#most of the interviewees were men

[there-are-4-lights]

i saw the transkriget documentary and i didnt like it

the episodes were so short so it mostly felt like watching a clipshow compilation and not an actual documentary? they scratched the surface of a few important aspects (clinicians with criticisms, the influence of RFSL on healthcare, things like LGBTQ-certification, etc) but it was really hard to know what the viewer is supposed to take away from it.

if you compare it to something like UG where there were some clear take-home messages like "the hospital intentionally minimised harm being done to children" or "healthcare was ideologically driven"; it was really hard to pick out a message from this other than "its really complicated so we should slow down" i guess? and with the material they had they could have done something like "lobby groups were too close to the government and also influenced healthcare" like Nolan Investigates Stonewall did.

[evidence-based-activism]

If black women commit more homicides than white men, I don't blame them! I'd do the same! Perfectly understandable coping mechanism IMHO

Black women do not commit more homicides than white men!! There is no "if", they just don't!! (Post with data.)

Further, homicide is not a "perfectly understandable coping mechanism" ... societies (and people) predicated on violent crimes are not (and will not be) stable.

---

But perhaps you meant to imply that many women's (and therefore black women's) homicides are a result of self-defense?

It's true that most homicides committed by women are intimate partner homicides [1-3]. It's also true that the majority of these homicides are in defense of self or others (e.g., the woman's child) [1, 2, 4-10].

Some research [1, 2, 4, 10] suggests that three-quarters or more of female intimate partner homicide offenders killed their abuser. I use this phrasing due to an important and oft-neglected consideration: many self-defense laws are skewed in favor of men. By this I mean: many systems will only categorize something as self-defense if the threat is immediate and the response proportional.

This makes sense when you have two similar individuals. For example, consider the situation where two men get in an argument at a bar. The first man punches the other, who punches back and accidentally kills the first (head injuries are unpredictable!). This would be considered self-defense because the threat was immediate (present physical violence) and the response proportional (a punch in response to a punch). In contrast, if the second man had used a broken bottle to stab the first man (disproportionate response due to use of a weapon) or waited for later and attacked the first man as he left the bar (non-immediate threat), the act would no longer be considered self-defense.

This is essential to any conversations about women's intimate partner homicide, because women's self-defense is often "disproportionate" (e.g., her husband has a history of severely beating her and is about to do so again, she takes a knife from the kitchen and stabs him) or in response to a "non-immediate threat" (e.g., a women has tried leaving her abusive husband but has received no help from family or the authorities, realizing she cannot escape him while he's alive, she shoots her husband while he sleeps). In both these cases, the woman has killed her abuser, but this may not be considered self-defense by the legal system or research studies.

That's why findings like:

"In Totman's study, ninety-three percent of the women who, had killed partners reported being physically abused by them, and 67% said that the homicide was in defense of themselves or a child." [1]

"Grant attempted to determine the women’s perceptions of their experiences with their partners that resulted in either the death or serious injury of that person. The women described the killing as trying to stop the violence against them. Many of the women were threatened with their own death at the time of the killing and believed their own death was inevitable." [4]

"While men disproportionately use firearms to regain control when their dominance is threatened, women turn to guns for self-defense against an abusive partner." [6]

"12 women out of 22 interviewees and 4 women out of 5 married female offenders from focus group study have been prisoned due to killing/injuring their male abusers." [7] Note that this was study was specifically on women who had been convicted and imprisoned for homicide, making this strong evidence of the legal system's failure to adequately respond to women's self-defense.

"80% of these male domestic homicide victims had abused their partners." [10]

are so important.

It's also important to note that the passage of no-fault divorce (and other legal/social interventions) resulted in a ~60% decline in male intimate partner homicide victimization between 1976-2017 [3]. That indicates that women are much less likely to commit homicide when there is another option available. (It wasn't until the passage of the Brady Handgun Prevention Act in 1993 that female intimate partner homicide victimization started to decline. This may reflect the fact that many men (but very few women) kill their ex-partners. [10])

---

However, while intimate partner's are the majority of women's homicide victims, and self-defense plays a significant role in most of these events, they are not the only type of homicide committed by women.

Another type of homicide by women is non-intimate family homicide [1-3]. Female perpetrated homicides in this category primarily include victims who are dependent on the woman in question (e.g., infants, children, and elders) [2]. Importantly, "situations of economic and social entrapment" [2] (e.g., lack of access of abortion) explain their reasons for homicide, but do not excuse the crime.

A point of potential interest: for all the categories discussed, women still make of the minority of offenders in any single category. For example, a randomly selected female homicide offender is more likely to have committed intimate partner homicide than a randomly selected male homicide offender; however, a randomly selected intimate partner homicide offender is still much more likely to be male than female. This pattern is consistent across all categories of homicide, with the exception of infanticides of children under 1 year of age [11]. For this single category (which, to be clear, accounts for a minority of all child homicides), women make up the majority of perpetrators. For these cases, the majority of these female offenders are found "not responsible for their actions by reason of insanity" [12].

Hopefully, it's clear that this form of homicide isn't an "understandable coping mechanism".

---

Differences between male and female homicide offenders with acquaintances, friends, or strangers as victims is an open question. This is, in part, due to the fact that female offenders makes up a very small proportion of these homicides (~6% of friend/acquaintance homicides and ~3% of stranger homicides) [3]. As a result of this, there is very little research on female offenders for these types of homicides, and the research that does exist is under-powered and contradictory. For example, one study [5] suggests that women are not more likely to commit non-intimate homicides in self-defense, but discuss at length how another study (cited in the article) finds the opposite and why this conflict may have occurred.

---

TL;DR:

Women make up a small proportion of all homicide offenders.

When women do kill, they usually kill an intimate partner, most often in self-defense.

However, the standardized (and legal) definition of self-defense fails to capture all cases of self-defense, due to a significant bias towards men.

There are some women who kill for non-defensive reasons, including women who kill their dependents.

Homicide is not a reasonable coping mechanism in functional societies.

References under the cut:

Browner, A., & Flewelling, R. (1986). Women as victims or perpetrators of homicide. US Dept of Justice NIJ. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/women-victims-or-perpetrators-homicide

Jensen, V. (2001). Why women kill: Homicide and gender equality. Lynne Rienner Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781588269195

Fridel, E. E., & Fox, J. A. (2019). Gender differences in patterns and trends in u. S. Homicide, 1976–2017. Violence and Gender, 6(1), 27–36. https://doi.org/10.1089/vio.2019.0005

Serran, G., & Firestone, P. (2004). Intimate partner homicide: A review of the male proprietariness and the self-defense theories. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 9(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1359-1789(02)00107-6

Suonpää, K., & Savolainen, J. (2019). When a woman kills her man: Gender and victim precipitation in homicide. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 34(11), 2398–2413. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260519834987

Fridel, E. E., & Zimmerman, G. M. (2024). Coercive control or self-defense? Examining firearm use in male- and female-perpetrated intimate partner homicide. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 61(1), 3–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/00224278221113564

Bariş, G. (2015). Female prisoners motivations of violent crimes: Defensive or aggressive. Journal of International Social Research, 8(39), 431–431. https://doi.org/10.17719/jisr.20153913764

Belknap, J., Larson, D.-L., Abrams, M. L., Garcia, C., & Anderson-Block, K. (2012). Types of intimate partner homicides committed by women: Self-defense, proxy/retaliation, and sexual proprietariness. Homicide Studies, 16(4), 359–379. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088767912461444

Weizmann-Henelius, G., Matti Grönroos, L., Putkonen, H., Eronen, M., Lindberg, N., & Häkkänen-Nyholm, H. (2012). Gender-specific risk factors for intimate partner homicide: A nationwide register-based study. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 27(8), 1519–1539. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260511425793

Michael S. Kimmel. (2001). Male Victims of Domestic Violence: A Substantive and Methodological Research Review. The Equality Committee of the Department of Education and Science. https://vawnet.org/material/male-victims-domestic-violence-substantive-and-methodological-research-review

Stöckl, H., Dekel, B., Morris-Gehring, A., Watts, C., & Abrahams, N. (2017). Child homicide perpetrators worldwide: A systematic review. BMJ Paediatrics Open, 1(1), e000112. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjpo-2017-000112

Debowska, A., Boduszek, D., & Dhingra, K. (2015). Victim, perpetrator, and offense characteristics in filicide and filicide–suicide. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 21, 113–124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2015.01.011

[mariacallous]

You cannot understand the failure of Conservative rule unless you accept that we are living with the failure of honestly held Conservative beliefs. The UK is in crisis, not because Tories are criminals or charlatans or fools, although they can be all of these things, but because they tried to govern according to their sincerely held beliefs and sent us into a deep crisis.

I accept that this is a hard concession for the government’s opponents to make. They like to think of Conservatives as crooks. And they are right in part. The Tory administration from 2010 to the present, which offers peerages for £3 million to passing bidders, has been the most corrupt government of the modern era.

Why, then, pay these crooks the courtesy of taking them seriously?

Meanwhile, those of us brought up in the British class system have a second reason for refusing to offer Conservatives the smallest mercy.

David Cameron, George Osborne, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, and, for a while, their Liberal sidekick Nick Clegg, fit our resentful image of dilettantish public-school boys: foppish wreckers, who do not care about the damage they inflict as long as they can stay at the top of the heap.

I have lost count of the number of times anti-Tory columnists have reached for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lines from the Great Gatsby to describe our rulers.

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

There is a terrific piece in the current edition of the New Yorker  on fin de regime UK by Sam Knight. Without endorsing the notion that we have been ruined by dilettantes, his interviewees provide plenty of evidence to support it. 

“It’s all about constantly drawing dividing lines,” a former Conservative party strategist told him. “That’s all you need. It’s not about big ideological debates or policies or anything.” 

“He is not a Brexiteer,” George Osborne said of Boris Johnson. “I really would go to my grave saying, deep down, Boris Johnson did not want to leave the E.U”.

Knight himself, while never losing sight of the suffering austerity brought, says that the best way to think about the ruling politics of the past 14 years is to see it as a “psychodrama enacted, for the most part, by a small group of middle-aged men who went to élite private schools, studied at the University of Oxford, and have been climbing and chucking one another off the ladder of British public life” ever since.

Clearly, there is truth in this. But we will not save the country merely by replacing upper-class chancers with middle-class moralists.

However satisfying a rhetorical tactic, dismissing you opponents as liars and crooks misses that they can be far more dangerous when they are wholly in earnest. As the Conservatives were when they were at their most destructive.

The damage austerity caused to schools, local authorities, the criminal justice system and national defence (a subject, incidentally, we should worry more about given Russia’s aggression) flowed from the authentic Conservative belief that lower rates of taxation produced economic growth.

There is a strong link between Liz Truss and George Osborne.  

The 2010 Cameron government cold-bloodedly refused to take advantage of a once-in-300-years opportunity to borrow to invest in infrastructure at next-to-zero interest rates.

Instead, it paid off the debt accrued in the finance crisis by cutting public expenditure rather than raising taxes. 

Do not underestimate the extremism that followed.

The Office for Budget Responsibility said of the period up to 2018

“In the 12 years from the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2007-08 the UK public finances will have suffered their largest peacetime shock in living memory, followed – on current policy – by one of the biggest deficit reduction programmes seen in any advanced economy since World War II.”

From Osborne to Truss, Conservatives genuinely believed that low taxes would produce economic growth, and they have never had a programme to turn to when their strategy failed.

As we can now see.

Knight cites some horrendous figures.

Between 2010 and 2018, funding for police forces in England fell by up to a quarter. Officers stopped investigating burglaries. Only four per cent now end in prosecution. In 2021, the median time between a rape offense and the completion of a trial reached more than two and a half years. In 2023, hundreds of school buildings had to be closed for emergency repairs, because the country’s school-construction budget had been cut by forty-six per cent between 2009 and 2022.

I could go on.  But the point worth noticing is that at all times between 2010 and 2016 Osborne’s austerity programme had the full support of the Tory press, Tory donors and Tory MPs, and many of them went on to support Liz Truss in 2022.

There is an effort underway to rewrite the Conservatives' time in power. The period from 2010 to 2016 is presented as an era of moderate conservatism ruined by the aberrations of Johnson and Truss. In truth, the continuity is more striking than the change.

The result of 14-years of Conservative rule is the wrecking of the public sector combined with the highest taxes the UK has experienced since 1945.

 As policy wonks now joke in their rip-roaring way, the British used to want American levels of taxes and European levels of public service.  Now they have American levels of public service with European levels of tax.

The fiscal room for manoeuvre of the next Labour government has already been curtailed. It will not have pots of money to bail out local authorities, universities and the court system, to pick just three of the many deserving cases.

It will have to encourage growth

Economically, the quickest way to do it is to rejoin the EU.  But politically it is a nightmare, I agree with George Osborne that Boris Johnson didn’t believe in Brexit. I wrote in 2016 that going with the Brexit campaign was the smart move for a charlatan on the make.

But fascinating though the speculations about the court politics of the 2010s are, they have no relevance to the urgent need to halt the UK’s decline by rejoining the EU.

We can’t because of the tyranny of the anti-European minority, which unlike Boris Johnson, has an authentic belief in Brexit.

Indeed, so great is the minority’s power, British politics does not even talk about Brexit. It is as if, as George Osborne says, we are in the old Soviet Union and essential questions cannot be debated for fear of offending the ruling ideology.

Most people now regard Brexit as a mistake.  But then there are the Brexit diehards, who so resemble 20th century communists when they insist that Brexit has not failed, but simply has not been properly tried yet.  Beyond them, are those who think that Brexit went fine, or who don’t want to reopen the question, or don’t care about our economic fortunes.

Under our electoral system, a dedicated minority can have real power. The majority of Labour voters support rejoining the EU, but they will vote Labour whatever European policy the party puts forward. A minority of pro-Brexit voters may even now turn away from Labour if it supports Europe, however, and lose them seats in the north of England. (Or at least that is what the party believes.)

 Labour politicians feel they must wait until an overwhelming majority of the population realise that Brexit was a monumental blunder.

If only the Tories had just been a bunch of crooks. They would have stolen some money but that would have been the end of it.

As it is, it will take us years to recover from their sincerely held beliefs. Assuming, that is, we recover at all.

