Artists are pulling out of Manchester Pride in solidarity with Palestine due to the festival’s main sponsors’ ties with Israel. After the first acts BollyWitch, Felix Mufti and Dan Chan announced their decisions, Drag Race alumni Bimini and Ginger Johnson have also withdrawn from the event, with more artists joining them in the past few days.

This year’s Manchester Pride festival is set to take place from August 23 to 26, bringing back the annual Parade through the city, as well as the Gay Village, with a variety of stages where artists have been invited to perform. However, two of the festival’s main sponsors are travel site Booking.com and Barclays, which both have ties to the ongoing war waged by Israel on Gaza.

As a result of the sponsorship, several acts that were due to perform at Manchester Pride 2024 have withdrawn their appearance, standing in solidarity with Palestine. The first artists to announce their decisions were drag performer BollyWitch and British actor and musician Felix Mufti, shortly followed by drag artist and DJ Dan Chan.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK contestant Bimini also pulled out of the festival, writing that their “tough decision” had been taken because of Manchester Pride festival’s main sponsor, Booking.com. In their statement, the drag performer said that “‘as an artist and activist, I stand for justice and accountability”.

Taking a similar stance on a social media post shared today, August 13, RuPaul’s Drag Race UK winner Ginger Johnson wrote: “I have made the decision to withdraw from Manchester Pride. In this withdrawal, I stand with the No Pride in Genocide movement internationally and locally in Manchester.”

 

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Un post condiviso da Ginger Johnson (@houseofjohnson)

“In the last few weeks I have been in conversation with Manchester Pride about this issue and while I acknowledge that they have been working towards a resolution, I have not been satisfied with the outcome, leaving me with no choice but to withdraw from the event.

“My work is all about bringing silly Queer joy to people, but Queer joy and Queer communities should not be co-opted to pinkwash genocide profiteering companies,” the artist continued.

“I stand with the radical values of Pride and Queer activism – not only in calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, but to put an end to complicity in pinkwashing tactics,” Ginger Johnson added. “As Marsha P. Johnson said, ‘no Pride for some of us without Liberation for all of us.’”

Other acts that have withdrawn from Manchester Pride include DJ Xzan, Bitten Peach, Lill and Val the Brown Queen.

 

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Un post condiviso da No Pride In Genocide Manchester (@nopigmcr2024)

The No Pride in Genocide movement is urging the organisers of Manchester Pride to terminate partnerships “with any company that profits from any conflict across the world, aides with deportations, or contributes to climate change”. They’re especially asking Manchester Pride to drop all sponsors listed by Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), a global, Palestinian-led movement which fights back against Israel’s occupation of Palestine through economic means.

Activists from the No Pride in Genocide movement have also launched an online petition, which has gathered over 1,300 signatures at the time of writing. Moreover, members of the LGBTQ+ community are planning to protest during the weekend of Manchester Pride.

Since Israel launched its genocidal assault on Gaza last October 7, over 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in the strikes. As No Pride in Genocide states in the petition, the brutal attacks in Gaza, the displacement of thousands of Palestinian people and the previous 76 years of occupation and apartheid at the hands of Israel could not be sustained without international corporate and governmental support.