I have written about this before, but it has been on my mind as of late. As the rights of myself and many of my trans comrades in the United States continue to deteriorate, my mind goes to this story from years ago.
In 2011 the US government was exposed for funding and otherwise propping up LGBT rights groups in Cuba as part of an effort to disseminate American propaganda and stir up general disorder against the Cuban government.
As we all know, Cuba is a global leader in LGBT rights, particular stellar among AES. Through substantial efforts for many years, Cuba has made massive strides in achieving rights for all people and this makes it a particularly hypocritical target for the yankees.
Let me be clear, the weaponisation of our rights by the US hurts us all, but it hurts out trans comrades in the global south even more. As the US attempts to use our rights as a weapon with which to damage the popularly supported government of Cuba (they do the same to China), people around the world come to associate trans rights with Western imperialism.
This unfortunate situation makes the struggle our comrades in these countries face even harder. While the United States continues to strip away the rights of its own LGBT population, it fosters global reaction against our struggle through its own imperialism.
It truly is one of the greatest opposing forces to human rights in the world.
Well said, and thank you for sharing that article. I will definitely be looking more into the specifics of the organizations and events mentioned in there.
Similar issues are pointed out in an article by Vietnam’s NonLa Collective, primarily they touch on how such destabilization efforts cannot benefit the LGBT community in their country.
They write:
Ultimately, it’s true that our society has many problems when it comes to LGBTQ+ issues. It’s also true that the Vietnamese revolutionary government can and should do more, and more quickly, to address the needs and concerns of LGBTQ+ citizens. But, speaking as LGBTQ+ Vietnamese ourselves, we do not feel as if we need to be “rescued” by foreign-imperialist organizations like USAID, nor do we see how dismantling our revolutionary government would help our LGBTQ+ movement in any way.
Vietnam has our own vibrant, strong, and growing LGBTQ+ liberation movement. In Ho Chi Minh City alone, in 2019, thousands of people showed up to the most recent pride event before COVID-19 broke out, and activism continues even through the pandemic. The government does not restrict or limit our voices in any way, on the contrary, LGBTQ+ stories are shared positively on state media, as even USAID noted in the passage we quoted earlier. Again, we ask, how would immediately dismantling our revolutionary government help LGBTQ+ people in any way?
(Bold emphasis is mine).
They also express that “our LGBTQ+ liberation movement has a much different character than Western countries and must be viewed as such […] We do not have to have access to capitalist wealth and media influence to spread our messaging, as is necessary in capitalist nations […] In capitalist countries, LGBTQ+ activists can hardly achieve anything without becoming co-opted by the capitalist class in some way, shape, or form.”
people around the world come to associate trans rights with Western imperialism.
They do not touch on this issue you raised, which is the suspicion and resistance that can arise around LGBT movements thanks to US-sponsored co-optation of LGBT rights to use for their aims of destabilizing governments. I imagine, though, as real awareness grows thanks to genuine LGBT movements within socialist/anti-imperialist countries, the fears surrounding this will hopefully be diminished. LGBT rights in Cuba have really been making great strides in Cuba thanks to their genuine grassroots work and their own internal organizations. And I think Vietnam has been having successes thanks to its seemingly careful vetting of NGOs, as well as having a strong local LGBT movement.
Personally I hope that I can find a way to educate people on two fronts regarding this issue; one front being (1) genuine anti-imperialists who may lack good information on LGBT movements and therefore have become skeptical of LGBT rights due to these destabilization campaigns, and the other front being (2) liberals, leftists, progressives etc. who genuinely support LGBT rights but their support gets co-opted for such imperialist destabilization causes.
I think this People’s Daily article is worth a look, it’s about color revolution in general, although it does mention LGBT rights being co-opted toward the end. From what I gather it seems like the LGBT community of China is probably having to contend heavily with the traditional values of the society as well as with this threat of color revolution, causing tighter restrictions on NGO activity and probably increased suspicion around certain forms of LGBT activism. However, based on research I have read, I think the local LGBT movements in China are going to be able to overcome these difficulties and are making good advancements.
