Lesbian group replaces adverts with stories of LGBTQ+ people in Palestine 

A group of lesbian activists has replaced adverts on public transport across London with stories of LGBTQ+ people in Palestine. 

The Dyke Project, a group of trans, cis and non-binary lesbians and queers of all persuasions, targeted Transport for London’s network as a part of a call for an end to the Israel-Hamas conflict. 

Posters, telling moving stories, were put up on the Victoria line and the London Overground. 

The posters take testimonies from the website Queering the Map – a community-generated digital map of queer experiences – and are accompanied by a message of solidarity. 

Stories include the message, from people in Palestine: “We are here and we are queer.” 

Another reads: “I’ve always imagined you and me sitting out in the sun, hand and hand, free at last. 

“We spoke of all the places we would go if we could. Yet you are gone now. If I had known that bombs raining down on us would take you from me, I would have gladly told the world.

“I adored you more than anything. I’m sorry, I was a coward.”

‘None of us are free until all of us are’

Jess Elliott, from the Dyke Project, said the advert hack aims to “remind our community that none of us are free until all of us are, and we will not let our struggle be used to distract from the violent genocide of others”. 

The posters, put up near gay venues Dalston Superstore, Zodiac and the The Glory pub, as well as Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, and in New Cross and Hackney, will remain on display for the next few days. 

The Dyke Project and more than 520 other LGBTQ+ organisations, along with and people from around the world, signed an open letter “in solidarity with the Palestinian liberation movement”, urging all governments “to demand an immediate ceasefire and to restore aid into Gaza through any possible routes” and “an end to the occupation of Palestine”.

The Dyke Project was formed to oppose narratives that pit trans people and lesbians against one another.