An open letter on Campaign Against Racism (CAR) and intersectionality: Struggling against homophobia, transphobia and biphobia globally today and always
Dear Community,
As you know, CAR has been holding space in the last few weeks with EqualHealth, around the passing of a homophobic law which criminalizes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) individuals and mandates private citizens to disaffiliate with LGBTQ+ people in Uganda on the 21st of March. In the process of deliberating whether to host EqualHealth´s conference in Uganda after the passing of the bill, we were forced to confront the gap between the values that we were constructing while organizing across and within our communities, negotiating our shared and varied values across fifteen chapters. While our shared values are occasionally abstract ideals, we remain committed to growth toward the praxis of solidarity across all oppressed communities.
We are leaning into this growth, conceptualizing conflict as “Good strategy requires the capacity to be in generative conflict”. We want to express our deepest gratitude for all of our partners and CAR Chapters that were willing to be with us in this community practice and as we continue on this organizing journey. We recognize that harm has occurred and recognize the need for growth, reconciliation and repair. We know that this moment forms part of the DNA of our movement and from that, structural change will continue to come.
For the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT) with the theme “Together always: United in diversity”, we want to elevate critical consciousness around the colonial roots of the current expansion of an anti-LGBTQIA+ agenda and remain in solidarity further struggle with the harm, erasure, violence and grief our LGBTQIA+ comrades are facing daily.
As complex, multi-valued community organizers for CAR, we want to raise critical consciousness on how cis-heteropatriarchy is a system of oppression rooted in colonialism interlocking always with racial capitalism, operating across our communities. Multiple identities and the matrix of power systems also mean BIPOC LGBTQIA+ people face multiple, interrelated forms of oppression that can not be conceptualized separately. As Audre Lorde speaks to, “There is no such thing as a single issue struggle as we do not live single issue lives”.
We celebrate the current organizing to dismantle this oppression and we want to continue to explore our own practices of organizing across and within communities recognizing our commitment to struggle for the liberation of all LGBTQIA+ people globally. We commit to deepening the safety and healing frameworks of our spaces and centering the generational trauma of this oppression. We commit to centering the perspectives of those most directly impacted by issues at the center of cis-heteropatriarchy and the systematic oppression of our communities. Lastly, we are reminded of the guiding words of Desmond Tutu “My Humanity is bound up in yours for we can only be human together”.
https://medium.com/@YotamMarom/moving-toward-conflict-for-the-sake-of-good-strategy-9ad0aa28b529
