Author’s Note: Out of respect for the ways people described their identities at the time, this article uses several terms now considered archaic by the LGBTQ community. Three years before the 1969 Stonewall Uprising that galvanized a generation of LGBTQ activists, and...
“Our armies are rising:” Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson
Author’s Note: Out of respect for the ways people described their identities at the time, this article uses several terms now considered archaic by the LGBTQ community. In the pantheon of figures in the history of LGBTQ struggles, few stand higher than Marsha P....
Resolution of the Party for Socialism and Liberation: Marriage equality and what it means for the LGBTQ struggle
July/August 2015 Preamble The following document was written by Sarah Sloan, Radhika Singh and Nathalie Hrizi, and initially circulated on July 4, 2015, as an internal document for discussion amongst members of the PSL. Throughout the course of two weeks of internal...
Struggle for marriage equality advances
The fight for equal same-sex marriage rights has dominated much of the news and activism of the LGBTQ community over the last decade. In 2004, not a single state allowed for same-sex marriage. Now, same-sex couples can get married in 19 states, the District of...
The Marxist understanding of the roots of LGBTQ oppression
Revolutionary struggle and LGBTQ liberation Every ruling class in history declares that their order is the “natural” state of society. According to this sort of history—which is really a denial of history—the prevailing forms of oppression are described as inevitable...
The fight over Chelsea Manning with the SF Pride Board
Support for Manning reflects anti-war sentiment Chelsea Manning, a U.S. army soldier and anti-war activist who faces life in prison for exposing war crimes committed by the U.S. military, was elected by the Pride Electoral College to be one of the grand marshals for...
Cuba: ‘for families free of homophobia’
An interview with Mariela Castro The following interview by Dalia González Delgado originally appeared in Granma Internacional. Director of the National Sex Education Center (CENESEX) and editor of the Sexology and Society magazine, a graduate in Education,...
A history of LGBTQ workers’ struggles
Decades of fighting discrimination on the job On February 16, 1991 when Cheryl Summerville was called into the manager’s office, she had already heard that the Cracker Barrel had formalized a policy to fire lesbians and gay men, and were interrogating workers...
Responding to hate crimes: from protest to resistance
The killing of Mark Carson, a 32-year-old gay man from Harlem, in the early morning hours of May 18, in the heart of Greenwich Village marks a tragic boiling point in a recent string of anti-LGBTQ bashings in Manhattan that has left the LGBTQ community reeling with...