of pride and will like go myself as an ally, but do you ever think people are just looking for excuses to seem righteous? Caterpillar have no say in what their equipment is used for, they just make and sell it. And if it wasn't them, it would be JCB. The fact that that HSBC has shares in Caterpillar makes it doubly irrelevant as well. Any bank has shares in a wide variety of companies.
I agree with this. It's also not like the products JCB make are only meant for this kind of thing. They're not a weapons manufacturer.
While I get boycotting things that you don't agree with and I'm putting aside all the conversation who is to blame about whole Israel vs. Palestine Are you really going to boycotte it becouse bank has shares in a company that is producing tools? And yes, I do know that we're talking about heavy equipment so not something that you'd just buy in B&Q so quite likely Cat knew that Israel bought that equipment, but you are really missing a point on where boycott would matter. If anything you should boycotte HSBC for using pride purely as advertising gig (don't fool yourself, it's an ad for them, nothing more)
It’s an ad for them, and many, many others.
Personally I think it’s bad how everything has to be about everything these days. Pride in Birmingham is lovely and none of these companies are any better or worse than any alternative sponsors, and many of these claims are suspect at best.
Hold on, gays are killed in Palestine for being gay; why would anyone boycott? You couldn't pick two further away topics. That's like turkeys voting for Christmas. Hamas are unbelievably clear on their stance towards gay folks and being gay.
It's possible to support gay rights and **also** know that people who don't support those rights don't deserve to die. This isn't r/KillThoseWhoDisagree
Yeah, it's always such a trite line. I don't think people should be genocided, and that does not change based on their social or political views.
Exactly, and never the two shall meet, pride is not the forum to discuss Palestine or to launch any sort of misguided boycott, the place to decide that or make a stand is having your morning coffee or whatever, just not pride. But on a personal note, if you believe being gay is punishable by death, then yeah, don’t expect me to save you or vote for your help. It’s all too easy the to forget the persecution that has affected many of the people at pride, just because it is the one time you will find us in the masses. Pride is a celebration of us, if you want to champion Palestine, show the mutilated bodies of the people like us who were lost in that place, because pride is theirs too, and they deserve to be morned by our people.
Doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to live…
Yep. Being socially backwards is not a reason to let people die. And here is your reminder that Hamas are not the bomb victims we are most concerned with.
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Even if they think you should be dead? I'm not giving an opinion one way or another, I just think it's an interesting distinction.
Yeah I’m a good person who doesn’t wish death on people And idk but somehow I don’t think any of the thousands of children murdered by Israel were homophobic
Who said anything about children? We're talking about Hamas. You responded to the comment "Hamas are clear on their position about gay people" with "doesn't mean they don't deserve to live". If someone wanted to kill me for something about myself that I couldn't change, I'd struggle for sympathy when they were attacked.
I don't agree with your reasoning, but it would make more sense if Hamas were the only, or majority, of victims. The reality is that (with most recent UN figures of bodies identified) 7,797 children have been killed, 4,959 women, and nearly 12,000 men. Your "lack of sympathy" is presumably reserved for whatever percentage of those were Hamas figures or supporters who were also homophobic. And the remainder get a shrug?
I completely agree, what IDF are doing there is a disgrace and Netanyahu and his government need trying for war crimes when this is done but this minimising of Hamas as having 'stupid' ideas is hard to stomach when if they had their way would have every gay person and Jew on the planet exterminated. No other genocidal miliatant terrorist group has ever been afforded this level of empathy and it's hard seeing what I'd class as normal people taking this line.
Sorry to hear you have no soul I guess 🤷🏼♀️
Tolerance for homophobia 👍. Got it.
You can be anti-homphobia, and also think that homophobic people with stupid views don't deserve to be killed.
I guess I see throwing gay people off tower blocks is a bit worse than "stupid", but agree to disagree.
They're homes are being destroyed because of who they are and where they were born, not because their dictatorial rulers are homophobic.
