Sunday, June 27, 2021

Happy Pride Day! Returning to Last Year's Theme

It's the day of the NYC Pride Parade, the day I typically take to wish my LGBTQ+ readers a happy Pride Day and Pride Month.  I'm going to reiterate my theme of last year's Pride post- intersectionality is crucial to all liberation movements.  I don't think I could do better than repeating what I wrote last year:

An intersectional approach to human rights campaigns involves confronting all oppression- racial, class, religious, sexual and gender orientation/identification. Your feminism is broken if you are anti-transwoman. Your racial liberation movement is defective if it countenances homophobia. Your Democratic Socialist agenda just isn't working out if you are anti-semitic.

LGBTQ+ friends of mine have lamented the fact that homophobia still has a place among Black churches which have been at the forefront of the Civil Rights and racial justice movements.  Similarly, wealthy gay individuals have been insensitive to the needs of people of color.  As a straight white male, playing the game of life on the lowest difficulty setting, I urge everybody to take an intersectional approach- human rights should not be compartmentalized, period.

This year has been characterized by a record number of bills targeting transpersons.  Anti trans agendas are being promulgated by joke woke groups such as the LGB 'movement', which is attacking trans-identity from a supposed gay perspective, and the TERF 'movement', which is attacking trans-identity from a supposed feminist perspective.  Both groups have cynically allied with right-wing groups to attack transpersons' rights.

Meanwhile, right-wingers are using anti-trans bigotry as a Trojan Horse to promulgate a broader anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.  They lost the culture war against same-sex marriage, and, being reactionaries, they are fighting to roll back gay rights, especially in light of the Biden Administration's stated commitment to LGBTQ+ rights.  Ignore this wide spectrum right-wing approach at your peril.  Also, from a historical perspective, transwomen of color were at the forefront of the Gay Rights movement, at great risk to themselves.  If you celebrate Pride, you owe them a debt of gratitude, and more importantly, you owe them the protection that they need. 

5 comments:

DocAmazing said...

Of course NYPD had to pepper-spray the nonviolent marchers. How could they not? Gotta commemorate Stonewall with a little reminder...

Richard said...

I remind you that we don't celebrate pride festival. We are happy and support them.
We are feeling suspicious.
People just treat pride like it is christmas in June.
That is not how it feels.
If you ever had to face this constant pressure to be like them.

Ok my family will buy me a bride. We will live happy.
But i love my friend, in a gay kind of way. They don't have any answers for this problem. We just kept going on in a nevertheless hello kind of way.
He got killed working for some new people.
I am not finished with that.
He totally embraced that culture because he needed money.
He was generous but he got sucked in to their ways.
He died way back in 2005.
Don't do it. If you are forced to work for those assholes be careful.
They don't care.I notice they are mostly gabachos, but that is not the problem.
They killed my friend. They worked him to death. He was a paisano, not interested in books.

Uncle Milburn said...

And it's just now you're telling us about your blog?

Richard said...

Tio Milburn , i can't do a blog. No more than a tree can go grow feathers.
I wanted to tell you about my grief. I wanted to explain why i miss my friend .
I don't know what he would have done.
Maybe
He would be my same old good friend.

Ali Redford said...

Richard, I'm so sorry for your loss. Please take good care of you. We're working hard, but I'm still sorry it's taking sooo long.