What will be the character and composition of Pride 2025? Much depends on decisions we make today—the present and past are the
trajectory of the future.
But the curve of history does not bend towards justice automatically--not without struggle. Nor does it arc gay-ly forward as the
crow flies. The German Homosexual Emancipation Movement was becoming an international movement when it was violently
crushed by the conquest of fascism.
Movements demanding social and economic change are rooted in the changing political character of their epochs.
Right now, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans movement faces a cross-roads.
Since the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, the most conservative political wing in the LGBT movement, which looks to the ruling
establishment as its social and economic base, has increasingly urged that our demands focus on 'gay issues' we can all agree on.
Questions of war and racism, they say, are divisive because we don't all see eye to eye. Will we ever all agree on which way forward?
'We are everywhere,' our movement declares. True: politicos in Congress and community organizers in grassroots coalitions, CEOs
in board rooms and hamburger flippers, top brass in the war rooms and GIs on the front lines, FBI chiefs and street activists, robed
judges and uniformed prisoners.
So who will define liberation? A white, Republican gay banker who is unjustly passed over for promotion because of his
sexuality? Or a Latina transgender youth who has lived homeless on the streets since she was 10? If we have to wait for unanimous
agreement on a vision of which way forward, we may as well go home and make it a Blockbuster evening.
So Pride 2025 will be shaped, in part, by a broad and lively discussion: Can we move forward on issues without consensus?
There are struggles we agree on: uniting against bigotry, discrimination and violence based on sexuality, gender expression or sex.
But are racism and war LGBT issues?
From the vantage point of 2025, our communities will look back to assess how we answered these questions.
Similarly, today we can look back on how our movements collapsed or gained new vitality based on which political current prevailed
in this debate.
The leaders of the early 20th century German Homosexual Emancipation Movement caved in and backed their own rulers in
WWI—a wholly reactionary and racist war between imperial powers fighting each other to re-carve up the world's markets into
colonial possessions. This derailed the movement. The most conservative and reactionary currents became emboldened; the most
progressive, left-wing elements became marginalized. Chauvinism snowballed; Rambo mentality prevailed.
And the movement relinquished its proxy and its voice to the same reactionary rulers who oppressed its ranks. The degree to
which any movement is progressive or revolutionary is measured by its independence from the ruling echelons of the society it seeks
to change. In WWI, the German gay/trans movement surrendered its independent voice for the grievances and aspirations of those
who marched under its banners.
But decades later in the United States, after police repression ignited the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, the liberation wing of our
young movement fought against the domestic counter-intelligence programs of the FBI and CIA. We were part of the battles to defend
the Black Panther Party, Young Lords, Chicano and American Indian Movement. And we stood up with the Vietnamese people
against the Pentagon war.
Our solidarity won significant popular support for the multi-national, young gay liberation struggle.
Today, LGBT activists have been part of protests totaling tens of millions here and around the world to stop the Pentagon war
drive and the racist round ups of Arab, Muslim and South Asian people in this country. And openly gay, transgender, lesbian and
transsexual activists have spoken at major mass rallies organized by the International ANSWER—Act Now to Stop War & End
Racism—coalition.
War is a defining moment. If a movement can't stand up to militarism of this character —re-colonization of the oil-rich Middle East
and Central Asia—what can it stand up for?
Will we allow Washington to characterize the colonial occupation of Iraq as 'liberation'? Will we unite to decry the 'disappearings'
of Muslim and Arab and South Asian people in the name of 'homeland security'?
The spin-doctors of war appeal to our progressive movements to back the bombing of Afghanistan in order to 'liberate' women
and gay people there. Then why did they earlier arm and back the counter-revolutionary forces that overturned women's rights and
helped usher the Taliban to power?
The war-makers urge us to fight in the ranks of the violently anti-LGBT Pentagon against Islamic nations whose religion does not
welcome same-sex love. Yet they have no problem propping up anti-gay regimes that do their bidding. And when they talk about anti-
gay religion, they don't mean the Catholic Church blaming gay men for its child abuse. Or the Protestant right wing that demonizes us
and attacks our rights.
Matthew Shepard was lashed to a fence and left to die in the cold night in this country. And countless other queer-identified
people of all nationalities have been lynched in the U.S. Our love and identities are still illegal in many states. We are being bashed,
denied domestic-partner benefits, and are victims of police brutality and 'don't ask, don't tell' witch hunts right here in the USA.
Our fight is here!
History has taught us that as the economic recession deepens, so will scapegoating and repression. And the war drive and its
ascendant Rambo mentality is inextricably linked to every domestic issue, social and economic: money for AIDS and healthcare, the
fight against budget cuts and police violence, domestic battering and rape, the struggle for rights of youth and elders, genuine
accessibility for disabled and Deaf communities.
Will the most downtrodden and disenfranchised—including people of color, youth, trans people and immigrants—swell the ranks
of all those struggles, and, more importantly, its leadership?
Will we explore the living links between the liberation of sexuality and women's and trans liberation? Will we deepen the
relationship between our movement and the labor movement that Pride at Work, a constituency group of the AFL-CIO, is extending?
Or will our movement see its salvation in the wait for yet another election year?
Who will we look to for leadership? The Republicans and Democrats who vote, in virtual unanimity, for war funding? Those
making the world safe for Unocal and Halliburton?
Or the people who do the work of the world everyday but have had nothing to say about how it is run. Those who have the least to
lose and the most to gain from profound economic and social transformation. For a brief moment in Europe, as the war against Iraq
loomed, we saw that potential power that could be unleashed when millions put down their tools, shut down their factories, offices
and campuses and took to the streets to make their will be heard. And rainbow flags were everywhere in their ranks.
Yes, we can and should come together in a united front on every issue that affects all LGBT people. But don't be surprised that a
liberation current is reviving and growing that will not stop fighting until every battle is won.
LGBT activists are a vital part of the struggles against globalization and sweat shops, against the racist use of the death penalty
and the prison industrial complex, to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, in defense of Palestinian self-determination, for reproductive rights and
for the environment.
And as 'we' battle on both sides of the class barricades—captains of capital versus the anti-capitalist modern Abolitionist
movement to replace capitalism with a consciously planned economy to meet human needs—let us not automatically assume that
Pride 2025 will take place within this same dog-eat-dog economic and social system.
What we do today matters. This year—Pride 2003—activists across the United States will march in contingents that carry the
banner: No pride in war; no pride in occupation. Stop the racist round ups.
How many will march? How many will cheer? Where will we go from here?
From the vantage point of 2025, a movement whose course is not yet determined awaits our answer.