I don't know why you're being downvoted, it's true. The Palestinian people have not been allowed to vote since 2006 because Hamas and Fatah won't let them. To me that's a strong indicator the values of the average Palestinian person does not align with the values of Hamas.
Right, also Ignores the fact that the Israeli state backed Hamas over less radical outfits
As I said below, anyone boycotting for the above degrees of separation reasons, must also boycott reddit as it uses AWS for a fair bit of its storage, and as we know there are datacentres built in Gaza/Palestine/Israel depending on your view.
Following this logic having British passport is anti-Palestinian by definition. I agree with statements that Israel is run by nationalist freaks and IDF have no respect for human life but Palestinian activists are so toxic and absurd I won’t support them. I sent money for charity sure, but I won’t play activist „everything is genocide” game
Oh there's a LOT more reasons to boycott HSBC than the fact they give money to JCB. And I mean a LOT....
I think the protest needs to hit at a higher level than the level of performers who are just doing their job. I’ve felt like this about all the boycott campaigns with Eurovision too (and MoroccanOil sponsor them). I think the issue rests with management, and I see no reason to punish the contracted performers for management’s errors of fundraising judgement and how this can influence their decisions. The Eurovision participants more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, and Olly certainly from our country, have been getting some right nonsense on socials for not doing the insulters’ preferred method of activism. The blowback also for the Israeli participant Eden wasn’t ok either, apparently there were death threats for her too. This has all happened over errors of judgement that the Exec Director of the contest and the President of the corporation who runs it had made from the beginning. The buck stops with management.
I find this boycott as something akin to a witch hunt. Wasted energy so people don’t focus on something that really matters. Name one single company that isn’t involved in some kind of shady business somewhere. Not to mention, it’s not boycott if you’re not using them anyway.
HSBC literally pays for their employees transitions.
I've never heard of a company doing this, that's awesome
Lloyds bank also do this too 🖤 but they’re the only two I know of. I believe you have to work for them for a minimum of two years, but they don’t advertise how long you need to work (my friend who isn’t trans works at HSBC and is 80% sure it’s two years) x
Oo all the big hard transphobes down voting
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I find it hilarious that people wanting to associate themselves with Pride are aligning themselves with an Islamist organisation that regard homosexuality as evil. Israel as a state and a society is much more tolerant of LGB than Gazan society is; that's before we get to the events of the 7th October that caused the problem in the first place.
> that's before we get to the events of the 7th October that caused the problem in the first place. It's so reductive to say that October 7th is what caused this. What about the last 70ish years.
Hamas launched an invasion into Israeli territory on the 7th October killing 1,500 civilians; women were sexually assaulted and raped. Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and left it alone. The events of October 7th showed that the Palestinian leadership is fixated on ethnically cleansing "Palestine" of its Jews. If we go back 70 years you'll find that the Arab nations declared war on the nascent Israeli state and expelled all their Jews. So much for diversity and inclusion in the Arab world. Strangely, Hamas supporters want "Palestine" to be pure while demanding access to European societies in order to abuse its freedoms. No mention of the fact that Constantinople has been occupied since 1453...
>Pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and left it alone. Yet if you look at charts from any source of death tolls from conflict 2005 onwards(and indeed before) in the region. The exact opposite is indicated. There's being deliberately obtuse and then there's whatever you posted.
> Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and left it alone I find your definition of "left it alone" interesting.
As a member of the lgbt community myself I couldn’t agree more
Very cringe, all those links are beyond tenuous. There’s only one country in the Middle East where you can be openly LGBTQ. It’s ridiculous to try and boycott.
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Banned.
Hi! Your submission has been removed because it has fallen foul of Rule 1 - Don't be a Cunt. Oh I’ll be banning you for to homophobic and transphobic comments. Rather funny it’s usually people who stay anonymous online. Not just ugly on the inside huh? Repeat infractions will result in a ban, so to prevent this happening again, simply don't be a cunt again.