I hope that in the Western left, people can raise awareness about the destabilizing purposes that NGOs can be used for and explain why their activities often come under scrutiny or become restricted by countries being targeted by these destabilization tactics. When a country doesn’t allow these malignant NGOs to operate freely in its borders, the disingenuous “human rights” concerns come pouring in (which, sadly, are quite convincing for well-intentioned people and prey on their goodwill), which then provides the justifications for sanctions, which of course, are a huge threat to human rights, and any minority group you were trying to help (such as fellow LGBT people, for example) are going to be harmed and become less and less able to carry out their own self-advocacy as havoc is wrought on their country.
(1) genuine anti-imperialists who may lack good information on LGBT movements and therefore have become skeptical of LGBT rights…
I have interacted with people in this group quite a bit online, and have definitely made progress with some of them, however, natural disclaimer that online does not always reflect irl applies. A surprising number of people I have talked to have never met a trans ML and mostly associate us with liberalism so that alone goes a long ways (always a surprise to me, nearly all the trans people I know are ml’s lol)
(2) liberals, leftists, progressives etc. who genuinely support LGBT rights but their support gets co-opted for such imperialist destabilization causes
Honestly, I think this is an even harder battle. A lot of the western “left” seems to be relatively social imperialist and it shows with peoples’ support for things like US aggression towards China, the blockade of Cuba (how does anybody support that???) and so on. Of course, I’m not speaking of all leftists, but a good number of non-ML self-identified leftists I have met are pretty much OK with destabilisation of these countries. This is wild to me. Honestly, I barely know what to do with liberals or the liberal-adjacent “leftist.” I am perhaps a bit pessimistic on this front due to personal experiences (that I’m probably going to also write about lol).
That Peoples’ Daily article is nice, thorough, and covers the issue well. :)
Yeah, I would say group 1 is much easier to work with on the education front. Anti-imperialism was my own path to the left, so maybe I just understand that mentality more than I understand how to talk to group 2.
surprising number of people I have talked to have never met a trans ML and mostly associate us with liberalism so that alone goes a long ways (always a surprise to me, nearly all the trans people I know are ml’s lol)
I found this surprising as well. Thankfully people here on Lemmygrad (for example) tend to start from a position of “critical support” for trans people even if they don’t quite understand, and even when they have developed a skeptical opinion, they attempt to be respectful and are open to being corrected.
I think by talking to people here who are uninformed about trans issues but want to learn is going to teach me about the kinds of things that other MLs want to know about trans people. I hope by answering peoples questions here I can figure out the key information that is needed to dispel doubts about trans issues among MLs in general.
I have run into ignorance of trans issues among communists IRL as well, with different orgs I have been involved with, where I observed a certain level of ignorance around trans issues and unfortunate trends in two orgs that basically “tolerated” trans presence but didn’t understand it or care to investigate it, and therefore didn’t have a strong ideological basis for their tolerance, which made it very weak and easy to devolve into anti-trans positions, which I saw happen over time.
Honestly, I barely know what to do with liberals or the liberal-adjacent “leftist.”
I am with you there, and agree that this is the harder battle. I think maybe it would be appropriate to further divide this group to address some of the tendencies I see inside of it. For the moment I will just talk about honest leftists who are not simply being performative, but who are operating on some inner desire to fight oppression.
In the case of anti-capitalist leftists, such as many anarchists, I can commend them for having such a strong opposition to oppression and having a skepticism of authority. They do not want to be complicit in oppressing anyone and they do not want to simply believe everything they hear. This is a good trait, but when their ideological foundation is weak and their historical knowledge is limited, it is easy to undermine and take advantage of their skeptical nature and control them by fear. They are compelled by their inner moral compass to stop oppression–so, just tell them some oppression is going on, and they will oppose it immediately without adequate investigation, which is how they get co-opted, ironically to do the very work they oppose so much.
