Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

From Queer Struggle to Revolution

In the last 35 years of LGBTQ+ struggle, we have won more rights. But we have also seen greater institutionalization, co-optation, fragmentation and depoliticization of the LGBTQ+ movement. How can we revolutionize the queer struggle?

Roberto Jara

August 14, 2019
Facebook Twitter Share

Part I | Part II

The struggle for LGBTQ+ rights in the 1970s took place in a context of repression, media defamation and, in some cases, criminalization. LGBTQ+ organizing brought about progress in some countries, making gains like the abolition of some discriminatory laws and an end to the pathologization of queer people. During the neoliberal restoration of the 1980sas the working masses suffered high rates of unemployment, an increase in precarious labor, and attacks on trade unionsoppressed people in Europe and the United States won some minimal rights and increased political representation. This was the beginning of a process of inclusion of people who had previously been excluded from the capitalist regimes. Another dimension of this process was greater institutionalization, co-optation, fragmentation and depoliticization of the oppressedincluding gay and lesbian peopleduring the ascent of the neoliberal offensive. 

The neoliberal offensive and the inclusion of the more moderate sectors of the LGBTQ+ movement in mainstream institutions, are critical to understanding the conservative drift that followed. In the 1980s, the movement went from the offensive to resistance, and later,  to institutionalization. Today, much of the LGBT movement has abandoned the struggle for the radical transformation of society as a whole and is focused on the struggle to create “safe” institutional spaces, moving from the streets to non-profit offices. The sectors that didn’t accept this domestication were met with increasing repression. The struggle became primarily defensive and the radical queer movement was confined to the margins. But to understand the institutionalization of the queer movement, it is necessary to discuss the HIV crisis of the 80’s. 

Don’t take any right for granted

In the early 1980s, hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ+ people were struck by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, affecting queer populations all over the world and causing particular devastation to LGBTQ+ communities in semi-colonies. At the same time, the Christian right was organizing against feminist and sexual liberation movements, working hand in hand with the Vatican and neoconservative political sectors. The AIDS epidemic —considered a “divine punishment” by fundamentalist sectors—terrorized the gay community. The epidemic was also cruelly stigmatized, leading to increased discrimination, marginalization and violence against queer people.

The policies of the major pharmaceutical companies and government health ministries left thousands of people to die—including much of the vanguard of the LGBTQ+ movement. As a result of the mobilizations of LGBTQ+ people, various anti-discrimination initiatives and health programs for people infected with HIV/AIDS emerged. Yet, this tilted the movement’s strategy away from political organization and toward NGOs, offering services for those infected and relying on big donors. As with the feminist movement, this dynamic was decisive for creating a group of NGO bureaucrats who emerged from the movement and became administrators of funds, government technocrats, paid activists and directors of foundations.

At the same time, the unity of all people oppressed because of their sexuality was questioned, especially by lesbians, trans people, Black people, Latinxs, etc. Unity on the basis of sexual identity was shown to be an illusion, as the movement’s power was concentrated in the hands of gay, cisgender, white, middle-class men. This was repeated, in its own way, inside the feminist movement. The response to this phenomenon, however, was not organizing around a common program and political perspective, but an explosion of organizing based on identities. 

In the midst of this fragmentation, new postmodern ideas emerged based on the premise that identity is coercive, prescriptive and repressive. Postmodern politics aimed for subjective, lifestyle changes and linguistic-cultural deconstruction.

You might also like: Class, Identity and Socialist Strategy

In a little more than a decade, the movement for sexual liberation was transformed into the institutional LGBTQ+ movement, prioritizing representation rather than the radical fight against the system that represses sexuality and gender nonconformity and is the cause of exclusion, discrimination and oppression. The result was the dismemberment and depoliticization of the movement, limiting it to sporadic appearances at diversity celebrations like Pride, and lobbying companies, capitalist politicians, and international organizations.

This is how we arrived at the current situation, in which sexual liberation is reserved for people in certain income brackets. Between forbidden desire and commercialized desire, the idea of emancipation through consumption is reinforced in the service of the social order. Control over the bodies of others, the imposition of binary genders predefined by the genitalia, heteronormative sexuality, and cisgender conformity aren’t natural—they serve the interests of the social class that organizes society. Permanent sexual repression under capitalism plays an essential role in the relationship between oppression and exploitation and indicates where we need to look for the basis of a sexual revolution.

So Is The Queer Struggle Revolutionary? It Can Be

As a multi-class category, the LGBTQ+ movement is confronted with a multitude of antagonistic interests. When the rainbow flag can be so voided of subversive meaning as to be used to sell all kinds of products during the run-up to Pride, and when it is used to mask the genocidal face of the Israeli state, it becomes evident that within the queer community there is also class struggle.

