Bradley Manning, Not the Pride Committee, Embodies Spirit of Stonewall

In the spring of 2004, I got an email from an acquaintance asking if I wanted to be nominated for LGBT Pride parade grand marshal.  I was surprised, because I never thought of myself as grand marshal material. In point of fact, I've never been very much in tune with "marshals" - grand or otherwise.  "Marshal" sounds too much like "martial" for my taste, and the marshals at demonstrations are always telling me to stand inside the yellow line or something.

But I agreed because, first of all, I understood that it wasn't about me, it was a way of spotlighting the work of queer folks in support of Palestinian liberation, and more broadly, of anti-assimilationist queers opposing U.S. militarism in all its manifestations.  And second, I assumed I wouldn't win.  I was already back in Palestine when I got the notification that I'd been elected.  I ended up concluding that I couldn't afford to come back for the parade, but before I did, the mayor cancelled a scheduled reception at City Hall, apparently in fear of what I might do.

The Parade Committee came in for plenty of abuse for honoring a "terrorist" but they basically shrugged it off.  It didn't hurt them at all.  What it did do was make a lot of people who had been feeling less and less included in the mainstream queer community feel a little more connected.


Unfortunately, the rampant militarism and dissent-squashing of the last ten years has not spared our community. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that the Parade Committee Board had voted to rescind the election of Bradley Manning as honorary grand marshal.

Manning recently admitted to leaking documents to Wikileaks including the "collateral murder" video showing an air assault on Iraqi civilians by a US helicopter crew.  The Parade co-chair cited a contention that Manning's actions had jeopardized American soldiers, which has never been proven.  We all know that the only way to protect US soldiers is to get them out of Afghanistan and all the other places where they commit atrocities like the ones Manning revealed.

Bradley Manning is openly gay and was bullied in the Army because of that.  As I discussed in a previous post, his sexual orientation and gender fluidity were exploited by the persecution and for a long time unacknowledged by his supporters, most of whom are straight.  For the last two years, though, there have been Free Bradley Manning contingents in the SFLGBT Freedom Day Parade, as well as in other Pride parades around the world.
I wrote the following letter to the Pride Committee and urge all of you, especially if you're queer, write your own (eek! looking at their website I just realized a friend of mine is board vice president now!). Send it to them at info@sfpride.org, ed@sfpride.org and feel free to call them as well at (415) 864-0831.

Dear Pride Committee,

As a former Community Grand Marshal, I am outraged that you have nullified the vote of the Electoral College to name military whistleblower Bradley Manning as an honorary grand marshal.

When I was elected in 2004, in recognition of my work in Palestine, there were plenty in the community who criticized the Pride Committee for that choice. I was really proud of the way that then-Executive Director Teddy Witherington stood up to those critics. He was no supporter of my politics, and I had been deeply critical of his efforts to commercialize and restrict the Pride celebration. But he wasn’t standing up for me or my politics. What he eloquently defended was the democracy of the process and the diversity of our community. He recognized that while I might not represent his ideals, I did represent those of many queer people, who had a right to be heard and honor whom they chose.

Your cowardly decision to cave in to pressure from militaristic and authoritarian forces betrays this legacy. It betrays the best in queer history, from Harry Hay to Harvey Milk to Stephen Funk, who were all anti-war activists. It betrays the very history that the LGBT Liberation Day Parade commemorates. The Stonewall Rebellion was made by gay people who fought back against injustice, not those who acquiesced and followed orders.

The modern queer liberation movement was inspired by the civil rights movement, the feminist movement and the movement to end the Vietnam War. Bradley Manning acted in the tradition of the soldiers who revealed the atrocities at My Lai and the sexual harassment at the Tailhook Symposium.

The queer community should be – and is – proud to claim him as a symbol of our continuing struggle for all liberation.
You have no right to silence our dissent and rob us of our place in Pride.

Please reinstate Bradley Manning as a honorary grand marshal.