[mcytblr-archive]

Early MCYTblr Interviews: georgesoot

today's interviewee is georgesoot/dreamwasfound, who, in his words, "emerged from the senior living center to tell all". under the readmore is a transcript if the questions and answers.

Q: What was, in broad terms, your experience in MCYTblr? Are there any experiences/events that stand out to you?

A: Well it was primarily an outlet to channel all my obnoxious thoughts about Minecraft at the time. I had started watching Minecraft videos during the Pandemic, and came across [they who shall not be mentioned] and noticed there wasn't really a community on Tumblr yet. I just knew that someone had to show up and make it gay. It was easy to slot myself in, start making posts that I will never understand how I thought they would be funny, and slowly built up some sort of a following due to my sense of humor but also due to my ability to soberly ~critique~ the Minecraft Men as content creators, micro-celebrities, and as people. I never really fell into niches or was much aware of what other people were doing, until I was kind of folded into this idea of Dream Lying. I don't mean to sound self obsessed but I didn't really care about anything beyond my immediate sphere of friends?

For instance, you mention with other interviewees the Elections. I did not pay attention to those for a single second. I do remember we were saying "stop the count!" because we thought Georgeeehd should have won. And I dubbed Wormweeb the Prime Minister of Mcytblr, but I don't even remember who was running? Or why this even happened?

But as for other events, if they were funny or I could wring something out of them, I do remember them. For example, the mass migration of Kpoppies to Tumblr after it was suddenly "legal" to ship content creators. That compltely shifted the "culture" if it can be called that. I remember all the fake stan accounts, but I never attempted to interact with them. Obviously I remember the Tapeworm post, all the Discourse, the Controversies, how I was able to get hundreds of notes by summarizing events of the DreamSMP, my great shame in life.

But yes, most of the time, I was not there to take things too seriously.

Q: More specifically, what was your experience being in Dream Lying/early critblr? Do you think your experience differed from “main” MCYTblr?

A: As for my experience in what has been dubbed Critblr, well I've been credited with helping to start that whole movement. I think it's funny, because truly the kind of reaction to [censored]'s warcry scandal just wouldn't play out today the way it did back then. But I think it's a function of being an adult, that I could look at [censored] not as an idol, like at all whatsoever. It's easy to swept up in the emotions of things. But as a veteran of Discourseblr, and multiple fandoms, I could see through [censored]'s lack of media training and awareness of the average center left teenage perspective on these issues like it was wet tissue paper. People were mad at for that, but I didn't care what people thought of me.

Maybe by coincidence the other members of Dream Lying also had similar worldviews to mine. Everyone could look past the stanning of it all and recognize when something "canceallable" occurred and discuss it frankly and succinctly. Well I couldn't discuss it succinctly but others could. So to answer your question, yes it was a different experience from the rest of the "community." And it got to the point that it wasn't just "holding creators to account" it became fun. It was fun being the buzzkill in an ironic sense, and also fun in an unhinged way to just create these ludicrous scenarios of [censored] the Young Republican cornering you in the hallway and asking you so how does gay sex work actually though? And again, shipping was a component of this too.

And we turned out to be right. At the risk of sounding arrogant, this will become a theme.

Q: In previous interviews with DLying members, we’ve discussed that misinformation/in-jokes were a big part of the culture, one of them being that Dream sued you for libel. Do you remember any others? Did you expect so many people to believe you?

A: As I mentioned, I didn't take things too seriously. I enjoyed doing a little light trolling, such as when I infiltrated a [censored] stan tumblr server and showed everyone his dogs, and then reveled in the drama of them acting like I killed their families. People also turned on me because I abandoned The Ship for a ship that comprises of two… perpetrators of sexual misconduct as of March 2024, though that would also be true of the Popular Ship as well.

Anyway my personal computer died sometime in early 2021, so I, as is per the usual for my personality, made it into a joke because it really was quite stressful. I mentioned to Reese Georgeeehd and Ozzie ohge0rge (sp?) that [censored] must've sent a virus to kill my harddrive. This evolved into [censored]'s legal team sending me a cease and desist letter, as I'm sure I was being extra ~critical~ on Tumblr at the time.

They asked if they could make that The Official Narrative. I cautioned against it, it leaked anyway, because their "Private Twitters" had hundreds of followers, and this enabled this joke to become a full fledged rumor. And then my "ops" as the kids call them, got wind of this too. Most didn't believe it, but some had this "If it did happen GOOD!" attitude.

But some other examples… let me think. We did try to heavily imply that Ranboo was a former member of our organization. We rarely outright lied about the creators, but we did usually distort or exaggerate things when it came to us, for comedic effect. Frequently someone will say to me "Oh so and so mentioned you again," and my go-to answer is always "Tell them I got hit by a bus," or "Tell them I'm withering away from my dementia in the nursing home."

I did not expect people to believe me, because I did not spread the rumor because I had completely disappeared from the "public" by that point. I purposefully devised a very unrealistic joke in the first place, so I really don't know who would believe that. Especially since I was known to be friends and enemies with doxxers, who could find that information out if it existed.

Like the thought of [censored] being so hurt by a single anonymous loser calling him a Trump supporter and a bad voice actor and someone who was going to hold his British friend captive in his basement and force him to go on a keto diet to the point that he starves to death, or that he had offshore bank accounts to evade Taxes, or that he paid his brother to be his body double (this turned out to be true), that he was pretending to be bisexual for clout, that he had 100% cheated on his speedrun (also turned out to be true), that he had enslaved his mother as his maid, that he and his other friend from Texas would engage in a little frottage as bros do… well the list is endless. But the thought of him being so offended that he gets his lawyer, whom he pays, to send me a cease and desist letter… well it's one of the few things I came up with that was actually funny.

Uh but no, anyone with a healthy attachment to reality would never believe that.

Q: I understand that you were also in EBblr and its surrounding communities. What was that like? 

A: I was never in ebblr… all I did was watch a few Tubbo streams, realize that he was probably gay, and I was right. Because what do you expect at this point?

I pointed out publicly that Tubbo and Ranboo were engaging in some light queerbait, except that they were obviously both queer. The point was I thought they (or at least Tubbo) were trying to engineer a New [censored], because that gets you attention which gets you money… like Kaceytron was right about everything? In these spaces, being Queer is a commodity. But I'm letting the point get away from me.

In private, I mostly reacted with bemusement, and we did have some genuine enderbabies, as I called them (mostly derisively), in our server, who took it all so literally and that it was so kawaii desu. I thought it was cringe. Like, Tubbo pretending to be coy and saying Ranboo's foot was bigger than his forearm. That took me RIGHT back to my days as a cringy 19yo baby gay trying to flirt. Oh I'm getting embarrassed thinking about it. But there were a few moments that Tubbo and Ranboo manufactured together that I thought were pretty cute and wholesome.

On the whole, I'm still confused as to why I'm included in this sub-community. I approached Enderbees as a marketing thing, or something of the sort. I never read fics, I never looked at art, I never really cared. I especially didn't care about their "characters" on the SMP, which also set me apart from the genuine unironic shippers. Some thought this was worse than shipping because I was committing that dreaded cardinal sin: speculating on CC's sexualities.

And yes, I popularized the word Truthing in this context. I explicitly modeled it after 9/11 Truthers, because the JOKE (hi remember none of this was meant to be too serious) was that we were deranged conspiracists who were probably best kept away from normal society.

Q: Is it odd to be regarded as infamous within the MCYTblr niche? 

A: No it's not odd, I at least partially strove for infamy. Any attention gratifies the ego after all, not just postitive attention. Then there was the absurdity of it all. Here I was, in the Pandemic, having multiple degrees, looking for jobs, getting a job, going to work, paying taxes, and theater kids in high school were probably drawing devil horns on my pfp and throwing knives at it. All because I said everything I said about [censored], or "speculated" that Technoblade was gay because he had drama kid energy, or called Tommy annoying that one time in 2020, or babied [censored] too much. There's really no end to the list of nonsense I was spewing.

And I'd argue that I'm not infamous. Gayminecraftmen had to tell me about your blog and your interviews. I'm doing this because my friends think it would be funny. And the Drama of Georgesoot emerging from the senior living center to tell all is the kind of stupid humor I like. But aside from this, I haven't thought about Minecraft in a while. I have to be spoonfed lore about these annoying content creators who don't even make content anymore. Anything I learn about the "community" now is against my will.

At the time, maybe I was infamous, but now? I don't care. To even dignify my "infamy" would be to admit that Minecraft Youtube is even relevant anymore. How pathetic! I just filed my taxes and got an oil change last week. Me and the homies are having Dune watch parties and writing elaborate screenplays for Timothee Chalamet to star in in our heads (shout out to Ciara). To reminisce on my Tumblr infamy for a community of mostly teenagers about Content Creators who made content for said teenagers and later preyed on those teenagers… is so opposite from the adult problems and adult interest I have. Not to be condescending but that's just how it is!

Q: What are some common creator criticisms that you remember from 2020-2021? Do you still stand by them?

A: The common criticisms have held up in my opinion. [censored] and [censored] were queerbaiting. [censored] was cultivating an audience of loyal vulnerable teenagers and he took advantage. So did [censored]. And [censored] who literally bites people? Oh… okay then.

Dream Lying was right about [censored]'s friend whom he invited into his home and whom he tried to gift a career, only to be outed as an abuser. We were right about [censored] coming from not just a conservative background, but a bigoted one, one that he refused to actually grapple with. We were right about MCC being rigged. We were right about the cheating scandal. We were right about so many things.

The only thing I was definitely wrong about was the [censored] really did hop off the plane at LAX with a dream and a cardigan. I thought he for sure would just put off the [censored] team hype house meetup forever. My psychic powers don't always work I guess. That wasn't a criticism though, just my coping. Oh and I was wrong that Ranboo was an industry plant, but I was right that he's annoying and has no talent. And Dream Lying said from day one that Tubbo and Ranboo's little relationship would not last the summer and we were right! In fact during that whole thing I also speculated that Tommy would start queerbaiting and then he did! I felt like Cassandra at times.

Anyway back to the point. I mean the criticisms of [censored] were just all encompassing, and basically stemmed from the fact that he was like all these video game boys- a white man from a republican household who was not properly media trained because Streaming is not a real industry career and none of them were prepared for fame. And that has borne out over and over again. They all have shady pasts, they all abuse their fame and take advantage of fans. So I do stand by these criticisms.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to speak on or have archived?

A: Not really, I've already said far too much, so apologies to whoever edits these, I hope you enjoy the novel I wrote for you. I don't know, I have dementia, none of this is real. Karlarmy forever. Also who even knows if I'm the real Georgesoot.

[gemini-sensei]

Dads!Hawk and Miguel x Single Mom!Reader

Chubby!Fem!Reader ;) pure cuteness

I made Reader's son a little younger than I first intended, just fyi lol.

@sensei-venus :) (unedited)

Dads Hawk and Miguel who need a little help at home. Their three year old is "too rowdy" for daycare and got kicked out for "fighting other kids," but if you asked the dads what happened, they'll give two very different answers. Hawk will say he was defending himself from the bigger kids and Miguel will say that their son is still learning how to play with others. Regardless, their little boy got kicked out of daycare and they need an alternative because something obviously wasn't working with daycare.

So they put up an ad on a babysitters website and get a ton of responses. The only issue is Hawk is extremely critical of who's gonna watch over his child while they're at work. Anyone under the age of 20? Immediately thrown out. Anyone who's ever worked in uptight jobs or business? Nope. Little to no child care experience? He'd laugh in their face if they were in front of him.

There's a few good candidates amd they wanna set up interviews, just not at their house. So they pick a little park and meet some people, but if comes down to the nitty-gritty details. Hawk asks a ton of questions, some that feels out of place and unnecessary, but to him they are everything. If his kid is going to be spending the day with someone, he wants them to be a good influence at least.

The final test is whether or not their son likes the person or not, so if they get through Hawk's intense line of questioning, they bring Mason over. They watch how the potential babysitter interacts with Mason and when it's over, they ask him how he liked the person. There's a mot of "they were okay, but I didn't like how they did this" or just straight up no.

Then one day, they're at the park waiting for their next interviewee while Mason runs around with some kids. They're waiting and waiting and waiting, thinking the person blew off their interview. Just as they're about to leave, a chubby and cute lady comes over with a baby on her hip.

"Are you Mr. and Mr. Diaz-Moskowitz?"

Reader is a little flustered, out of breath, and frazzled. The infant pin her arm is wrapped up in a blanket, holding a teething ring up to his mouth so he can chew on it.

They're both cute, Reader's figure on display in the warm sun, her shorts showing off her thighs and hips perfectly. She has all the right curves in all the right places, her hip out to hold the baby as he teethes on the ring aggressively. The boy himself is a little chunky, fat rolls up his arms and a tubby tummy. He shows off the two teeth that have come in on the bottom and the one working its way out on the top. He has his mother's eyes and is very much her baby as he uses one hand to cling to her.

"I'm so sorry I'm late. I couldn't find his blanket and this is his favorite one. If he doesn't have this blanket, he get so upset and he was already crying because of his teeth," she tells them, then turns to the baby boy in her arms and rubs his cheek with her thumb. It's still red from his aforementioned crying and she's hoping to soothe him further. "He's getting them in now and it just hurts so much."

Miguel laughs a bit. " there's no need to apologize. We understand." He extends his hand to shake. "I'm Miguel. This is Eli."

"Most people call me Hawk."

Reader shakes their hands with a smile. "I'm Reader, obviously. I have no cool nickname. And this is Darcy, but I call him Darry."

"Well hello there, Darry," Hawk says, smiling at the toddler as he gently took his hand and shook it.

It made the boy giggle and he leaned his head onto his mama's chest. He stared at the two men, happily chewing on his ring.

"Would 6ou like to sit?" Miguel asks, moving aside to make way to the bench nearby.

She nods and they guide her over, letting her get adjusted to sit with Darry before they started asking her questions. However, there was little question in their minds about it. Just from seeing her and the short interaction they've had so far, they feel she's a good fit. She's motherly, kind, compassionate, and she has a kid of her own. They also know from her resume that she has a small degree in early childhood development, so they liked her way more than others who applied before they really met her.

