Many Marxist and Left-leaning organisations are supporting regimes that are challenging the global capitalist order. But in doing so they are condoning homophobic anti-queer policies of the very same regimes.
Burkina Faso’s President Ibrahim Traore, following the Sankarist anti-imperial model, is celebrated by the left for nationalising mines, cancelling debt, and rejecting Western domination. Yet as a popular Muslim leader holding traditional values, he is strongly homophobic and has passed laws that criminalise same-sex activity. Leftists excuse this as part of ‘religious freedom’ of the oppressed.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is being framed as one between the oppressor (Israel/capitalism) and the oppressed (Palestinians/socialism). Religious motivations of the parties involved, ideas such as martyrdom if one kills Jewish people and sacred land of Jews are ignored as irrational and irrelevant. The homophobia of Palestinian groups is sidelined, even though they actively suppress queer communities. Any attempt to question this aspect of Palestinian society is met with hostility and even seen as pink washing, using queer people to take away attention from colonialism and genocide.
Is it simply a case of choosing one’s battles or is Marxism, with its deeply Christian roots, and materialistic paradigm, essentially homophobic and anti-love?
Classical Marxism (19th century) focused on the material realities of wealth, resources, and ownership of the means of production. Cultural Marxism (20th century onwards) shifted its emphasis from economics to power and agency, extending critique beyond class to culture, gender, race, etc.
Marxist thought is fundamentally influenced by Christian myth. Once there was a perfect, equal world (Eden). Inequality entered through original sin, represented by the rise of private property and capitalism. History is framed as a march toward an apocalyptic revolution, ending in a utopian ‘return’ of equality. Within this framework, non-procreative sexuality was long dismissed, echoing Christian discomfort with homosexuality.
In India, a few decades ago, a Marxist-linked women’s conference once debated whether lesbians should join their cause as ‘women’ or as ‘lesbians’. The organisers concluded: capitalism creates patriarchy, and patriarchy compels women to become lesbian, find comfort in the same sex, and thus lesbianism was framed not as natural desire, but as a protest or refuge against patriarchy. This reflected a wider Marxist tendency: to treat sexuality primarily as a by-product of economic structures, not as a legitimate domain of human identity or freedom. Cultural Marxists carry forward this idea—gender and sexuality is all about power, not love, or attraction. It is all cultural, not natural.
After the Cold War, Russia struggled with a loss of pride as Communism collapsed and American dominance grew. Vladimir Putin sought to restore national confidence by positioning Russia as the defender of tradition against Western liberalism. A central part of this strategy was the criminalisation of gay and lesbian expression, framed not merely as policy but as a moral stand against ‘Western decadence’. Queerness was portrayed as alien, corrosive to authentic Russian identity, and thus a convenient symbol of resistance to US hegemony. The Orthodox Church lent strong support to this narrative, reinforcing Putin’s image as protector of faith and nation.
In contemporary ‘Communist’ Chinese internet slang, the phrase ‘Western culture’ is often used by young people as a coded way to refer to queer topics. This usage has little to do with the West itself and more to do with the way queerness is framed in China: official and conservative discourses often describe gay and lesbian identities as ‘Western imports’. To play with and subvert this rhetoric, online communities re-appropriated the phrase ironically, using ‘Western culture’ as an inside joke that both avoids censorship and signals belonging. The term also works as a linguistic cover, sounding like a harmless reference to cultural aesthetics while actually pointing to queer identities and practices. How much of it is Chinese and how much is Marxist?
Marxist movements have always aligned with groups seen as oppressed by capitalist regimes. On one side, progressive left voices (e.g., queer activists, gender-fluid theorists) proclaim ‘no binaries, no genders.’ On the other, Marxist solidarity movements justify or ignore homophobia when practiced by anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist groups. Thus, a contradiction emerges: Oppressed peoples are granted the ‘right’ to be homophobic. The rights of queer individuals are sacrificed to maintain anti-capitalist solidarity.
Marxism, born in a framework shaped by Christian morality, historically struggled with homosexuality. While it evolved into cultural Marxism to address identity and power, in practice its economic lens still dominates. Today, in aligning with anti-capitalist but socially conservative groups, Marxist movements worldwide are turning homophobic, or at least tolerating homophobia. This is being done in the name of supporting the oppressed. This, ultimately, is hypocrisy: preaching liberation while excusing annihilation of gays, lesbians and other queer people.
