i initially reblogged this because it stated something that’s been on my mind for a long time, while absolutely not taking away from the fact that american lgbtq history owes a lot to trans woc. this post draws attention to a legitimate issue without dismissing another legitimate issue, and god fucking knows that’s a rare feat on tumblr. but since yesterday the comments and reblogs on this went all over the place, so i’m gonna say a few things because i really need you guys to understand how much space american lgbtq history is taking up outside america.
here’s a screenshot i just took from a romanian lgbtq page on facebook. the text reads: ‘there would be no pride without a few audacious women at stonewall. we would probably be in jail if not for a few trans woc sex workers.’
this post recognizes and celebrates the origins of pride and the contribution of trans woc sex workers correctly, which is great. but ‘we would probably be in jail if not for a few trans woc sex workers’? nope. nope. absolutely incorrect and honestly infuriating. in 1969, at the time of stonewall, queer romanians were imprisoned because of article 200, which criminalized homosexuality under nicolae ceaușescu’s communist dictatorship. repealing article 200 (which finally happened in 2001) was one of the conditions of romania’s accession to the european union. we owe our not being in jail right now not to the stonewall riots, but to the activism of accept, romania’s oldest lgbtq advocacy organization, and to eu conditionality.
marsha p. johnson and other american trans woc have done a lot for america’s queer community. they’ve done little, or nothing at all, for queer communities elsewhere, and that statement isn’t meant to take away from the value of their actions. if your city holds a pride march and you attend, yes, you should rightfully recognize its origins, whether you’re in boston or bucharest. and it is being recognized. no one is claiming they invented pride. no one is stealing it from you.
but american history is not universal history, and to erase your own community’s activism, especially when it gets disproportionately more public scorn than public recognition, in order to make room for american history fucking hurts. i can only speak confidently about romania’s lgbtq community, because that’s the one i’m part of, and the one i’ve been following since i started being ok with the fact that i’m queer. but i really, really need you guys to understand how present american lgbtq history and culture is there, as it likely is in other parts of the world it has done very little for, either for better or for worse.
that being said, a few other comments i’ve seen on this post besides ‘but this is about pride, of course american trans woc are the most important figures’:
‘a lot of pride month posts are aimed at americans specifically’. i’ve been on tumblr for 10+ years and i’ve yet to see a pride month post that goes ‘fellow americans, here’s what we need to know about our history’. the language is always universalist. you assume, maybe even without realizing, that whoever reads your post is either american, or will know it refers to american lgbtq history/culture. these posts get hundreds of thousands of notes, while similar posts concerning communities elsewhere are lucky to get a few hundred.
‘june is pride month in the united states, of course the focus is going to be on american lgbtq history/culture. in most european countries pride month is later in july or august’. june is pride month on tumblr. again, here for 10+ years and many of the people i follow are either from or currently living in a european country. i’ve never seen a resurgence of pride-related posts in july or august, or any other time, to celebrate the fact that june isn’t pride month everywhere.
and not just that. the fact that june is pride month in the united states? still has an impact on how/when pride month is celebrated elsewhere because it’s been commercialized to shit, and as much as you might hate capitalism, what american corporations do, yes, has a fucking impact. for example:
june is pride month in the united states -> coca cola romania posts some pro-lgbtq message on their fb page in june -> a community where for many being invisible is the good option feels recognized and supported because it got a shout-out from a large, respected corporation -> maybe some vague grumbling recognition from a few public figures because big corporations good for economy -> coca cola romania revels in the fact that all publicity is good publicity and then goes back to not giving a flying fuck about lgbtq rights till next june.
here’s something they posted a couple of years ago (the fact that i honestly can’t remember if it was for pride month or in relation to the anti-lgbtq referendum in 2018 says a lot about how generic this crap is)
american tumblr would (rightfully) tear this to pieces: why are people symbolically represented as literal products? why does there have to be a ‘straight couple’ in an ad that’s meant to express support for queer couples? why do the visuals imply the ‘straight couple’ are facing one another while the ‘same sex couples’ are turned away from eachother? Why Is Capitalism Like This? etc. etc. in romania even serious queer activists were congratulating and thanking coca cola for their support, because we get fucking scraps, instead of the luxury of criticizing corporations for intruding into and commercializing queer spaces.
‘how can we talk about other countries’ queer history when we don’t know anything about it?’ learn, then. listen to others. make room for others. antonella lerca duda, roma trans woman, sex worker and a brilliant activist for trans and sex workers’ rights in romania would probably appreciate your support and efforts to educate yourselves. need to keep a connection to american issues for some reason? adrian coman and clai hamilton are a romanian-american gay couple whose international legal case against the romanian state ensured that same-sex spouses have equal residence rights in eu countries that don’t recognize same-sex unions. that’s a big deal and a big fuck-you to governments hostile to lgbtq rights, especially in eastern europe. it should absolutely have made the news in the united states.
more generally, consider: the first pride was a riot, not a celebration, yes. in many places in the world it is still, if not a riot, then incredibly risky to take part in. things are getting incrementally better, but in many places outside the united states and western europe people are putting their personal safety, relationships, jobs or even lives on the line to celebrate what started as an american tradition. these are acts of resistance. they deserve a place in your pride month conversations/narratives, and that place shouldn’t be ‘well, why are they celebrating an american tradition then?’
when you have such an enormously loud voice, you also have a responsibility. realize that your history and culture is taking up an unjustifiable amount of space in places and communities it’s done very little for. examine your gut reaction to ‘american trans woc should be celebrated for what they’ve done for american lgbtq history, but their actions had little to no impact elsewhere, so there’s no reason to hold a special and significant place for them in our own celebrations, and certainly not at the expense of our own activism.’ educate yourselves. if not by reading books or the news critically, then by inviting others into your conversations and listening to them.
whether you realize it or not, whether you like it or not, tumblr is deeply american-centric when it comes to lgbtq issues. this post respectfully but clearly pointed this out and if your reaction is to get defensive over it you need to be asking yourself some questions.
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