By JD Goulet
Photo credit: JD Goulet at A Marcha do Orgulho LGBTI+ do Porto, Porto City Hall, Portugal, 10 May 2025
Once again, despite ignoring performers' demands for Eurovision to exclude Israel from participating in the contest, an Israeli performer will be allowed to compete. While deeply disappointed in that decision, I am still looking forward to cheering (and voting) for the many queer performers anticipated this week. Queer performance at Eurovision is inherently in the spirit of solidarity with Palestinians because the queer liberation struggle is also an anti-imperialist struggle.
The following essay was originally published in 2024 following the conclusion of the Eurovision Song Contest. I am republishing it today, the first day of Eurovision 2025, because a luta continua (the struggle continues)!
A queering argument for Eurovision
I am going to start this post out by stating that I am deeply opposed to Israel's longstanding apartheid occupation of Palestine and their current ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians. I am also celebrating the nonbinary trans visibility and victory at Eurovision this year. That I hold these seemingly contradictory views may be unpopular or controversial with some people—probably even several of you who will read this. I hope you keep reading. I am going to make an argument in favor of the importance of LGBTQ+ artists and performers standing their ground and maintaining visibility in a hostile world because queering1 does more good for all of humanity than the willing self-censorship of queer voices.
Amidst calls for queer performers to withdraw from Eurovision, performers Olly Alexander, Nemo, Bambie Thug, Gåte, Iolanda, Megara, Saba, Silvester Belt, and Windows95Man, released a joint statement of “solidarity with the oppressed” acknowledging the suffering in the “Occupied Palestinian Territories, and particularly in Gaza, and in Israel.”
We want to begin by acknowledging the privilege of taking part in Eurovision.
In light of the current situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and particularly in Gaza, and in Israel, we do not feel comfortable being silent. It it important to us to stand in solidarity with the oppressed and communicate our heartfelt wish for peace, an immediate lasting ceasefire, and the safe return of all hostages. We stand united against all forms of hate, including antisemitism and islamophobia.
We firmly believe in the unifying power of music, enabling people to transcend differences and foster meaningful conversations and connections.
We feel it is our duty to create and uphold this space, with a strong hope that it will inspire greater compassion and empathy.
I am grateful to these artists for choosing to use their performances to resist, even when it seemed unpopular. Queer people using whatever platforms we’ve managed to achieve against all the odds to queer the world is an important act of resistance.
To queer is to construct the world we want. That Nemo, a nonbinary performer, won Eurovision this year singing about their personal journey to hell and back to finally find joy and self-acceptance that they exist between the 0s and 1s of a binary-coded society was a powerful and necessary act of destruction and reconstruction.
Nonbinary artists like Nemo and Bambie Thug help us to create the world where Palestinians and all oppressed and marginalized peoples are safe, loved, and liberated. What a tragedy it would have been for these artists to have submitted to calls for them to withdraw from Eurovision, or in other words, to give up their platform for speaking truth to power and in so doing, to transform the world.
In On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder lists the first step to resisting authoritarianism: “Do not obey in advance.” This is not to say that I think those calling for boycotts of Eurovision are necessarily authoritarians, but I do worry that they are inadvertently aiding and abetting authoritarianism by insisting on the withdrawal of queer people from events that give them a high amount of visibility.
Bambie Thug was the performer who, you may have heard, was ordered by Eurovision bosses to “change their face makeup - after finding out that it included ancient Ogham alphabetic script, spelling out ‘Freedom for Palestine’ in Gaelic.” Before making a statement by performing a very public hex against “a certain someone,” they made this related statement:
I am pro-justice and pro-peace and this will never change, I only hope with a platform I can reach more people’s ears. My heart and prayers are with the people of Palestine. To be clear, being pro-Palestinian does not mean I am antisemitic, it means I am anti-war, anti-occupation, anti-oppression and anti-killing of innocent civilians and children.
Had Bambie Thug submitted to calls to boycott the show, none of this would have transpired, and we wouldn’t have the opportunity to talk to each other about what’s happening and why.
Authoritarians really hate it when people shed light on their oppressive deeds. Ask Macklemore. Ask Yanis Varoufakis. The authoritarians openly admit to how much they hate it! It has a tendency to multiply the efforts of the resisting forces, as many university administrators and the U.S. government are learning right now. It’d be such a shame if we didn’t get to point out that Eurovision engaged in numerous overt efforts to squash any allusions to the ongoing genocide in Palestine being conducted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the complicity of United States President Joe Biden and support from Germany’s ruling powers, as well. It would be such a shame if this exposure didn’t go viral with the help of sharing an article like the one you’re reading right now.
Though it bills itself as a (wink) a-political event, Eurovision has been a global platform for change before. In 2014, it was because of the presence of genderbending drag queen Conchita Wurst.
…the New Statesman commented that ‘a vote for Wurst is another vote against Russian homophobia and transphobia, and a win would send out a strong message of defiance eastwards,’ while the International Business Times called on readers to vote for Conchita to upset homophobes. Highlighting statements such as these as evidence, Spiked declared that many Western European commentators and politicos had adopted Conchita as ‘a symbol of everything that makes Western Europe superior to the East’ and that she had thus become part of a culture war against both Russia and ‘the so-called bigots and backward types’ in their own nations.
President of Austria Heinz Fischer asserted that it was ‘not just a victory for Austria, but above all for diversity and tolerance in Europe.’
UK's Eurovision commentator Graham Norton commented on the socio-political significance of Conchita's victory: ‘it seems like Eurovision has done something that matters just a little bit.’2
If there had been calls for Wurst to boycott, to not perform, to not have access to queering the world, imagine what alternate time line we’d be on right now. I don’t know about you, but when I think of our possible futures, I want humanity to end up on the timeline that follows the fact a very queer-coded nonbinary performer won Eurovision!
It’s why I recently interviewed nonbinary musical artist Pussy Le Bouton. I wanted to help give them a platform, to raise up their voice, because what they have to say matters. It’s my act of resistance as their music is theirs. I hope you’ll listen to it and check out their music.
Many of you will have heard that Audre Lorde said “For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.” I think that’s partially true. We do need to also use tools that our masters won’t even allow us, but we can and must also use the tools we do have available to us right now. Besides, the masters didn’t really make those tools. We did. We, the artists, writers, and performers are the real doers that make the creative magic happen. We can unmake the masters by refusing to make ourselves small, quiet, and subservient. We should use their platforms we built until they take them from our cold, dead hands.
I hope that if you read this, and you were inclined to be angry at me in the opening paragraph, that I’ve changed your mind. I am convinced that many forms of resistance are necessary and valid if we are going to break free from this oppressive system. Instead of wasting our energy on arguing with each other about tactics, we need to just pick our lane and acknowledge multiple lanes are valid so long as they converge near where we more generally want to be. Pick a path, change a path, whatever. Just get on The Path.
JD Goulet (they/she) is an American-born former corporate writer/editor & learning product designer, political leader, Planned Parenthood board member, and secular movement leader. Throughout her career, she has been an educator and champion for inclusion and wellbeing, especially at the intersection of disability, neurodiversity, sexuality & gender, and class. Their bylines appear in Harvard Business Review, Tumbleweird Magazine, Solarpunk Stories, and various regional publications. She lives in Portugal with her wife and two dogs.
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