"Intersections:

The LGBTQ Role in Society, the Struggle and Socialism"

Badili Jones

The discussion of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Transgendered and Questioning (LGBTQ) movement
concerns a movement of profound difference that
in and of itself is a convergence of differences
centered on the question of sexuality and gender
variance. Homosexuality and bisexuality is about
sexual orientation while transgenderism is about
gender. These differences at times intersect one
another.

Over the course of time these movements
for recognition and liberation have joined. This
movement has come to be commonly known as the
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, and
Questioning Movement. Another term that has
gained common usage, especially among youth has
been the term "queer." "Queer" specifically
refers to a particular development and direction
of identity, culture and community that has
expanded to include all whose sexual life and
sensual social identities depart from the
heterosexual mainstream. Historically, the term
"in the life" developed in the African-American
community to have a similar meaning as "queer"
has in the overall community.This movement for liberation has the potential to
bring us to the understanding that heterosexism
and homophobia not only oppress LGBTQ persons,
but also that heterosexism and homophobia are an
essential part of the fabric of oppression of all
people under capitalism.

"Heterosexism" refers to a nexus of
interconnected social relations, practices,
institutions, and discourses which work to
establish and enforce heterosexuality as the
single "normal," "natural" and "desirable" way in
which human beings can engage in sexual relations
with each other while rendering homosexuality
"abnormal," "unnatural" and "undesirable" as well
in many cases "illegal," "immoral," "sinful,"
"sick," often invisible.

"Homophobia" refers to the fear and hatred of
homosexuality and homosexuals. Homophobia spans
from subtle actions all the way to violence
against homosexuals. Homophobia and the
intolerance for gay people cuts across religious,
national, ethnic, racial and class boundaries.
Throughout the world LGBTQ people are
aggressively persecuted, jailed and even
executed. I might add that LGBTQ persons are also
found within all religious, national, ethnic,
racial, and class groupings.

As a result of fear and internalized self-hatred
we tend to find higher rates of physical and
mental illness, suicide, depression and alcohol
addiction than in the general population. There
can be no measure for the intense loneliness,
isolation, self-censorship, that LGBTQ persons
experiences in trying to live in heterosexually
dominated society. I cannot begin to count the
toll that AIDS has reaped in terms of the deaths
of gay and bisexual men in this country.

LGBTQ Oppression and Patriarchy

It goes without saying that heterosexism and
homophobia are profoundly linked to patriarchy.
It is no accident that increased violence against
gays and lesbians occurs in a time of increased
violence against women. Battering is the single
major cause of injury to women, exceeding rapes,
muggings, and auto accidents. Physical and
psychological abuse of women is epidemic. The
depiction of men and women as opposites of each
other is part of this practice. Through
patriarchy, and by extension through
heterosexism, the patriarchal male asserts his
domination and superiority over women and all
that could be identified with the "inferior"
qualities that women represent, i.e. the
violators of the norms, LGBTQ persons. Patriarchy
is fundamentally about relations. Under
patriarchy relationships are static and fixed and
are characterized by domination and
subordination. The movement for LGBTQ liberation
is potentially one of the most p! rofound
challenges to the fixed and static role
determinates of the patriarchal worldview.

Patriarchy then is fundamentally a question of
social relations that are historically and
socially constructed. Though humans are born male
and female, there is no one way of being man or
woman and no one way that men and women should
relate to one another. The relations of
patriarchy allow for men to secure extensive
economic, political, and cultural advantages over
and at the expense of women. Without going into
detail, one of the results is the thinking and
behavior that men are not only different from but
also superior to women. There arises from this a
gendered division of labor where men value and
are trained to develop the powers of rationality
and carry out the tasks that are related to this
faculty, while women are socialized to develop
emotional sensitivity and are socialized to
assume positions where they support and nurture.
This division is constantly reinforced by the
dominant culture around us. Men are also en!
couraged to be aggressive and even violent.

