Gay lesbian solidarity

I introduce it through the history of a fanciful gay liberationist scheme to establish what some activists called a colony in Alpine County, California, which is this rural, Eastern Sierra county, the least populated county in the state.

Plaque at Gay's the Word celebrating Mark Ashton and LGSM Three months into the strike, Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) was established by Communist Party of Great Britain activist Mark Ashton, Mike Jackson, and their friends, after they had collected donations for the miners at the Lesbian and Gay Pride march in London.

Their compassionate and dedicated care work supported positive gay men during the epidemic and paved the way for greater understanding, acceptance, and support for people living with HIV. [4] At that pride march, Ashton and Jackson collected a. In fact there has been a queerness to the left, and queer radicals have understood that and have tried to explain that, both to other leftists who were straight and to other queer people who maybe only view the left as a site of hostility.

International Lesbian Day Is :

Central examples of this include gay and lesbian involvement in socialist feminism and in the Chilean and Nicaraguan solidarity movements. But one of the limits of that frame is that it tends to repeat the notion that the left and homosexuality are fundamentally separate and naturally in conflict.

Second, and perhaps more surprisingly, they argued that sexual liberation would only be achieved by acting in solidarity with other movements to win a society that was anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and feminist. This is something that came up as a distinction pretty early on in gay liberation.

One of the reasons they were critical of that language was because that language tended to assume the gay community was a monolithic whole that was principally white, middle class, gay men. What might historians of the left learn from your centering of gay and lesbian politics within that history?

Another critique that was raised was that gay nationalism aligned with U. AL: One of the most interesting features of your book is the way you bring together transnationalism, which is primarily a scholarly intervention, and internationalism and anti-imperialism, which are political movements.

The book traces not simply gay and lesbian people who happen to be involved in broader radical struggles, but also the creation of a leftist gay and lesbian politics — efforts by activists to explain the precise relationship between sexual liberation and anti-racist, anti-imperialist, internationalist gay lesbian solidarity solidarity.

The Gay Liberation Front in Berkeley, for example, came out against the Alpine project, critiquing the language of colonialism and gay nationalism that was used by Alpine project backers. Lesbian solidarity during the AIDS epidemic was life-changing in bridging the gap left by institutions and society.

There were a broad range of leftists moving away from more simplistic nationalism. Can you talk about that relationship? They also shared a critique of gay nationalism as being separatist and aligned with capitalism.

First, they held that radical solidarity was incomplete without a commitment to sexual liberation. So, in regard to the relationship between liberation, solidarity, and sexuality: gay and lesbian leftists saw sexual liberation and radical solidarity as interdependent.

Our Team We are a % volunteer-run, lesbian-led organization founded by an inter-generational group of LGB individuals throughout the U.S. Board of Directors Jos Grover – President is a lesbian who has always been dedicated to local, state and national activism for gay rights, progressive issues and environmental conservation.

AL: The histories of homosexuality and the left are deeply intertwined, yet these histories are often not put into conversation. EH : As you described, internationalism is something that gay and lesbian leftists were pursuing, and specifically in the context of the Cold War.

Transnationalism is a scholarly approach that I use to try to think about the political and social exchanges that were happening across borders, particularly in the chapters where I deal with lesbian and gay involvement in the Central American solidarity movement.

The Alpine project was not really a project of the gay left, but rather a project within the larger gay liberation movement that gay leftists felt that they needed to distinguish themselves from. EH : One lesson is that it has not only been a history of hostility or response to that hostility.

I also put somewhat less emphasis on theoretical statements than on practical application in organizations, campaigns, and building a political culture of the gay and lesbian left. EH : Absolutely. So gay leftists rejected the idea of a gay nation crystallized around white, middle class, gay men who were understanding gayness through their own experience but not as intersecting with the struggles of people of color, of women, of trans folks, of working class people.

Could you tell us a bit about what the book is about and in particular what the relationship is between liberation, solidarity, and sexuality?