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The Resistance Brief: This week in the fight for justice

Fighting for our Lives, Again

Blog by Ricardo Martinez (he/him), Executive Director

Since the days of Anita Bryant, anti-LGBTQ+ forces have fueled a public narrative aimed at fostering negative attitudes, beliefs, and stereotypes about LGBTQ+ people. Through a combination of social, cultural, religious, political, and legal strategies, descendants of Anita have tried to narrowly characterize, villainize, and paint queer people as a danger to children, women, and society. 

The architects of online disinformation targeting transgender people recycle the same formula Anita Bryant used to galvanize her followers in the 1970’s: 1) identify something about our community not widely understood by Americans, 2) fill that knowledge gap with disinformation, 3) use the resulting fear to manufacture outrage, and 4) use that mass hysteria as an excuse to further marginalize and legislate against us – ALL OF US. 

Just before 7 am last Thursday, following a late night debate while most of us were sleeping, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed H.R. 1 – a massive bill containing sweeping cuts to Medicaid, SNAP benefits, access to reproductive care, and after the addition of a 42-page manager’s amendment, access to health care for transgender people.  

Medicaid cuts will make care less accessible and more expensive for those who need it most, including poor, elderly, and disabled Americans. Approximately 1.8 million LGBT adults have Medicaid as their primary source of health insurance. And these cuts will also will impact HIV treatment, screening, and preventative services. 

Whatever the calculus used, I don’t understand why 215 US representatives would tolerate the suffering of hungry children, disabled Americans who require long-term care, and the loss of access to necessary health care of millions. The real danger to children, women, and society is apathy – the collective consciousness’ indifference to agony, suffering, and the embrace of detachment and numbness.  

When we allow ourselves to be coerced into believing that poor families do not deserve assistance, or that accessing health care is a right only given to those whose care we deem necessary and appropriate, we erode our intrinsic capacity to empathize with our neighbors. And that leads to irreparable harm for so many of us. 

We are seeing a clear pattern in this administration’s behavior – with each harmful action, the impact is stretched, broadened, just enough that it continues to largely impact only those in our society who have historically had less power. Their initial targets were transgender and queer people, women, Black and Brown people – and now this bill doubles down on targeting those groups while also harming poor people, disabled people, children, and the elderly.  This harm is felt regardless of political persuasion, and regardless of the ability of people to even recognize it.  

But just because we, as individuals, have less power than billionaires who seek to control us doesn’t mean that we do not have tremendous collective power.  

As LGBTQ+ people, we can learn from the health care advocacy of our ancestors. I think about ACT UP and the sheer amount of policy change those fearless activists were able to propel. Their model was one that we can learn from in this moment of high stakes and competing visions for a way forward.  

Though it was one larger movement, the strategy and action of ACT UP was driven by smaller affinity groups – groups of artists, feminists and, in many cases, friends, fighting for their own lives in the way that they knew best. Instead of seeking consensus, which is often difficult to achieve quickly enough for the most urgent of times, each small group drove initiatives that were most important to them. Then, at every meeting, the groups would read this unifying statement: “ACT UP is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis.” Together, they forced the country to recognize the severity of the crisis through innovative protest and communications tactics, while also convincing government agencies to be more proactive in combatting the disease.  

As LGBTQ+ people, we again find ourselves fighting for our lives, united in resistance. But we do so alongside countless other communities facing existential threats. We must all fight beside each other, each in the way that we know best, for the health and safety of our communities and for the common goal of the health and safety of all Americans.  

We can be one resistance movement, in solidarity with each other, and still bring our expertise to focus on the issues that most deeply impact our unique communities. And the collective impact can be, and will be, greater than any of us could achieve alone.  

What to know, what to do: 

• Learn more about the harmful impact of H.R. 1, if passed, on transgender people of all ages in The Advocate.  
• Demand that your senators protect critical funding for essential health care by voting no on H.R. 1. 
• Read more about ACT UP’s innovative structure and strategies in this interview with activist and author Sarah Schulman. 
• Find us at your local Pride in the coming months – come say hi or march with us at Boston Pride for the People!  

Read more editions of the Resistance Brief.