Posted on

In Fight for LGBTQ and Women’s Rights, Don’t Put Faith in the Courts

Workers cannot put our faith in the courts. Not only is it clear that the court system is skewed to the rich–what worker can afford to go to court against their bosses?–but the courts themselves only decide in favor of the workers when they are forced to by the struggle. The courts are designed to distract us, to draw our desperation away from the struggle and hinge our hopes on nine members of the rich, ruling class.

“Our humanity does not begin and end with the courts,” said Joseph Coco, a queer, trans essential worker. “They are a tool that’s been forced onto us by the rich ruling class. A tool that doesn’t truly belong to the people is a tool that can never grant us true liberation.”

While workers around the country celebrated the defeat of anti-abortion laws, unanimous jury verdicts, and discrimination of LGBTQ people in the courts this summer, the undemocratic, unelected Supreme Court ruled in favor of several anti-worker causes that will especially harm women and all LGBTQ people, including allowing employers to discriminate on “religious or moral grounds,” leaving the door wide open to refusing to serve LGBTQ people at businesses, denying birth control to workers, or discriminating against almost anyone for anything on a “moral” basis.

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Title VII protecting LGBTQ rights, the Trump administration enacted a policy that shelters could refuse homeless trans people on “religious or moral grounds” as well. The court decision for Title VII means nothing to the Trump administartion’s assault on our rights, nor to the rich ruling class they serve.

They have made it clear that no court decision will stop them from using their power to divide and control workers, pitting LGBTQ workers against religious workers, limiting our ability to engage with society, and making it harder for us to survive. Only a united working class movement can force the courts to bend in our favor.

Posted on

Pass the Gender Equality Act!

Right now, employers in 29 states can legally fire LGBTQ workers just because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. There are no federal protections preventing this kind of discrimination. That could change, however, if congress passes the Equality Act introduced by Rep. David Cicilline and Sen. Jeff Merkley.

LGBTQ activists have fought for this type of legislation for decades, but such protections would be a win for all workers. The capitalist class relies on keeping working people divided. There are more workers than there are bosses. But if the bosses can pit white workers against black workers, immigrant workers against non immigrant workers, LGBTQ workers against non LGBTQ workers, then it is the bosses who win.

We should remain hopeful and keep organizing, because many already see through the divide-and-conquer strategy. In 2016, the Public Region Research Institute conducted 42,000 interviews in all 50 states, and 70 percent of those interviewed said that they would support a bill like the Equality Act. Working class unity is possible and necessary.

Posted on

Community Protests Election of Homophobic School Board Vice President

On Thursday, January 17, the Orleans Parish School Board suspended its own rules so it could re-elect an openly homophobic school board member as Vice President. Despite the vocal opposition of the LGBTQ community and the Erase the Board Coalition, the board voted to re-elect Leslie Ellison and John Brown to their current positions, against the will of the people of Orleans Parish. Instead of responding to the 30 people who spoke in opposition to Ellison (and the entire board), they offered only a token acknowledgment of the outrage by changing the elections and putting another board member up for Vice President at the last minute. Still, they voted 4-3 to reinstate the same officers who have sold New Orleans schools off to private hands. Ellison’s history of homophobia came to light as she was running for President of the board, with community members revealing her testimony against anti-bullying provisions for LGBTQ youth and her history of supporting pro-charter school policies and officers. The OPSB chose to maintain the status quo instead of listening to the voice of the people. Their long history of disservice to the New Orleans community shows that they have no respect for the students they should be serving. The board must be replaced and schools turned over to the control of the community.

Posted on

Bigot Trump’s Military Ban Won’t Stop Fight for Trans Rights

By Sally Jane Black

The Supreme Court voted in January to uphold the Trump regime’s ban on transgender people serving in the imperialist U.S. military. The ban is an attack on the trans community, designed to whip up transphobia and continue the process of forcing trans people back into the closet. This has been the administration’s agenda since they took office. This move baits people into promoting the idea that those who are fighting for trans rights should also aspire to serve the U.S. military, reinforcing the lie that the U.S. military is a force of progress for oppressed people. The truth is, the U.S. military is the armed wing of the U.S. capitalist class, destroying other countries that stand up to the exploitation and destruction of imperialism. Even with access to the military, trans people would not be made equal in society, nor would participation in imperialist violence bring liberation for any oppressed people.

LGBTQ people consistently experience a higher rate of sexual and physical assaults, arbitrary and outdated restrictions for trans service members, and other forms of control and abuse that are meant to force them to submit their own interest to the interests of U.S. imperialism. The military has preyed on LGBTQ people and our lack of access to healthcare and other basic needs in order to convince us it’s in our interest to bomb and kill our fellow workers in other countries. The answer to this ban is not to demand trans people be allowed to serve, but to demand healthcare, housing, education, and jobs, anti-discrimination rules, and solidarity with the working class worldwide. The answer to the transphobia fueling this ban is solidarity among the working class and the oppressed people of the world.

Posted on

Take Back Pride

Two years ago, local LGBTQ organization BreakOUT! pulled out of the local Pride parade. After the Pulse nightclub shooting, the New Orleans Pride organization decided to increase police presence at the parade, and the organizers at BreakOUT!, led by LGBTQ youth of color, felt unsafe with more NOPD officers at the parade. Instead of providing security, they posed a direct threat to many BreakOUT! members who had been subject to harassment and abuse by NOPD. Despite this notable act of defiance, Pride continues to ignore the needs and history of local working class queer and trans people, especially LGBTQ people of color.

New Orleans Pride this year has the theme of “300 Years of Diversity,” tapping into the attention focused on the tricentennial to cash in. They have chosen the CEO of the New Orleans Tourism Board as their Grand Marshal, and they boast of many corporate sponsors, including Walgreens and General Electric (GE). As in past years, the parade will feature NOPD and members of the US military.

