For a start: realize that you can not be an ally to a population.
There are queer people who, like me, strive for a revolution not only of how we fuck, love and live our genders but of the whole fucking system. Who see their queer identity as a stepping stone to solidarity with all the oppressed and to vocal and militant anti-racism, anti-capitalism, etc.
And there are queer people who think people like me are ruining it for the good nice middle class gay doctors and lawyers looked to be seen as normal.
You can’t be an ally to us both.
Allyship in the form of unthinking obedience, the kind of allyship that gives a queer white supremacist a stage to speak on because it wants to support queer people and it thinks that means giving every single queer person whatever they want, is dangerous.
Being an ally to populations is impossible. You are always an ally to a specific group of people who have a goal and a mehtod to achieve that goal.
So to be an ally is always a multi-step thing:
Step 1. Decide what you think is the best way to make a better world for queer people (and since your name is intersectionalityisnecessity I probably don’t need to tell you that I mean the best way to make a better world for ALL queer people)
Step 2. Find queer people already working on that.
Step 3. Ask them what they need. Offer to help. Offer your talents. Help them get into the groups you already have access to.
Step 3b. If it turns out you have different ideals after all, or if their practices are not ones you can accept, or if you just don’t work together well, move on. Look critically at your choices, but if you feel you are making the right decision, move on without guilt and by an ally to someone else.
As for being an ally to Anarchism. Well, anarchism is a political idea so if you see that idea and think ‘this is worth supporting’ then you may be an anarchist. You know, consider that.
If you subscribe to a related anti-capitalist anti-authoritarian left wing group that happens to carry a different label, then you’re just going to have to figure out how best to work together and organize shit with your local anarchist group.
And you know: If the anarchists you plan to support happen to be doing stuff that’s not legal, recognize that it is just to break unethical laws, it is just to be ungovernable and criminalized resistance is necessary. Don’t pretend these are ‘bad apples’ in activism. Don’t snitch. Don’t talk to the cops. Ever.
