Local Y019 is committed to the Liberation of Palestine.

This Pride, we are urging Queer Yukon Society to align itself with the calls to action shared by Palestinian solidarity movements, protests, and encampments across the world. We urge you, the reader of this letter, to do the same and stand against the forces of colonialism and imperialism as they manifest both near and far.

1. We demand that Queer Yukon Society advocates for an immediate, permanent ceasefire, and call for an immediate end to arming Israel.
2. We demand that Queer Yukon Society publicly support the Palestinian people's right to live free from colonial rule in their land, their right to return to their homes, and their right to resist colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide by any means necessary.
3. We support and continue to stand by Queer Yukon Society’s policy that no uniformed Police presence is welcome at any and all of our events. Pride began as a protest against police brutality targeting Black and Brown queer and trans people. Allowing Police to participate in Pride events undermines this historical legacy and perpetuates the systemic violence inflicted upon our marginalized communities.
4. We urge Queer Yukon Society to conduct a review of our major funders and ban weapons manufacturers and funders from public or monetary participation in Pride. Sponsoring Pride is an attempt for war profiteers to pinkwash violence. They utilize Queer and Trans lives to justify the devastation, murder, and genocide that they arm and profit from. Allowing weapons manufacturers to sponsor Pride events enables them to exploit the 2SLGBTQIA+ community for their own profit. It reduces Pride to a mere marketing opportunity, disregarding and degrading the struggles and values of the community. We demand that all organizations cut ties with all corporations that profit off of the further marginalization and desecration of our interconnected communities, including law enforcement, corporations invested in the prison industrial complex, oil and gas companies, banks invested in weapons, war, and environmental destruction, and other harmful entities that inflict violence on our communities.

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