‘No Walls in the LGBTQ2S Struggle’

Workers’ Solidarity Day was marked by a May 31 meeting titled “No Walls in the LGBTQ2S Struggle,” sponsored by Stonewall Warriors, International Workers’ Solidarity Network and Workers World Party.

The meeting was dedicated to Roxanna Hernandez, a Honduran trans woman who died in detention at the border. Speaking about the heinous deaths of children in ICE detention centers, Sam Ordóñez of Fight for Im/migrants and Refugees Everywhere (FIRE) said, “To the right wing, a six-week-old embryo has a sacred right to live and matters even more than the life of the mother, but once that child is born, if it is a migrant, the only right it has is the right to die.”

When speaking on reproductive and gender justice, disability activist Kristin Turgeon emphasized the need to reject the walls the bosses create to divide the working class, like racism, sexism, xenophobia, anti-LGBTQ2S bigotry and ableism. The next day she was on the front line fighting against a fascist, misogynist, anti-choice gathering in downtown Boston.

Remarks at the meeting by trans activists raised consciousness about the discrimination trans people face in accessing reproductive health care, including the violence of neglect, forced sterilization, unwanted procedures or being turned down for needed procedures, racism and lack of funds. Trans people are demanding the medical measures necessary to be able to make an uncoerced, safe choice on whether or not to have children and the social supports necessary to raise healthy children.

A Boston Google worker, who asked to remain anonymous, is trying to unionize their workplace where much of the workforce is precarious. “The company purports to be against bigotry and retaliation, but it is just the opposite. … TVCs  [temps, vendors and contractors] can be fired at any time … the workplace is racially segregated with the majority white workers full time and the majority of Black and Brown workers part-time,” he explained. Meeting participants enthusiastically pledged to offer concrete solidarity to any organizing efforts.

Frank Neisser, a longtime WWP member, marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion by reading from Leslie Feinberg’s work “Lavender and Red,” which chronicles the rebellion on a day-to-day basis. Neisser called on everyone to come out and be part of the Stonewall Warriors/International Workers Solidarity Network contingent in Pride Saturday, June 8.