“PARADES ARE NOT ENOUGH – QUEER PRIDE—FLAUNT IT EVERY DAY – ACT-UP Madis
“PARADES ARE NOT ENOUGH – QUEER PRIDE—FLAUNT IT EVERY DAY – ACT-UP Madison – QUEER LIBERATION FRONT – PROGRESSIVE STUDENT NETWORK,” Madison, Wisconsin, c. June 1990. Photo c/o @uwmadlibraries. . As June ends and our community falls off the corporate and media radar, we all should remember the words of Marsha P. Johnson, who increasingly is recognized as the matron saint of the queer liberation movement: “I think that as long as people with AIDS and as long as gay people don’t have their rights…there’s no reason for celebration. That’s how come I walk every year. That’s how come I’ve been walking for gay rights all these years, instead of riding in cars and celebrating everything. Cause you never completely have your rights for one person until you all have your rights.” . Marsha P. Johnson was a trans woman of color afflicted by untreated mental health issues who often could be found in Sheridan Square asking strangers for money or a date. And Marsha, like too many trans women of color before and after her, was killed without any attention from police. . We cannot celebrate Marsha in June unless we spend the rest of the year fighting for all those who are not free. . Parades are not enough. . In the U.S., forty percent of homeless youth identify as queer. That will be true tomorrow. Black queer men are facing a staggering increase in HIV/AIDS cases. That will be true tomorrow. Trans and gender nonconforming students have been left to fend for themselves. We face employment discrimination, rampant misogyny, police brutality, anti-Semitism, patent racism from within and outside our community, and a government without regard for the law or those who need its protection most. All of this will be true tomorrow. Queer people in Uganda, Nigeria, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Chechnya will have to exist under brutal regimes tomorrow. The list goes on. . It is our obligation to carry our Pride, and the fight, forward. . “Cause,” like Marsha said, “you never completely have your rights…until you all have your rights.” #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Resist (at Madison, Wisconsin) -- source link
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