Anti-imperialist keynotes Arizona LGBT event

“Unlike the president of the United States,” Leslie Feinberg reminded an audience of more than 1,000 in Tucson on Sept. 28, “the president of Iran was elected by a majority vote.”

Leslie Feinberg, right, at Wingspan. Photo: Sara Balbuena

Feinberg, whose series “Lavender and Red” appears in Workers World newspaper, keynoted this year’s annual event for Wingspan—Southern Arizona’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center. The event at the Tucson Convention Center was sold out.

Feinberg called the hateful hoopla around Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “a political ambush.” She said, “The media frenzy around the Iranian president’s talk at Columbia University coincides with what are openly discussed plans by the Pentagon to unleash war against Iran. This pro-war propaganda,” she stressed, “is aimed at diverting the lesbian, gay, bi and trans movement, and other progressive movements, against Iran and in doing so, disarm anti-war opposition.”

She explained, “The Iranian people know painfully well what imperialist ‘regime change’ means for their country. They recall the nightmare of terror and torture that the U.S. and Britain imposed when they installed a king—the Shah of Iran.”

Rebutting Washington’s pretexts for wars of aggression, Feinberg stated, “The Pentagon is no vehicle for women’s or sexual liberation. It has in fact incorporated anti-woman, anti-homosexual and anti-trans humiliation and rape into its science of torture, from Abu-Ghraib to Guantanamo.”

She called for an end to Washington’s covert war against Cuba and freedom for the Cuban 5.

Feinberg emphasized that the strength and dynamism of the LGBT movement in the U.S. can be measured by its independence from its own ruling class.

Feinberg’s message, including “No war against Iran!” was applauded by many in the audience, but not all. The gala event, attended by many activists of all ages and nationalities, also included corporate sponsors, state and local politicians, and police.

She called for solidarity against police brutality, “from the Jena battle against apartheid injustice, to the Jersey Four—young Black lesbians facing long years in prison for defending themselves against a street attack in Greenwich Village—to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project activists groundlessly brutalized and arrested by police this week outside a fundraising event.” Feinberg also called for defense of political prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier.

Pockets of grumbling were audible when Feinberg stated that Tucson is on part of the vast lands that the U.S. stole from Mexico. She lauded Wingspan for its solidarity with the May 1 immigrant rights movement. She called for “Spirit of Stonewall” contingents in upcoming immigrant rights marches across the U.S.

“We need street heat,” she concluded. “As the economic situation worsens for so many workers and oppressed peoples, class struggles will break out. Our movement needs to be in the streets wherever and whenever people are repressed and oppressed. That’s the spirit of Stonewall.”

Feinberg told Workers World, “I handed out sign-up sheets for Rainbow Solidarity for the Cuban 5. By the time I got to the door, 50 people had filled theirs out and pressed them into my hands, including renowned Latin@ lesbian comedian Marga Gomez, who was the emcee of the event.”