Say No To Pinkwashing in Milwaukee!

Milwaukee Gay Sports Network (MGSN)

For three years now, Derco Aerospace has been a sponsor of the Grant Heffelfinger Memorial Big Gay 5K held by the Milwaukee Gay Sports Network (MGSN), listed at the top-tier Glitter sponsorship level in 2024 & 2025. We plan to contact the MGSN to ask that they remove Derco as a sponsor from the 2025 Grant Heffelfinger Memorial Big Gay 5K and to refuse to accept them as a sponsor for future events. In doing so, MGSN would demonstrate to the greater Milwaukee community and to the queer community here that they support the collective liberation of all peoples and refuse to normalize war profiteering and the presence of ‘dealers of death’ in our community. Sign our petition to show your refusal to accept pinkwashing here in Milwaukee and to strengthen our ask to MGSN by showing the community stands behind our demands.

Background:

Derco Aerospace is the target of a local boycott and divestment campaign - Disarm Derco - for its direct role in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people that has resulted in the murder of an estimated 186,000 Palestinians in the first ten months alone, according to world renowned medical journal The Lancet. Derco signed an agreement with Pratt & Whitney in 2020 to be the exclusive distributor for the F100-PW-220/229 engine system. This engine system keeps F-16 and F-15 fighter jets used by the Israeli Air Forces operational. This makes Derco directly complicit in the genocide of the Palestinians.

We call upon the greater Milwaukee community to join us in this campaign. We call upon our local LGBTQ+ community with a specific ask to raise our voices against this effort at pinkwashing – the attempt by companies engaged in crimes against humanity to buy goodwill and appear as if they support equal rights for all. Derco is not a socially-progressive company; it arms a government committing genocide against Palestinians, including queer Palestinians. For years, Israel has tried to paint itself as a socially progressive, gay-friendly hub with events like Tel Aviv Pride Parades. This has been done as part of a desperate attempt to distract from and justify its brutal occupation and the ongoing, racist policies of colonial settlement in Palestine. The harmful reality is that LGBTQ+ people face immense hurdles in Israel - whether they are Israelis or Palestinians - and anti-LGBTQ+ bills are regularly considered by Israel’s legislative body.

Sign our petition to show your refusal to accept pinkwashing here in Milwaukee and to strengthen our ask to MGSN by showing the community stands behind our demands.
Petition by
Gravatar
Heba Mohammad
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

To: Milwaukee Gay Sports Network (MGSN)
From: [Your Name]

To the Board of the Milwaukee Gay Sports Network:

I am writing as a community member in Milwaukee to ask the MGSN remove Derco Aerospace as a sponsor for the 2025 Grant Heffelfinger Memorial Big Gay 5K and to refuse to accept them as a future sponsor.

For three years now, Derco Aerospace has been a sponsor of the Grant Heffelfinger Memorial Big Gay 5K held by the Milwaukee Gay Sports Network (MGSN), listed at the top-tier Glitter sponsorship level in 2024 & 2025. Derco Aerospace is the target of a local boycott and divestment campaign - Disarm Derco - for its direct role in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people that has resulted in the murder of an estimated 186,000 Palestinians in the first ten months alone, according to world renowned medical journal The Lancet. Derco signed an agreement with Pratt & Whitney in 2020 to be the exclusive distributor for the F100-PW-220/229 engine system. This engine system keeps F-16 and F-15 fighter jets used by the Israeli Air Forces operational. This makes Derco directly complicit in the genocide of the Palestinians.

I am raising my voice with others in the community to speak out against this pinkwashing – the attempt by companies engaged in crimes against humanity to buy goodwill and appear as if they support equal rights for all. Derco is not a socially-progressive company; it arms a government committing genocide against Palestinians, including queer Palestinians. For years, Israel has tried to paint itself as a socially progressive, gay-friendly hub with events like Tel Aviv Pride Parades. This has been done as part of a desperate attempt to distract from and justify its brutal occupation and the ongoing, racist policies of colonial settlement in Palestine. The harmful reality is that LGBTQ+ people face immense hurdles in Israel - whether they are Israelis or Palestinians - and anti-LGBTQ+ bills are regularly considered by Israel’s legislative body.

We ask that MGSN remove Derco as a sponsor from the 2025 Grant Heffelfinger Memorial Big Gay 5K and to refuse to accept them as a sponsor for future events. In doing so, MGSN would demonstrate to the greater Milwaukee community and to the queer community here that you support the collective liberation of all peoples and refuse to normalize war profiteering and the presence of ‘dealers of death’ in our community.

Thank you,