Liberation Generation: lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality beyond 2000
Chapter 7
The socialist option
a socialist society would work by promoting unity and cooperation - the conditions under which prejudice would evaporate; consenting, non-abusive personal relationships would be freed of the restrictions imposed by capitalism
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Don't put up with it!
WE DON'T have to put up with what we've got.
Capitalism has a vested interest in keeping division and prejudice alive because it is a system which promotes the interests of a super-rich elite at the expense of everyone else. In contrast, a socialist society would work by promoting unity and co-operation. This is because a socialist society would be run democratically by the majority, for the majority.
These are the conditions under which prejudice would evaporate. Consenting, non-abusive personal relationships would be freed of the restrictions imposed by capitalism.
For this reason. a strategy to achieve lasting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender liberation depends on linking the day-to-day battles against anti-gay and anti-transgender discrimination to the struggle to rebuild a mass movement for socialism and achieve a socialist society.
But what will be the basis of this movement? Many different sections of society will identify with the need to change society. Yet only the working class, uniting with it other sections desiring radical change, has the collective strength required to achieve such a momentous transformation. Organised through their workplaces and communities, the working class represents the overwhelming majority in society. Working-class people may not, as yet, collectively own the factories and banks, but they can't run them without us.
This means that we need to link our struggles against discrimination to the battles facing working-class people as a whole. Direct action and lobbying are important means of highlighting issues and focussing pressure on individual MPs upon whose vote laws will change. But, they cannot substitute for taking our campaigns into the unions, workplaces and communities, showing how prejudice and discrimination prevent the unity we all need to combat the attacks on our living standards by the bosses and their government.
Through this means lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people will help unite the struggles of all oppressed sections into one struggle - to take power away from the rich and to give it to ordinary working-class people.
Society can change
IT IS possible to change the system. The collapse of seemingly immovable, all-powerful regimes, in the face of overwhelming mass movements and strikes of working-class people, stands testimony to that possibility.
The monolithic Stalinist Eastern European dictatorships during the late 1980s to early 1990s and Suharto, the Indonesian dictator of 32 years, in 1998, fell to such movements.
Unfortunately, because at the time there was no socialist organisation strong enough to take these movements forward, the potential to reorganise society along socialist lines was lost.
New mass movements will now need to be built to take society in that direction. The need for a socialist society is as great today as ever.
Through public ownership of the key monopolies that control the world's economy (Britain’s economy is controlled by about 150 monopolies) and with working-class people running society democratically, production of goods and services could serve the needs of the majority rather than creating obscene wealth for a few.
A collectively run economy would flourish. The vast wealth created by society would be ploughed back to give everyone a job with decent hours and pay, and to provide good quality health and social support services available to everyone.
The economic constraints and social control that lie behind the 'moralising' about people's sexuality and personal relationships under capitalism would be lifted. Infinite possibilities for personal expression would open up. The process of clearing away generations of miseducation and prejudice could begin.
The task now is to build the means of getting there.
If you agree with the arguments contained in this pamphlet, we urge you to join this struggle. join the Socialist Party and help build a movement that can make lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender liberation a reality.
The Socialist Party lesbian, gay and bisexual group helps to co-ordinate the gay rights campaigns of the Socialist Party.
We have helped to build many campaigns over the years, including: to lift the Children's Society ban on lesbian and gay fostering/adoption; in defence of a Bradford youth worker victimised for being a lesbian; to remove a homophobic trade union official; as well as the higher profile campaigns around gay rights legal reform. We were also involved in the launch of the Equality Alliance.
We aim to promote a socialist way forward for the lesbian, gay, and bisexual rights movement.
What we stand for:
Lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender rights:
Equal rights for all.
A united campaign to build mass action to scrap all antigay laws and to outlaw all forms of anti-gay and anti-transgender discrimination and prejudice.
Equalise the age of consent without exceptions - no backdoor, selective removal of the right for 16- to 18-year-olds to give consent.
Stop prosecutions for consenting sex between men of 16 and over - drop all charges, quash all convictions and remove the names from the Sex Offenders Register.
For an all-embracing civil rights bill to outlaw all forms of discrimination.
For a national mass demonstration for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights, if possible, organised jointly by the gay and transgender communities and trade unions.
Support for civil disobedience and direct action as legitimate forms of protest.
Joint campaigns between the gay and transgender communities and trade unions to counter bigotry in local communities and workplaces.
Proscribe the 'gay panic' defence of provocation used to justify murders of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals.
For equal parenting, fostering, adoption and fertility rights.
No profiteering from HIV /Aids - public ownership of the drugs and medical supplies industry under democratic workers' control and management, including the involvement of people living with HIV/Aids.
Equality
End sex discrimination; for equal pay and opportunities; free comprehensive childcare with benefits to cover the real cost of bringing up children.
Safe, free contraception; for free abortions within the NHS no doctors' veto; for the right of women to choose. For well-funded, non-discriminatory advice in schools on sex, sexuality and safer-sex.
End discrimination against disabled people with measures to enable them to participate fully in social, political and economic life.
Racism, immigration and police:
Fight racism.
For the right to asylum, including from regimes, which persecute lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people; scrap the Asylum Act and all racist laws.
Abolish the four-year cohabitation rule for immigration rights; for full recognition of lesbian, gay and transgender relationships.
Democratic community control and accountability of the police to end harassment, and other discriminatory policing
Jobs, benefits and education:
For a £5 an hour minimum wage as a step towards a £7.50 an hour, or £300 a week, minimum income (based on the European Union Decency Threshold), with no exemptions.
Reject Welfare to Work. For the right to decent benefits, training or a job without compulsion. Policies for full employment to include: a 35hour week without loss of pay; a massive increase in public spending on health, housing, education, childcare, leisure and community facilities.
For employment protection rights from day one of employment; scrap all anti-trade union laws.
Free, high quality education for all from nursery to university - scrap tuition fees, for a living grant.
Socialism
Public ownership of the top 150 companies that control the economy on the basis of democratic workers' control and management, with compensation for the old owners on the basis of proven need.
A democratic socialist planned economy to end the chaos of the profit system.
International working-class solidarity to achieve a socialist world where hunger, poverty, the threat of environmental destruction and world war can finally be abolished.
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