This
is a pivotal year for the LGBTQ movement and particularly for Pride
events around the country. While we have seen some victories, the
most important have remained beyond our grasp. We still have no
federal nondiscrimination law that bans employment and housing
discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Democrats use it to campaign to our community on it and once elected
let it languish, never to be heard of again.
On
top of this basic hole in the equality map, we are facing state
rollbacks of protections we have gained and threats to move to
rehearing settled cases such as marriage equality. We also are
experiencing increasing numbers of acts of violence against lesbians,
gay men, and especially trans women of color.
Most
recently, on July 26 in Phoenix, police were looking for a man who
was caught on videotape walking into an LGBT youth center carrying a
gas can, pouring its contents on the floor, and leaving.
Seconds later the room went up in flames. The following day in
Cleveland, a group attacked a transgender resident with a brick, a
wooden plank, and a helmet and then posted it on Snapchat. Two men
and two women hit, stomped, and kicked the 20-year-old victim at an
apartment complex. A family member said that a group had terrorized
the victim for months prior to the attack.
The
spirit of Stonewall
Most
Pride events are celebrations of community and visibility that begin
in June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall uprising. This was a
defining moment in the modern LGBT rights movement when a tired,
angry, and oppressed community took to the streets. The early Pride
marches were all about “Gay Liberation” and “Gay Freedom”.
As we are moving towards the 50th anniversary of Stonewall in 2019,
it will be inevitable that we look back at where we have been and
where we are now.
For
years now, many have complained about what Pride marches have become.
Some have quit going, while others grumble about the Stonewall
memories fading, and often there is a lone group marching with a
sign, “Remember Stonewall.” Others have complained not about the
marches and celebration of our victories but how our community is now
treated like a marketplace where corporations are rebranding
themselves to appear LGBT friendly. Pride became a place where
insurance companies and major corporations would hawk their wares.
Some wondered how we got there from a celebration of an uprising of
an oppressed community.
Just
exactly how terribly pervasive this had become was exposed for all to
see in 2013 when the San Francisco Pride Board overturned the normal
process of picking Parade Marshals and rejected the choice of Chelsea
Manning. This was a symbolic gesture since at the time Manning was in
custody at a military prison in Kansas awaiting court-martial
for leaking government documents to the whistle-blowing website
Wikileaks.
Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who in 1971
leaked classified information about the Vietnam War (The Pentagon
Papers), had agreed to participate on Manning’s behalf. Despite the
rejection by the board, 2500 LGBT community members marched behind
the banner “Pride In Our Whistleblower.”
As
a result of this high profile struggle in the LGBT community, many
activists in cities and towns around the country were surprised to
hear that not only did the largest LGBT gathering in the
country have a board of directors who made all the major decisions
but that there was actually such a thing as an SF Pride CEO. So much
corporate money was involved in San Francisco Pride that they created
a CEO position!
When
most people think about the Stonewall uprising they think it was just
one isolated night when LGBT patrons of a bar fought back against
police harassment. But it continued for a number of days with
organizing, posting leaflets during the day, and confronting the
police at night. This was not an isolated event but took place in the
midst of an ongoing student radicalization, antiwar movement, and
growing Black liberation and women’s liberation movements. There
was a reason that one of the first organizations after Stonewall was
called the Gay Liberation Front.
Pride
was different this year
We
are once again entering a time of resistance, so it should not be a
surprise to anyone that Pride should be different this year. In many
cities around the country there were new discussions about solidarity
with all groups who are under attack. Struggles against racism,
sexism, immigrants, and Islamophobia all include LGBTQ individuals.
In
New York City, with one of the oldest and largest Pride marches in
the country, demonstrators who opposed police involvement in the
march filled the streets around the Stonewall Inn, the site of the
historic LGBT uprising in 1969. This protest was affiliated with the
group “No Justice, No Pride” and describes itself as a “local
coalition of queer and trans folks working to end the LGBTQ
movement’s complicity with systems that oppress.”
A
current lawsuit alleges that an NYPD cop beat up a gay man while
yelling anti-gay slurs at him during the 2014 Pride Parade and just
last year Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said the NYPD did not have
to apologize to the LGBTQ community for police brutality during the
Stonewall uprising.
In
Washington, D.C., people blocked the march in protest against the
corporate sponsorship of Wells Fargo because of its funding of the
Dakota Access Pipeline. No Justice, No Pride DC said they had
unsuccessful negotiations with Capitol Pride trying to get them to
stop banking with Well Fargo. Jen Deerinwater, a Two Spirit member of
the Cherokee Nation, told NBC, “I cannot understand why Capitol
Pride would work with an organization that is actively causing harm
to our community members.”
One
exception was LA Pride, which changed its name to #ResistMarch to
reflect the inclusive nature of their Pride 2017 plans. The
first march in Los Angeles was in 1970 and it was to show solidarity
with the Stonewall uprising and to protest ongoing police brutality
against the LGBT community.
To
emphasize that this year was a protest march, Brian Pendleton, one of
the Los Angeles organizers, issued a statement when they changed
their website and replaced LA Pride with #ResistMarch: “This
year the LGBTQ community is lending our iconic rainbow flag to anyone
who feels like their rights are under threat and to anyone who feels
like America’s strength is in its diversity. The political climate
we find ourselves in has driven us to galvanize and unite.” Tens of
thousands of people responded with one of the biggest marches of
2017.
>> The article above was written by Ann Montague, and is reprinted from Socialist Action.
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