Puerto Rican Queer Challenges to Nationalist Homo/Transphobia

Benjamin Ramos, a queer member of the ProLibertad Freedom Campaign, interviews Raphael Agosta Miranda, a trans man and EMT who represents the New York-based Juventud Unida Por la Independencia (JUPI) or United Youth for the Independence of Puerto Rico. They discuss the history and evolution of homophobia and transphobia, and the growing strength of the LGBTQ+ movement, both on the island of Puerto Rico and in Puerto Rican communities in the U.S., especially within the independence movement. 
 
We thank Benjamin for allowing us to rebroadcast parts of this interview from his podcast series "Despierta Boricua" or "Wake Up, Puerto Ricans," on YouTube.

Queens Pride: No Pride in Genocide

LGBTQ+ people of color formed a Palestine solidarity contingent to march in the Queens Pride Parade for the first time on June 2; Pauline Park speaks with Naomi Brussel about the impetus for the formation of the contingent in response to the Zionist leadership of 'New Queens Pride.

Out-FM is Booting "Betty" & Ditching the Zionist Group’s Theme Song
By Pauline Park

Out-FM produces LGBTQ-themed programming for WBAI and has been using “Together” as its theme song for many years but the collective decided in pride month 2024 to boot Betty and ditch the song.

Betty is an indie rock trio that includes Alyson Palmer (vocals, bass, guitar) and sisters Elizabeth Ziff (vocals, guitar, electronic programming) and Amy Ziff (vocals and cello). “As activists, BETTY uses their music to work for equal rights, peace and optimal health for all and the environment,” the group declares on their website — while failing to mention their strident support for Apartheid Israel.

In many public statements as well as ‘tweets’ and ‘retweets’ on Twitter (rebranded by Elon Musk as ‘X’), the Ziff sisters have repeatedly conflated Judaism with Zionism. “I feel sidelined… No one is taking away my Jewish gay pride. When people who are waving the Palestinian flag are screaming ‘rape their daughters and mothers, kill all Jews,’ and shouting other slurs at Jews, that is not about Israel,” Elizabeth Ziff told the Jewish Daily Forward (Marisa Fox-Bevilacqua, “Queer Zionists ask: ‘Where are our allies?’,” Forward, 30 June 2021).

On May 19 of this year, @BettyMusic retweeted a tweet from Jamie Metzl (@JamieMetzl) in which he wrote, “Everyone should be as concerned about these protesters marching behind the Hamas flag in Brooklyn yesterday as we would be if KKK bigots marched behind a burning cross carrying nooses or goose-stepping Nazis marched with swastikas.”

On May 1, the Betty account retweeted a tweet from Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) quoting U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) in which the Pennsylvania Democrat wrote,”The protesters at Columbia demonstrated that there are two factions of the protesters — there’s the pro-Hamas, and then there’s the really pro-Hamas.”

With Apartheid Israel’s Gaza genocide having now claimed more than 37,000 innocent civilian lives, we in the Out-FM collective felt it was time to distance ourselves from this trio of Zionist propagandists who use their platform to generate support for the illegal and genocidal occupation of Palestine.

We therefore invite listeners to e-mail us at outfmfeedback@wbai.org with suggestions for a replacement to “Together.” We would welcome suggestions for any song with a theme of freedom and liberation and would especially encourage suggestions of songs written and/or performed by LGBTQ-identified musicians — though the songs suggested need not have specifically queer content in them. We welcome your input. Once again, that’s outfmfeedback@wbai.org