Sincerely,

Kate Raphael

Gay Marriage, or why I hate the equals sign

We need to ask ourselves why same-sex marriage is building support, even among conservative Republicans, at the same time that:

• Tennessee is about to punish poor kids who don’t do well in school by starving them.  
• 16-year-old Kimani Gray has become the latest symbol of the non-stop assassination of young people of color by police
• 41 states have introduced 180 laws to restrict voting rights in the last two years.  A majority of African Americans in Michigan are living under unelected leadership appointed by their governor through emergency powers.
• William Bratton, who brought “Stop and Frisk” to New York and Los Angeles, is on the march in Oakland.  Bratton says that cities who don’t use stop and frisk are “doomed.”  In New York, over 85% of those stopped and frisked were Black or Latino, and over 90% were not breaking any laws.
•  At least 41 of the prisoners in indefinite detention in Guantanamo are on hunger strike; some advocates say it’s more than 100.  Ten of them are being force-fed, in violation of international law.  Most of them were cleared for release years ago.  The military is refusing to give press access to the hunger strikers.
• Obama and Kerry are poised to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, despite the major spill when a pipeline broke in Arkansas last week.

Street art from a few years ago - some things never get stale

Whatever else it is or isn’t, the marriage rights movement is not the “new civil rights movement.”  Civil rights are for everyone.  Marriage is about broadening the class of people eligible for certain privileges, most having to do with who gets your stuff when you die, and how much they get taxed for it.  Every possible benefit of marriage – health care? immigration? could be more effectively established by demanding genuine equality for everyone.

The marriage cases are also not comparable to Loving v. Virginia.  Loving decriminalized relationships between whites and non-whites.  It was more analogous to Hardwick v. Georgia than Hollingsworth v. Perry.

I don’t have anything against people getting married – hey, I’m going to a gay wedding later this month.  But what does it mean to demand equality in a country that is so fundamentally unequal?  Once you have your equality, what are you going to do with it?  Buckle down to abolish the prison state and raise the minimum wage?  Fight for teacher unions and against high-stakes testing?  Don't you see that they're just trying to buy off those of us they think are acceptable, to recruit us into the war against people who aren't? 

The Human Rights Campaign just had to apologize to one of the speakers at the rally on the Supreme Court steps last week.  Just before Jerssay Arredondo went on stage, a staff person told him not to say he was Undocumented, because it would "hurt their image" and "distract from the issue."  Might want to take that equal sign off your facebook profiles.

My friend Elana says:  “Sometimes there's a neon sign: if this is the result of your actions, you better rethink those actions.”

Come on, my queer people – start rethinking!

This Day In History: Martial Law in the Castro

I had my phone on silent last night so I missed the text telling me about the midnight raid (actually, it was about 10:50 pm) on the Occupy SF camp. Otherwise, I would have been very tempted to rush over there, as the occupiers were requesting that supporters do, but I’m actually not sorry I got a little more sleep. I dropped by on my way to work with a donation to help replace the tents, food and equipment the cops stole (they call it “confiscated”). Even the usually less-than-enthusiastic-about-protest San Francisco Chronicle seemed chagrined by the level of force deployed by the San Francisco Police to get rid of some theoretically illegal camping equipment that had been coexisting with downtown business for nearly a week.

It put me in mind of another infamous SFPD action, 22 years ago today. On October 6, 1989, ACT UP/San Francisco, the San Francisco chapter of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, held a demonstration that started at the San Francisco Federal Building on Golden Gate.

These great photos are from Gerard Koskovich's essay on FoundSF

ACT UP, in case anyone does not remember or never knew, was another hell-raising movement that started in New York and spread around the country. But contrary to the myth told in the infinitely missable new movie “We Were Here” – which is supposed to be about AIDS in San Francisco but as far as every AIDS activist I know goes should be called “We Weren’t Here” – AIDS activism did not begin with ACT UP, “a group of creative young people from New York.” With all love and respect for our comrades in New York, I believe militant AIDS activism began right here in San Francisco, growing up in tandem with the “San Francisco service model,” affectionately known in some circles as the AIDS service industry. The first AIDS action group was called Citizens for Medical Justice (CMJ); it was an affinity group of about 20 or so people, including my friend Lisa, who did sit-ins at state and federal offices protesting mandatory testing of prisoners, closure of bathhouses, and FDA foot-dragging on approving treatments.