They sit and talk for a while, Hawk asking a lot of questions per usual, though most are a lot different than what he asked the other applicants, not that Reader would know that. He asks about her and her son, how their schedule usually goes, if she babysits other kids. He and Miguel are looking for someone who can commit to week long stints because of their jobs. Miguel just got more patients, so more time at the PT office and working one-on-one with people; meanwhile, Hawk couldn't be home because of the dojo. He was still learning under Daniel about the ins and outs of business management and it took up a considerable amount of time. So his questions aren't unreasonable, at least not to him. And Miguel understands where they all come from.

Reader answers them all with a smile, Darry sitting on her lap with his blankie and teething ring. He watches the two men as if he's listening intently to every word they say, then watches his mama answer their questions. She holds him close, rubbing his back ever so often. It's casual and relaxed, sweet even.

Before they know it, Miguel is getting up to bring Mason over to introduce him to Reader. His mousey brown hair is ruffled and messy, he has bandaids on his legs from rough housing on the playground, but he doesn't seem like much of a troublemaker. He holds his papa's hand as they walk up to the bench and he waves at Reader. She waves back and Darry squeals at the attention.

Mason asks a ton of his own questions after they learn each others names, but they're less to do with babysitting techniques and more about which superhero is best and what Reader's favorite candy is. They have a lovely conversation and Reader even lets Mason and Darry "talk," though it's a lot of baby babble and Mason giggling.

As they watch, Hawk and Miguel are sure that they've found the perfect babysitter, unaware of just how much this one single mom is about to change their whole life.

[becameundone]

WHERE: the house of judgement WHEN: late february, early evening (around 4-5pm) WHO: anyone! ( @anchoragestarters ) CAP: 3/4

Tomo had come to try and scope the place out but, for all his efforts, he couldn't glean anything more specific from the building's exterior than its general spooky vibe. He'd been here before but only for the raves in the basement (and he'd been off his face for most of those so the memories were a little hazy and unhelpful). Although he'd been hoping to breeze past the House of Judgements and naturally come upon the answers he'd been looking for without having to get into anything tricky or complicated, it was becoming increasingly clear he'd have to step inside and get a better look. Truth be told, Tomo had wanted to ignore the bag that had showed up at his door in November. He'd even run off back to LA over December and spent half of January gallivanting about NYC but the note's final words still loomed over him, eating away at his peace of mind; WTVR U DO, DON’T RUN OUT OF TIME.

He'd been stood in the dimly-lit foyer, leant back against the wall and swinging the parrot keyring that had accompanied the note around in circles, the ring itself being spun around his finger, until somebody new finally came in through the entrance. Whether they were an employee in plain clothes, coming to start their shift, or just a regular customer, Tomo had no clue but he didn't feel like being picky either. "Hey, you got a minute?" he said, pushing himself off the wall with one hand, and sliding in front of his would be interviewee. If nothing else, years in the spotlight had taught him how to command attention. "You haven't heard of any...uh, hat men...have you?" He enunciated the name like the words were foreign to him. "I know how that sounds but I got this weird note saying and...okay, look, I'm not gonna go into but honestly? I'm just trying to make sure I'm not being pranked by some goth theatre kids."

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Roger Waters sang ‘f***ing Jew’ song, claims former producer

Documentary makes explosive new allegations about the former Pink Floyd frontman

BY DAVID ROSE

Roger Waters delivered an impromptu ditty that referred to his Jewish agent as a “f***ing Jew”, the rock star’s ex-producer has claimed in an explosive new documentary about the former Pink Floyd frontman.   

The film also claims Waters once referred disparagingly to a vegetarian restaurant meal as “Jew food” and alleges he said that European Jews could not trace their origins to ancient Israel, but were “just white men like me with beards”.

The documentary, The Dark Side of Roger Waters, which was made by Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) and presented by the veteran BBC investigative journalist John Ware, also claims Waters suggested in an email that the giant inflatable pig that floats above the audience at his shows should be adorned not only with a Star of David but the phrases “follow the money” and “dirty kyke [sic]”.

Most of the key allegations about Waters in the documentary are made by two music professionals who are well-known in their own right and who worked closely with the rock star over many years.

Ezrin being interviewed in the documentary

Bob Ezrin, who is Jewish and Waters’s former producer, is a music business legend who has also worked with artists including Alice Cooper, KISS and Taylor Swift. The other key interviewee is Jewish saxophonist Norbert Stachel, who spent years touring the world as a member of Waters’ band.

[myobsessionsspace]

Zane Lowe Interview

with Jungkook

I really appreciated this interview.

Zane and his exceptional interview skills was able to give respect to their journey, pay homage to the other 6 members contribution, respect and highlight their South Korean identity and much more. Yes he is a member of THE BIGGEST GROUP in the world right now. Yes he wouldn’t have gotten to this point without 6 other men giving their blood, sweat and tears also, along with the staff of Big Hit who were right beside them from the beginning until now, who aren’t know to the public.

“Look at this city, 19 floors up and you started out right down there, on the ground right, just running around trying to figure it out and now this whole building exists because, your band and some really smart people who love music formed a partnership and look what you've done, not just for music but for Korea, South Korea for music around the world” Zane Lowe 2023.

The interview was about Jungkook’s solo debut, he seemlessly incorporated his members into the inter y without making it about the members, nor erasing them from Jungkook’s story. I’m not gonna lie, there have been a few times with the members that they’ve been interviewed about their solo projects and I’ve even thought in my head ‘talk more about the member in front of you’🗣️🗣️ Lowe was able to, in my opinion, do it well!

In a bit over 34 minutes Zane Lowe was able to shine a respectful light on Jungkook of BTS. The bilingual subtitles, the Korean subtitles for Zane in addition to the English subtitles for Jungkook really tugged my heartstrings.

So often when the members work hard on their English and use it, channels still put English subtitles at the bottom of their spoken English. Zane and the producers/editors highlighted so subtly that he was ALSO speaking a foreign language not just Jungkook! Bridging The Gap!

Many ‘journalists’ want sound bites from their interviewees, they want a ‘scoop’, to get the interviewee to say something never said before to set their content apart from the rest. Maybe it’s due to Lowe’s musical background, coming up as a DJ, to radio DJ/host, to fronting his own music interview shows both on Radio 1 to Apple Music.

Zane Lowe Interview with mrfeelgood

Zane’s NY Times Interview

The Zane Lowe Show

Maybe it’s due to Lowe’s first hand experience with being a ‘foreigner’ moving from his country of birth, New Zealand, to the UK in his formative years. Maybe it’s just human understanding and compassion, however I greatly appreciated the interview, not just for his clear prowess with interviewing, making the interviewee feel comfortable, allowing them to speak, to formulate their thoughts, to add to them and keep the conversation going, to not bring up uncomfortable or irrelevant topics etc.

Lowe’s career spans over two decades of interviewing some of the most well known and not so well know names in the entertainment industry.

But also I appreciated the interview for the lack of subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) digs that the western media have made at the k-pop ‘machine’, the lack of teasing and sometimes thinly veiled derision towards the parasocial relationship BTS and ARMY, the lack of dismissal of BTS’ accolades and achievements and I thoroughly thoroughly appreciated the absence of my least favourite direction people take when interviewing the members the ‘who do you want to collaborate with’ or ‘what’s your favourite *insert country* food’ or any uncomfortable personal life/relationship questions.

Lowe’s incredible interview with Halsey, in the interview she talks about BTS and also her collaboration with SUGA for SUGA’s Interlude

The only other interviews that hold place in my memories for good have been those with Zach Sang and also Sakshma Srivastav (though her person is now ‘controversial’ to some ARMY).

see below for links to mentioned interviews

Yes it’s true Jungkook didn’t say any much more than what he’s already said up until now, to be honest I’ve taken away more from Jungkook’s unscheduled weverse lives, but I didn’t expect him to. The purpose of this interview (in my opinion) was to give insight into the solo artist Jungkook of the active group BTS, to the general public, with a little sprinkled in for ARMY. In that light, this interview was *chefs kiss* and was a cherry on top of GOLDEN’s promotional period.

💜

Mentioned Interviews

[vital-information]

“William J. Mann has argued that, contrary to the widespread impression of Hollywood as a place in which the closet was rigorously enforced by the studio system, the movie industry was often more accommodating to its homosexual workers at all levels. One of Mann’s interviewees said to him, in answer to an obvious question, ‘Who didn’t have to lie? Who didn’t have to pretend? We had a whole community, for God’s sake. We had—dare I say it?—power. Where else in America did gays have such a thing?’ The passionate tone offers its own evidence. Mann correctly points out what his interviewee seems not to have known, that there were other such protective communities and subcultures across the States at the time; but the point is well made, all the same. From the start, there were more than enough homosexual men and women in Hollywood for the operation of informal supportive systems. The disappointment is in the failure of that power to translate into a corresponding visibility in the cultural product: the movies.

Mann found that his interviewees did not use such expressions as ‘in’ and ‘out’ (of the closet). Instead, they independently kept coming back to the words ‘overt’ and ‘circumspect,’ and to degrees of both. Individuals, couples and groups tended to locate themselves where they felt most comfortable across a spectrum of degrees of openness. There was no general pressure to work towards a point at which it would become possible to come out; but, perhaps more surprisingly, there was no general imperative not to come out. The determining factors were many. There was a class difference, as elsewhere. ‘The most overt gays tended to come from working-class backgrounds, while those from the middle classes invariably were more circumspect.’ In certain professional areas, such as costume design and set design, it was possible to exploit the popular connection of male effeteness with aesthetic sophistication; yet that connection does not appear to have been applicable in relation to men who sought to direct movies. On the other hand, the few women who made it in major behind-camera creative roles had to shake off the stigma of whimsical femininity and demonstrate a willingness to get their hands dirty, metaphorically or not. One of Mann’s interviewees summed up his own experience of being gay in Hollywood’s early days as follows: ‘My being gay and knowing all these people—the doors were always open. It was all this “understood” business. They knew I knew, I knew they knew. It was kind of a brotherhood.’

Referring to Hollywood in the 1920s, Hart Crane said: ‘O André Gide! No Paris ever yielded such as this!’ In the heyday of what Kenneth Anger would call ‘Hollywood Babylon,’ one might argue that an artistic ethos combined with a pleasant climate to produce an attitude of sexual celebration, within limits that would soon be tightened up. The extent to which the ethos of the mode of production ever influenced the product—the movies themselves—has been a matter for much debate. In this context, William Mann asks a series of pertinent, rhetorical questions:

is it possible to see the gay influence in The Wizard of Oz, for example, because [the costume designer] Adrian created the Munchkins and Jack Moore the Yellow Brick Road? Can we reflect upon the gayness of the narrative of Cat People, written by DeWitt Bodeen? Might we consider the queerness of the very look of Casablanca, whose fantastic sets were designed by George James Hopkins? Or detect the gay soul of Meet Me in St. Louis, because its direction was staged by Vincent Minnelli, its score orchestrated by Conrad Salinger, and its production arranged by Roger Edens? Might we consider the entire body of work of such directors as George Cukor or Dorothy Arzner or Edmund Goulding or James Whale, seeing their films as the creations of artists who were gay?

The answer is probably affirmative in every case, if more convincingly so in some than in others; and acknowledging ‘the creations of artists who were gay’ is, of course, a long way from finding specifically ‘gay art,’ especially since all of the named figures were working in collaboration with other artists who were not gay. However, Mann’s list of questions gives a vivid sense of the creative possibilities of a specifically gay spectatorship.

Although the atmosphere in the film industry itself was quite relaxed, outside observers of that industry came to be less so. Ever since the late 1920s, varying degrees of pressure exerted from outside have had an effect on the atmosphere within the studios themselves and on the extent to which professionals in the industry—especially actors—have been able to reconcile their sexual orientations and their working lives.”

Gregory Woods, Homintern: How Gay Culture Linerated the Modern World

[vodika-vibes]

Fox can’t resist PA we all knew that 😏

He can not. He's a little pathetic when it comes to them. But that's okay because every strong man needs someone they're a little pathetic about.

It must be a kind of funny thing to see, Fox decides after the first few interviewees look between him and Yuu in absolute bewilderment. Yuu, after all, it tiny. The top of their head reaches his collar bone, and he knows they come by it honestly because Yuu's dad barely comes up to his chin. They're just a petite family. But with Yuu sitting on his knees and dealing with the majority of the interviewing, he has to wonder if the men and women that are being interviews think that Yuu is their boss rather than him. Stars, he hopes so. He doesn't need more people to manage. "What do you think, little bird? Anyone catch your eye?" Fox asks during a short break while they wait for the next batch of applicants to arrive. "Mm. They're all very...young." They say slowly. Fox releases a laugh, "Says the person who became the most influential person on Coruscant when they were 18." "Yeah, but..." There's a line between their brows, "My job isn't dangerous, all things considered. This is." Fox reaches up and lightly rubs the line off of their brow with his thumb, "It's not like they're going to be out there on their own. They're going to be working with some of my brothers." "...Mm...that's true..." Yuu pauses, "Honestly, I'm more concerned by the fact that not a single one of them has questioned that I'm the one doing the interviews." Fox grimaces, "I don't mind if they think you're in charge, because you are. I answer directly to you and no one else, but-" "But there's a difference to you calling me a 1 am because you need me to deal with a problem, and one of them calling me because they don't know the chain of command." Yuu finishes. Fox opens his mouth to reply, but stops when the door clicks open and an older man walks into the room. He pauses, looks at Yuu, and then at Fox, and then at Yuu again. He's a human man, probably in his early 40s, with his hair starting to gray, "Good morning," He says slowly, "My name is Robert Dayne. I was told that all current Fire Captains need to speak with the new Commander." His gaze flickers over to Fox, "That would be you, sir?" Yuu and Fox share a look, "That would be me, yes." Fox says, "You're the first Captain to come and visit, Captain Dayne." "Yes Sir, Today's my day off." "Ah, apologies then." Fox replies, "Yuu-" "Mm...Maybe virtual interviews?" They offer, "I'll think on it." "Have a seat captain," Fox says as Yuu hands him his resume, "I just have a few questions. You needn't worry, this isn't an interview, it's just me making sure I know the men who do work under me." Captain Dayne relaxes, "Yes sir."

