LGBTQ

Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual rights

older

Changing attitudes, changing the world

The 1967 Sexual Offences Act (which partially decriminalised sex between men in private) was a very partial limited reform but nevertheless progress all the same. However, many Labour MPs opposed that legislation and as far as I know no trade unions supported it. Many other social groups did support law reform in 1967, but no trade union, and even the Society of Socialist Lawyers took a hostile view. Socialist lawyers did begrudgingly accept that there should be some sort of decriminalisation but they also advocated increased policing and repression of the LGBT community to ensure that this...

Orlando: we will not be silenced

On Sunday 12 June, 49 people were murdered in an LGBT club in Orlando, Florida, in the largest mass shooting in US history. At around 2am the attacker Omar Mateen entered the Pulse nightclub and opened fire; shortly after he took a number of people hostage, barricading them and himself in a bathroom. Police used an armoured vehicle to demolish the wall into the bathroom, before engaging in a gun battle in which Mateen was killed. 53 more people were injured in the attack. The victims ranged from 20 to 50 years old, and were apparently overwhelmingly from black and Latino communities. This was...

The state and Pride

The LGBT+ movement has made enormous strides in Britain in the last thirty years. It’s a huge achievement for us and I don’t wish to downplay the massive change in social attitudes and laws that our comrades have fought for and won. Having said that, it seems that we have an increasingly short memory about how we got here and who our friends are. The massive changes have come about because of the bravery of our forerunners and older LGBT+ people, not because people suddenly “saw sense” or because “love wins”. Without them, we would still be criminalised and we would still be getting beaten up...

The most homophobic election ever

I was the left-wing pro-LGBT rights Labour candidate. Described by many commentators as the dirtiest, most violent and homophobic by-election in modern British history, I went down to a crushing defeat at the hands of the Liberal candidate, Simon Hughes. The Liberals (since renamed the Liberal Democrats) pitched for the homophobic vote. They published leaflets which stated there was a “straight choice” between myself and Simon Hughes. Less well known was the tactic of some male Liberal canvassers to knock on doors wearing lapel stickers emblazoned with the words “I’ve been kissed by Peter...

Challenge trans-exclusion through debate

The Morning Star has come under fire for publishing two articles written by “trans-critical” / trans-exclusionary feminists. The first, by Rebecca Riley-Cooper, addresses the issue of women as a class, and the consequences of self-identification in defining gender. She argues that, “…The logical conclusion of shifting our definitions of gender from objective characteristics to inherently subjective and personal ones is that the categories of “man” and “woman” effectively become meaningless. This is not a satisfactory outcome, especially for those who strongly feel that they identify as one...

Islamist terror hits Bangladesh

On 25 April Xulhaz Mannan, the editor of Roopbaan, the country’s first magazine for lesbian gay and transgender people, was hacked to death in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital. Homosexuality is illegal in Bangladesh. This is the sixteenth murder in a series of Islamist machete killings over the past three years. Other targets have included secular bloggers and liberal intellectuals. Responsibility for all the attacks has been claimed by Islamic State or Ansar al-Islam, a local chapter of al-Qaida. Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League and Prime Minister since 2009, has said she will not be held...

NUS, take responsibility!

In a blog published on 25 February, one of the National Union of Students’ national LGBT officers, Fran Cowling, finally responded to press coverage of their “no-platforming” of Peter Tatchell. It’s a confusing read, to say the least. Fran writes that they “personally declined” an invitation to an event at Canterbury Christ Church University on the basis that Tatchell “has not always acted in the best interests of trans, Muslim and black communities”. By signing a public letter supporting the freedom of speech of trans-exclusionary radical feminists such as Germaine Greer on campuses, Fran...

Peter Tatchell is not a racist or a transphobe

Veteran LGBT and socialist activist Peter Tatchell is no racist or transphobe, and we should defend him against those charges. His alleged racism and transphobia were the grounds on which an NUS LGBT officer refused to share a platform with him at the “re-radicalising queers” event at Canterbury Christ Church University on 15 February. The LGBT officer was, in their view, following the policy passed by the LGBT conference of the National Union of Students which could be read as obliging an officer of the union not to share a platform with an “oppressor”. Of course they are entitled to follow...

An awe-inspiring, real-life hero

The Danish Girl, starring Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe and Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener, offers an emotional and inspiring depiction of a trans woman's struggle to claim her identity in the early 20th century. The film follows the real-life story of Lili Elbe, a trans artist and one of the first people in the world to undergo gender reassignment surgery. Born Einar Wegener in Denmark in 1882, she became a successful landscape painter under this name. When studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, she met Gerda Gottlieb, who she married in 1904. Gerda was also a very...

Greek "communists" oppose civil partnership law

“Is sex dirty? Only when it's being done right”, Woody Allen On Tuesday 22 December, the Greek Parliament ratified the Civil Union Agreement for Same-Sex Couples. The new legal framework for co-habiting couples is also a limited step (forward towards the abolition of discrimination for the LGBTQI community. The legislation makes the termination of civil partnership more difficult and provides rights to “civil partners” over inheritance, social security rights (pensions), and taxation. The government has yet to move to legislate for political marriage between persons of the same sex or the...

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