In late 1986, Lyndon LaRouche put an initiative on the California ballot calling for mandatory testing and various repressive measures against people with HIV/AIDS, possibly including quarantine. At the same time the racist group US English put the “English as the Official Language” initiative, known unofficially as “English-Only” on the ballot. While the mainstream Bay Area gay organizations, under chairmanship of Chris Bowman of the Log Cabin Republicans, were focusing myopically on the LaRouche initiative, a bunch of more left-leaning queer folks started a coalition called Stand Together, which worked to defeat both initiatives. As part of that effort, the AIDS Action Pledge was born. Taking its approach from the Pledge of Resistance, which organized thousands around the country to do civil disobedience in response to U.S. aggression against Latin America, AAP collected signatures on a pledge that began, “I pledge to join others in fighting for all our lives and liberties during the AIDS crisis.” Soon after the LaRouche initiative was defeated (English-only, sadly and not surprisingly, was passed), AIDS Action Pledge staged the first protest at the South Bay headquarters of Burroughs Wellcome (now part of GlaxoSmithKline), the manufacturer of the sole AIDS treatment, AZT, demanding that they lower the price of the drug. A few months later, after meeting with members of ACT UP (then only in New York) and other AIDS activists from around the country at the 1987 March on Washington, the AAP changed its name to ACT UP/SF.

Flash forward two years, and ACT UP/SF had probably 70-100 active members in three working groups: Treatment Issues, Local Issues and State and Federal Issues. There were also a women’s caucus, the Bayard Rustin Anti-Racism Collective and the People With Immune System Disorders (PISD) Caucus. Each group had organized a number of very successful actions, educational events, fundraisers and outreach efforts. Friday night, October 6, was to be our biggest street protest – each working group planned an action for somewhere along the route of the march, which was to go from the Federal Building to City Hall to the State Building, calling out the ways that part of the government was failing to stop the dying. It would end at Market and Castro, where Local Issues had planned a grand finale – spraypainting silhouettes on the sidewalk of the Castro to create what they called the “Permanent Quilt,” a subtle dig at the Names Project which many of us felt had gone from a powerful protest to a kind of a feel-good way of beautifying the epidemic.

I can’t remember what my group, State and Fed, had planned at the Federal and State Buildings. I do remember that I was worried the demonstration was not going to be interesting enough to keep people engaged. I was also worried no one would come. When I got near the Federal Building, I was excited because I could see there were a lot of people there already. As I got closer, I saw that half of them were cops. Cops in riot gear. My friend Ken Jones, who was director of the Stop AIDS Project, was sitting on a low wall at the edge of the building, smoking. When I greeted him, he said, “I think every one of us will have our own personal pig.” (I’ve never liked that word, but Ken was from the Vietnam generation – about ten years older than me.)

We did whatever we did at the Federal Building. I have this feeling it might have involved hanging a banner on the doors and a die-in on the plaza. Someone made a speech. We headed out to Van Ness. The energy was high. We chanted and banged on drums. I was happy because my responsibilities were done and I could relax and have fun. As we stepped into the street on Van Ness, the police captain started droning, “Obey all traffic laws.” The light turned red. People were still in the street, crossing slowly toward the State Building. The cops lowered their shields and started swinging at people. One of the organizers, Bill Haskell, turned to argue with them, saying that we were just trying to get across the street. They grabbed him and threw him to the street, kicked him, cuffed him and threw him in a van.

The rest of the march was like that. Any time anyone stepped into the parking lane or took too long crossing the street, they got hit. All the way to the Castro we were hemmed in on the sidewalk, with motorcycles on one side and lines of foot cops on the other. When we got there, some of us decided to sit down in the street, making an old-fashioned blockade. It seemed like the only way to de-escalate without just giving up and going home, which we were not going to do. A few dozen of us sat down and linked arms and chanted. Local Issues started painting the Permanent Quilt.

We were sitting there, waiting to be arrested, and suddenly we saw cops running and swinging batons at people. We, the blockaders, were already surrounded and couldn’t go to help or see what was happening. We heard people screaming, and I saw someone fall. He ended up being taken to the hospital and needing stitches. He, along with a few others who were injured, ended up winning $250,000 in a lawsuit against the City. One blockader, Frank, went limp and accidentally kicked one of the cops. They beat him up and charged him with battery; it eventually turned out he had an outstanding warrant and he would be in jail for several months. I didn’t see the rest because I was arrested, but I heard about it from some of the people who were arrested later, and from incredulous friends when I got out.