To be gay and lesbian is to challenge this
pattern of socialization. The concepts of "real
man" and "real woman" are brought into question.
The categories of heterosexual, homosexual,
lesbian, and bisexual are categories that in
essence could only rise out of sexist patriarchal
society. A society characterized by the
dehumanization of women defines them as
subordinate/submissive and "surrendered" in their
relation to men on the one hand and on the other
"emotionally cripple[s] men by demanding that
they be alienated from their own bodies and
emotions in order to perform their
economic/political/military functions
effectively.” In a society in which men do not
oppress women and sexual expression is allowed to
follow feelings, the categories of homosexuality
and heterosexuality would
disappear."(Radicalesbians, "The Woman-Identified
Woman," New York, New York, 1970)

As socialists we realize that the potential for
all human liberation and freedom is the
liberation of all human relations from the
process of capital accumulation ó in other words,
the elimination of capitalism. The weakness in
our message is that we have not always understood
and exposed the revolutionary totality of this
transformation. The human person must be
liberated not only from capitalist accumulation
but from alienating social relations. The
elimination of dominating and subordinating
social relations rests not only on the
redistribution of the wealth but also on the
recognition of human beings as having inherent
worth and value in and of themselves. This gives
us new insight into the fundamental communist
vision of "from each according to their
abilities, to each according to their needs." To
be a human being is to experience your being as a
complex of relations. The various categories and
distinctions into which ! we attempt to isolate
this being can go no farther than a mental
exercise. The reality of a person is more
complex. A person can be worker, woman, oppressed
nationality, gay, etc. Can one be isolated as
primary and fundamental when all this impacts her
experience in society?

Time does not allow me to elaborate but I believe
that this is foundational to a socialist
understanding of sexual and gender oppression.
Many communists in the past have either had very
negative things to say about LGBTQ folks or have
been indifferent to and ignored the presence of
folk with different sexual and gender identities.
Many of these revolutionaries suffered in silence
out of fear of being called petit bourgeois and
counter-revolutionary. There was a part of the
communist movement that raised the most backward
views within the working class on this question
to a level of principle.

LGBTQ Involvement in the Struggle

This brings us to the question of LGBTQ
participation in the social movements of today. I
would say that the participation of LGBTQ folks
has much in common with the participation of all
folks in the social movements. As various sectors
and various movements interact, they impact and
change each other. Folks that today would be
identified as queer have participated in the
various movements. Gays and lesbians were part of
the Communist Party, notably Harry Hay who helped
to organize the radical wing of the movement for
gay and lesbian liberation. There were also LGBTQ
participants in the liberation movements of
people of color ó people like Langston Hughes,
Bayard Rustin, Audre Lorde, just to name a few.
Like women activists in these movements, they
were ignored and subordinated. They experienced
heterosexism and homophobia even in these
powerful movements for liberation. It is no
secret and no accident that the first real ra!
dical measures towards gay and lesbian liberation
were the result of the resistance of working
class and oppressed nationality gay, lesbian and
transgender persons. The Stonewall Rebellion in
New York, which has been whitewashed through
history, was initiated by the most marginalized
sectors of these groups.

Lesbian women, through their participation in the
feminist movement, rose to a greater
understanding of themselves as
women-identified-women and contributed profoundly
to the understanding of the intersection of
oppressions. The Combahee River Collective, which
spoke out powerfully about the liberation of
black women, had African-American lesbians in its
membership.

Another aspect of the LGBTQ movement has been the
response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This epidemic
(as you all know) had a devastating effect on gay
men. While all gay men were impacted, gay
oppressed-nationality men were infected and died
in proportions much greater than their white
counterparts. This was due not only to homophobia
but racism as well. Without support or aid from
the dominant sector, organizations from Gay Men's
Health Crisis to ACT UP and Queer Nation were
born, as well as new organizations of oppressed
nationality LGBTQ persons, such as the Black
Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum and Latina/o
Lesbian and Gay Organization (LLEGO). Many
important activists lost their lives in the
course of this most recent period.

A Key Part of the Movements

In the light of a history of active participation
by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered
persons in the various social movements and in
the movement for socialism, the LGBTQ movement
for liberation is not an afterthought or an
add-on. The development of a radical
revolutionary sector in the LGBTQ movement paved
the way for a greater contribution to the various
social movements that intersected the lives of
LGBTQ activists. They were able to bring a
greater strength and energy to the women's
movement, labor movement, oppressed nationality
movements, etc. as out LGBTQ individuals. It
can't be denied that homophobia and heterosexism
occurs in the various social movements, just as
racism, sexism, and classism appears in the
movement of LGBTQ folks. These divisions remain
major hurdles that must be confronted in the
effort to build a unified movement that will
shake the foundations of capitalism.

Today we find organizations and caucuses in the
oppressed nationality communities. An
organization that I helped to organize
participates in the MLK activities every year and
hosts a special breakfast for LGBTQ folks and
their allies during that time. This organization
also organizes workshops and meetings of
African-American LGBTQ folks around issues that
impact their lives and the lives of the
African-American community. A group of young
black queer revolutionaries have converged around
this organization as well and have moved to form
their own organizations. We must point out that
LGBTQ oppressed-nationality persons very often
experience racism from white gays at the same
time as they experience heterosexism within their
ethnic communities. It also needs to be mentioned
that gay men in particular have often been
identified as the perpetrators of gentrification,
which often pit them against established
communities of peopl! e of color. This has been
often framed as an issue between
African-Americans and gays, thus totally
obscuring the complex social dynamics, including
the class issues and capitalism's devastation of
African-American urban communities.

