June in Korea Is a “Month of Queer Palestine Solidarity”
We bring you news from Queers in Korea for Palestine QK48, which seeks to rewrite June as “the practice of resistance that tears down all walls.”
English Translation: 지니
Translation review: -
Writer of the original text: 권태
Review and amendments to the original text: Miguel
Web & SNS Posting: Miguel
News Card Design: 가리
*This article was written around last July, but its publication has been delayed due to internal circumstances.
In the summer of 2024, we introduced in these pages the solidarity of Korea’s queer/LGBTQ+ communities with Palestine, highlighting the various collective actions being organized by LGBTQ+ communities in Korea to raise awareness of the problems of pinkwashing and to stand in solidarity with Palestine.
Read our previous article from LGBT News Korea: Solidarity of Korean Queer and LGBTQIA+ Community with Palestine
Today, the network of activists in Korea standing in solidarity with queer Palestinians, “Queers in Korea for Palestine QK48” (link), remains active. In June 2026, QK48 sought to rewrite June—commonly known as Pride Month—as the “Month of Queer Palestine Solidarity” and issued a statement titled “Another Fucked-Up Pride Month, Another Failure to End the Genocide.” The full statement was also posted in English and Arabic on QK48’s Instagram account. (link) In this article, we share the solidarity statement and news of queer Palestine solidarity in Korea from those seeking to rewrite June as “the practice of resistance that tears down all walls.”
* QK48 currently consists of organizations and individuals from various groups, including the Labor Party LGBTQ+ Committee, the Seoul Human Rights Film Festival, BDS KOREA, Chingusai (Korean Gay Men’s Human Rights Group), and Solidarity for LGBT Human Rights of Korea.
Korean LGBTQ+ human rights organizations have been holding biweekly rallies as part of the “Korean Civil Society Emergency Action Against the Genocide in Gaza”, while continuing to explore various ways to stand in solidarity with queer Palestinians. On Saturday, July 11, the 71st Emergency Action was held. On June 20, Palestinian solidarity organizations and DJs came together for a rave-protest titled “Pride for Palestine: Resistance and Noise.” On June 4, activists organized a boycott action against “Centre Pompidou Hanwha,” a cultural arts facility established by Hanwha, one of South Korea’s leading defense companies, which has been accused of having ties to Israel’s military-industrial complex. Other actions have also sought to build connections with Gaza, including collective readings of new works by Palestinian writers and sharing writings by Palestinian activists. At the same time, activists have continued to organize actions condemning South Korea’s own complicity in the genocide and demanding accountability for the state’s role, including through campaigns addressing the Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC) and other institutions. All of these updates were compiled with reference to the website of BDS KOREA.
Meanwhile, at the press conference held on June 18 by QK48 to announce its 2026 Month of Queer–Palestine Solidarity Statement, activists delivered solidarity remarks reflecting on the meaning of “queer pride” in an era of genocide and war. Among these, we would like to introduce remarks by writer Choi Hyunsook. Choi is a longtime activist in South Korea and the first openly LGBTQ+ person to come out and run for the National Assembly as a progressive politician. She is also an anti-poverty activist and a writer who works on oral life-history projects with “people pushed to the margins by neoliberalism and a family-centered society.” In her remarks, Choi Hyunsook questioned the meaning of queer pride in an era marked by continuing genocide, war, and complicity. For the solidarity remarks by Choi Hyunsook and other activists, as well as QK48’s statement, please refer to the following link: (link)
*The introduction to Choi Hyunsook is based on the project “To My Colleagues: I am Writing to You” by the creative group W/O F. You can read Choi’s contribution to the project here: (link, English available). We also encourage you to visit the project’s website, which persistently—and almost relentlessly—asks what it means to talk about queerness and to question the meaning of queer. We hope you will explore the many works featured there. (link)
“Queer” is a way of existing that resists and defies productivity and normalcy, family-centeredness and futurity. In a world where everyone has climbed onto a one-way conveyor belt, moving walkway, or escalator toward progress and the future—and is running even on top of it—it is the decision to stop, turn around, and choose regression and falling. It is an attitude and a practice of embracing loss and death while confronting those who oppress us and the systems that oppress us, and of opening up other orders and other possibilities. In a neoliberal society, “uselessness” is precisely an anti-capitalist way of existing. To voluntarily choose that uselessness, and to live a life willing to bear falling and failure, is to live a queer life. While accepting the depression, helplessness, anxiety, and fear that we encounter along the way, it means burning down our own ground each time and leaving it behind, only to discover ourselves as a new Other in an unfamiliar place. It means throwing ourselves into chaos, without optimism or pessimism. It means faithfully defying the hope and future they preach, and living and dying with even the taste of madness that can be known only to those who live freedom through failure. True territory is not a place, but an attitude toward existence. Let us carry within ourselves the land called Palestine—the oppression and grievance of Palestine, its resistance and its deaths—and follow after those who are disappearing before us, those who have fallen before us. Let us choose to disappear along the way as well. Together with those who have been cast out, let us concretely organize and create commotion and unrest, chaos and riots; let us fight while having as much fun as possible—playing, eating, dancing—and then disappear.”
English Translation: 지니
Translation review: -
Writer of the original text: 권태
Review and amendments to the original text: Miguel
Web & SNS Posting: Miguel
News Card Design: 가리
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