The cops declared martial law (seriously, they called it that). According to an article in the Bay Area Reporter written two years ago on the 20th anniversary, “As the police began to arrest those blocking the street, someone knocked over a police motorcycle and the situation quickly escalated.” That was the first I heard of the motorcycle theory, but something had to explain it. The police captain told people to get inside and announced that anyone on the street would be arrested. The Castro Theater and some businesses like Orphan Andy’s diner on 17th opened their doors so refugees could get in. Others locked their doors to keep out the riffraff. People were hurled into the street, beaten and arrested. A woman’s arm was broken when she tried to write down a cop’s badge number. A few people who never had anything to do with the protest, who were just going to dinner or to get a video were busted. It was hardly the first time that had happened – it happened all the time in the eighties, but it was the first time in a long time it had happened in the Castro, and usually it was when we were protesting a high powered event, like the Democratic Convention in 1984, Henry Kissinger’s speech at the Hilton Hotel or a visit from president bush. This was just your basic night in the Castro.

The police declared martial law. Literally. There used to be a video, but I can't find it any more. ACT UP finally regrouped and took back the street and marched out of the Castro.

We never knew why they did it. We speculated that it was retaliation for an action a few weeks before, when another AIDS action group briefly (and gloriously) disrupted the opening night at the Opera. That action was organized by Stop AIDS Now Or Else, which had some overlapping membership with ACT UP, but most people thought it was ACT UP. Some people thought the motivation for the crackdown was that ACT UP had taken a stand against building a new stadium in downtown San Francisco with taxpayer money, which was favored by Mayor Art Agnos. We did hear later that the local gay beat cop, nicknamed “Pig in a Wig” because of his hairstyle, had gone around to all the businesses that day and told them that “ACT UP was coming into the neighborhood to make trouble,” and that the cops were going to protect them. We never found out, and probably never will, if any of the businesses gave their approval to the crack-down.

The next day, a few of us from ACT UP were invited to meet with the police chief, Frank Jordan, who became mayor two years later, and his new LGBT liaison, Lt. Lea Militello. They hemmed and hawed and said the attack was a mistake.  That night, we held a triumphant march through the Castro. This time, it was the media that nearly outnumbered the marchers, who numbered in the thousands.

A lot of things have happened on October 6 over the years. “The Jazz Singer” (first talkie) opened, Bette Davis died, Milosevic resigned as president of Yugoslavia, Babe Ruth set a record for home runs in a World Series, Louis XVI returned to Paris from Versailles after being confronted by the Parisian women, the 13 Martyrs of Arad were executed after the Hungarian war of independence (who knew?). Maybe in future years October 6 will be known all over the world as the day the U.S. Tahrir Square began in Liberty Park in Washington, D.C. But for me, like many Bay Area activist queers, October 6 will always mean martial law in the Castro.

We Were Also Here!

Keep your gay marriage, give me my Social Security

I don’t have a partner. Maybe that’s why I’m not excited about President Obama’s endorsement of the Respect for Marriage Act, introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Or maybe it’s because I know that close to half of all marriages end in divorce, a majority of U.S. households are headed by unmarried people, and about a quarter of the adult population has never been married. In some communities, and notably the African American community, those numbers are much higher.

So increasingly, the campaign for same-sex marriage is not about extending the rights of the majority to a minority, but about further enshrining the privileges of a shrinking minority.

But in fact, the benefits marriage activists seek are waning by the day. By the time gay elders can claim each other’s Social Security and Medicare benefits, those benefits will have been eviscerated. Social Security, as we all know, is probably at this moment being sacrificed on the altar of deficit reduction (which, of course, it has nothing to do with). While same-sex-marriage advocates insist that marriage rights will guarantee the right of immigrant couples to live together, immigrant families all over the U.S. are fighting to stay together and out of jail. The Obama administration has deported and detained far more immigrants – including legal immigrants - than the Bush administration did.

I expected Wednesday's headline to be, “Obama caves in on budget deal.” Instead, the headline was “Obama backs same-sex marriage.” Coincidence? I don’t think so. Gay marriage is being used as a distraction to appease liberals.

Gavin Newsom, who was elected mayor of San Francisco on a pro-corporate, anti-homeless platform, used same-sex marriage to liberalize his image. In 2003, Newsom fairly narrowly defeated Green Party candidate Matt Gonzalez, winning 53% of the vote after polls a day earlier showed a virtual tie. In 2007, fresh out of alcohol treatment and having being caught having an affair with a (female) employee who was married to one of his top aides, Newsom was reelected with 73% of the vote. The difference? Gay marriage.

