this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2026
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Why do anti-imperialist movements in the Global South tend to see queer folk as enemies rather than fellow oppressed people? (Not saying all are like that, but why don't we see that many radically pro-queer movements in the Global South)

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[–] starkillerfish@lemmygrad.ml 38 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Because imperialist powers like nato, Israel and US rainbow-wash their war crimes. So lgbt / queerness becomes inadvertently associated with imperialism / the west.

[–] KrupskayaPraxis@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 2 weeks ago

Which is why we need to push back harder against pinkwashing

[–] Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml 38 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

In Africa, a lot of this is the legacy of imported Western Values like Christianity and colonial laws.

https://www.stonewall.org.uk/news/african-sexuality-and-legacy-imported-homophobia

Same in the former British Colonies: https://gcn.ie/british-colonialism-legacy-homophobia/

[–] stink@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Wasn't (formally) illegal to be gay in Palestine until after the brits came

[–] Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 2 weeks ago

Homosexuality was first criminalized in Palestine in 1936 with the implementation of the British Mandate Criminal Code Ordinance.

Under the Ottoman Empire, which ruled historic Palestine prior to World War I, same-sex acts were viewed as contrary to social norms but were not considered immoral enough to warrant criminalization in the same way they were under British rule.

Before the Ottomans, there were also no formal laws criminalizing homosexuality.

[–] knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml 32 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

A lot of the anti-queer positions in the Global South are planted and pushed by reactionary western interests.

[–] znsh@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Do you maybe have any sources for this? Would love to read more on this.

[–] robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 22 points 2 weeks ago

there's like 15 years of white evangelicals lobbying for anti-gay laws in Uganda and other countries, there's probably retrospectives by now

[–] knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 2 weeks ago

Others have already posted some good stuff. Here's one more article: https://archive.ph/2Rld5

[–] ghost_of_faso3@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 2 weeks ago
[–] MattEagle@hexbear.net 25 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Queer acceptance and HDI are heavily linked. It takes a couple of decades of satisfactory HDI and relative general security for violent homophobia to die down.

[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 2 weeks ago

Yup, it's pretty much just lack of material development.

[–] Tatar_Nobility@lemmy.ml 22 points 2 weeks ago

Historically, reaction to queerness in the Global South has been relative to the imperial core's stance on it.

Homophobia is largely (though not always) a colonial legacy. Many premodern nations, to different extents, were either accepting or tolerant of queer relationships. The colonial authorities criminalized same-sex relationships (e.g. British Raj, French African colonies, etc.). Some postcolonial nations after they achieved their independence, retracted these laws, but the majority didn't. So for a certain period in the 20th century, queerness was a symbol of anticolonial struggle, because it meant defying the West.

However, as the imperial core and its neoliberal institutions absorbed queer activism into their agenda of foreign affairs, queerness began to be depicted as the face of imperialism.

[–] OrnluWolfjarl@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I think there's 3 major factors here:

  1. Religion dominates in the global south in a way that it doesn't so much in the west anymore (perhaps excepting the US and maybe UK and Germany to an extent). Religions generally promote traditionalism and conservatism through various means, especially when the religion is Christianity. This might sound as idealism, but consider that religious proselytisation was used both as a tool of colonialism for hundreds of years, and for indigenous and oppressed people it often became the only legal/tolerated way of maintaining a semblance of community/governance/connection to their pre-colonial past. Also, religion acts as a gateway of relief for poor and oppressed people, as observed by Marx and others. As a result, religious institutions are deeply entrenched in global south societies, and as a consequence, people who don't conform with the ideal view of a pious person get heavily persecuted. There are obvious exceptions to this that should be mentioned, like Iran (last I heard) offering transition surgeries and support paid by the state.

  2. Besides religion, inciting hatred between various minorities has always been used as a tool of colonialism, as part of a divide and conquer doctrine. For example, the British empire would regularly provide special privileges to ethnic minorities in its colonies, and then use them as a military, political and economic force to control the area and suppress everyone else. When the British empire ended, the animosity between different ethnic groups remained (and sometimes actively stoked by the West afterwards), creating further divisions and conflict and maintaining post-colonial devastation, thus dependency on the former colonizers. More specifically, take a look at how Israel utilizes homophobia as a form of control in Gaza. Israel regularly monitors all civilian communications in Gaza and when they identify a sexually divergent person, they will blackmail them and force them to turn into an informant. When they are found out and killed, then Israel will promote it as an instance of why Hamas (for example) is a backwards and homophobic organization.

