I want people to understand that
“Liberal LGBT group calls the cops on radical queer group protesting at their event. Trans people of color get exposed to police brutality as a result”
Is not rare at all. It happens constantly.
Whenever queer activists choose to stand up to an LGBT group that is doing fucked up things, this is something they anticipate.
It’s part of why some of us are a bit defensive and on edge when we’re debating about things like cops and companies at pride parades.
We remember all the times a liberal person claiming to be on our side was one phone-call away from putting our lives at risk.
I agree with all of this except calling the liberals “LGBT” but the protestors “queer.” I would never call myself queer but I’m a leftist and I literally protested DC Capital Pride last year because of the corporate funding. You can just say LGBT or LGBTQ+ for both, you don’t need to lump LGBT+ folks into the “queer” category especially if you aren’t doing the same for liberal LGBT+ folks because it implies that using “queer” is superior and somehow More Woke™
In the context of activism I use ’queer activists’ to describe a political movement that rejects assimilation politics, rejects capitalism and draws it’s roots from the late-80s, early 90s queer movement, Queer Nation and the many queer-identified movements that followed it like
Bash Back!
.
So I’m describing a specific movement with a specific history and theoretical background, a movement that can not be described accurately as ‘LGBT’ of ‘LGBTQ+’ without separating it from it’s history and context.
The movement is queer, the activists within it have a wide range of identities and certainly do not all use the label queer for themselves as individuals.
I hope that clears things up.
QueerAnarchism 