LGBTQ folks have moved to address issues in the
workplace, especially in the way they impact
their lives. Pride at Work exists today as an
organization that addresses LGBTQ issues in the
labor movement on the one hand and educating
LGBTQ folks about the importance of labor and
labor organizing on the other. Understandably,
gays and lesbians have also been active in the
movement for accessible health care.

In this current period, queer folk have also
stepped up as part of the anti-war movement.
Special formations such as Out Against the War
and Queers Against the War have been organizing
and spreading the message in the LGBTQ community.

Radicalizing the Struggle

Like most sectors, the LGBTQ sector is not
monolithic. The LGBTQ community crosses class,
ethnic/racial, national and gender lines.
Resistance to the organized attacks of the
radical Right has been a unifying factor, but
despite this resistance, understandable
contradictions exist. The liberal sector of the
bourgeoisie have sought to exploit these
contradictions and have sought to include, within
limits, the struggle for LGBTQ recognition into
their hegemony. Clinton's policy of "don't ask,
don't tell" did not fundamentally attack the
roots of LGBTQ oppression, and while the majority
of individuals who were thrown out of the
military for being queer were African-American
women, white gay males were the main
beneficiaries of this policy and were held up as
the poster children by various organization for
this project. The movement for gays in the
military also raised questions from the Left in
the LGBTQ movement about why we s! hould struggle
to be part of the military apparatus of the
bourgeoisie.

Another thrust is the movement for marriage. No
one among the leading spokespersons for the
bourgeoisie is willing to grant LGBTQ relations
the full rights and privileges provided by
marriage. Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage
Acts (DOMA), and movements are underway to define
in the US Constitution that unions between a man
and a woman are the only legally recognized union
in the US. This movement gained impetus by the
recognition of gay marriage in Canada.

From a Marxist perspective the demand for
marriage has contradictions. By implication it
could mean a buy-in and a desire to emulate the
productive units that are the nuclear family
under capitalism. On the other hand the equal
recognition of unions that are not heterosexual
could challenge arbitrary gender-based roles, as
more and more LGBTQ persons are able to establish
unions that are given the same recognition and
rights found in heterosexual marriages. Today,
already one in every three lesbian couples is
raising children and one in every five gay male
couples is doing the same. LGBTQ rights to raise
children are constantly under attack and
currently have no legal protection.

There currently is a conflict between the radical
religious Right on the one hand and the liberal
bourgeois elements on the other as to how to deal
with this issue and other LGBTQ issues.
Certainly, the liberal bourgeoisie wants to
accommodate a certain sector of LGBTQ folks,
especially as more and more of their own children
come out and demand recognition.

The contention for terrain in the discourse over
LGBTQ issues is currently dominated, I believe,
by the hegemonic discourse of bourgeois ideas.
This view is reflected in the main by the belief
that the LGBTQ movement is confined to
recognition within the confines of capitalism.
Wealthier, white gay males (but not only white
gay males) have been attracted to this, and this
has an organizational expression in organizations
such as the Log Cabin Republicans to an extreme,
along with organizations such as the Stonewall
Democrats and the Human Rights Campaign.

There are signs of contention for a more radical
and revolutionary understanding of gender
politics but many parts of the left have been
late and timid in efforts to hegemonize the LGBTQ
struggle. On the other hand, there are many LGBTQ
folks who have come to a greater understanding
that their total liberation is not possible
within the confines of capitalism. With that
realization is an understanding of the
intersection of oppressions and the need to
struggle against racism, sexism and militarism,
and ultimately for socialism. As we develop the
vision of the socialist future, lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgendered persons must be a
part of that future. The socialist organization
that we are now building must be a place where
LGBTQ revolutionaries will feel at home, and the
socialist society that we strive to create in the
future must be a society which all human beings
can contribute to and thrive within in the
fullness of their humanity.

[Badili Jones, an African-American gay Marxist
socialist, was involved in the Black Student
Movement and African Liberation support work
since his early teens. He came through the New
Communist Movement. He studied philosophy and the
roots of Latin American Theology of Liberation.
Today he is working among African-American LGBTQ
persons on the grassroots level. Badili is also a
rank and file member of SEIU, Jobs with Justice,
and Pride at Work.]