Nothing makes me angrier than pinkwashing. Knock already published an awesome piece detailing why the Olympics are horrible for queer people, but I have one more tidbit I'd like to add 1/
https://knock-la.com/canceling-olympics-queer-issue-lgbtq-rights-a0b2ad815d12 https://twitter.com/LA28/status/1301226528122961920

In 1984, the last time The Olympics came to Los Angeles, the AIDS epidemic was already well underway. Thousands of Americans, a disproportionately high portion of them queer (especially gay men), had died. Ronald Reagan had not yet publicly said the word "AIDS" 2/

Instead, he chanted "USA!" at the 1984 Olympics. He called the government's enemies losers, thanked corporate sponsors, & called the US a “nation of champions.” A celebration that claimed to elevate international fraternity became a rally for American Jingoism 3/

In 1936, Adolf Hitler opened the Olympics in Germany. A horrified Thomas Wolfe called it an "almost religious event, the crowd screaming, swaying in unison and begging for Hitler." Lenny Riefenstahl captured the event on celluloid. 4/

By 1945, between 5,000 and 15,000 gay men had been incarcerated in concentration camps. An estimated 60% were murdered. They were not released when the other prisoners were liberated by Allied forces at the end of WW2. 5/

In February 2020, Donald Trump came to LA to meet with LA28 Chair Casey Wasserman. When speaking of unhoused Angelenos, he said “They have to clean it up. You have needles. You have things that we don’t want to discuss all over the streets, flowing into the oceans.” 6/

If the city cannot “clean it up fast,” Trump threatened federal intervention, “If they can’t do it themselves, we’re going to do it. The federal government is going to take it over and we’re going to do it.” 7/

As Naomi reminds us in the Knock piece, "Since LGBTQ+ youth are disproportionately impacted by houselessness, the violence and displacement against unhoused people that results from the Olympics will directly and adversely impact the LGBTQ+ community in Los Angeles." 8/

The Olympics are propaganda by history's most queerphobic regimes. They create a platform for genociders to whip up a nationalistic fervor to demonize anyone who's not the picture-perfect ideal of white supremacist capitalism. 9/

The only way to stop this from continuing is to #CancelTheOlympics. #FuckTheOlympics, fuck pinkwashing, and fuck capitalism. #NOlympicsAnywhere

end of thread.