Though “efforts” have been made within NOPD to “address” accusations of anti-LGBTQ violence, no real changes have come. Though the US military boasts of its inclusion of gay soldiers, it continues to cause the oppression of LGBTQ communities around the world as they bomb countries in Africa and the Middle East and prop up right-wing governments that target LGBTQ people. Corporations like GE profit off of the military industrial complex while using their allegedly enlightened hiring practices to distract from the exploitation of working class LGBTQ people. While New Orleans Pride brings in money to the tourism capitalists, the rest of us struggle to get by because we have no money for health insurance, can’t get jobs, and don’t have access to basic needs.

Pride was born out of struggle: out of resistance against police brutality and solidarity with oppressed people around the world. For 300 years, white supremacy has defined New Orleans. Colonial violence and slavery denied queer and trans lives among the indigenous and enslaved people here, and violence against LGBTQ Americans has disproportionately affected people of color in New Orleans and around the country. “300 Years of Diversity” is an insult to those who resisted this oppression.

We are organizing to continue the struggle against homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and racism present in New Orleans. All working class LGBTQ people are welcome to join us in making sure our voices are heard and the original spirit of Pride is honored in this city. For more information on this new Pride Committee, contact us at: queerworkersnola@gmail.com.

Posted on

Stonewall: A Turning Point in LGBTQ Struggle

On June 28, 1969, a battle broke out.

The police raided the Stonewall Inn in New York, and the queer and trans people there and in the neighborhood fought back. The raid began as many others had, with the police separating people in the bar, focusing their abuse on those who least conformed to their ideas of gender. The resistance was immediate, but as the night continued it grew.

At the height of the resistance, the police had to barricade themselves inside the bar they had come to raid, taking a hostage and trying to turn a fire-hose on the crowd. The crowd responded with bricks and fire until more cops arrived. By the second day of the battle, the LGBTQ people of New York were joined by allies, including local political and anti-war organizers, and groups of trans and queer people fought police in the streets. Days of tension followed, until a third and final day of violence brought an end to the Stonewall Riots.

For decades, LGBTQ struggle in the United States had been building, but Stonewall served as a turning point and the birth of new movements. Inspired by working class and anti-colonial struggles around the world (especially Vietnam, China, and Algeria) and the civil rights struggle in the United States, the LGBTQ community in America formed the Gay Liberation Front within a week of Stonewall. The modern gay rights struggle was born in opposition to the most violent oppression.

POLICE RAIDS
The police raids at Stonewall were not unique. Being gay was a crime in almost every state, and in most places anyone caught wearing less than three pieces of clothing that “matched” the gender they were assigned at birth could be arrested. In 1966, a similar riot broke out in California as black drag queens and trans women fought back against raids. Across the United States, LGBTQ people arrested in the raids of their bars (often the only safe spaces they had) were subjected to sexual assault, police brutality, and public humiliation as they were exposed by the local papers. Many lost their jobs and their families. Many lost their lives.

NEW ORLEANS CONNECTION
According to many accounts, a New Orleans-born woman, Storme Delarverie, threw the first punch at Stonewall. As the police dragged her away, she is reported to have called to the crowd to fight back. In other accounts, a “butch, black lesbian” unidentified by name not only threw the first punch, but fought her way back to the bar three times before being captured, inspiring the crowd to begin throwing bricks and trash at the police. A working class woman, Delarverie was known to others in the neighborhood as a protector of their streets.

WORKERS & OPPRESSED PEOPLE FIGHT BACK
Most of those who fought at Stonewall were not activists or community leaders at the time. They were working class queer and trans people, most of them black or LatinX. Many were homeless youth that lived nearby. They had been assaulted and harassed by the police. Future leaders in the LGBTQ struggle like Miss Major, Marsha P. Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera were all part of the fight.

It was a response not just to oppression of LGBTQ people, but to racist violence as well, as the people most targeted in the raids were the black and LatinX people.

PRIDE
Many radical queer and trans organizations were born in the wake of Stonewall. The GLF, Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR), and more formed. People around the country–and the world–were inspired to begin fighting back.

Militant actions were the heart of these early resistance organizations, and people of all ages, races, and genders were welcome in most. They were working class groups that fought not just homophobia and transphobia, but racism, imperialism, and capitalism.

Modern Pride celebrations, sponsored by corporations, overwhelmingly white, with police and military featured prominently in their parades, have strayed from the original spirit of queer resistance. As rights won in struggle are reversed by the courts and law-makers, there is an urgent need for LGBTQ resistance, inspired by the revolutionaries of Stonewall.

Posted on

Attacks on Title IX Threaten Trans People

Last year, the Department of Education rolled back previously-won support for transgender students, but until this year, it was unclear how far they would take it. Recently, cases brought before them have been rejected and their intentions are clear: they no longer recognize the inclusion of “gender identity” under Title IX, the law that guarantees equal access to students to school activities. Not only has this allowed schools to deny trans students access to school activities, but it has also removed bathroom access from the list of protections under the law.

This exclusion will allow schools to force trans students to use facilities designated to their birth-assigned genders. For many trans students, this will make them vulnerable. It is a signal that these institutions do not recognize their genders as valid, which not only causes personal distress to the students, but also endorses harassment from students and staff.

The Education Department is playing a dangerous game, trying to split hairs over what is and what isn’t sexist discrimination in order to support the fear-mongering tactics that have demonized and endangered trans people for decades. The truth is that this is yet another ploy to divide the working class and reverse a minor victory for LGBTQ people, a part of the assault on everything we have fought for. We must build solidarity and demand equality for all!