  3. The wave of US-branded identity politics in recent years has been utilized as a major tool for destroying the left globally by Western psy-ops. Terms popularized by conservatives such as "the gay/feminist/SJW agenda" have been very successfully conflated with what the left stands for. And in particular, at the eyes of a lay-person (especially westerners), a communist and a liberal have become identical in the last 15 years or so, in large part due to this fearmongering by conservatives (but obviously this false equivalency is also fueled by US internal politics and other factors). By many peoples, this is now seen as the latest way in which the US utilizes culture as a way to influence other societies and their politics, as well as to conduct wars and sanctions using "humanitarian reasons" as excuses. The tragedy is that this view is both correct and false. For example look at Russia and the Soviet Union. The USSR experienced an intense wave of cultural warfare from the 60s onwards, which eventually contributed to the loss of societal cohesion. Pessimism replaced revolutionary optimism and people became disillusioned by the socialist system. After the fall of the USSR, many Russian citizens suffered from some sort of inferiority complex, where they wanted to become as westernized as possible. Putin's Russia had to try and fight this, by heavily promoting religion and history worship as a way to restoke Russian patriotism and break western influence on Russian politics. As a result, homophobia has become rampant in Russia, eventually becoming state policy. One can say this is an overreaction and a mistake, or that it was necessary for Russia to be able to fight the West. Regardless, Russia's policy on homophobia has also been used by the West as a propaganda tool against them. Russia thus fell in a sort of Catch 22.

[–] robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 16 points 2 weeks ago

Israel regularly monitors all civilian communications in Gaza and when they identify a sexually divergent person, they will blackmail them and force them to turn into an informant. When they are found out and killed, then Israel will promote it as an instance of why Hamas (for example) is a backwards and homophobic organization.

GDR figured this one out

[–] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Iran offers transition surgeries because the underlying belief is that if a man wishes to sleep with a man, he must be a woman, as only women are allowed to lay with men. Then, since Allah could never create a homosexual person, then the person is in actuality a woman and needs transitioning.

It’s Mormon loophole shit. Also reinforces the trans-medicalist notion that a trans person is only trans after receiving all available surgeries.

I'll take a wild guess and say "Catholic Church."

[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't have a developed position on this so I won't try to explain it but I thought I would mention as an anecdote that the Filipino Maoist Guerillas are accepting of trans people. At least that is what I have been told

[–] KrupskayaPraxis@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 2 weeks ago

They also allow same-sex marriages

[–] commiewolf@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 2 weeks ago

The religions(and religious communities) that are dominant in most of the global South have strong views on the matter, such as Catholicism and Islam.

[–] nocturnedragonite@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 2 weeks ago

Religion, it's always the answer, every time.

[–] salim@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 2 weeks ago
[–] vyitnoomyr@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 2 weeks ago

To answer every question even slightly like this, once and for all: https://annas-archive.pk/md5/ccea5163ff3bc8ef38a837b6f05a5175

[–] pyromaiden@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 2 weeks ago

Mixture of organized religion enforcing rigid gender & sex norms, imperialists exporting their own prejudices to colonized peoples, indigenous reactionaries who are often bankrolled by the West, and of course the self-described "free world" bombing countries allegedly for not being woke enough (actually because they want their resources) and thus tarnishing the image of marginalized people.

[–] MasterDeeLuke@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 2 weeks ago

I suppose there are a few theories you could make. One could be that poor countries that nobody immigrates to usually lack the same exposure to diversity that wealthy western countries might have. The more homogeneous a society is, the more people tend to fear the few who don't fit.

Another is that the dismal conditions oppressed people face might make them lash out and look for scapegoats. Sometimes that's good and leads to resistance against oppression, however others might take the path of least resistance instead and take their frustrations out on the ostracized. Even among those who are sympathetic, queer rights might simply be viewed as low priority in a place that is subjected to inhuman sweatshop labor and poverty.

[–] SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Anti imperialism takes priority. When the white worms are on their necks there's no much time for anything else.

[–] thefreepenguinalt@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

But would it not make more sense to ally with internal queer people than to scapegoat them?

[–] SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

In general the left isn't scapegoating anybody.

[–] thefreepenguinalt@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 2 weeks ago

What I mean here is anti-imperialist but non-Marxist movements

[–] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

This is the same mindset that the GDR took which disastrously resulted in the creation of an anti-governmental block of citizens who did not believe that state represented them and were easily influenced into aiding Western agitators.

By the time the crackdown on "dissident cultures" such as the LGBT community, punks, rock and roll groups, and other such group finally reversed course, the die was already cast.

[–] SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I think nobody is saying the past experiences, under strong siege by the imperialist powers, were perfect. I also think those struggles can be unified under a class banner. But the fight now is fragmented: the anti capitalists are more organized and with more solid theory than these highly liberalized identitarian groups. We need comrades working on making bridges.

[–] KrupskayaPraxis@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 weeks ago

True, but can't imagine things like decriminalisation take that long to implementt