Here’s how his own website (he’s currently Lt. Governor, after precipitously pulling out of the governor’s race without explanation), describes his mayoral career:

“In 2003, after a fiercely-contested race, Newsom was elected the youngest Mayor in San Francisco in more than a century.
“After only 36 days as mayor, Newsom gained worldwide attention when he granted marriage licenses to same-sex couples. This bold move set the tone for Newsom’s first term.…
In 2007, Newsom was re-elected with more than 73% of the vote.”

Same-sex marriage is an easy fix. It doesn’t cost anything, and a majority of the public, including a slim majority of Republicans, supports it.

I do too. Of course, I do. I’m a lesbian and I’m in favor of equal rights for everyone in all spheres. But it’s basically worthless to most people, including most gay people. I won’t even go into the ways in which it reinforces inequality. (I and plenty of others have gone into that at length over the years.  My point here is that the LGBQ community must not allow our fight for civil equality to be used to distract from the fight to the death, or really against death, that everyone in this country is in right now – a fight for our very survival.

Consider the moment. The latest poll shows Obama in a dead heat with GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney. 19 different polls show that a vast majority of Americans, somewhere between 62% and 80%, favor raising taxes on the wealthy to fund services and balance the budget. Obama refuses to do that. His one big legislative victory since taking office has been the health care reform bill. Who created the program that was based on? Hint: Romney’s Republican opponents have taken to referring to the Massachusetts health care plan as “Obamney Care.” So Obama needs something to separate himself from the Mormon Romney, and even just not being against gay marriage wouldn’t do it, because Romney has refused to take the “anti-gay marriage pledge” and offends "family values" voters by defending the separation of church and state.

Queer communities have been hit as hard in the recession as other communities - necessarily so, because we are part of every community. San Francisco’s cutting edge network of services for LGBT people and HIV-affected people, built through decades of community activism, agitation and organizing, has been largely decimated in the last two years. New Leaf, a 35-year-old San Francisco center serving the LGBT community with mental health, substance abuse, and HIV/AIDS services closed in October of last year. Lyon-Martin Clinic, the first lesbian- and trans-focused clinic in the country, nearly closed last year and is still on shaky ground. Just hours before the New York legislature passed the marriage equality bill, activists gathered in front of the Stonewall Inn, where the modern LGBT movement was born, to demand funding for programs for homeless LGBT youth.  Roughly 1,000 queer youth go without shelter every night in New York City, and Governor Cuomo recently cut the funding for youth shelters in half.

This is far from the first instance of minority groups winning rights as those rights, only to find their victories virtually hollow.

The standard of living for most Black South Africans has worsened considerably since apartheid was toppled. In the U.S., nearly fifty years after the Civil Rights Act was enacted, Black families with children have median incomes roughly half those of white families. Black children are three times as likely as white children to live in extreme poverty; 40% of Black children under 5 are living in poverty.

I’m not suggesting that the fight for same-sex marriage is the same as the fight for African American civil rights or the liberation of South Africa. But we should be aware of those histories, as well as many more. The unemployed youth of Egypt and Tunisia are now realizing that it’s easier to bring down a dictator than it is to break the stranglehold of neoliberal economic policies.

LGBTQ people need to keep our eyes on the real prize and not be fooled by the shiny decoy. If we don’t, the couples making their way to New York to take those marriage vows will soon be selling their wedding rings to keep each other in cat food.

A Very Busy Week

Last week brought 5 (count'em five!) demonstrations. So busy I didn't even have time to blog about them. Need to rest now.

#1: Queers Tell Frameline: Say no to Israeli pinkwashing

#2: Solstice in the Streets

#3: Lockout the Lockers Out - Showdown at Castlewood Country Club

#4: The Dyke March



#5: Free Bradley Manning Contingent at SF LGBT Freedom Day Parade
Check out photos and video

When Are Radical Gender Activists Going to Get Out of Our Own Way?

This morning, in observance of Corporate LGBT Pride Day, KPFA talk show host Philip Maldari actually devoted an hour to radical queer politics, or more precisely, to a critique of gay marriage. It was not bad. Of course, the two guests didn’t give credit to any of the people who have been making that critique and doing the activism to back it up for years, but they raised important issues. But then Philip, a gay man who until quite recently never identified himself as such on the air, said that he, and KPFA in general, never interviewed Harvey Milk back in the day because they considered Harvey too reformist for their then-revolutionary station.

