BROOKLYN, NY — In a heartbreaking display of intersectional solidarity, the local chapter of “Queers for Palestine” gathered at a community garden on Tuesday evening to hold a tearful candlelight vigil for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remembering the strict theocratic dictator as a “fierce, anti-imperialist boss.”
Draped in a mixture of Pride flags, keffiyehs, and custom-printed crop tops reading “Supreme Leader, Supreme Ally,” the activists wept openly as they shared slam poetry honoring the man whose regime was internationally recognized as the world's leading sponsor of executing LGBTQ+ individuals.
“Today, the queer community lost a true pioneer,” said Ashleigh (they/them), a 22-year-old barista and sociology major, while passing out vegan baklava. “Yes, the Western media loves to focus on his so-called ‘human rights abuses,’ like the fact that his government mandated the public hanging of gay men from industrial cranes. But honestly, viewing that as a negative is just a symptom of heteronormative, Eurocentric bias. We have to look at the bigger picture: he was literally so Mother for standing up to American capitalism.”
Throughout the evening, speakers took to a makeshift podium to praise Khamenei’s “decolonial aesthetic,” arguing that his lifelong commitment to funding militant proxy groups was an inherently queer act of disrupting the global power structure.
“Look at the way he completely rejected the Western capitalist business suit,” argued Jax (ze/zir), an organizer who recently discovered the Middle East on TikTok. “The flowing robes, the dramatic headwear, the refusal to conform to Western standards of diplomacy—he was actively decolonizing gender presentation. He walked so Harry Styles could run.”
When a confused passerby interrupted the vigil to point out that under Khamenei’s strict interpretation of Sharia law, every single person at the vigil would be immediately imprisoned, flogged, or executed, the crowd immediately shouted him down for "centering his own privilege."
“It is not our place as white, Western colonizers to judge indigenous methods of queer-erasure,” Ashleigh explained to the crowd, snapping their fingers in approval. “If the Iranian government decides that gravity-assisted crane drops are the culturally appropriate way to interact with the LGBTQIA2S+ community, we must respect their lived experience. To do otherwise is literal violence.”
The two-hour memorial featured a moment of silence, an acoustic cover of Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” dedicated to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and a passionate speech about how the Ayatollah’s strict ban on women’s bodily autonomy was actually a brilliant critique of second-wave white feminism.
At press time, the Queers for Palestine collective announced a GoFundMe campaign to fly out to Tehran and march in Khamenei’s funeral procession. Iranian authorities have reportedly caught wind of the trip and issued a statement confirming they are "eagerly awaiting the activists' arrival" and have already begun "readying the tallest construction cranes in the city to give them a breathtaking, high-altitude welcome."
