I’ve been thinking a lot about coalitions lately. Coalitions and communities, about how those two concepts overlap and how they are very different creatures with very different functions, and different needs.

Some of these musings were sparked by a conversation with a friend of mine, who mentioned how he had spoken up in an LGBTQIQ support group about his experience as a transgender person and gotten nothing but an an awkward silence back from the other members. This led to a discussion of the limitations of the LGBTQIQ (etc) umbrella, and how the word “community,” so commonly applied to the LGBTQIQ movement, is often a misnomer. The issues faced by lesbian and gay people are not the same as issues faced by bisexual people are very much not the same as issues faced by transpeople are not identical to issues faced by intersex people. The issues faced by queer people of color are not the same as those faced by queer White people. The issues preoccupying affluent and middle class queer folks may be completely irrelevant to queer people living in poverty. And all too often the umbrella doesn’t cover everyone the way it’s supposed to or assumed to.

It seems to me that this problem arises when people within the so-called community assume that because it is a “community,” everyone encompassed by it does have the same needs, the same interests, and the same or similar experiences. It’s that mindset–an expectation of automatic clarity and easy understanding, an inability to engage with difference–that my friend met in what was supposed to be a safe space. In fact, the LGBTQIQ movement is much more like a coalition than a community, an alliance of groups with vastly different–and sometimes conflicting–interests, concerns, and unifying experiences. And coalitions are not–cannot be, should not be–safe spaces. Effective coalitions require us to step outside our comfort zones, to work through and with differences of opinion, to expect that understanding won’t always or often be intuitive or simple.

The other thing which has me thinking about coalitions is the passage of Proposition 8 in California, which–as Amanda pointed out in her last post–is most certainly a reproductive justice issue. I believed, and still believe, that it was time for marriage discrimination to be ended in my state. The initiative passed by only a few percentage points–and is a hallmark of coalition failure, a failure of coalition-building.

Since the elections, a lot of people, including some under the LGBTQIQ umbrella, have been blaming people of color–who turned out in record numbers to elect Barack Obama–for the passage of Prop 8 in communities like East Los Angeles. There have been ugly words shouted at anti-Prop 8 protests and blogged at liberal sites. Perhaps the shouters forget that people of color are part of the LGBTQIQ community/communities too–a forgetting that went on before the election as well. While the Yes on 8 campaign hit the streets in less affluent neighborhoods, published ads in Spanish and Vietnamese-language papers, courted churches, and made ads marked by diversity, the No campaign’s presence in low-income areas and communities of color was negligible–even though No on 8 ended up outpacing the opposition’s fundraising. The No on 8 campaign didn’t step out of a certain privileged comfort zone, and didn’t manage to establish common ground with enough voters to win–simple as that. It turns out that LGBTQIQ plus loyal allies does not a simple majority make, even in California, just barely in San Francisco. Surprised? We shouldn’t be. Allies are made, not born, even if born in communities that carry the legacy and the burden of the civil rights movement.

There’s another issue at work in Prop 8 politics as well, a perspective that’s been largely silent (or silenced). My friend articulated it this way: “‘Gay marriage’ won’t do a whole lot for me, and it won’t do a whole lot for a ton of people with non-normative sexualities and non-normative families. Though it will make a particular segment of the queer community very happy indeed.” Marriage equality is not the holy grail of LGBTQIQ rights, not a panacea against discrimination for all. It doesn’t address the needs of trans people, of people struggling simply to get adequate health care or a job for whom marriage is the last thing on their minds, or even of single queer people for that matter. It leaves a lot of people outside the umbrella. It doesn’t benefit everyone.

I’m moving towards a broader point here, one less specific to California and marriage and LGBTQIQ rights and my personal communities (we all belong to more than one, another way in which none of this is simple). Coalition-building is crucial to the work we do as reproductive justice advocates, crucial to our success. In doing this work, we have to step outside our comfort zone. We have to reach out to communities that may not have traditionally been on our side, such as religious organizations and conservative enclaves. At the same time, we have to remember that the person whose rights we are protecting, whose support we need, is not just like us, whether they look like us or not–and doesn’t have to be to share our common goal of reproductive self-determination. To remember that we may not “get” one another effortlessly. That even within a community, within an identity group, our needs and experiences and concerns will never be identical. Most of all, we have to know how to listen and respond when someone brings something to the table with which we don’t instantly identify–and how to bring our concerns to the table without expecting them to be automatically shared by everyone just because we seem to share a common interest, because we’re all women or feminists or RJ activists.

It’s not easy. But then, what worthwhile effort ever is?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 4:45 pm and is filed under coalitions, lgbtqiq, sexuality, 2008 Election, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.