29/11/2018
The December issue of gay and bisexual lifestyle magazine Attitude is available now from all leading newsagents and gay bookstores. Appropriately enough, as we approach the consumerist festival that Christmas is for many people, the magazine asks how ten years of austerity Britain have impacted on LGBTQ people who live in working class communities, in former industrial towns and in estates where a large proportion of the population is in receipt of benefits and where employment rates are low. The magazine finds poverty and hardship, but also strong identities and pride in being working class and LGBTQ. It was activist Peter Tatchell who many years ago reminded the trade unions and the political left that “gay rights are a class issue”, pointing out that discrimination often impacts disproportionately on LGBTQ folks from poorer backgrounds. Nevertheless, it took a strong gay, lesbian, bi and trans movement through the seventies to persuade most of the political left that our peoples' rights were important. Interestingly, many of the working class people interviewed by Attitude have little time for transphobic forms of feminism, pointing out that they are the alienating and privileged preserves of academics and the middle classes.