[invisible-storyteller]

Exclusive

For the @twpbingo prompt “Porn Star”. Also for the @teenwolfrarepairevents Character of the Month (AO3 link). Relationship: Matt Daehler x Danny Mahealani x Jackson Whittemore 1300 words (teen and up) Tags: established Danny/Jackson, interviews, pornstars

Matt checked the second camera’s angle one more time before pressing start and popping down into the comfortable armchair of his interviewees' luxurious home. He still couldn’t believe that he managed to score an interview with the most popular-as-of-late couple in the gay porn industry, especially since the two were known for never collaborating with or giving information out to any outsider, let it be famous companies, professional reporters, or even other independent pornstars.

“Hi and welcome everyone!” Matt smiled into the camera directly aimed at him and clapped his hands together where his elbows rested on his knees, “This is Matt, the seeker of honest voices, without shame and without taboo, bringing you such exclusive, never-seen-before covers as today‘s video - made possible by the generosity of two very special guests who you may already know, and if you don’t, what rock are you living under?” Matt gave a playful side eye to the camera before turning to the actual stars of his show. “Danny, Jackson, you guys don’t know how grateful I am that you’re giving your first exclusive interview ever to me, and in your home, nonetheless!”

“Well, we thought it was time we answered some of our fans’ burning questions, 'cause seriously, you guys won’t stop harassing us,” Jackson looked into the camera with a judgmental once-over before quickly shifting his eyes back to Matt.

“I’m genuinely honoured, but I still have to ask: Why me? And why haven’t you guys addressed these topics on your channel before?”

“Our videos aren’t about sharing our relationship history or explaining why we decided to do what we do,” Danny took over as he flung an arm around his boyfriend’s neck and let it rest on the other’s solid shoulder, “They are there for enjoyment. And we know that you’re not gonna butcher our answers with editing to make them seem more presentable or polished.”

“Returning to your first comment: isn’t it your aim to make porn a bit more personal and humaine by including romance alongside the spicy stuff?” Matt jumped to his next question, feeling his palms sweat now that both men’s attention was solely on him, “You guys are basically vloggers. You just mix your everyday life updates with - amazing, might I add - porn.”

“Oh, so you’re watching our videos?” Jackson smirked at him as he snuggled back into Danny’s chest.

“Obviously. I only watch quality.”

“Who’s your favourite?”

“You,” Matt admitted unabashedly (his viewers loved this kind of stuff), prompting Jackson to regard his boyfriend smugly while Danny simply rolled his eyes. “So, why not address the fans’ questions if you guys aren’t scared of being personal?”

“Showing sex and "shenanigans" isn’t the same as revealing everything about our private life,” Danny retorted sharply as he narrowed his eyes at Matt.

“But you want to do it now?”

“Why not?” Jackson shrugged at the same time Danny said: “This way, we can keep the interview separate from our channel.”

“Alright. First, let’s go through a few fan-favourite questions,” Matt grabbed his notebook to scroll through his list, “How long have you two been together?”

“Six years. Got together in junior year, high school,” Danny gave his (most likely) pre-prepared answer while Jackson raised their intertwined hands to his lips and gave his boyfriend’s hand a chaste kiss.

“What gave you the idea of doing porn?”

“Jackson has an exhibitionist kink. I refuse to see other people openly ogle him. This was a compromise.”

“Are you guys gay?” Matt could barely keep his laughter in, but his job was to satiate the viewer's interest, no matter how absurd the question.

“I’m a paid actor,” Jackson winked into the camera, “See, our channel is actually just gay-for-pay.”

Danny rolled his eyes once more, and while he wasn’t looking, Matt noticed Jackson dragging his eyes up and down Matt's body (which had begun to somewhat relax into his chair but was now once again pulled taut by the attention) as the pornstar motioned for him to continue. Matt swiftly averted his eyes to the Notebook screen and tugged nervously at his shirt’s collar - maybe he shouldn’t have undone the top buttons, but it was just so damn hot in that house!

“Will we ev-" Matt stuttered over the question with a cough before collecting himself and giving it another go, "Will we ever see you guys paired up with someone else?”

The two men shared a confidential look, and when they gave their brief answer, their short "maybe" was synched perfectly. Then Matt continued asking a few more of the basic, fan-demanded questions before finally giving space to his own curiosity. His round of questions was something his interviewees couldn’t prepare for, and thus, their reactions were bound to be much more organic (and maybe he could stop feeling so out of his element if he finally got the upper hand for once).

“How much of your sex life do you put on film?”

“About half of it,” Jackson estimated after a moment of pause with an agreeing nod from Danny.

“Doesn’t it kill the mood?” Matt scooted forward in his seat, genuinely dying to know, “The pressure to perform, to create videos regularly?”

“We only film when the mood to show our love strikes us,” Danny explained with a grin, “It’s just lucky for our fans that the mood strikes often.”

“You mentioned you have daily jobs that you would rather not disclose,” Matt recalled, “Doesn’t the, um, porn bother your bosses?”

“I work for a friend, actually, my ex-girlfriend,” Jackson explained nonchalantly, “And she doesn’t give a crap.”

“Seems like a wonderful woman.”

“And I’m too good at my job for big corporations to refuse my services,” Danny added, making Matt grin at the opportunity.

“You mean your professional services. Just so the fans don’t misunderstand.”

“Oh, I’m sure most CEOs I’ve been in a room with are secretly beating it to me and Jackson,” Danny commented with a confident smile - it even showed his dimples - and Matt couldn’t doubt the reality of that.

“Your filming venues must be limited with all the travelling you do,” Matt noted next, skimming through his self-picked topics with frustration over whether he would have the time to ask everything he wanted to know. This just couldn't be his only shot with his favourites! He would have to find a way to secure another interview, at least. “I mean, I can’t imagine that all hotels and tourist establishments would gladly see themselves on a porn channel. Then again, it might be a good promo.”

“Why don’t you see it for yourself?” Jackson asked all of a sudden with an excited twinkle in his eye, “Maybe you could join us on our next trip. Really see what goes on behind the scenes.”

“For real?” Matt gaped, shell-shocked and over-the-moon at such exclusive material. And it was Jackson's suggestion, on top of that!

“Yeah,” Jackson smirked, looking up at his boyfriend with the kind of impish look Matt had seen dozens of times through the screen, and then locking eyes with Matt once more when he got the other’s silent approval, “We could show you how we make our videos.”

“Wow, that’s... I don’t have words guys, except maybe FUCK YEAH!”

An hour later, Matt left the house with Danny’s number in his phone and a promise to be contacted soon. He would admit later that he was stupid back then not to realize the obvious come-on, but with his obliviousness lasting until they were all in France, shooting, it was a nice surprise to be kissed by Danny at the end of the first day and then be led back to their hotel room by Jackson, where Matt was showed exactly how the two make their explicit content. And if Matt ended up starring in the sexier parts of their new video as well, that was just a welcomed bonus.

[evidence-based-activism]

Any sources on prostitution where the interviewees aren't pulled from shelters/help centres? I saw someone talk about how a lot of studies purposefully pull the most vulnerable women to include in the study so that results are negatively skewed. It's a silly argument to me because it doesn't take away the fact that those women literally exist, but I am interested to see other studies

Yes! Honestly, I think this is more of a "ask for proof studies are purposefully pulling only from shelters" situation, because while there are definitely some studies that do this (and that's a good thing! studying this subset of prostitutes is important!) I can find no evidence that this is a common theme in this field.

Unless you mean to exclude research that involves contacting participants through various outreach agencies. This is fairly common in prostitution research, but it's not a unique phenomenon; it's a common technique for studying any relatively small and/or "underground" population (i.e., contact via an established organization that has already established themselves as legitimate). Further, these agencies often aren't just helping women who self-select into a program, they are deliberately reaching out to the local prostitute (and/or other vulnerable*) population(s) in order to offer assistance. As such, this is essentially the same procedure that any research study would start with (contacting a sample of the population), it's just been done in advance of the research starting. (It's similar to snowball sampling, which is an accepted sampling technique when probability sampling is impossible.) There is still some research that doesn't use this strategy, some of which I list below, but it is less common, again due to the size and secrecy in this population.

(*Another thing to note is that the "help centers" researchers recruit prostitutes from aren't always specifically about prostitution. Instead they may be focused on homelessness, substance abuse, job training, health clinics, or other government services.)

---

That being said, here's some examples of the research I think you're looking for:

To start, one of the most frequently cited studies I see, "Prostitution and Trafficking in Nine Countries" [1], is the origin of the of the "89% of people in prostitution want to leave prostitution" statistic interviewed people (mainly women, but also occasionally some men and transgender women) in help centers in only 2 of the 9 countries, and even then they didn't exclusively interview women from help centers in those countries. There's also good reason to believe that in Thailand - one of the countries where they interviewed women at a help center - the results were actually positively skewed. Specifically, they were unable to interview many women on the street as they "found that pimps did not allow the prostitutes to answer our questions". The country estimates of individuals who want to leave prostitution ranged from 68-99%, excluding countries where interviews were primarily conducted in either help centers or medical centers changes the range to 68-97%. (This study covered a lot of other topics as well, including current and past experiences of violence.)

A non-exhaustive list of other studies that didn't pull (at least not completely) from shelters/help centers:

200 female street prostitutes in the San Francisco Bay Area; study found 62% were physically abused as a child, 60% were sexually abused as a child, 62% started in prostitution before age 16 [2]

1,969 women identified via "information on prostitute women identified by police and health department surveillance"; study found a standard mortality ratio (mortality compared to general population) of 1.9 for active and inactive prostitutes, 5.9 for active prostitutes only, and 7.9 for homicide of active and inactive prostitutes, and 17.7 for homicide of active prostitutes only [3]

193 legal prostitutes in Zurich were recruited from "different locations, namely outdoors, in studios, bars, cabarets, parlours, brothels and escort services"; study found 63% had at least one mental disorder, notably this study did not represent "women who were forced [in] to sex work and women who were working illegally" [4]

A research review [5] - albeit one fairly limited in scope, as they looked only at research on adult female street prostitutes in western countries - summarizes various physical health, mental health, and violence studies; samples ranged from street interviews to help centers to medical centers

This research review [6] examined dissociation in various work (street, brothel, club, etc.) settings, prison, and help centers; methodological limitations prevented a meta-analysis, but they found high rates of prior trauma, violence, and dissociative behaviors/symptoms among prostitutes. They also note that "The more accessible and thus most studied [female sex workers] are those acting on the street, in public brothels, in clubs or in windows."

134 female porn actresses recruited via an online survey; results poorer mental health and increased experience of multiple forms of violence including childhood sexual abuse [7]

An analysis of the content on a website for escorts to share information found "physical violence and electronic abuse are common experiences" [8]

222 women in indoor and outdoor prostitution settings were interviewed, most were contacted outside of a shelter or treatment center; high rates of violence were reported across all settings [9]

And, of course, none of this addresses all the other issues with prostitution such as the relationship between prostitution and human trafficking, the negative societal effects (e.g., perpetuation of misogyny), etc.

I hope this is what you're looking for! Let me know if it isn't!

References below the cut:

Farley, M., Cotton, A., Lynne, J., Zumbeck, S., Spiwak, F., Reyes, M. E., Alvarez, D., & Sezgin, U. (2004). Prostitution and Trafficking in Nine Countries. Journal of Trauma Practice, 2(3–4), 33–74. https://doi.org/10.1300/J189v02n03_03

SILBERT, M. H., & PINES, A. M. (1982). Entrance into Prostitution. Youth & Society, 13(4), 471–500. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X82013004005

Potterat, J. J., Brewer, D. D., Muth, S. Q., Rothenberg, R. B., Woodhouse, D. E., Muth, J. B., Stites, H. K., & Brody, S. (2004). Mortality in a Long-term Open Cohort of Prostitute Women. American Journal of Epidemiology, 159(8), 778–785. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwh110

Rössler, W., Koch, U., Lauber, C., Hass, A.-K., Altwegg, M., Ajdacic-Gross, V., & Landolt, K. (2010). The mental health of female sex workers. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 122(2), 143–152. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2009.01533.x

Love, R. (2015). Street Level Prostitution: A Systematic Literature Review. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 36(8), 568–577. https://doi.org/10.3109/01612840.2015.1020462

Tschoeke, Stefan, et al. “A Systematic Review of Dissociation in Female Sex Workers.” Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, vol. 20, no. 2, Mar. 2019, pp. 242–57. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1080/15299732.2019.1572044.

Grudzen, Corita R., et al. “Comparison of the Mental Health of Female Adult Film Performers and Other Young Women in California.” Psychiatric Services, vol. 62, no. 6, June 2011, pp. 639–45. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.62.6.pss6206_0639.

Davies, Kim, and Lorraine Evans. “A Virtual View of Managing Violence among British Escorts.” Deviant Behavior, vol. 28, no. 6, Sept. 2007, pp. 525–51. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1080/01639620701316830.

Raphael, Jody, and Deborah L. Shapiro. “Violence in Indoor and Outdoor Prostitution Venues.” Violence Against Women, vol. 10, no. 2, Feb. 2004, pp. 126–39. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801203260529.

[leftistfeminista]

Captive Revolution: Palestinian Women's Anti-Colonial Struggle within the Israeli Prison System

Having female detainees watch the torture of male detainees in order to frighten them and force them to collaborate was not unusual in the experience of many. Israeli prisons’ techniques of torturing Palestinian political prisoners included ‘Shabeh’ and ‘kees’ among others. The term mashbooh, or mashbooheen for the plural refers to detainees who are bound to either a chair or the wall, with their hands tied behind their backs or on top of their heads. The actual act is known as shabeh. The term kees, used by various interviewees refers to a black hood placed over the head and shoulders and often reeks of urine smell.

Here is what Haleema ‘A.’ relayed about her experience:

When I arrived one female security guard took me to a cell and demanded I take off all my clothes, including my underwear. She took my clothes with her and left me naked for a whole hour, hoping I would harm myself. After one hour they came back with my clothes; I put them on while one of the guards ordered me to carry a chair … I refused. He picked up the chair and walked towards a corner in the corridor which to me sounded like a slaughter house. From that corner,

I would hear the screams of men undergoing torture, while walking towards my cell I also saw two men mashbooheen, with the kees which reeked of urine smell covering their heads then they entered another corner, one of them put the chair on the floor and demanded I sit down. Then he cuffed my feet, tied them and hung them through a hook on the wall, and placed the kees on my head, it had an awful stench, and the smell of urine was suffocating. I could hardly breathe.

