Artificial intelligence and LGBT+ Palestinians

While ChatGPT carefully responded to prompts about the duality of the queer Palestinian identity, or the “Palestinian perspective” on the LGBT+ community, and how the community is treated, by avoiding generalizations, it is not sufficient. Chat GPT first mentions Palestinian society’s conservative tendencies, “with religious and cultural influences playing a substantial role in shaping attitudes,” but later, notes the importance of  “acknowledging the diversity of opinions and experiences within Palestinian society.” Such vague descriptions avoid making sweeping generalizations about Palestine being extremely homophobic, as commonly done in Western media. However, in cooperation with what Western media propagates, ChatGPT refuses to acknowledge a large reason behind the lack of social progress: the Israeli occupation. In an attempt of academic neutrality, Chat GPT helps manufacture an image of Palestinians that conveniences the oppressor’s orientalist agenda. Ignoring the Israeli occupation paints the Palestinian queer struggle as solely attributable to the Palestinian people’s barbaric, homophobic, Islamic nature, as seen through a pinkwashed lens.

When asked about the struggles Palestinian queers face, Chat GPT responded with the following list:

1. Social stigma and discrimination due to traditional and conservative attitudes.

2. Difficulties reconciling sexual orientation or gender identity with family and community expectations

3. The perceived need to conceal one’s identity

4. Legal protections for LGBT+ individuals in some areas are limited, while same sex relationships are restricted, along with regional political instability.

5. Intersectionality- “Queer Palestinians may experience intersectionality, facing discrimination not only based on their sexual orientation or gender identity but also due to factors such as gender, socioeconomic status, and religious affiliation.”

6. Limited access to mental health resources and support

7. Struggles of being refugee or diaspora LGBT+ Palestinians

8. Lack of positive media representation.

ChatGPT explains queer Palestinians face discrimination not only as part of the LGBT+ community, but also because of other factors, except the one factor that also affects every queer Palestinian: the occupation. Queer Palestinians are twice bound, once as Palestinians, and again, as queer. It is thus painfully ironic to speak of intersectionality while pretending the settler colonial violence indiscriminately imposed by the apartheid state of Israel on all Palestinians does not exist.

Acknowledging the multifaceted struggle of Palestinian queers, not only as queer people, but also, as Palestinians, means confronting the truth that Palestinians are not a homophobic monolith constructed by the West, which directly opposes what Israel has been pushing for decades. Rabab Abdulhadi’s article, Israeli Settler Colonialism in Context, discusses how Israel has presented itself as “under threat, engaging in self defense,” only as a last resort in response to the Palestinians, who they depict as “uncivilized, misogynistic and homophobic” (Abdulhadi, 2019). Israel boasts of being the Middle East’s only democracy, unique among barbaric states who breed values that oppose and threaten those of the West, and Israel garners Western support if only because they depend on Western orientalism, racism and Islamophobia.

Israel's boast of democracy, social progress and innocence while simultaneously benefiting from and supporting a state that provides its citizens freedom predicated on the oppression of the land’s indigenous people. Unitary gay politics, mentioned in Walaa Alqasiya’s book, Decolonial Queering, is demonstrated by Israel branding themselves as gay-friendly and progressive while ignoring the violence, colonialism and forced displacement instrumental to the implementation of Zionism in Israel. (Alqasiya, 2022). Rooted in the narrative of Israelis as heroic children of light and Palestinians as children of darkness, LGBT+ Palestinians and the Palestinian cause, are excluded from Israeli and Western LGBT+ activism, in the name of neutrality or avoiding politics. Unitary gay politics in Israel and the West deliberately lacks intersectionality to glorify the apartheid Israeli state, built upon “the violent erasure of Palestinians while simultaneously being proud Israelis and queers” (Alqasiya, 2002). Chat GPT’s refusal to acknowledge the Israeli occupation is reflective of unitary gay politics, speaking on difficulties Palestinians queers face as queer, but not as Palestinians.

Alqasiya further notes that upon any condemnation of Israel, Palestinian cities are compared to Tel Aviv, marketed as a gay-friendly paradise hosting large pride parades. Israel, backed by the West, makes the consideration of Palestinians as human thus conditional upon how well they can disprove labels their colonizer(s) assigned to them, and whether they can imitate their oppressor in hosting pride parades. LGBT+ Palestinians are fighting to enjoy all-encompassing equality and freedom as queer individuals. Perhaps, in their vision for the future, Palestinian cities will host pride parades, too. However, comparisons drawn by Israelis aren’t made from a place of solidarity, but to justify the the oppression, rape and murder of the Palestinian body. Alqasiya says, “Are pride parades the ultimate celebration of freedom and visibility in a context where millions of Palestinians have no access to water, health care, mobility, work, etc.? (...) What are the means to achieve an open and healthy life for LGBT people whose bodies, minds and reality are colonised?” (Alqasiya, 2022). Using pride parades as a metric for Palestinian humanity ignores the difficulty of achieving social progress when basic needs aren’t being met. Queer Palestinians struggle to fight both the external colonizer and the homophobia circulating within their society, but the constant scramble for survival and basic human rights hinders attempts at progress, which ChatGPT’s failure to mention contributes to pinkwashing, and dismisses the destruction enacted by Israel upon all Palestinians.

What many people don’t know is, when Israel periodically attacks Gaza, or conducts raids on West Bank neighbourhoods, they don’t discriminate against queer Palestinians. Queer Palestinians, too, are shot at, attacked, running to dig their brother’s body out of the rubble. It is their bodies too, that now line the roads of Northern Gaza, nearly decomposed. They, too, are included in the death tolls. So when ChatGPT refuses to acknowledge what is arguably the largest agent of oppression and discrimination for Palestinian queers, all the atrocities Israel has committed since 1948 and their impacts on LGBT+ Palestinians are diminished. Their struggle is pinkwashed and depicted as solely attributable to the inherently homophobic Palestinian.

About the image: I screenshotted an entry from queeringthemap.com, an initiative to share LGBT+ stories from around the world. I chose this image because it captured a perspective from a queer Palestinian, reflecting the difficulties the Israeli occupation imposes on all Palestinians. The entry demonstrates how the Israeli coloniser does not save queer Palestinians. For all of Israel’s gay-friendly tendencies, queer Palestinians are not spared in Israel’s attacks. In this case specifically, the writer and the person to whom they wrote this entry, Younus, were not spared in Israel’s carpet bombings of Gaza after October 7th, 2023. Thus, the urgency to recognize Israel for what it is; a settler colonial state, and not walk the line of neutrality, as ChatGPT did, is depicted in this writer’s words.

Works Cited

Abdulhadi, Rabab. “Israeli Settler Colonialism in Context: Celebrating (Palestinian) Death and Normalizing Gender and Sexual Violence.” Feminist Studies 45, no. 2–3 (2019): 541–73. https://doi.org/10.15767/feministstudies.45.2-3.0541.

Alqaisiya, Walaa. Decolonial Queering: The Politics of Being Queer in Palestine. Journal of Palestinian Studies, (2018): 47, 29-44.