💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › document › workers-solidarity-movement-queer-oppression captured on 2023-03-20 at 22:05:37. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Queer Oppression Subtitle: A Workers Solidarity Movement Position Paper Date: October 2011 Source: Retrieved on 15<sup>th</sup> October 2021 from [[http://www.wsm.ie/c/queer-oppression-lgbt-wsm-anarchism][www.wsm.ie]] Notes: Workers Solidarity Movement position paper on Queer Liberation as re-written at the October 2011 National Conference<em>. This position paper sits under the Sex, Gender, and Sexuality paper and does not repeat that material here.</em> Authors: Workers Solidarity Movement Topics: queer, homophobia, gay liberation, transphobia, oppression, position paper Published: 2021-10-15 10:47:03Z
1. 1. The WSM opposes all oppression of, and discrimination against LGBTQ people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people; referred to simply as ‘queer people’ in the rest of this document).
2. Anarchists believe that true liberation for queers will only come about with the abolition of capitalism and creation of a society that gives everyone real control over their lives. This does not mean, however, that the fight is put off until then. Queers are entitled to full support in their struggle for equality.
4. The WSM recognises that the overwhelming majority of queer people have to work for a living, or survive on benefits and are an integral part of the working class.
5. The WSM supports the celebration of Pride with marches, parades and cultural events, as a challenge to homophobia and transphobia, and commemoration of the Stonewall riots. We oppose the incursion of corporations and LGBT police and military organisations into Pride celebrations, which merely serves to promote consumerism and ‘pinkwash’ reactionary agendas.
7. Transgender people should be entitled to change their birth certificates and other documents to reflect their actual gender. Trans people’s choices about their own bodies is to be defended in the same way as women’s right to choose. Trans people’s access to medical treatments such gender-realignment surgeries and HRT should not be dependent on their economic circumstances, but should be available as a right.
9. Until sexual health provision reflects the needs of lesbian and bi women, specific lesbian health provision need to be established. Current cuts in and newly conservative and moralistic approaches to gay and bi men’s health services need to be resisted. Free condom distribution should instead be extended to everyone.
10. In Ireland, the Catholic Church has sweeping exemptions from equality legislation. It controls most schools and hospitals. The Catholic hierarchy is poisonously and openly homophobic and this means that queer teachers, nurses and doctors are vulnerable and must be defended through the trade unions. The Church’s exceptions from equality legislation, and their control over hospitals and schools, should be abolished.
11. We reject the appropriation of queer struggles by conservative and reactionary ideologies. Specifically we oppose ‘homonationalist’ ideas, which characterise certain ethnic, racial, religious and social groups (in particular Muslims) as being intransigently and inherently opposed to queer liberation in order to ‘pinkwash’ imperialist wars and exclusionary and racist immigration policies. (In particular, Israeli military action against Palestine and Lebanon is often justified by commentators in terms of defending the only pro-gay State in the region against Muslim homophobes.) We reject the mischaracterisation of working-class and poor people as particularly homophobic in order to foster class hatred.
12. We recognise that queer immigrants and refugees are particularly victimised both by the state and by racists and homophobes. Deportations of queers need to be resisted. While legally those in danger because of their LGBT identity in other countries are entitled to refugee status, in practice it is very difficult for them to prove this to an institutionally acceptable standard. We regard this as a form of institutional racialised homophobia and as part of a wider effort by the political establishment to delegitimate refugee status.