Haleema ‘A.’

This said, female Palestinian political detainees experience sexual abuse, molestation, threat of rape and even rape more frequently than do men. Playing on their own imagined stereotypes of Arab culture, especially the traditional norms concerning sexuality, Israeli military officers and prison authorities deliberately target Palestinian female political detainees and victimize them sexually. In my conversations with the former detainees, there was hardly any woman who was not sexually harassed or threatened with rape.

When Haleema ‘A.’ voiced her experience about one interrogation session, she described it as ‘the most excruciating form of torture.’ Here is what she said:

During one of the interrogation periods, I refused to answer their questions. One of the interrogators slammed my head against the wall several times and another one held my breasts tightly. I was resisting both interrogators. I never cried and stayed steadfast throughout … I was unable to find sanitary napkins nor did I have any extra underwear … I asked the interrogator for sanitary napkins. He said, ‘You talk, we will get you some.’ He [the interrogator] put one of his legs here [she stood up and demonstrated the scene for us]; he pushed one of his legs between my legs and wrapped his other leg around me … I knew they were exploiting Palestinian social or traditional norms. I wanted to give him the message that he will not scare me by this pressure he is putting on me. He looked at me and said: ‘You are smelly and filthy. Fuck off.’ He kicked me with his boots and said, ‘you disgust me … you sharameet [plural of sharmouta] always move from one man to the next in the PFLP.’

Haleema ‘A.’

Ghada’s experience of sexual assault was voiced thus:

I was beaten very frequently, on all parts of my body. There was a lot of psychological terror and threat of rape. They kept saying: ‘We will sleep with you now if you do not answer our questions ….’ I went through shabeh many times. One day, several interrogators entered my cell as I was defecating in my cell. They would take me to interrogation, then to the solitary confinement. I spent five weeks in solitary confinement. After two months of my detention, they moved me to a room with other women and I stayed there for 20 days; the room was very tiny. It had a bathroom and one tap that dripped all night. I was sleep deprived throughout my detention. I lost eight kilos during interrogation.

Ghada

his orders: ‘Take off your clothes.’ I placed my hands over my chest for protection. He did not give me any time, and asked the others in the room to undress me. I resisted but it did not help as I was lying on the floor naked, with my hands cuffed behind my back, I was thrown on the floor. The cuffs were pressing on my spine and it was painful. The short interrogator placed his both ankles on my belly. The tall one – Uzraeel – opened my legs using a wooden pole, and the woman held my head in place with her foot. The one who was holding me with both ankles started brushing my breasts with his huge hands, while Uzraeel started pushing a wooden pole into my vagina. They kept crushing my breasts, and trying to penetrate my vagina with a wooden pole, but could not do it … I resisted fiercely. Aisha

The use of sexuality, especially in the form of attempted rape, as a method of torture of Palestinian political prisoners was rather widespread in Israeli prisons. Qahira al-Saadi, who was released after ten years of imprisonment in Israeli jails in the January 2012 prisoners exchange with Hamas, said that she had been held for interrogation for three-and-a-half months at the Moscobiyya, then transferred to Ramla (Ayalon) prison. Referring to her incarceration, she said that Israeli guards mistreated and tortured her during the interrogation; the guards ‘threatened to rape me.

Targeting women’s body and sexuality was a policy used in Israeli prison interrogations of Palestinian female detainees. Women complained about the refusal of the interrogator or the prison guard to provide them with sanitary pads during menstruation. Detainees who were sentenced and placed in prison rooms would rip some of the rags used as bed sheets or covers and use these; others in solitary confinement, in isolation cells or during interrogation would be left bleeding all over their only pants.

Salwa expressed her feelings on this issue thus:

During interrogation I had my period; I asked for napkins, for cotton, anything, but they refused. I begged for toilet paper, and they refused. They kept saying: ‘You stay the way you are because you are smelly and filthy and we want you to die, and then we will say you committed suicide …’ My blood filled my underpants and pants, and during these days, I was in a lot of pain.

Salwa

[mariacallous]

On March 11, Pramila Patten, the United Nations’ special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict, presented a report to the U.N. Security Council on her fact-finding mission to Israel and the Palestinian territories regarding the events of Oct. 7, 2023. Her mission, she stated, “threw light on the indiscriminate and coordinated attacks by Hamas and other armed groups against multiple military and civilian targets, aimed to kill, to inflict suffering and abduct the maximum number possible of men, women, and children—soldiers and civilians alike—in the minimum possible amount of time.”

According to the report, Patten and her team “conducted interviews according to UN standards and methodology, with a total of 34 interviewees, including with survivors and witnesses of the 7 October attacks, released hostages, first responders, health and service providers and others.” Further interviews were conducted with the families of hostages still held in captivity. Patten’s team also met with civil society organizations, went to a military base where bodies of those killed during the attack were brought for identification and release to families, and examined four locations in the Gaza periphery where attacks took place.

Based on this, Patten said in her remarks to the Security Council that her team had found “clear and convincing information” of “a catalogue of the most extreme and inhumane forms of killing, torture and other horrors” and other violations that had occurred, including “sexual violence, abduction of hostages and corpses, the public display of captives, both dead and alive, the mutilation of corpses, including decapitation and desecration of bodies as well as the looting and destruction of civilian property.”

Patten’s report joins an earlier statement made by U.N. human rights experts Alice Edwards and Morris Tidball-Binz that was also sent to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, calling for full accountability for the multitude of alleged crimes committed against civilians in Israel during the Oct. 7 attacks. It also corroborates other reports, most recently by the Association for Rape Crisis Centers in Israel as well as by the New York Times, Washington Post, Human Rights Watch, BBC, and others, regarding allegations of rape and ongoing sexual abuse of the hostages held in Gaza.

In late March, the New York Times published the first survivor testimony of an alleged sexual assault experienced by an Israeli hostage in Gaza. Amit Soussana, a 40-year-old Israeli lawyer held hostage in Gaza, recalled being chained to a bed and fondled by a guard who constantly inquired about the timing of her period. Two weeks after her abduction, she told the Times, she was beaten and groped while naked and held at gunpoint, and the guard, “with the gun pointed at me, forced me to commit a sexual act on him.”

The Israeli government and some Israeli officials, including IDF officers and members of the community volunteer organization ZAKA (the Hebrew acronym for Disaster Victim Identification, Extraction, and Rescue), have also issued statements and made allegations of sexual abuse by Hamas. However, some of that information has been proved to be false, including reports of alleged atrocities that actually never happened. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated and recirculated these tales and the veracity of an earlier New York Times report based on an Israeli soldier’s allegations has since been called into question by the paper’s own reporters.

However, the fact that the Israeli government has disseminated some disinformation about the events of Oct. 7 or misused the suffering of the victims and the hostages for its own purposes does not render all allegations made by Israeli victims and by other sources false.

Many of the acts described in reports by the U.N., rights groups, and media outlets may constitute war crimes, as defined in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and subsequent protocols, and crimes against humanity, as defined by the 1998 Rome Statute. In addition, international law forbids the taking of hostages during an armed conflict, as defined by the International Committee of the Red Cross. A war crime is a war crime, and both sides should be held accountable for the crimes and human rights violations they have committed.

More than six months after Oct. 7, some media organizations and international groups remain unconvinced that any sexual violence actually occurred that day. Others issue general statements without specific reference to Hamas and Israel, or provide a reluctant acknowledgement that minimizes the scope and severity of the sexual abuse; others ignore or give only passing reference to the plight of the estimated 134 hostages still held in Gaza, at least 19 of whom are women and children, or issue general statements without specific references to Israel and Hamas.

The Intercept published a scathing critique of the earlier New York Times report, noting that “[r]ape is not uncommon in war.” The Intercept article presented the reporting of the Times article as flawed, noting that “at every turn, when the New York Times reporters ran into obstacles confirming tips, they turned to anonymous Israeli officials or witnesses who’d already been interviewed repeatedly in the press. Months after setting off on their assignment, the reporters found themselves exactly where they had begun, relying overwhelmingly on the word of Israeli officials, soldiers, and Zaka workers to substantiate their claim that more than 30 bodies of women and girls were discovered with signs of sexual abuse.” The Intercept implied that the rapes and abuse perpetrated against Israelis were not a systematic or deliberate act of war.

Elsewhere, Guardian columnist Owen Jones claimed on his YouTube channel that the video he watched, put together by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from Hamas’s own bodycam footage as well as dashboard and mobile phone footage, provided “no evidence” of war crimes.

More recently, articles in both the Grayzone and Mondoweiss analyze Patten’s report and claim, in the words of the latter, that she actually provided “no evidence of systematic rape.” The Grayzone also published a transcript of a discussion between Max Blumenthal and Chris Hedges in which they agree that Israel created a “shock-and-awe campaign of misinformation” in order to create “political space for its brutal assault on Gaza.” Other essays in the Middle East Eye and Zeteo focus primarily on the plight of women in Gaza, glossing over or failing to mention the plight of the Israeli women held hostage. Responses by certain women’s institutions at the United Nations and other feminist groups have also been muted.

On its website, U.N. Women refers to itself as “the global champion for gender equality,” but it has done little to seek justice for murdered Israeli women or resolve the plight of the hostages. In late November, U.N. Women Executive Director Sima Bahous did indeed brief U.N. Security Council members of the “dire situation of women in Gaza and the hostages.” And on Jan. 19, Bahous issued a statement saying, “I call again for accountability for all those affected by the 7 October attacks.” Bahous also condemned “the unparalleled destruction rained on the people of Gaza” along with a call for the release of the hostages.

But the response of U.N. Women as an organization has been less forthcoming. In late November, U.N. Women posted a condemnation of the “brutal attacks by Hamas on Israel on 7 October,” then replaced it with a statement that dropped the condemnation of the attacks and mention of Hamas, while calling for the release of the hostages. That latter statement was later deleted. Since then, its statements have condemned the deaths of Palestinian women in Gaza without any mention of the Israeli victims or the hostages remaining in Gaza, despite the testimony by released hostage Soussana in the New York Times and Israeli media.

Foreign officials and some advocacy organizations have been similarly equivocal. Interviewed on CNN in January, U.S. House Rep. Pramila Jayapal stated that while rape was “horrific,” it “happens in war situations. Terrorist organizations like Hamas obviously are using these as tools. However, I think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians.” (She later issued a statement unequivocally condemning “Hamas’ use of rape and sexual violence as an act of war.”)

In late March, a group of feminists wrote an open letter addressing the Israeli and U.S. governments, claiming that the Israeli government has “chosen to weaponize the issue of sexual violence for political outcome” to shield the IDF’s operations in Gaza amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

In the eyes of many Israeli women, these institutions and organizations have failed to advocate for Israeli victims of sexual violence and for the safety of the remaining hostages—an abdication of their responsibility to protect the lives of all women everywhere. Their inability to simultaneously condemn the gender-based crimes committed by Hamas and the rampant death and destruction caused by Israel in Gaza raises disturbing questions about their understanding of, and commitment to, their mission—and their future relevance.

The downplaying of sexual violence by Hamas is all the more perplexing given the amount of disturbing material already in the public domain. Some of what is known about the gender-based crimes on Oct. 7 comes from testimonies of survivors, the desperate text messages that the victims sent to their families, and recovered cellphones and cameras. And some was provided by journalists or by the attackers themselves, some of whom broadcast their gruesome acts to entire world in real time.

These images include the picture of Naama Levy, bloodied and bruised, as she was loaded onto a Hamas vehicle; the image of terrified Noa Argamani as she was kidnapped to be brought to Gaza; and the photo of Shani Louk, whose mostly naked, splayed body was driven around Gaza on the back of a pickup truck. It is unknown if Louk was dead or alive in the photo; she was reported dead nearly a month later when IDF troops operating in Gaza identified parts of her body. That photo was the first featured in the winning gallery of the team category of Pictures of the Year competition run by the Missouri School of Journalism.

“This has been one of the most documented atrocities in history,” said Ruth Halperin-Kaddari of Bar Ilan University, an expert in international women’s law who served three terms on the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. The denial of the crimes against women constitutes, she said, “a betrayal of everything that these feminist organizations claim to stand for.”

There are several explanations for why previously respected women’s rights organizations might refuse to publicly admit that Hamas is capable of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, or gloss over these crimes.

Some observers, such the ad hoc group Me Too Unless You’re a Jew, insist that antisemitism is at the heart of the anti-Israel bias. Some academics, such as prominent Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and historian Aviad Kleinberg of Tel Aviv University, argue that academics and human rights organizations—including the U.N.—have been and part of a far broader alliance between religious Islam and what Illouz refers to as the “‘post-colonial’ left” that has divided the world into victims and perpetrators, leading to a simplistic and distorted view of morality, according to which Palestinians can do no wrong—a view that Hamas has aggressively promoted.

One source—who previously held a high-ranking position at U.N. Women and is still employed by the United Nations, and therefore spoke to Foreign Policy on the condition of anonymity—pointed to bureaucratic and logistical issues as the cause of this disparity, rather than antisemitism or politicization. This source noted that unlike the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, the United States, and other developed Western countries are not considered “program areas for U.N. Women. … As a result, the U.N., a cumbersome, bureaucratic organization bound by all sorts of regulations and limitations, finds it difficult to even to really consider that Israel, or even any Israeli, might ever be a victim of the Palestinians.”

Furthermore, the source noted, Israel has often positioned itself as distant or even aloof from the U.N. and other international organizations. Indeed, Israel has long denigrated the U.N. and maintained that it is inherently hostile to Israel; as early as 1955, then-Prime Minister David Ben Gurion derisively used a made-up Hebrew rhyme, “Um-Shmum” to deny that the U.N. has any importance.

“This plays into an already-existing bias against Israel as an occupying country, and as a result, Israel may receive less understanding, compassion, or even attention from the U.N. and its affiliates,” the U.N. source said.

Based on her familiarity with the United Nations, Halperin-Kaddari—the international women’s law expert—also pointed to procedures and other limitations as a difficulty. But she noted that in comparison with other situations, such as the sexual violence in Foca, Bosnia, in 1992—during which large numbers of Muslims and Croats were tortured, disappeared, raped, or executed, and women were transferred to so-called rape camps—the responses of by U.N. Women and similar organizations has been “appalling slow and terribly inadequate.”

