Writer: Siena Iwasaki Milbauer
Content warning: This article contains discussion of targeted violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ community members
Happy Pride Month! Every June is a time full of celebration of our LGBTQ+ communities, and after the challenging year and half we’ve all had, Pride is more needed and welcome than ever.
One thing we’ve been thinking about at AAOP is how Pride, like all things in our world, is not immune to the destructive influences of prejudice and inequality. That means it is up to each of us to make our Pride intersectional: feminist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and global. So every week this June, AAOP will be taking a deeper look into each of those topics, so that together we can create a Pride that is a true celebration of our brilliantly diverse LGBTQ+ communities.
Today, we are thinking about how to make Pride feminist. How can we stop misogyny and gender inequality from corrupting Pride, and invading our LGBTQ+ spaces throughout the year? Here are two crucial things to do during Pride and beyond:
One of the most violent manifestations of gender-based discrimination against LGBTQ+ community members is transphobia, and its effects on transgender men and women, and nonbinary folks. No less than 44 transgender and gender non-conforming people were murdered in the United States in 2020, and in 2021 we have already lost at least 27 community members. 2021 has also been a record-breaking year for the introduction of anti-LGBTQ legislation across the country, most of it specifically targeting the rights of transgender and nonbinary folks, often youth.
It is crucial that both the LGBTQ+ and non LGBTQ+ community, particularly cisgender allies, step up to stand with our transgender and nonbinary siblings. One way to do that is to center the voices of transgender and nonbinary folks during Pride, a time where the LGBTQ+ community is receiving more mainstream attention. Pride is an opportunity to shine a light on the violence transgender and nonbinary community members are being subjected to. Let’s make Pride a time to celebrate transgender and nonbinary brilliance, and to mobilize folks to fight for transgender and nonbinary rights.
In a related concept, Pride should be a time when LGBTQ+ transgender and cisgender women, transgender men, and nonbinary folks are handed the microphone. LGBTQ+ communities already suffer from a lack of representation and recognition, but that is even more true for folks within the community that also have to deal with gender-based oppression. Pride is a wonderful opportunity to address that problem head on by consciously uplifting the voices and stories of LGBTQ+ transgender and cisgender women, transgender men, and nonbinary folks.
That can look like shining a light on historical heroes like Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Audre Lorde, and many more. It can also look like centering the voices of today’s LGBTQ+ transgender and cisgender women, transgender men, and nonbinary leaders. Just a few examples from our Asian American community include Chella Man, Kim Coco Iwamoto, Lydia X.Z. Brown, and Geena Rocero.
Most of all, it looks like pushing back against any attempts within or without the LGBTQ+ community to silence transgender and cisgender women, transgender men, and nonbinary folks in favor of cisgender men. By diversifying the ways our LGBTQ+ community is represented, we can fight inequality inside the community and misconceptions outside of it. And that’s a perfect way to honor Pride, not to mention something worth doing every other month of the year.
Sources
Apicha Community Health Center, “5 LGBTQ+ API Pioneers to Celebrate This National API Heritage Month”, Apicha Community Health Center, 4 May 2020. https://blog.apicha.org/5-lgbtq-api-pioneers-to-celebrate. Accessed 2 Jun 2021.
Helligar, Jeremy, “12 LGBTQ Activists Who Have Changed American History”, Reader’s Digest, 1 Jun 2021.https://www.rd.com/list/lgbtq-activists-who-changed-american-history/. Accessed 2 Jun 2021.
Human Rights Campaign, “Fatal Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in 2021”, Human Rights Campaign, 2021. https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-transgender-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2021. Accessed 2 Jun. 2021.
Krishnakumar, Priya, “This record-breaking year for anti-transgender legislation would affect minors the most”, CNN, 15 Apr 2021. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/15/politics/anti-transgender-legislation-2021/index.html. Accessed 2 Jun 2021.