“He was getting people to register to vote, saying ‘Forget about the revolution,’” Philip alleged.

Now first of all, that’s just not true. Harvey Milk was probably an arrogant jerk in a lot of ways, but he was very radical, and he never said anyone should give up on the revolution. He was pursuing electoral office, yes, but as part of a broad progressive coalition that briefly transformed San Francisco politics. He was the one who went bar to bar to get gay bars to drop Coors beer, building a coalition with unions to oppose Coors’ anti-gay and anti-labor policies.

And secondly, if that were the reason for ignoring Harvey Milk, you would assume that KPFA had interviewed a lot of radical queers to critique the mainstream gay movement. I’m pretty sure if you go back and look through the archives from that period, you’re going to find that they did not do that.

The real reason that the dominant group at KPFA didn’t interview Harvey Milk is the same reason they have not covered the campaign to get Israeli money out of the LGBT film festival or the Ban the Army, Not the Queers work: because they’re f***ing homophobes and have no critique of the patriarchy. It’s the same reason staff members like Philip are always trying to get rid of the one hour a week of gender-oriented programming KPFA has had for the last six years, and the reason KPFA has no queer show.

The Marxist left defined the gay movement and the women’s movement as bourgeois and reformist. To this day they refuse to pay attention to any but the most mainstream elements of those movements, and then use their bourgeois reformism to justify ignoring queer and women’s issues.

Neither of Philip’s guests challenged his revision of history. Of course, neither of them was living here during the time of Harvey Milk (I wasn’t either, but I moved here the year after Milk was killed, and got involved in the still-very-vibrant queer left within a few years of that), so they may not actually know either how progressive Milk was or how uninterested KPFA was in anything queer. They also didn’t challenge him because they are part of an unfortunate tendency by radical feminist and queer activists to collude in our own expungement.

The fact is that pretty much every social movement has its assimilationist mainstream, its radical and conservative wings. The queer movement is in no way unique in being painted in the mainstream media with the single brush that makes us look the most like the dominant society. But the women’s movement, and by extension the LGBTQ movement which grew out of it, may well be the most universally blamed for our own repression.

A couple weeks ago I went to a panel at the Queer Women of Color Film Festival where Erica Huggins, a leader of the Black Panther Party, spoke. She said that one of the things that contributed to the downfall of the Party was not dealing with misogyny and sexism in the group. I have heard a few women make statements like that before, but I’ve never heard anyone say that the main reason the Party ultimately failed to make lasting change was because of such internal problems. Clearly internal dynamics, including between men and women, contributed to a culture of suspicion which was exploited by the FBI in its COINTELPRO. But if divisions had not already existed, the FBI infiltrators would have set out to create them. Most of the left recognizes that it took a mighty effort by the government to bring down the Panthers.

Students for a Democratic Society, the Free Speech Movement and other parts of the student counterculture were as white and middle-class dominated as parts of the second wave women’s movement and the post-Stonewall gay movement. But I don’t hear people using the cultural and class homogeneity of the student movements to dismiss their achievements, despite the fact that they didn’t bring down capitalism or end U.S. wars for empire.

But when the women’s movement is discussed in left-wing circles, its failures are attributed almost solely to its racism and narrow class base. Hardly anything is ever said about the concerted effort to dismantle the gains of the feminist movement, a backlash as intensive and pernicious as COINTELPRO. (In fact, it bears mentioning that parts of the women’s movement were targets of COINTELPRO.) If you listen to the mainstream media, patriarchy’s resurgence can be laid at the doorstep of male-bashing sex-negative bra-burners. If you listen to left media, you’ll blame the bourgeois biases of Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem.

Young women who are products of Women’s and Gender Studies programs at prestigious colleges say, “I don’t call myself a feminist because feminism is a white thing.” That’s almost the only thing they know about feminism. They don’t know that Michele Wallace, author of Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman and a member of the Combahee River Collective, says “I’ve never understood how any woman could not be a feminist.” They don’t know that Egyptian doctor and former political prisoner Nawal el-Saadawi, said in a recent interview, “There are many feminisms, and I am a revolutionary anti-imperialist feminist.”

Revolutionary feminists and queer activists have an obligation to stand up for our own history. Everyone loves to believe they are doing something brand new and exciting, but the honest truth is, few of us ever are. It doesn’t make what we’re doing less valuable to give credit to those who came before us, and to those who are standing right beside us.