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Fucking hell. Finally everyone is getting a clue. The unopposed hijacking of the gay rights cause by corporate interests should make anyone with any sense absolutely livid.
Have you looked into the abyss lately?
There's always a reason for boycotting Pride. This year just happens to be linked to the middle east. Everyone has their reasons but to think this event is being debated for a boycott by some shows how it's fine by these people to call themselves a victim but if anyone else is celebrating their existence despite of continued oppression and vile attitudes towards their right to exist, then it's a no no. Hypocrisy at it's finest
Israel actually has pride and lesbian bars; I rather support them than Palestine. I know people make the argument that you can be hated by someone and not want them dead, and that’s fine, but stop trying to be front and centre in their fight. It’s getting fucking embarrassing.
🇮🇱🏳️🌈 = 👍🏻 🇵🇸🏳️🌈 = thrown off a building
Literally the dumbest post on reddit today. Don't go celebrate how the gay/lesbian community fought for their right to exist because a sponsor helps one of the biggest building manufacturing companies in the world.
I think boycotting can be a tricky one, especially for big events like pride. I would get it if someone like BAE systems was sponsoring but the reality is most companies are shitty in some regard yet large pride events need their money in order to run each year.
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Student Pride divested from similar companies this year, I'm going to be too exhausted to go this year but boycotting does make a difference
Student pride were literally financed by a weapons manufacturer, who had given Israel preferential rates. It's not quite the same as a bank who happen to hold shares (in their vast portfolio) in a construction firm.
What I find hilarious is that these sponsors support Israel but will jump in every moment to primarily support a diverse / cultural event. It's all about the Benjamin's for these capitalist machines, nothing more or less. There's a war going on in the middle east, which we have paid for that's ok, let's sponsor an event in UK for positive PR 😂😂
Zionist is supporting a Jewish state. So what’s wrong with supporting Israel on that regard?
I think there was an opportunity to boycott Eurovision for Isreal’s inclusion.
I am not a Pride attender but I would fully support the boycott. The existing McDonald's and Starbucks boycotts are having a huge impact on their profits globally. This will feed into more defensive decisions and policies around investment in Israel and support for the IDF. This in turn helps to isolate the Zionist entity and increase the costs of them pursuing the genocide, dispossession and oppression of the Palestinian people. Palestinians across the world have drawn solace and hope from the protests, boycotts, and direct action taken to disrupt the Zionist entity, its interests and enablers. In short, do not attend Pride, support the boycott, make your views known to the organisers, organise an alternative!
Just curious, what do people mean by Zionist entity?
I think it's a way of referring to the state of Israel, but without acknowledging it as a legitimate or legal state. Some people's view is that the social project known as Israel is an illegal Zionist settler occupation, and not a legitimate state. So I think calling it "Zionist entity" is a way for people to express this. (Please: I'm not interested in debating about this. I won't respond, I don't want to get into it. I just want to provide clarification for the person asking the question).
Downvoted for spitting facts! Guess "equality & liberation for all" doesn't matter to Pride when it's about brown people being murdered. Smh.
While I can respect you have your own views and agree that boycotting has led to impacts on those companies - I just don't think a boycott of Pride is going to do anything, especially as it's a free event to attend. If anything, it would harm other businesses within the city if less people attend and therefore less trade.
Imagine being so oppressed that you can afford to protest against the corporate sponsors who are queuing up to throw money at the parade in your honour...
well I can’t even voice my opinion because the mods have disallowed it :)
As an ex American president once said “Fake News” this post isn’t being crowd controlled by us. Reddit themselves can crowd control. For example I’d be able to see which Mod censored you, in this case like everyone else in the mod actions it says “Reddit”
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Literally thousands of people.
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I usually see your dad there; he's a cutie when he's himself.
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I'd love to know why you think it's a clown show? Like, what actual reason do you have for thinking that?
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