Daphna Hacker, a professor at Tel Aviv University’s faculties of law and gender studies and Israel’s current member of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, acknowledged that the evidence from Oct. 7 may not meet the “usual criterion” of U.N. and other international investigations.

“The intensity and manner in which these crimes were perpetrated is unprecedented,” Hacker said. “Hamas murdered or kidnapped most of their victims; the hostages have not been released and, as feminist researchers, we know that if there are surviving eyewitnesses or survivors, they may not come forward for many years, if ever. But the testimony that we do have is horrific.”

Tal Hochman, the director-general of the Israel Women’s Network, Israel’s foremost feminist advocacy organization, also acknowledged that there are numerous difficulties surrounding the evidence. She said that ZAKA, the nongovernmental rescue and recovery organization tasked by the government to recover the bodies after the Oct. 7 attacks, did not prioritize forensic examinations.

“ZAKA gave priority to identifying the bodies and bringing them to rapid burial, which is a holy commandment in Judaism,” Hochman said. “We do not have all of the evidence that we could have had, but I also understand the families’ pain and need for burial and closure.”

In the days following the attack, Hochman added, she volunteered at the Shura military base, the forensic collection center and morgue to which bodies from the Oct. 7 attack were brought. “We did not have enough refrigerators to perform complete forensic examinations of all of the bodies,” she said.

“To honor these women, the U.N. and other organizations cannot hide behind protocols and logistics,” Hacker said. “The organizations must adapt to the reality that the victims suffered, and the hostages continue to suffer, in order to bring them the justice they deserve.”

Orit Sulitzeanu, the director of the Association for Rape Crisis Centers in Israel—which published the first comprehensive report regarding the attacks­—noted that the report produced by her organization “meets the highest standards of reporting. It is offensive that are findings are dismissed because of misuse by some Israeli individuals or officials. We are a nongovernmental agency—our report should be judged on its merits as an investigative report.”

Furthermore, she commented on the recent U.N. report: “What about the report by Patten? It is ludicrous to dismiss her report as if she were part of Israeli hasbara.”

Weaponizing the abuse of women and conflict-related sexual crimes to promote other agendas—whether the Israeli government’s or its opponents’—is a deliberate victimization of women and a betrayal of all women, everywhere.

Accusations of sexual-based war crimes must be investigated, no matter who the victim and the alleged perpetrator are. Sexual violence is abhorrent, no matter on which side of the border between Israel and Gaza the victims are and no matter if the victims are Israeli or Palestinian. Justifying or excusing the crimes of Oct. 7 as if they were acts of liberation and resistance implies that Israeli women are in some way complicit in their victimization, or perhaps deserved their fate, because they are citizens of an occupying power.

A position paper published in early December by a coalition of six Arab women’s organizations in Israel takes a more morally upstanding position. The coalition members clearly state that they do not question the reports of sexual assaults against Israeli women and “call upon the women [and] feminist activists … to boldly condemn all violations, including killings, demolitions, and displacements occurring in the relentless war against the Palestinian people, particularly affecting women and children in Gaza. … Our feminist values dictate that we cannot accept any excuses for violating human rights.”

In some future, we in this region will struggle to rebuild and create new societies predicated on freedom, security, and opportunity for all. To do so, we must learn to hold multiple, even contradictory, truths—and to feel pain for ourselves and our enemies simultaneously.

That means recognizing the anguish of the many thousands of women and children in Gaza who have been traumatized by the appalling deprivation, chaos, violence, and death at the hands of the IDF and the Israeli government and—at the same time—demanding justice for all of Hamas’s victims.

Justice is meant to be universal and indivisible. By minimizing the dehumanization of Israeli women and the hostages still in Gaza, many publications and organizations have undermined this crucial, seemingly self-evident axiom. And by denying the universalism of war crimes and crimes against humanity, they have abdicated their basic responsibility.

Instead of assuming positions of moral selectivity, U.N. institutions and all organizations and publications dedicated to human rights can and must apply their prestige, influence, and extensive funding to advocate for all women, investigate all credible allegations, bring all perpetrators to justice before an international court, and provide support for all victims.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Adam Zivo

Published: Jun 6, 2024

At a trendy cafe in the bohemian Florentin district of Tel Aviv, Niv Nissim, a 30-year-old gay Israeli, described the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas as “maybe the worst moment for everyone who lives in Israel.” He spoke of an acquaintance who perished at the Nova Festival massacre. “He went to dance and he was murdered. Most of the people that got murdered and kidnapped are people with the same values that I have — peace advocates,” Nissim said.

He was shocked to see international queer activists glorify Hamas in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre. “They don’t know what Hamas is. They think Hamas is like a group of superheroes — and that’s the thing. It’s a terror organization. Same as al-Qaida,” Nissim said. “For gay people around the world to be pro-Hamas right now is crazy. And it’s wrong.”

After Hamas massacred more than 1,100 Israeli civilians, LGBTQ activists across the western world mobilized. On city streets and university campuses, they called for the destruction of Israel and carried “Queers for Palestine” banners alongside rainbow Palestinian flags. Claiming that queer and Palestinian advocacy are inextricably linked, they minimized the brutality of Hamas, who they portrayed as freedom fighters.

What are we going to do now? What can we do? How could we fight for human rights (in Gaza) after what happened?

-- Niv Nissim, talking about October 7

Their behaviour ignited a global debate about western queer activism. Commentators noted that not only does Hamas murder gay people, Israel is the only country in the Middle East that supports queer rights. Was it not delusional for activists to side with Hamas?

And what exactly did people mean when they shouted, “Queers for Palestine”? For some, the slogan represented a principled commitment to the human rights of the Palestinian people, without supporting Hamas. But for others, it meant the dismantling of the Israeli state, which implies the ethnic cleansing of millions of Jews, and the glorification Hamas’s war crimes.

Throughout this debate, the everyday lives of LGBTQ Israelis and Palestinians — their fears, trauma and triumphs — were largely ignored. In May, I visited Tel Aviv through a trip spon.sored by the non-profit Exigent Foundation, a Jewish group that focuses on public education. Arriving a few days early, I independently spoke with queer people in the city to find out what their lives were really like, what they thought of the war and how they felt about western activists’ views on the conflict.

I interviewed four gay Israeli men, each with distinct experiences and perspectives. They were by no means a comprehensive cross-section of Israel’s LGBTQ community, but they opened a window into their world. Amid tight timelines, I was unable to secure interviews with gay Palestinians, who can be notoriously difficult to track down because they fear revealing themselves, so as an imperfect substitute, I asked my Israeli interviewees to share their insights on them.

These are their stories.

Actors and meteors

Niv Nissim is an actor who gained moderate fame after starring in “Sublet,” a 2020 Israeli film about a gay travel writer who rents an apartment from a film student. Unsparing in its depiction of gay hookup culture, the widely acclaimed film could not possibly have been made anywhere else in the Middle East.

Nissim said he has not personally experienced homophobia in Israel. “I’m not scared of walking hand-in-hand with my partner,” he said, before clarifying this was likely because he lives in Tel Aviv, which exists within its own cosmopolitan bubble. Homosexuals from across the country, indeed the entire world, flock to the city, with official statistics suggesting that roughly a quarter of the local population identifies as LGBTQ.

[ Niv Nissim, a 30-year-old actor and a gay Persian-Israeli living in Tel Aviv in May 2024. He says he empathizes with Palestinians notes they are a “big part” of the city’s underground queer scene. ]

Gay life is different in Israel’s smaller towns, as well as in Jerusalem, which is known for being religious and conservative. In those places, being openly gay could sometimes be “frightening,” he said, because of the possibility that religious Arabs or Orthodox Jews might beat you. Still, he said he felt extremely lucky to be Israeli considering the lethal homophobia elsewhere in the Middle East. His own family had fled from Iran, where being gay is legally punishable by death.

Palestinians are “a big part” of Tel Aviv’s gay community, Nissim said. One of his close friends is a Palestinian fashion designer who organizes parties in the city’s underground voguing scene (voguing is a flamboyant style of dance closely associated with queer culture). “It’s not even a weird thing. We don’t look at them as different or something,” he said.

Many gay Palestinian men, facing violence back home, escape into Israel to live in relative safety. Organizations across the country help them find shelter and get back on their feet (the same services are also provided to queer people fleeing Orthodox Jewish families). “If you are a gay person who needs help, no matter where you come from, you’ll get help,” said Nissim.

He said he was unaware of any serious anti-Palestinian racism in Tel Aviv’s queer scene. “(It is) really weird if someone will be racist here in the gay community.” Nissim is a Persian-Israeli, and while the relationship between the Ashkenazis (European-descent Jews) and Mizrahis (Middle Eastern-descent Jews) may have been fraught decades ago, everyone is now quite “blended.”

For gay people around the world to be pro-Hamas right now is crazy. And it’s wrong.

-- Niv Nissim, 30, Actor

Like many artists, Nissim and his friends are politically progressive and empathize with the Palestinians. “It’s not a real life. They don’t have real rights. They can’t go anywhere. Kind of open-air prisoners,” he said. For much of his life, he advocated for Palestinian self-determination within the framework of a two-state solution. “We wanted to say, enough with the oppression. Enough with the war — both sides — let’s not advocate war. Let’s advocate peace.”

Under the leadership of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Nissim said artistic productions that criticized the government or featured positive Israeli-Arab relationships — “impossible love stories,” he described them — faced increasing censorship. Over time, he and other Israelis came to see Netanyahu and his allies as corrupt and autocratic. “It was starting to look like a very Third World country.”

In a bid to stay in power, Netanyahu formed a coalition government with several ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties in November 2022. Two months later, the new government announced its intention to impose controversial reforms that would curtail the independence and influence of the country’s judiciary.

While Israelis rebelled against Netanyahu’s reforms in nationwide protests, many within the LGBTQ community worried their rights would be rolled back. Nissim said it is rare to find gay supporters of the present government; it’s like “shooting yourself in the leg,” he said.

Neither same-sex nor interfaith couples can marry within Israel, as only religious marriages can be conducted in the country. However, Israel fully recognizes international civil marriages, including same-sex marriages, so queer Israelis simply tie the knot abroad. Some of these marriages occur over Zoom, through a legal loophole that allows officiants in Utah to provide virtual ceremonies to couples anywhere in the world — these marriages are quick, cheap and valid under U.S. law. Fearing Netanyahu’s coalition partners might restrict same-sex marriage rights, Nissim and his boyfriend decided to get a “Utah marriage” last year, just in case.

Then Oct. 7 happened, and the political tumult of the preceding months was, briefly, vaporized. In recent weeks, large protests against Netanyahu’s coalition government have resumed, especially in Tel Aviv.

Like the rest of Israeli society, a chasm now exists within Tel Aviv’s gay community — one side calls for a ceasefire and the other supports Netanyahu’s plans to fully eradicate Hamas, whatever the cost. Nissim supports the first camp, though he could see both sides.

His heart was filled with uncertainty. He said he used to chant, “Free Palestine,” but now felt he no longer had the right to do so while there were still hostages in Gaza. “What are we going to do now? What can we do? How could we fight for human rights after what happened? How can we do it?” he asked.

He understood the hate by both Palestinians and Israelis. “What happened was the worst thing — for me, for them, for everyone. Killing and raping and burning and taking people. And not only people, like good people, who fight for peace. It’s the worst thing … When gay people wanted our rights to be given to us, we didn’t burn buildings or kidnap people. We didn’t kill people. We shouted and we went to the streets. We protested for our rights and for peace,” he said.

Nissim has learned to adapt to the heightened tensions of war. When Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel in April, he and his boyfriend simply sat outside and watched the Iron Dome shoot them down. They looked like meteors or shooting stars. “It’s surreal, but this is our life here. You have to develop some kind of rough skin. And just somehow be cool.”

A soldier finds his home

Michael Tubur, a 31-year-old gay soldier with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), sits at a sunlit park, recounting his experiences evacuating wounded soldiers from Gaza last October and November. “It’s very difficult to do surgery on the field. Our job was just to give them the first aid, just to stop the bleeding and stuff, and take them outside very fast,” he said, smiling often.

It took two weeks for Tubur’s unit to enter the Gaza Strip, as the IDF had to ensure that the surrounding Israeli land had been cleared of Hamas fighters. By that point, Gaza had been heavily bombed. The destruction was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

One of the first things the IDF did was take everyone’s phones away. Hamas had used fake social media accounts featuring stolen photos of beautiful women, to install spyware on Israeli soldiers’ devices, allowing them to eavesdrop and track their locations. For three weeks, Tubur was completely cut off from the world. The situation was tense and uncertain, and he felt afraid.

“At the beginning, we thought that we are going to see an actual army. And we discovered it’s not going to be like that. They went into the tunnels. You don’t know where they’re going to come out from,” he said.

Hamas fighters would ambush soldiers with rocket launchers or guns and then melt away. After these attacks, it was imperative for the Israelis to confirm whether they were being lured into a trap. On several occasions, Hamas purposely used smaller assaults to attract medics and then followed up with larger, lethal bombardments. Tubur’s unit would wait on standby, keys in the ignition, ready to race in once they knew the situation was reasonably safe.

Suddenly you saw gay warriors and commanders, like major commanders, people who were in the intelligence, in the Air Force, in everything. Then you saw gay guys who were killed.

-- Michael Tubur, 31, Soldier

“You just act. You don’t have time to think. Someone else’s life is on the line,” he said. “There were days that nothing happened — and you’re just sitting and doing nothing. And days when everything went from zero to 100, and I was just dying to go back inside the sleeping bag and close my eyes.”

He maintained the IDF did its best to minimize civilian casualties amid a “very, very complicated situation.”

At the beginning of the war, Israeli soldiers would automatically attack unknown individuals within a 400-metre radius around them, he said, but the response to anyone further away was scrutinized and debated. To protect civilians, that radius was later reduced to 50 metres. That meant Hamas fighters could freely roam nearby so long as they were unarmed and pretended to be non-combatants. These fighters would then access weapons caches hidden throughout Gaza, launch lone-wolf ambushes, and then abandon their weapons and pretend once again to be regular Palestinians.

