How Socialism will Liberate Lesbian Wom(y)n

 

Gay Liberation Front. New York City.  Pride 1970

According to socialist Friedrich Engel's, the function of the patriarchal nuclear family under capitalism is to ensure the reproduction of male property inheritors and to force women to provide those social services (such as childcare), that capitalism refuses to pay for. A socialist perspective on patriarchy and homophobia must proceed from a critique of the nuclear family as a capitalist institution. The homophobic ideology of ''family values'' that conservatives defend - a false consciousness - exists to legitimize the capitalist patriarchy. The Lesbian Woman is hated by the social conservative because She represents the living negation of the capitalist patriarchy. She refuses to reproduce and she refuses to be shackled by compulsory heterosexuality. 

Socialism will not abolish the family per se, rather it will eliminate the socio-economic foundations of the capitalist patriarchy and the homophobia it requires to exist. Socialism will abolish the social conditions that engender homophobia by eliminating the social requirement to only engage in heterosexual relationships. In a socialist society all persons will be free to pursue the sexual and emotive relations of their choice with whom they prefer regardless of gender. In fact, codified gender roles will be transcended. Socialism will allow for the eradication of homophobia in schools, public services, and workplaces through educational campaigns; equal access; equal pay for equal work; and the strict enforcement of equality and non-discrimination rules. Socialism will guarantee free abortion on demand to all women and provide free access to health care services specific to the needs of Lesbian Women and Trans-gendered persons. Childcare will be socialized, thereby freeing women to pursue educational opportunities of their choice (free of charge) and subsequently enter the workforce in any area of their choice. A democratically planned socialist economy, will remove economic need as a motive for entering emotive and sexual relations. The socio-economic basis for prostitution will be removed. No longer will working class women and boys be compelled to sell their sex to men as a commodity in the market. Under socialism human sexuality will be decommodified. 

***

Offensiv, July 27, 2006

*** Upsurge of Struggle for LGBT Democratic Rights in Eastern Europe    

by Miguel Amanda. July 27, 2006. Offensiv. 

On Saturday July 22nd, the LGBT community in Riga, Latvia held a demonstration in favor of democratic rights in defiance of the city authorities. The government of the city of Riga had acted on July 19th to effectively ban a LGBT pride march scheduled for that day. The authorities cited “threats of terrorist attacks” as the reason for banning the march and further characterized the event as “the biggest security risk” faced by Latvia after winning independence from the Soviet Union. The request to stage the pride event had been made by Mozanka, the Latvian LGBT association. "We are shocked by the city council's decision, which we view as not only an unacceptable restriction of the freedom of assembly, but a major blow to democracy", said Mozanka board member Linda Freimane. 

The July 22nd demonstration was attended by activists and parliamentarians from Sweden, Germany and the UK. Although there was no overt repression on the part of the police, they where criticized for taking a passive stance while LGBT demonstrators where attacked by social-conservative and neo-Nazi counter demonstrators. One attending Swedish parliamentarian was injured in the altercations that took place. The ban and the negligence of the police were denounced by a number of international Human Rights NGOs; notably Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. This prompted Latvian president Vike-Freiberga to state that the refusal by the city of Riga to authorize the pride parade was “unacceptable in a democratic country”. The attempt by the Riga authorities to undermine the democratic rights of LGBT communities in the city came after a series of advances made by the LGBT communities in Russia and Poland over the past few months. 

On March 2 solidarity demonstrations where held in front of Russian embassies and consulates in West European capitals denouncing the ban of a planned Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender pride march in Moscow. The demonstrations where called by IDAHO (International Day against Homophobia), a Human Rights NGO based in Paris. This development points to an upsurge of awareness among those in the West concerned with the negative situation that GLBT peoples face in ’’post-soviet’’ Eastern Europe and Russia. The support expressed by supporters of the LGBT community outside Russia inspired the Rainbow Community in Moscow to hold two spontaneous pride demonstrations in favor of democratic rights for free assembly and freedom of speech on May 27th. The demonstrations were met with repression from police and from groups of counter-demonstrators including neo-Nazi skinheads, Muslim clerics and faithful of the Orthodox Church. The Courts upheld the Moscow government ban on the gay pride demonstrations despite the fact that the Russian Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and assembly; and despite the fact that a criminal complaint was filed by Moscow pride organisers against religious clerics ’’for inciting hatred towards a social group’’, which is prohibited by Article 282 of the Criminal Code of Russia. 

May 27th represents the national ’’comming out’’ of the LGBT community in Russia. Some have called it “the Russian Stonewall” .Gay Pride organisers in Moscow are planning to hold another march in the spring of 2007 despite the threat of a ban. The movement for LGBT equality and human rights in Russia has inspired a similar upsurge of struggle in Poland. Despite a ban by the Warsaw city government; approximately 2,500 LGBT campaigners and supporters from Western Europe marched on the city in June. The Warsaw Equality March was a success. Demonstrators carried placards reading: “The World is Watching” as representatives of the European media marched along to record the proceedings. Although the police conducted a tight security operation there where no reports of violent incidents. Groups of skinheads associated with the youth wing of the “League for Polish Families” – a Roman Catholic political group – delivered verbal abuse upon the pride demonstrators but where prevented from engaging in physical violence by the police.

It is a sign of cultural progress, in Roman Catholic dominated Poland, that the LGBT community can exercise its rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. According to Igor Yasin a member of Socialist Resistance (the CWI in the country); ’’Our task as socialists is to show that only by fighting capitalism and its state machine together with all the poisonous prejudices that come out of capitalism and by building a new society based on freedom and equality - a socialist society - can [the question of LGBT rights] be tackled once and for all.’’

There can be no socialism without LGBT freedom. There can be no LGBT freedom without socialism.

** An edited Swedish-language version of this article was published in July of 2006 in the Socialist newspaper ''Offensiv'' press organ of the Justice Socialist Party of Sweden; Swedish section of the Commite for a Workers International. The author is not a member of this organisation. The views expressed inthis blog are not necessarily those of CWI or the Justice Socialist Party of Sweden and vice-versa.