The LGBT Center’s director, Glennda Testone, cancelled a big Israel Apartheid Week fundraiser this week. She acted just hours after a anti-Muslim activist threatened to organize donors to pull Center funding. Glennda also decided that SiegeBusters can’t meet at the Center any more; and that airing Israel’s violent repression of Palestinians — queer and otherwise — violates the Center’s “safe space.”
WHOSE SPACE?! PROTEST THE LGBT CENTER’S DISCRIMINATION.
- Stand up for anti-apartheid queers, Palestinian queers and self-determination!
- Stand up for the right to organize against Israeli apartheid!
- The LGBT Center belongs to all of us. Safe space for queers and ideas, not for donors!
Saturday, March 5, 6:30-7:30pm
208 West 13th Street (near 7th Ave.)
Bring noise and glamor to take back our community’s home!
This isn’t the first time the Center is labeling community members “good” or “bad”: it’s not so long since trans people were literally thrown out when trying to attend Center events. We fought back then, and we’ll fight back now. No silencing of voices calling for liberation.
Faced with bad press and a torrent of criticism, Glennda “offered” to substitute the fundraiser with a closed meeting about the Center’s policies. We’re not distracted by Glennda’s bad-faith deal. And we don’t have to have a meeting to know that the LGBT Center belongs to all of us.
Endorsed by (list in formation):
- SiegeBusters
- Existence is Resistance
- Israeli Apartheid Week
- Irish Queers
- Al-Qaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society
- Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
- NYU Students for Justice in Palestine
- Jews Say No!
- Professor and author Lisa Duggan
- Professor and author Sarah Schulman
- International Socialist Organization
- Author Sherry Wolf
- Professor and author Judith Butler
- Queers for Economic Justice
- Al-Awda New York: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
- Out-FM (WBAI)
- Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel
- Queering the Air (New Brunswick, New Jersey)
