The Roots of Us

“Just because there’s this umbrella, LGBT, we’re all grouped together. But guess what? Someone poked a hole in the umbrella and the girls are still getting wet.” 
– Miss Major Griffin-Gracy

When we think about Pride or the gay rights movement in the Western world, we mainly think of that particular night with that particular Stone that started a worldwide revolution. However, it is important to mention that several movements were already in place before that marked night in 1969. Organizations like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis had been fighting for gay rights for decades in the U.S. In Turkey, protests were being organized in Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara where feminists and human rights organizations had been fighting side by side. All over the world, several activists were battling different kinds of oppression intersecting with the queer community.

So what made the Stonewall riots a pivotal moment? Well, it was the first physical resistance in the U.S. where everyone was working together and protecting one another. Who is everyone? At that moment, it did not matter whether you were a white middle-class gay man, a Latinx street queen, or a black femme lesbian passing for a straight woman. All these labels melted into one armor against police violence and more importantly into the start of a collective battle for gay rights.

This of-one-fist story however did not last. As soon as the movement obtained the deserved political attention and gay rights were becoming something more than just a utopian idea, people were starting to be left behind. Out of fear of the unfavorable image that drag queens, trans people, sex workers and people of color would bring to the movement, they were soon excluded from the mainstream (read: white, cis, and middle-class) queer advocacy agenda. Today these particular groups are still noticeably less protected and less advocated for while also being the most vulnerable among us.

Many activists, such as Sylvia Rivera, have already mentioned this over the years. The reason why Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a famous African-American trans-activist, also said that “the girls are still getting wet” in the quote mentioned above is because of the pervasive transphobia within legislation, medical care, academia worldwide, and even some so-called feminist theories. Furthermore, when trans- and queerness intersect with race, culture, class, and ableness, the phobia gets an even more complicated dimension.

In Tennessee, U.S.A., for example, drag shows have been banned while neo-Nazi groups are still allowed by law to hold meetings and protests. In Antwerp, Belgium a queer Iftar event was canceled due to severe threats of violence towards the queer Muslim community. Moreover, 31% of transgender people in India commit suicide and 50% of them have attempted suicide at least once before their 20th birthday. Every day Black trans and gender-nonconforming people are being targeted and terrorized all over the world.

Conclusively, the dominant image of gay rights movements has had a very white, cisconforming, eurocentric, and liberal focus. This is due to, amongst other factors, repressive Western colonialism, lack of diverse representation, historically inadequate data collection, and the tendency to assimilate to the heteronormative and gender-conforming status quo out of fear of disturbing the comfort of ‘the norm’.

So if we really want to change this, let us dare to be more radical. Let us dare to go back to our roots that lie underneath the pressing surface. Let us emerge together once more, stand up and pick up the leaves we dropped along the way.