“So, then the mission became much harder. And the progress was very, very slow — because now you need to move house by house, building by building, and make sure there is no weapons there,” said Tubur. Sometimes the IDF would miss caches or tunnels, which allowed Hamas to attack from behind.

While critics, including the International Court of Justice, claimed that Israel is committing “genocide,” Tubur found this accusation perplexing. If that was true, he said, the IDF could have simply been ordered to “just bomb everything,” rather than commit to a complicated ground operation at the cost of Israeli lives.

“I’m very sad that people got killed — children and mothers. But it’s a war and war is complicated. Everyone wants to do the best and try to make as less casualties as they can.”

Tubur, who has Arab friends, believed that Israelis and Palestinians could peacefully coexist. But this would require Palestinian imams to embrace more moderate interpretations of Islam, he said.

[ Michael Tubur, a 31-year-old gay soldier with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), shown in Tel Aviv in May 2024. He hopes the Israel-Hamas war at least helps conservative families broaden their perceptions of the LGBTQ community and be more accepting of their gay sons. ]

In some ways, he was grateful for the war and how it helped show traditional Israelis that gay men deserve equal rights as they are “equal in death.” Many traditionalists believed that queer people simply party in Tel Aviv, parade naked on the streets and disregard everyone else’s troubles, Tubur said. “Then suddenly you saw gay warriors and commanders, like major commanders, people who were in the intelligence, in the Air Force, in everything. Then you saw gay guys who were killed.”

Shattering stereotypes is important for Tubur. He came from a religious family that had never seen a gay person until he came out of the closet. They thought all LGBTQ people were drag queens or transgender, which made it hard for him to accept himself. He struggled to reconcile his homosexuality with his masculine persona and some of the traditional values he cherished, such as starting a family.

When he finally came out at age 26, his parents assumed he was a “special gay,” because he didn’t fit the stereotype. Over time, they met his gay friends, including some in the military, and realized they were just people.

Tubur hoped the war would help other conservative families broaden their perceptions of what it meant to be LGBTQ, and make it easier for them to accept their gay sons. “There was a story about someone (who) was in the closet and got killed. And his boyfriend posted a letter where he said, ‘I cannot tell you your name. But I miss you so much. And I cannot share it with anyone because you’re in the closet.’ When I read it, I was crying, because how can someone bear this kind of pain by himself?”

Military service is mandatory for almost all Israelis, which makes the IDF a microcosm of wider society: progressives and conservatives serve side by side. During the quieter days in Gaza, Tubur and his comrades spent hours talking and learning about their lives. “You are a unit, and you need to sit next to each other, be with each other. You don’t have any other option,” he said.

He recalled a fellow soldier, an Orthodox Jew, who told him that being gay was unnatural. Rather than take offence, Tubur talked things out with him. They did not agree on many issues, Tubur said, but they developed an understanding.

“He still doesn’t accept the way I live, but now he knows how it is. He knows what it means. He knows how it feels. I think that, in the long term, this thing’s done very good. Because when the war will be over, people will go to their houses, people will go to other places, but they are a different person — you understand?

“This time, he won’t be so against the gays. He will think a little bit before he will shout,” Tubur said.

The filmmaker and gay Palestinians

Yariv Mozer, a documentary filmmaker in his 40s, met me at the Haaliya Community Country, a new recreational building that acts as a de facto hub for Tel Aviv’s LGBTQ community. Rainbow flags hung above the pool and the gym was packed with gay men. As we entered, a trans woman who helped manage the place welcomed us warmly.

Ten years ago, Mozer directed a documentary, “The Invisible Men,” which followed the lives of three gay Palestinians who had fled to Israel and then found asylum in the west. Through this film and other projects, he is keenly aware of the challenges gay Palestinian men face.

[ Yariv Mozer, a documentary filmmaker in his 40s, at the Haaliya Community Country in Tel Aviv, in May 2024. He is in favour of a two-state solution that has nothing to do with Hamas. “Hamas is a brutal, extreme, fundamentalist religious group, which believes in the power of violence to achieve their goals.” ]

Not only is Palestinian culture deeply religious and conservative, Mozer explained, but communities are also organized into sprawling tribes where a family’s reputation is paramount. “You can be gay, so long as no one knows about it. But if someone will catch you or see you, or you will be exposed as being gay, this can harm the honour of the family. So you hear a lot about honour killings and punishments.”

These murders are tolerated by local authorities and occur in parallel to state-backed violence against sexual minorities. One of the characters in Mozer’s film was tied up by his father after his family learned of his homosexuality. The man escaped with his life, but not before his father sliced his face with a knife, leaving him with a permanent scar.

Mozer said both Israeli and Palestinian security forces prey upon the vulnerability of gay Palestinians and blackmail them into acting as intelligence assets. “A lot of men are very much afraid of being openly gay or being suspected as gays, because they will know that they can be exploited by both sides.” Mozer recalled the story of one of his interviewees who the Palestinian Authority had suspected was a gay collaborator. They interrogated him for hours, beat him and held his head in a toilet.

Caught between violent relatives and predatory security forces, many gay Palestinians from the West Bank flee to Israel for safety (those in Gaza, where the borders are sealed, escape to Egypt). But even in Israeli cities, they cannot breathe easily. In 2022, a 22-year-old gay Palestinian man, Ahmad Abu Marhia, was kidnapped into the West Bank and beheaded — he was waiting to emigrate to Canada at the time of his murder.

The Israeli government has historically refused to grant asylum to queer Palestinians, out of fear that could lead to a flood of false claimants, said Mozer. In recognition of the genuine dangers this population faces, the government instead issues temporary residency permits on humanitarian grounds, which must be renewed several times a year.

Approximately 90 Palestinians hold such permits but, until 2022, they were not allowed to legally work, which forced many of them to survive in the underground economy, particularly the sex trade. Those who cannot secure these permits often choose to simply live undocumented, as illegal migrants.

With such a precarious existence, many of these queer Palestinians eventually seek asylum in the West. But in February, the Tel Aviv Court for Administrative Affairs ruled that Palestinians fleeing persecution based on sexual orientation or gender expression are now eligible for full asylum. The wider implications of this decision, including on third-country asylum claims, remains unclear.

While filming his documentary, Mozer found that gay Palestinians were “very much isolated, with a very small group of people that they could trust.” He said they were often afraid of meeting or dating Israelis because of issues with racism. He speculated that Nissim’s contradictory experience might be a generational difference.

Hamas represents humanity in the most darkest times of our history. That is Hamas. No freedom for women. No equal rights for LGBTQ.

-- Yariv Mozer, documentary filmmaker

Mozer is empathetic to the Palestinians, but has a scathing hatred of Hamas. “I’m in favour of a two-state solution. That has nothing to do with Hamas. Hamas is a brutal, extreme, fundamentalist religious group, which believes in the power of violence to achieve their goals.”

Seeing Western queer activists romanticize Hamas in the aftermath of Oct. 7 felt like a betrayal to him. “I see it and I’m amazed. How stupid are you? You are building them to become a legitimate part of this world … It’s shocking,” he said.

“You’re almost unable to be openly gay in Ramallah. So, you want to be openly gay in Gaza? No way. That’s the most extreme religious society in this area of the world.”

The activists are not helping the Palestinian cause, he said, and in fact, are making the situation worse through their embrace of extreme and polarizing rhetoric. “Wake up to understand that you don’t share values with those people. Hamas represents humanity in the most darkest times of our history. That is Hamas. No freedom for women. No equal rights for LGBTQ. All the things that we value as democratic countries — freedom of speech, freedom of art, music, dance. All of this doesn’t exist there.”

Mozer is now working on a documentary that follows 15 survivors of the Nova Festival massacre, one of whom is gay. Upon reviewing the footage shot by Hamas’s fighters, he noticed that some of the terrorists repeatedly jeered “omo, omo, omo” — homosexual — at captured male Israelis who had piercings or earrings. “It’s a small moment that explains so much about Hamas and the way they treat gay men,” he said.

Mozer did not have kind words to say about Netanyahu, either. He called his far-right coalition “one of the most negative things that happened to our country. It’s a mixture of all the evil and bad things that this country could bring together in one government.”

[ The pool at the Haaliya Community Country in Tel Aviv, Israel, a new recreational building that acts as a hub for Tel Aviv’s LGBTQ community. ]

Mozer came out of the closet in the 2000s, when the Israeli LGBTQ community was bursting into the mainstream. He is grateful for the generations before him who, through persistent legal activism, set the stage for LGBTQ acceptance in the late 1980s and 1990s. “A lot of gay men had to sue the country for their own equal rights,” he said.

While he has seen LGBTQ rights steadily improve, he believed influential ministers in the Netanyahu government wanted to undo some of that progress. “They wanted to make a big legal revolution in Israel and change a lot of things and take them backwards. They didn’t succeed because there were a lot of protests,” he said.

Mozer said that most of Israel’s queer community falls within the political centre-left, like himself. While the country’s conservatives want to erode LGBTQ rights, the far left is anti-Zionist and does not support the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. “I see myself as Zionist. My grandparents came here from the Holocaust. I truly believe that this is the right place for Jews to live independently, but not at the expense of the Palestinian people.”

Amid war, debates about social policy have temporarily taken a back seat for many Israelis. “Now, the main goal of all of us is to bring (the hostages) back home, stop the war, go into ceasefire. It’s this goal that is above everything,” said Mozer.

A drag legend gives up

Tal Kallai, one of Israel’s most famous drag queens, who performs under the name “Talula Bonet,” talks on a patio beside the Tel Aviv Municipal LGBT Community Centre, The conversation is repeatedly interrupted by gay men who greet and hug him.

Kallai was born and raised in Jerusalem, where, despite its conservative reputation, had a vibrant gay scene in the early 2000s. He wanted to be an actor as a teenager, but found that theatre roles for women were much more interesting than those for men. At age 16, he saw his first drag show at a gay bar and fell in love with the art form.

[ Tal Kallai is one of Israel’s most well-known drag queens, Talula Bonet. He is surprised that there are Western queer activists who support Hamas: “You are supporting a movement that the first thing it will do is kill you because you’re queer — you’re so stupid.” ]

At first, drag was just a hobby for him — one he continued to develop after moving to Tel Aviv to study at the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio. Then he was scouted by a local producer to do professional performances in the city, so he and three other drag queens from Jerusalem created a troupe called the Holy Wigs.

In the beginning, the Holy Wigs saw themselves as more intelligent and cultured than their competitors in Tel Aviv. “We weren’t doing like folk songs and stuff. We were doing musicals and theatre. We were very snobbish. We thought all the drag in Israel is so low-level,” said Kallai. Their ambition was encouraged by “drag mothers” (industry mentors), who taught them how to produce more theatrical performances.

As a professionally trained actor, Kallai wanted to move drag from the bars into the theatres. So that’s what the Holy Wigs did. Soon fans brought their parents and heterosexual friends, who were more comfortable seeing drag in a “respectable” cultural setting. Things snowballed from there.

With their popularity skyrocketing, the Holy Wigs hired a director and costume designer and went on tour. “We did all the history of Israel in drag, and it was very funny,” said Kallai. There were over 100 costume changes during the show, which they performed more than 350 times around Israel, predominantly in larger venues and theatres.

Throughout, Kallai continued his regular drag performances in Tel Aviv’s gay bars, including a weekly open stage event for new drag artists. He hosted this event for 11 years, helping countless performers establish themselves. “Now there is a very big drag culture in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and in Israel,” said Kallai. “It’s 50 shades of drag.”

He recalled that during the early 2000s, gay Palestinians in Jerusalem had “their own community and their own parties — because they were very under the radar and not legally there.” The scene was “very big,” but hidden, with the use of “secret places with secret codes.”

There were even two Palestinian drag queens in the city during that period. One was an Israeli-Arab, married with six children. “He snuck around them and did the shows without his wife knowing,” said Kallai. The other queen was an illegal migrant from Gaza who eventually received asylum in Sweden. Kallai was glad that the Gazan queen found a safe home, even if she had stolen one of his wigs. “If this is the price I had to pay for her freedom, I’m happy,” he said.

I’m not trying to run from reality. I’m trying to deal with the reality and this trauma that we all had here.

-- Tal Kallai, aka Talula Bonet

Drag culture may be popular in Israel, but there has always been opposition to it. Kallai recalled seeing “lots of bad responses” when he performed at Jerusalem’s first Pride parade in 2002. The following years were not much better for Jerusalem Pride. In 2005, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli, Yishai Schlissel, stabbed three participants with a kitchen knife. Kallai said that another protester attempted to stab one of his friends, either the year before or after. “He passed me with the knife and went to her, but the police arrested him.”

Today, at Pride events, domestic opposition has been replaced with international scorn from anti-Israeli activists. As an ambassador of Israeli culture, Kallai has performed all over the world, sometimes with the spon.sorship of the Israeli government. In the early 2010s, a man spit on Kallai’s face at Berlin Pride after learning he was Israeli. Around that same time, at London Pride, pro-Palestinian protesters amassed in the audience of one of his shows, shouting and waving flags. He said that many famous drag queens are afraid to perform in Israel because of the potential backlash. For the ones who do come, “you can’t see any of it on their social media.”

For many years it was “very trendy” to be anti-Israeli within the LGBTQ community, but he was surprised when, after Oct. 7, Western queer activists supported Hamas. “You are supporting a movement that the first thing it will do is kill you because you’re queer — you’re so stupid.”

He used to spend considerable time on social media explaining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to anyone who would listen. He even made a viral Instagram video, where he and another drag queen, in full costume, deconstructed the contradictions of “Queers for Palestine” social influencers. But it was like “talking with deaf persons,” he said.

After getting ignorant comments from internationally famous drag queens, he decided to stop caring about what the global drag community thinks. He gave up explaining.

When the theatres reopened after Oct. 7, Kallai debated whether it was appropriate to start performing again. He decided Israelis wanted to be cheered up, so he returned to the stage. But he emphasized that what he does is not “escapism.”

“Many people are using this word, you know, escapism, escapism. Like, I’m drinking beer with my friend — it’s escapism. I’m walking on the beach — escapism. No, I’m not trying to run from reality. I’m trying to deal with the reality and this trauma that we all had here,” he said.

