The spirit of Stonewall lives on - our fight continues
Memory is resistance
"Dear Berliners and participants of the CSD
We stand here today to keep the spirit of Stonewall alive - not as a mere commemoration, but because we still recognise the urgency of collectively resisting this oppressive system as LGBTI+!
Black people rose up 56 years ago transTrans (short for transgender or transident) describes people whose gender identity does not match the gender they are assigned. Mehr Women, Latinas and homeless LGBTI+ youth in New York protested in front of the Stonewall Inn against police harassment and tried to break the chains of state oppression. This uprising was not a colourful celebration, but an explosion of anger against a system that excludes, attacks and murders us!
Born out of the crisis - our struggles then and now
A decade later, the AIDS pandemic broke out. Friends and relatives attended one funeral service after another to bury their loved ones. And why? Because the healthcare system didn't give a damn about them and labelled them as sick homosexuals.
Even back then, we could not rely on a state that was primarily responsible for pushing LGBTI+ people to the margins of society. In the end, our brothers and sisters died due to state complicity, stigmatisation, hatred, lack of care and repression from society. LGBTI+ people finally took the problems into their own hands: lesbians organised blood donations, collectives for care were founded and militant protests took place against the negligent abandonment of AIDS sufferers. The many thousands and thousands of brothers and sisters we have lost in these years live on today in our fight for a just life, for self-determination and freedom. The path on which we now walk was paved by their achievements.
Fascist violence: the threat is real
We can now look back on several decades in which life for LGBTI+ people in Germany and Europe has become a little better, a little more bearable, thanks to these political and social struggles. We look back on a minimum of social acceptance in the form of marriage for all and a self-determination law. This state of society is more threatened today than it has been for a long time.
Since last year, fascists have been mobilising against our CSDs nationwide, parades have had to be cancelled due to this threat situation and fascists are directly attacking our events, such as recently in Bad Freienwalde, where fascists ran through the queer street festival with batons. In this attack, it was not the police who reacted but, as so often, anti-fascists and courageous LGBTI+ people who intervened and prevented worse things from happening.
A look at the international situation shows us a similar picture: physical attacks on LGBTI+ people are on the rise. At the same time, our physical and political self-determination is being increasingly restricted by the state.
The long-awaited self-determination law was passed just a few months ago, but the new right-wing conservative government under Friedrich Merz is showing us how it can be re-evaluated or abolished just as quickly.
In the USA transTrans (short for transgender or transident) describes people whose gender identity does not match the gender they are assigned. Mehr People denied their existence and any funding for LGBTI+ care cut off to then spend the money on racist, segregated concentration prisons.
This not only affects people in the USA, but also countries in sub-Saharan Africa, which are dependent on US support programmes such as PEPFAR for AIDS prevention.
In Hungary, Pride was banned under the fascist government, but 200,000 LGBTI+ people took to the streets. Let's take their courage as an example!
The rise of fascism in Germany is a reality, just as it is in many other countries. Cuts to social projects and healthcare, increasing patriarchal and heterosexist violence and a progressive brutalisation of society, the restriction of our self-determination and state racism, which is taking on new dimensions - all these developments go hand in hand.
Migrants and LGBTI+ are the two central enemies of this new fascism, whether in Europe or the USA. We are the ones who feel the effects of these right-wing policies first, at the bottom of their damn food chain.
At the same time, Germany is arming itself and numerous countries are preparing for a war in Europe that has long been raging elsewhere in the world. And in the meantime, people here are still trying to make us believe that we can live a liberated life in Europe.
But we know:
When the Bundeswehr adorns itself with rainbows to make war palatable to us, that is no liberation.
If queer projects are cut in order to spend more money on armaments, that is not liberation.
If new jobs are created in munitions factories in our neighbourhoods, that is no relief.
And when the police regularly beat our migrant brothers and sisters off the streets, it's not in our name as LGBTI+.
While the fascist attacks on CSDs continue to increase, the bourgeois parties and large corporations at our demonstrations will decrease. But it is not enough to first rise up against the capitalist appropriation of the CSD and now the cowardice of those who have adorned themselves with rainbow flags. What is happening now requires us to take direct action.
Today, dear Berliners, dear comrades and brothers and sisters, today is the time when we as LGBTI+ people must once again become a social force. This means that we must start to unite again under political demands and be prepared to defend the rights we have fought for and our self-determination, just as we would defend ourselves on the street against a homophobic attack.
We must unite as LGBTI+ in militant organisations and celebrate our CSD with anger and determination in order to defend it.
We have an enemy that we did not choose, but that has never gone away - that is fascism.
In these times, we must no longer allow ourselves to be divided. We must forge alliances and take to the streets together in solidarity with migrants and refugees who suffer from state racism and fear deportation on a daily basis. With all women who, like us, suffer under the damn patriarchy and who, like us, have to fight for self-determination over their bodies.
Poor people, workers, those who are left behind in this society, who hunch over every day or can't find a job, and first and foremost young people, because our future is at stake - the absolute majority of this society does not benefit from fascism but will suffer from it, in one way or another. KindThe abbreviation ART stands for antiretroviral therapy. - It refers to the treatment of an HIV infection with special medication that prevents the... Mehr. It is up to all of us to stand up against these conditions and fight back.
The struggle for a liberated life, for a life in health, peace and freedom and without hatred and marginalisation is a struggle that we must wage hand in hand with all the oppressed. It is the struggle for a just world, for a liberated society, without class oppression and without patriarchy. Such a world is possible if we fight for it together."
Website: Pride Rebellion
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