PRIDE means FIGHT BACK!

This is a statement from the LGBTQ+ Caucus of Workers World Party to Pride Parades, Dyke Marches and Trans Liberation Actions all over the country! 

An injury to one is an injury to all. We must unite and fight back together against all attacks!

The brutal violence of class war is something waged against us daily by the ruling class. When a woman cannot or chooses not to have a child is forced to give birth, when a gay man is evicted and denied access to homeless shelters because of his sexuality, and when a Black child is prohibited from learning their own history in the classroom, extending a legacy of genocide, we are witnessing class warfare. The question is how and when we’ll start fighting back together as the working class. 

Reactionaries, racists and neofascists across the U.S. are launching vicious attacks on the most vulnerable people. Hundreds of shocking anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced this year. Teachers are threatened with enormous financial penalties for acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ+ people, while parents of transgender youth face child abuse charges for providing them with necessary health care. 

Meanwhile, a critical blow is being struck against reproductive rights as Roe v. Wade could soon be overturned. Federal judges have given their approval to deadly laws criminalizing abortion, birth control and even miscarriages. And at the same time, voting rights for the Black community, won after decades of struggle, are being gutted by bigoted state legislatures.

The battle for LGBTQ+ rights, the fight against racism and the campaign for reproductive rights are not separate. They are overlapping fronts in one struggle between the working class and the capitalist class.

Democrats, despite having almost 50 years to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law, failed to do so. Why? Because they, like the GOP, are beholden to capitalists. Their failure to act is not a matter of incidental corruption; it’s a fundamental mechanism within capitalism. Those with wealth control the economy and, with it, institutional political power. It’s a monstrous cycle, and it’s why so many policies that are wildly popular with voters stand no chance of passing in Congress. 

This is how patriarchy and white supremacy continue to flourish. We are led to believe that capitalism is a fair system where hard work translates to success, but this is untrue. Capitalism is a system of oppression. 

Because oppressions compound with one another, when reproductive autonomy is stripped away, Black, Latinx and Indigenous people, LGBTQ+ and disabled people suffer at the highest rates. This is why we must not think of ourselves as unrelated elements of society, but as a single class whose problems grow from the same root. If we continue to tackle issues one by one, we’ll only be cutting branches from this great, poisonous tree. We must topple it completely. 

The LGBTQ+ Caucus of Workers World Party DENOUNCES the murderous attacks on our bodies — the racist attacks on people of color like the vile massacre in Buffalo, New York, the attacks on women and other people who can bear children by denying vital health care, the attacks on LBGTQ+ people with legal weapons that endanger our bodies and minds. We DENOUNCE all attacks on reproductive, voting and queer rights.

But the ballot box alone cannot and will not save us. Rights are not given, they are seized and defended! 

We take inspiration from the heroic worker organizing that won unparalleled victories against mammoth Amazon and Starbucks corporations. A solidarity of multinational, multigender, queer, young and older workers are asserting “We are the union,” and they are winning.

Now is the time for militancy, for sharpening our battle axes and FORCING the ruling class to acquiesce to human dignity and working-class power! 

We remember Stonewall and the Compton Cafeteria rebellions. Take to the streets. We refuse to allow them to push us back into the closet with the clothes hangers.

WW Photo: New York City bureau