He once advocated for Palestinian rights, but Oct. 7 changed everything. He was struck by how the residents of the kibbutzim around the Gaza Strip were gleefully murdered, even though they were “peace fighters,” who helped sick Palestinians find medical treatment in Israel.

“In the past, I was a person who believed with all his heart that there is a partner for peace. Now, I’m not sure,” Kallai said.

==

Do you think there's an LGBTQ swimming pool in Gaza?

🤔

[sophia-zofia]

Early on June 15, 2023, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacked a makeshift medical clinic in West Darfur’s capital, El Geneina, where 25 injured patients were seeking treatment. Ali, who had been shot in the leg during a previous attack, described what happened: “They started shooting at us and killed everyone except me and a woman [who was also wounded]. They shot me in the right arm. I slumped over, pretending I was dead.” Ali and the woman stayed in the clinic, surrounded by the corpses of the patients and medical workers, for ten hours, as the RSF continued their assault on the city. At around 5 p.m., another group of seven armed men in uniform entered the clinic. “One saw that I was alive and came up to me and smashed his hand on my broken leg,” Ali recalled. “I said: ‘Please stop! Just kill me instead!’ He said: ‘We won’t kill you! We want to torture you, Nuba! We got rid of most of your family, and no one is here to care for you.’” Ali was rescued by his family hours later after the forces had left the clinic. From late April until early November 2023, the RSF and allied militias conducted a systematic campaign to remove, including by killing, ethnic Massalit residents, such as Ali, from El Geneina, home to an ethnically mixed population of around 540,000 people. Violence began on April 24 and continued in phases over seven weeks, peaking in mid-June, with another surge in November. The massacre that Ali survived was just one in a deluge of atrocities that the RSF and allied militias, predominantly from Darfuri Arab groups, have carried out in El Geneina and West Darfur in general since the outbreak of the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF on April 15, 2023. The events are among the worst atrocities against civilians so far in the current conflict in Sudan. The total number of dead is unknown. Sudanese Red Crescent staff said that on June 13, they counted 2,000 bodies on the streets of El Geneina and then, overwhelmed by the numbers, stopped counting. Two days later, on June 15, a large-scale massacre took place. The UN panel of experts on the Sudan estimated, citing intelligence sources, that between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in El Geneina in 2023. This report provides an account of how the Rapid Support Forces and allied forces committed numerous serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law as part of their campaign against the Massalit people of El Geneina. It is based on over 220 interviews, verification and assessment of 110 photographs and videos, and analysis of satellite imagery and documents shared by humanitarian organizations. Between April and November 2023, researchers interviewed recently displaced residents of El Geneina in person during six trips to Chad, Kenya, Uganda, and South Sudan, and also conducted supplementary telephone interviews. Most interviewees were Massalit civilians. They included victims and witnesses, medical and humanitarian workers, lawyers, human rights activists, religious figures, and former government officials. Researchers also interviewed Massalit men who were current and former members of law enforcement or armed groups, 38 Arab residents of El Geneina as well as international aid workers and analysts.

A short bout of clashes broke out on April 24 between the SAF and the RSF, and then the RSF and allied militias attacked majority Massalit neighborhoods. They clashed with predominantly Massalit armed groups, including forces from the Sudanese Alliance, led by the late state governor, Khamis Abdallah Abbakar, as well as Massalit men—primarily youth—loosely organized and mobilized in local “self-defense groups.”

Over the next weeks, and even after Massalit armed groups lost control of their neighborhoods, the RSF and allied militias systematically targeted unarmed civilians, killing them in large numbers. Adolescent boys and men were especially singled out for killings, but among those unlawfully killed were also many children and women. The RSF and allied militias also appear to have targeted injured people as well as prominent members of the Massalit community, including lawyers, doctors, human rights defenders, academics, community leaders, religious figures, and local government officials.

Women and girls were raped, and detainees were tortured and otherwise ill-treated. The RSF and allied militias methodically destroyed civilian infrastructure. They looted on a grand scale, and they burned, shelled, and razed neighborhoods to the ground, homing in on neighborhoods and sites, including schools, hosting primarily Massalit displaced communities. Thousands of civilians, mostly men and adolescent boys, but also younger children including babies, older people, and women were killed in less than two months, and thousands more were injured. A retrospective mortality survey conducted by Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders, MSF) in three refugee camps in eastern Chad concluded that there were 167 violent deaths in the households of 6,918 people from El Geneina. This amounted to a staggering mortality rate of 241 per 10,000 people, marking a 23-fold increase in the male mortality rate and a 11-fold increase in the women’s mortality rate. During their campaign, RSF fighters and allied militias used derogatory racial slurs against Massalits and people from other non-Arab ethnic groups. They told them to leave, that the land was no longer theirs, and that it would be “cleaned” and become “the land of the Arabs.” Ahmad, 41, a Massalit man, recalled, in an interview with Human Rights Watch, forces telling fleeing civilians: “No Massalit people will live here!” and “No Nuba will live here!” and “No slaves will live here!” Throughout the seven-week campaign, SAF soldiers largely hunkered down in their barracks, unable or maybe unwilling to protect the population. The UN Panel of Experts found that, “throughout the attacks, [the SAF] failed to protect the population.” On June 14, the governor of West Darfur and leader of the Sudanese Alliance armed group, Khamis Abbakar, was killed. He was last seen in the custody of the RSF West Darfur commander, Gen. Abdel Rahman Joma’a Barakallah. His killing, coinciding with the collapse of Massalit forces’ ability to fight back against RSF attacks in primarily Massalit neighborhoods, led to a mass exodus from El Geneina. Some civilians and fighters tried to go west, toward Chad, only to come under attack by the RSF and militias. Many civilians and fighters then decided to flee toward Ardamata, a northern suburb of the city hosting a garrison of the Sudanese Armed Forces, leaving overnight in a convoy of tens of thousands of civilians and fighters.

In the early hours of June 15, the RSF and allied militias attacked the convoy as it proceeded through El Geneina, killing civilians in large numbers as they ran through the streets, tried to find refuge in homes and mosques, or attempted to swim across the seasonal Kajja river flowing through the city.

“My mom was pushing me in a wheelbarrow,” said Malik, an injured 17-year-old boy who was in the convoy when it came under attack. He said he saw RSF forces kill at least 12 young children, including infants, three men, and two women: Two RSF forces… grabb[ed] the children from their parents and, as the parents started screaming, two other RSF forces shot the parents, killing them. Then they piled up the children and shot them. They threw their bodies into the river and their belongings in after them. The killings continued over the following days in El Geneina and on the road to Chad, where tens of thousands of civilians, as well as Massalit fighters, headed in search of refuge. On the road, the RSF and allied militias shot and killed or injured large numbers of civilians, including disarmed fighters. Arab civilians living in villages along the route to Chad extorted, beat, and harassed fleeing civilians. During the exodus, RSF forces sought to identify prominent Massalit community leaders, apparently to prevent them from reaching Chad. Satellite imagery corroborates that, since the RSF and allied militias took control of El Geneina in June, predominantly Massalit neighborhoods have been systematically dismantled, many with bulldozers, preventing civilians who fled from returning to their homes. In early November, nearly five months after the June 15 massacre, RSF and allied militias again killed at least 1,000 civilians in El Geneina’s suburb of Ardamata, according to the United Nations. The forces also looted civilian property and assaulted and unlawfully detained scores of predominantly Massalit people. As a result of these atrocities, over 570,000 predominantly Massalit people, as well as members of other non-Arab groups, are now in refugee camps in Chad, with little hope of returning home safely in the near future. Many abuses carried out by the RSF and allied militias documented in this report constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. The targeting of Massalit people and other non-Arab communities with the apparent objective of at least having them permanently leave the region constitutes ethnic cleansing. War crimes include the serious violations of international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, of intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population, intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, and the intentional conduct of indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks. They also include pillage, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, murder and forcible displacement. These acts were part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the Massalit and other non-Arab civilian populations of majority-Massalit neighborhoods, and as such also constitute the crimes against humanity of murder, torture, and forcible transfer of the civilian population. The fact that the RSF and allied forces carried out these acts, constituting severe deprivation of fundamental rights, against the Massalit and non-Arab communities by reason of their ethnic identity, constitutes the crime against humanity of persecution.

The mass killings of ethnic Massalit civilians, and in particular the context in which these killings took place, also requires urgent action from all governments and international institutions to ensure investigation of whether the facts demonstrate a specific intent on the part of the RSF leadership and their allies to destroy in whole or in part the Massalit and other non-Arab ethnic communities in West Darfur, that is to commit genocide, and if so, to prevent its perpetration, and to hold those responsible for its planning and conduct accountable.

This report also documents how the SAF and the RSF’s use of explosive weapons in residential neighborhoods killed and endangered civilians, as well as killings, looting, and other abuses committed by Massalit fighters against Arab civilians. It also underscores the failure by the SAF and the Central Reserve Police (CRP), a militarized police unit, to protect civilians.

The politics of the conflict in Darfur have changed: In the 2000s, the Janjaweed—the Arab militias from which the RSF were formed—were armed by the military, which the RSF is now fighting across much of Sudan. But the abuses carried out in El Geneina felt all too familiar to many of the interviewees. Many recalled fleeing—sometimes as children—from their home villages in the 2000s, when they came under attack by the Janjaweed. The Darfur conflict of the 2000s killed and displaced many Massalit people. Survivors then found refuge in the camps for internally displaced persons (IDP) that swelled the population on the outskirts of El Geneina. The Darfur conflict of the 2000s occurred against a backdrop of recurrent tensions over resources between non-Arab farming communities—including the Massalit, who claimed a historical right to the land in El Geneina—and Arab pastoralist communities. These tensions were instrumentalized by the government of Omar al-Bashir, who ruled until 2019. Over the past two decades, the proliferation of weapons in Darfur and the failure of successive governments to address grievances over land and political power at the state level, or to provide accountability for past violations, have allowed these tensions to fester. Since 2019, Massalit people in West Darfur have come under renewed attack from Arab militias and the RSF. In 2020, following years of a progressive drawdown of peacekeeping forces from sites across Darfur, the United Nations Security Council ended the mandate of UNAMID, the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force in the region, despite repeated warnings from displaced communities that this would remove a key deterrent to further attacks. Three large-scale attacks between 2019 and 2021 destroyed neighborhoods and IDP camps in and near El Geneina. Displaced persons, overwhelmingly Massalit, moved into the compounds of schools and official buildings in the inner city, which became known locally as IDP “gathering sites.”

These attacks led to the militarization of parts of the Massalit community. Young adults and adolescent boys in neighborhoods and camps purchased weapons and organized in what were locally called “self-defense groups.” Following the signing of the Juba Peace Agreement in 2020, Massalit fighters organized in the newly formed Sudanese Alliance, an armed group led by Khamis Abbakar, who later became governor in June 2021. The group steadily recruited and trained within the Massalit community until the start of the conflict in 2023.

The appointment of Mohamed Abdalla al-Doma, a Massalit man and Abbakar’s predecessor, as governor in 2020 had heightened tensions with Arab communities. Representatives of Arab tribes in early 2021 held a sit-in demanding the removal of camps of displaced persons from the city and the appointment of a non-Massalit governor. They also demanded that the RSF, which disproportionately recruited from among Darfuri Arabs, be deployed in El Geneina to provide security in lieu of the police, in which Massalit people were more represented. With the ethnic cleansing campaign of 2023, much of this agenda was accomplished.

The crimes committed against the Massalit since April 2023 have not been restricted to El Geneina. At least seven towns and villages of West Darfur have been deliberately destroyed by fire since mid-April 2023. On May 28, 2023, while the assault on El Geneina was underway, the Rapid Support Forces and allied militias attacked the predominantly Massalit town of Misterei, killed and injured dozens of civilians, including at least 28 ethnic Massalit men who were executed, and destroyed the town.

The response of actors from the regional and international community to the unfolding atrocities has been muted, in line with their lackluster engagement on Darfur and Sudan in recent years. Since April 2023, these actors were repeatedly warned, including by the UN Panel of Experts, about events unfolding in West Darfur, and, instead of expanding the scope of UN engagement, many failed to even condemn the violations of an existing arms embargo on the region, let alone act to prevent further atrocities. Actions to punish and deter arms embargo violations by the UN Security Council were nonexistent, and any positive developments were few and far between.

In July 2023 the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said it was opening investigations into recent abuses in Darfur as part of its broader mandate in the region, stemming from a UN Security Council referral in 2005. In October, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva established an Independent International Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) for the Sudan, but its investigations were significantly delayed by a liquidity crisis at the UN, at time of writing. The humanitarian response in Chad has been woefully underfunded and struggled to provide adequate basic support for the tremendous needs of a massive population that has suffered such extreme violence. Over 88 percent of the refugees are women and children; most have received paltry humanitarian support to date. The UN and the AU, in consultation with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), should deploy a new mission to Darfur with a strong policing component, mandated to protect civilians, monitor human rights and humanitarian law violations, and lay the groundwork for the safe returns of those displaced. The UN Security Council should immediately roll out targeted sanctions against those most responsible for the heinous crimes documented in this report, including against Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemedti,” Gen. Abdel Raheem Hamdan Dagalo, Gen. Abdel Rahman Joma’a Barakallah, Musa Angir, Amir Massar Abdelrahman Assil, and Amir Hafiz Hassan. It should also sanction individuals and entities violating the arms embargo on Darfur. The UN Human Rights Council should ensure the FFM for Sudan is able to carry out necessary investigations, extending and renewing its mandate as necessary, and UN leadership and member states should ensure the FFM has the resources to carry out its work. States should also cooperate fully with the ICC’s investigations, and the court’s member states should ensure it has the robust financial resources necessary to support work across its docket, including in Sudan. All of these efforts should work with survivors when formulating accountability, reparations and justice responses.

Concerned governments and international and regional institutions, including the European Union (EU), Kenya, and the United States, should insist that communities from Darfur be represented in ongoing political processes. Donors should fund initiatives undertaken by Sudanese rights organizations to document ongoing crimes, including specialists in women’s rights. EU member states, the US, Canada, and others should increase refugee resettlement from neighboring countries for refugees who remain at high risk and cannot return to Sudan. Donors should also significantly increase humanitarian assistance for the Sudan humanitarian response, including by increasing assistance to local aid actors.