28/07/2018
Issue Ninety of the Anarchist Federation's journal Organise is out now, and is dedicated to the militancy of Pride, with a front cover painting by an anarchist artist celebrating gay and trans liberation. Anarchism is probably just as misunderstood as LGBT people in certain circles. Rather than chaos, anarchists believe in a kind of socialism without the coercive apparatus of the state, in which people live in peace and with the maximum amount of democracy and tolerance. Many of the more radical gay and trans groups such as OutRage!, the Lesbian Avengers, Queer Nation and the Transgender Menace have been organised on principles close to anarchism. As for the traditional anarchist movement, like the socialists with whom it shares a common origin in the nineteenth century, early groups were rather male identified and homophobic. But in the early twentieth century, two of the most famous anarchist agitators in the US, Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, spent time in prison, where they met many intelligent and politically engaged gay men, lesbians, bi and gender fluid people. They began to back the early homosexual emancipation movement, even when the bulk of the left was opposed to reform. The counter-cultural high tide of the late nineteen sixties renewed the common links between the newly emergent gay liberation politics and anarchism. Today, most anarchist groups support queer liberation, although there are pockets of homophobia and transphobia, and these came to light at the 2017 Anarchist Bookfayre in Central London. This incident is also addressed in the new issue of Organise. If you're in Bristol you can pick up your copy at the Hydra Bookstore, or from the radical distribution network Active Distro, located at the Exchange Record Shop and vegetarian cafe in the heart of the gay village of Old Market.
http://www.lesbianavengers.com/about/history.shtml
