Statement in Support of the LGBTQ Movement
Because the LGBTQ community includes people and groups whose gender expression or sexual orientation is at odds with society’s dominant and limited stereotypes for gender or sexuality—male/female, cis-gender (heterosexual)/homosexual—they have been thought to occupy a special position in class society: on the one hand, ruling classes have considered them a threat to the society’s norms, and on the other hand, their struggles for recognition of their existence have the potential to go further. It must become a struggle to get beyond class society.
With the advent of private property and the creation of patriarchal family, heterosexual relations came to play a more important role than other forms of sexuality, and became the dominant form of sexual relationship—not only because reproduction takes place through heterosexual sex, but also because questioning control of [women’s] body and sexuality challenges this patriarchal order.
Since the advent of private ownership of the means of production and the emergence of class distinctions (a few thousand years ago) not only sexual relationships between men and women but all sexual relationships, including queer relationships, have been stamped with the brand of oppressive patriarchy. And because relationships between human beings in bourgeois society are largely reflective of, and dominated by, the ideology of male supremacy and “male right,” the framework of patriarchy has become thoroughly integrated with the imperialist capitalist system. It permeates every intimate social and sexual relationship, and behavior that goes against prevailing norms or does not uphold the social subjugation of women cannot be tolerated.
Today, with the growth of fascist movements and the rise of fascist parties around the world, we are witnessing an intensification of systematic and organized attacks on women and LGBTQs. The intensification of these attacks takes the form of banning the right to abortion and, in the case of LGBTQ people, attacks on any form of self-expression. These attacks on women and LGBTQ people are not random events, but part of the programme and the manifesto of a faction of the capitalist ruling class whose foundations are built on heterosexual male supremacy, the strengthening traditional gender roles and the patriarchal family.
To their social base, they falsely imply that the spread of unemployment, poverty and endless wars are the result of the traditional religious family norms being challenged by independent women and LGBTQ people. Yes, the traditional religious family norms should be challenged because they are essential to arrogant male/patriarchal relationships. However, the source of all the problems that humanity is caught in is the functioning of the capitalist-imperialist system, which has patriarchy and racism woven into its fabric and for this reason, fascists can use it to create a reactionary movement. They are determined to maintain the current system of capitalism-imperialism that is rooted in supremacist thinking and medieval anti-woman religiosity.
Everyone should know and be aware that these attacks are part of a serious attempt to establish a religious fascist order in the world with the aim of maintaining the domination of the capitalist-imperialist system of oppression and exploitation. This fascist force emerged from within capitalist-imperialist democracies, and not from outside of it, and this fact should be a warning to those with foolish illusions about the “progressive” nature and functioning of capitalist-imperialist democracy.
Nonetheless, as a result of their struggles, women and the LGBTQ communities have made real gains in the past few decades, and the capitalist-imperialist governments have been forced to make concessions that affect a certain stratum. Now, however, these achievements are under organized attack and are being snatched back, one by one. The attacks on women and LGBTQs around the world are a symptom of the extreme situation that capitalism-imperialism has created for humanity. Today, on all fronts, the capitalist system is faced with imperatives that cannot be dealt with, except by radical means. That is why at this point in history, humanity faces a decisive choice: either a radical revolutionary solution that will destroy patriarchy and class society, or a radical reactionary solution that will deepen enslavement of women and the exclusion and repudiation of LGBTQ people.
It is important to look scientifically at what’s happening in every country in the world, and in relation to every injustice. The evidence shows not merely that “capitalism is bad, imperialism is bad, and socialism is good!” It’s not just that “social contradictions have become acute!” The point is that humanity stands at a crossroads.
The driving dynamics of the capitalist system of imperialism have drastically changed the world, even in comparison to ten years ago. This has led us to conclude that at this moment in history, we are standing at a critical juncture with only two roads open humanity: a future that is either much more terrifying or truly emancipating!۱ No major event in the world—from devastating wars, to environmental destruction, to the rise of fascist movements—can be understood without this analysis. Only by using the scientific approach of the new communism can we understand how this has happened, what the anarchic driving force of capitalism has done to human life and the Earth. And above all, one must grasp the fact that, within this rapid and explosive situation, there is the possibility of a real revolution to put an end to all the truly needless sufferings of humanity, and to act accordingly.
It is in this context that there is a particular importance to combating the queer-shaming, (which is a feature of patriarchy), as part of our fight against patriarchy which is integral to the capitalist system itself. Again, it is with this understanding that one must fight against the trends that think this [type of] oppression can be eradicated from within the framework of the existing system, without revolution. The struggle waged to defend these rights also prepares the ground for their implementation, from day one, in the future society. For this reason, the draft of the Constitution of the New Socialist Republic of Iran (۲۰۱۷) states that in the future New Socialist Republic: no form of sexual behavior shall be illegal. LGBTQ people will enjoy every civil right, including the right to legal marriage and to adopt. Homophobia and a culture of humiliating various sexual orientations will be combated. (p. 194)
The queer movement can be an important part of building a movement for a real revolution—that is, a revolution to move beyond all oppressive social relations, to eliminate all class distinctions among human beings, to transform the relations of production that create class distinctions and social inequalities, to change the social relations between human beings regardless of sex, gender or sexual orientation, and to transform all queer-hostile, racist, and patriarchal ideologies and values that conformed to the needs, practices and principles of the capitalist system, and that strengthened it. The [oppression of] women and the oppression of LGBTQ people are intertwined. Both are central not only to a real revolution, but in socialist society are part of the struggle over unresolved contradictions that will make possible the advance of socialism towards communism and the elimination of classes, state and every kind of oppression.
We revolutionary communists, while defending the struggles of the LGBTQ community and as we [ourselves] stand up to fascist attacks on this section of the people, call on the LGBTQ movement as they fight for every inch of their fundamental rights, to do so with the strategic goal of Revolution and Nothing Less!
LGBTQ people are attacked for who they are, but this doesn’t mean that they are condemned to fight against these attacks within the framework of identity politics. In fact, such a framework gets in the way of achieving that struggle’s enormous potential to challenge the whole system. The politics of identity and “woke-ness” ignores objective reality, focuses on “me” instead of fighting for everyone. It hopes to find a place in the pyramid of power for “the marginalized,” instead of building a different kind of state power. It cancels individuals, instead of overthrowing the system; it confines the oppressed to “safe spaces,” instead of giving them the courage to confront the ruling class and their repressive forces. Focusing on a narrow section of privileged LGBTQs within imperialist countries has led the LGBTQ movement to stay within the bounds of the imperialist patriarchal capitalist system, while turning a blind eye to this same system’s ruthless and patriarchal suppression and extermination of LGBTQs around the world.
It is not only those with fascist ideologies who try to push revolutionary communists out of various movement scenes, including the movement for LGBTQ rights. Those with other ideologies, (e.g., wokeness and intersectionalism) are doing the same thing. Revolutionary activists in the LGBTQ movements must stand firmly against all this, and open up avenues for getting people the actual solution: communist revolution. Liberating humanity around the world from thousands of years of bondage to narrow sexual and gender roles will require a communist revolution, and nothing less.
_______________
FOOTNOTES:
۱. Bob Avakian, Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility Of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed: A Necessary Foundation, A Basic Roadmap For This Revolution, revcom.us, December 13, 2021. [back]
