Progress and Challenges of the LGBT+ Community in Israel

LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and other sexual and gender expressions) politics in Israel are contradictory; at times progressive, and at other times reflecting a reserved liberal policy of delimiting LGBT+ sexualities to the private sphere. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, there have been tremendous gains for LGBT+ people in Israel. These gains were produced and bolstered by neoliberal politics that manifested in a homonational discourse. Homonationalism refers to a politics of normalization through neoliberal notions of consumerism and domestication combined with national assimilation. Although Israeli neoliberal politics have translated into uneven gains for the transLGBT+ community and others, the trans community continues to experience material disadvantages, violence, and discrimination, and hard-won activist gains are perpetually under threat by the anti-trans coalition. The chapter focuses on activist processes and on two institutional settings – the healthcare and education systems – to further explore privatization processes and individualist perspective on LGBT+ people. This framework is informed by the local understanding of post-homonationalism, reflecting a privatized urban belonging and normativity based on the value LGBT+ people produce for urban spaces rather than on promoting pro-LGBT+ legislation. This, once again, reflects a reserved liberal policy that addresses the specific needs of LGBT+ people while rendering them so specific as not to undermine the policy’s nationalist and homonormative import.