Queers Step Up for Palestine Solidarity; Katherine Franke on Columbia's Unethical Lawyers, Queer Singer Kehlani Censored

Queers Step Up for Palestine Solidarity

As Israel's mass killings and starvation of the Palestinian people of Gaza worsens, we air Part 2 of Out-FM's recent conversation with Seattle-based queer activist/journalist Kate Raphael. Last month, she discussed her recent solidarity trip to the West Bank. In the second segment, Kate reviewed the growing LGBTQ+ support in this country for Palestinian human rights and for the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Last year, Seattle Pride issued a solidarity statement with the Palestinian people, and in March, they cut financial ties with companies like Boeing, Expedia, and Coca-Cola that profit from Israel's genocide in Gaza, after an extended pressure campaign by community groups. There were also advances in Palestine solidarity with Pride organizations in Raleigh, NC and San Francisco. Finally, Kate spoke about the increasing percentage of U.S. volunteers on solidarity trips to Palestine who are queer or trans. 

Kate Raphael is a novelist, journalist, anarchafeminist and queer activist. She worked with the International Solidarity Movement in 2024 to help mobilize ?u.s. ?solidarity volunteers to Palestine. She spent six weeks in the West Bank during November and December 2024, after earlier solidarity trips twenty years ago. Kate was a cofounder of the San Francisco-based Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT). Her published work includes the two mysteries set in Palestine, Murder Under the Bridge and the Lambda-nominated Murder Under the Fig Tree, as well as The Midwife’s In Town, a story of underground abortion. She is a producer and host on Women’s Magazine and the Sunday Show at WBAI’s sibling Pacifica station KPFA in Berkeley, California.

"There is no pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.” 
          - Marsha P Johnson, a mother of the trans and queer liberation movement

Resources:

Pride Victories in Raleigh and Seattle - Kate's 3/23/25 article in UltraViolet,the newsletter of LAGAI – Queer Insurrection

More on recent Seattle Divestment victories here. 

Katherine Franke on Columbia's Unethical Lawyers

Former Columbia University School of Law professor Katherine Franke, an out lesbian, offers a new commentary on the way that universities have received very bad advice from their General Counsels about how to handle students' Palestine solidarity protests and ICE surveillance of students. She breaks down why and calls out some of the worst lawyers who have advised Columbia.

Resource: ACLU's Open Letter to University General Counsels on ICE's retaliatory crackdown against noncitizen students for their First Amendment-protected speech and advocacy.

Katherine is the founding Director of the School’s Center for Gender & Sexuality Law, an executive committee member of the Center for Palestine Studies and a board member of Palestine Legal. In January 2024, Professor Franke appeared on the Democracy Now! program to discuss an attack on Columbia’s campus targeting pro-Palestinian student activists with a foul-smelling liquid that led to multiple hospitalizations. Based on that appearance, two Columbia professors filed a complaint against her claiming she had created a hostile environment for Israelis at Columbia students; she also became a target by name for Republican lawmakers in Congress, including NY Representative Elise Stefanik. When Columbia’s then-president Minouche Shafik was called to testify in Congress last April about campus protests, Stefanik grilled Shafik about Prof. Franke and two other Columbia faculty members - all three are queer. In January of this year, Prof. Franke was effectively terminated from Columbia.

For context: The first Columbia attorney who Katherine discusses, Roberta Kaplan, is an out lesbian who is a former board chair of Gay Men's Health Crisis. According to the New York Times last year, "Ms. Kaplan and her wife are deeply connected to the Democratic Party and she has been a heroic figure to many liberal activists. In addition to litigating the Supreme Court case that laid the groundwork for the national legalization of gay marriage, she became a leader of the #MeToo movement. Most recently, she represented the writer E. Jean Carroll when she sued Mr. Trump for defamation, resulting in a landmark $83 million verdict against him."

Also, in 2021 Roberta Kaplan was forced to resign as co-chair of the anti-sexual-abuse Times Up! organization after a petition from 151 survivors noting that NY Attorney General Tish James found that Kaplan had weaponized her knowledge of survivors' experiences to help Gov. Andrea Cuomo retaliate against women who spoke out about his abuse of them.

How interesting that Katherine Franke also mentioned that another Columbia attorney, Theresa Trzaskoma -- the one who led the persecution of Katherine herself -- is now representing Andrew Cuomo in suing the women who exposed his sexual harassment of them.

Queer Singer Kehlani Censored

Kehlani's appearance at Cornell was cancelled due to allegations of anti-semitism.