New York City, June 26—There is an opportunity for growing class consciousness in the fight against anti-gay and anti-trans sexism. The Pride events this year had slogans against “Rainbow Capitalism.” We need to take it one more step further. Yes, the Republican Party is racist and sexist, but it’s the Democratic Party that's doubled down on winning LGBTQ+ workers to support its imperialist agenda through promises of legislation.
Unless we get rid of this capitalist profit system, built off of exploitation and division, no worker can achieve liberation. Only by building an international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) dedicated to fighting for armed revolution, can we make working-class liberation a reality!
For the third year in a row, thousands of people here took to the streets with the Queer Liberation March, many in opposition of the larger Pride Parade’s embrace of corporations, politicians, and racist and sexist police. PLP members joined other workers and students to support this struggle and share our communist ideas.
We distributed over 100 leaflets and dozens of CHALLENGEs. PLP members led chants that called on all workers to “flush the system down the drain!” and spell out the racist nature of the police. In school-based Gender and Sexuality Alliances (GSAs) where we have provided leadership, we worked to ensure that such spaces are not simply supportive of students but also critical of the capitalist system that is racist and sexist to the core.
The fight in this movement is the same as all others—reject identity politics, expose the liberal racists and their imperialist agenda, and recruit fighters to the international battle for communist revolution via PLP.
Fighting racism and sexism in the movement is key
The LGBTQ+ movement is infested with racism and anti-worker ideology. However, the roots of Pride originate in rebellion against the cops. The cops who murder Black and Latin workers are the same cops that terrorize gay and trans workers. Black and Latin transgender workers still face more police harassment, terror and incarceration than other LGBTQ+ workers. Blood remains on the hands of the state for the death of Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco who died while in custody at Rikers Island as corrections officers stood by laughing.
In 1969, rebellions erupted against the police who raided the Stone wall Inn Bar and terrorized the Black and Latin transgender, gay, and lesbian patrons. This was the origin of June Pride actions. Stonewall came at a time when a huge part of the population was already out protesting and challenging capitalism. However, with the fall of the old communist movement, there was a political vacuum, which identity politics filled. Out came single-issue, identity-based organizations. We fought in the streets, challenged the cops, but the emphasis on how capitalism oppresses all workers was all gone.
That explains how today’s Pride events have become a capitalist celebration that disregards the fact that exploitation is the foundation of this profit system. All Pride events, including the Brooklyn Liberation Action for Trans Youth, which drew over a thousand protesters, play into the pockets of the liberal bosses. Actions divorced from the class struggle do not challenge capitalism; it negotiates with capitalism.
Under capitalism, the mode of production is based on the exploitative relationship of wage labor. As more people were able to live outside of a reproductive family unit, the possibilities of constructing a life, an identity, a community outside of traditional gender roles and straight sexualities grew. Today, capitalism has accommodated elements of gay, queer, and trans existence. But for any member of the working class to live full free lives, we need to abolish this dictatorship based on exploitation and profit.
Liberals = still main danger
As conservative politicians openly attack
LGBTQ+, Black, and immigrant workers, liberal politicians claim they support equality—equal
oppression, that is. Rainbow capitalism is not only about corporations profiting off LGBTQ+ workers; it is also in effect when opportunist politicians use language of “inclusivity” and “representation” to drum up support for imperialist wars and pro-boss laws (like zoning for luxury condos that helps drive homelessness).
Transgender pilots dropping bombs on workers in Iraq is not liberation!
Openly gay or lesbian politicians—like Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot in Chicago—protecting the police while attacking teachers and students is not liberation!
It is just more
capitalist exploitation.
PLP fights for communism, a system designed to meet the needs of all workers based upon equality. The fight against racism and sexism, which includes anti-LGBTQ+ oppression, must be at the center of building a communist world. We have a long way to go in overcoming identity politics, nationalism and pro-democracy ideology. The bosses’ ideas are rampant in many Pride activities, all of which keep the working class more divided.
To smash capitalism we need a communist movement that unites workers across
socially-constructed lines of race, gender, and
sexuality. Only a movement that unites all sections of the working-class—under the leadership of those workers most familiar with the rotten nature of the system—can succeed. Read CHALLENGE and join PLP!
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BOX
Dividing and super-exploiting the working class
Capitalists and their politicians maximize profits and maintain their power by dividing and super-exploiting workers. Bosses want workers to blame each other for a system that has never met the needs of our class. The failures of the system are especially true for groups of workers the system super-exploits. Bosses pay less to Black, Latin, immigrant, women, gay, transgender, and other groups of workers that are terrorized by the system. Whether the agents of terror are racist cops, ICE officers, or bigoted workers convinced to turn on their class siblings, the capitalists at the top maintain control.
A 2013–15 National Health Interview Survey found that gay male workers earn 10 percent less than their heterosexual counterpart. In more than half the U.S., LGBTQ+ workers can be openly fired because of their sexuality or gender identity. The National Transgender Discrimination Survey reported, that trans people are twice as likely to be unemployed due to discrimination. It’s estimated that about seven percent of youth in the United States are LGBTQ+, while 40 percent of youth experiencing homelessness are LGBTQ+.
LGBTQ+ workers also face attacks in the realm of healthcare. In an online survey, 65 percent of doctors heard negative comments from peers targeting LGBTQ+ patients, while 35 percent witnessed discrimination toward individuals in the workplace. The rate of HIV/AIDS has recently reached staggering numbers, especially in some sections of the LGBTQ+ community. One in two Black gay men or transwomen will contract HIV in their lifetime. This is due to a sexist and racist healthcare system.