Although the movement has made undeniable progress, it is completely insufficient in bringing about substantive changes in the living conditions of the large majority of queer people. This is especially true in the case of trans people, who face an unemployment rate of 85 percent and high rates of prostitution. In the context of an extended capitalist crisis, not only are many democratic rights under threat, but the living conditions of the working class are getting worse. Meanwhile, this class is becoming increasingly diverse, less white, and more female.

When fighting back against the bourgeoisie’s hegemony within the queer community, the possibilities of forging alliances with the rest of the working class represent an enormous potential. Fifty years after Stonewall, despite setbacks in the class struggle and the co-optation and institutionalization of the movement, decades of struggle by generations of queer militants make it easier to recover a revolutionary subjectivity.

This perspective finds extraordinary support in the feminist movement that is developing around the world, reviving the idea of strikes as a means of struggle. In some sectors, the feminist movement is also raising demands against racism, precariousness, unemployment, and unpaid work.

By looking to the diverse working class that keeps the world running and by fighting for a program that confronts capitalism, there is a possibility that the LGBTQ+ movement will once again play a revolutionary role as part of an alliance that unites the oppressed and exploited. This is one of our greatest weapons: to unite what the capitalists are trying to separate at all costs.

We want more than tolerance of our existence in exchange for our silence. We want more than rainbow capitalism. Discrimination against the most exploited sectors of our class persists, and the bourgeois state increases its repression in its rightward shift.

We do not want to be tolerated. We want the radical transformation of a capitalist society that, after centuries of exploitation, oppression, war, hunger, and imperialism, deserves to be thrown into the dustbin of history.

First published on May 19 on Contrapunto / IzquierdaDiario.es.

Translated by Natalia Pons

Facebook Twitter Share

Roberto Jara

Roberto is a history student at the University of Zaragoza. He writes for our sister site in the Spanish State, IzquierdaDiario.es.

Gender & Sexuality

“We are your economy”: Trans Youth Walkout and Speak Out

The following is a speech by a young trans person as part of an action called for by NYC Youth for Trans Rights.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

March 20, 2023
Mexican president AMLO on the left with the female members of his cabinet. International Women's Day protesters on the right.

President AMLO’s Government Is Not Feminist

On March 8, Mexican president AMLO spoke cynically of his commitment to feminism. But the fight against gendered violence, militarization, and labor precarity will be fought by the masses, not the so-called “progressive” government in Mexico.

Barbara Funes

March 13, 2023
A sign drawn on a small whiteboard, in trans pride colors. Text: "CUNY Graduate Center and Professional Schools Workers for Trans Rights" Beneath the text is a chain of 9 smiling stick figures in different colors, all holding hands

CUNY Union Chapter Unanimously Passes Resolution in Support of Trans Rights

The Graduate Center chapter of PSC-CUNY, the faculty, staff, and graduate worker union of the City University of New York, passed a resolution pledging support to all workers fighting the anti-trans bills nationwide.

Olivia Wood

March 12, 2023

“We Won’t Go Down Without a Fight”: Trans Youth Walkout and Speak Out

The following is a speech by a student activist from NYC Youth for Trans Rights.

Raven Benjamin

March 11, 2023

MOST RECENT

Protesters gather during a demonstration on Place de la Concorde in Paris on March 17, 2023, the day after the French government pushed a pensions reform using the article 49.3 of the constitution. - French President's government on March 17, 2023 faced no-confidence motions in parliament and intensified protests after imposing a contentious pension reform without a vote in the lower house. Across France, fresh protests erupted in the latest show of popular opposition to the bill since mid-January.

Battle of the Pensions: Toward a Pre-Revolutionary Moment in France

President Macron's use of article 49.3 to push through an unpopular pension reform bill has opened up an enormous political crisis that has changed the character of the mobilizations against the French government. We are entering a "pre-revolutionary moment" that can change the balance of power between the classes in France.

Juan Chingo

March 21, 2023

20 Years Since the U.S. Invasion of Iraq: A Reflection from a Socialist in the Heart of Imperialism

A Left Voice member and anti-war activist reflects on the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and how he learned to hate U.S. imperialism.

Sam Carliner

March 20, 2023

It is Possible to Win: The Pension Reform Crisis in France

A French socialist reflects on the way forward after Macron invites Article 49.3 to pass pension reform.

Paul Morao

March 20, 2023
Three tables full of food, with signs hung above them. One says "The People's Pantry: FREE FOOD." Banners hung from the tables say "Free CUNY" and "Cop Free School Zone"

CUNY Administration Cracks Down on Student and Worker-Run Food Pantry

Students and workers opened "The People's Pantry" seven weeks ago as part of a broader anti-austerity campaign at CUNY, leading to several direct confrontations with the administration.

Olivia Wood

March 19, 2023