I think one of the reasons they avoid investigation is because they have an inner fear of being indoctrinated into supporting something horrible. They do not want to entertain information from the oppressor for even a moment; I think to them, it feels dangerous. I imagine with the honest people of this group, the best thing to do would be to show them how to properly not be co-opted for a bad cause (which I think is their top fear), which I think would entail exposing them to the inner workings of the “human rights” racket, providing them with a dialectical materialist outlook, and would also involve a thorough period of debunking anti-communist propaganda, as well as overcoming their inner revulsion at contemplating information that comes from sources that have been accused of terrible acts and their revulsion toward listening to people who would disseminate such information (that is, MLs).
That’s a lot of hard work for any single individual to undertake one-on-one with someone else, virtually impossible I would say in most cases. I think this is where education and propaganda that clicks with the particularities of this demographic is needed, so that this process doesn’t become one individual’s impossible task in educating their anarchist friend but instead become information that can be passed around naturally. I feel it necessary to mention here that I am by no means against a more confrontational and argumentative approach with this group. I just want to add a tool to the tool box and create some kind of material that they will respond to positively and that will provide them with true information and advances their desire and ability to do the right thing.
This conversation brought to mind an organization from Toronto, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, which works to educate about and combat Israeli pinkwashing.
More and more the liberal tactic has become to focus in on queer communities as the litmus for whether or not a nation (or organization) is “progressive” or deserving of support. We’ve even seen the same in regards to the situation in Ukraine, where liberal bystanders are called to support Ukraine by denouncing Russia’s homophobia.
This is, of course, ridiculous seeing as Ukraine is also terribly anti-queer.
It’s important to push forward queer acceptance as a framework of intersectionality, whereby the rights of all oppressed and marginalized peoples are addressed.
As Judith Butler said, “‘Queer’ no longer marks a single issue identity politics, but a form of affiliation, of coalition, and even a way of trying to establish an intersectional and coalition framework.”
In the Imperial core, victories for white, able-bodied and affluent queers are touted as queer victories. But it can’t be a “queer” victory if Black, Indigenous, disabled, mentally ill, and poor queers are still subject to marginalization and oppression. It’s merely folding queer people into the machine of oppression, using them to quiet the voices of those most suffering. “No, look, we have gay rights here, there’s no oppression.” All the while knowing that those queer people that are being propped up will be cast aside when they no longer have a purpose.
In the Imperial core, victories for white, able-bodied and affluent queers are touted as queer victories. But it can’t be a “queer” victory if Black, Indigenous, disabled, mentally ill, and poor queers are still subject to marginalization and oppression.
I think another super interesting thing to note, in the Imperial core (exemplified extremely well in the US), is the fast realisation of capitalists that we are a super exploitable labour group.
Many of the largest corporations in the United States have very LGBTQ+ friendly policies, internally. Excellent examples of this are Amazon and Starbucks who both offer very comprehensive health plans for trans care. Even companies viewed by the public as very conservative, like Wal-Mart, are consistently ranked pretty well as decent places to work for LGBTQ+ people.
The thing is, all of these companies are politically active. All 3 of the companies I just named operate massive PACs (political donation/funding organisations) and these groups support extremely transphobic and otherwise reactionary politicians around the country. This, combined with constant liberal inaction (of course) to codify any sort of minority rights tells an interesting story.
It’s very clear how capital views us. We’re a uniquely exploitable labour group. By denying us rights under the law, the capitalist retains the discretion to control our rights as they see fit. This may be why large companies would maintain an inclusive internal atmosphere while covertly opposing legislation that would make these things possible for everybody. Starbucks has, very recently, even gone so mask off about it as to suggest that workers who unionise would lose access to their trans benefits.
So while the imperial core uses allusions of our rights externally as a weapon against global south nations, they deny them at home and instead allow capital to use them to prevent workers from struggling for better conditions. It’s a truly sadistic situation, and I hope to both do more investigation into this, and better inform people on it. The incentive for liberals will always be to deny minority rights of any kind so as to maintain that precarious army of cheap labour. The West truly has no right to speak of other nations treatment of their people so long as this is the case.
