Anarcho-queer
Anarcho-queer (or Queer Anarchism) is an Anarchist school of thought which advocates Anarchism and Social revolution as a means of Gay Liberation and abolition of homophobia, lesbophobia, biphobia, transphobia, heteronormativity, heterosexism, patriarchy and the gender binary.
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History
Some believe Mikhail Bakunin and Sergei Nechaev were lovers.[1] They didn't write about sexual liberation or speak publicly of any romance, but their passionate relationship is revealed in private letters. Bakunin wrote to Nechaev on June 2, 1870, after being betrayed by him: “I loved you deeply and still love you, Nechaev... how deeply, how passionately, how tenderly I loved you and believed in you!”[2]
Anarchism's foregrounding of individual freedoms made for a natural marriage with homosexuality in the eyes of many, both inside and outside of the Anarchist movement. Emil Szittya, in Das Kuriositäten-Kabinett (1923), wrote about homosexuality that "very many anarchists have this tendency. Thus I found in Paris a Hungarian anarchist, Alexander Sommi, who founded a homosexual anarchist group on the basis of this idea.” His view is confirmed by Magnus Hirschfeld in his 1914 book Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes: “In the ranks of a relatively small party, the anarchist, it seemed to me as if proportionately more homosexuals and effeminates are found than in others.” Italian anarchist Luigi Bertoni (who Szittya also believed to be homosexual) observed that "Anarchists demand freedom in everything, thus also in sexuality. Homosexuality leads to a healthy sense of egoism, for which every anarchist should strive."[3]
Anarcho-syndicalist writer Ulrich Linse wrote about "a sharply outlined figure of the Berlin individualist anarchist cultural scene around 1900", the "precocious Johannes Holzmann" (known as Senna Hoy): "an adherent of free love, [Hoy] celebrated homosexuality as a 'champion of culture' and engaged in the struggle against Paragraph 175."[4] The young Hoy (born 1882) published these views in his weekly magazine, ("Kampf", in English "Struggle") from 1904 which reached a circulation of 10,000 the following year. German anarchist psychotherapist Otto Gross also wrote extensively about same-sex sexuality in both men and women and argued against its discrimination.[5] Heterosexual anarchist Robert Reitzel (1849–98) spoke positively of homosexuality from the beginning of the 1890s in his German-language journal "Der arme Teufel" (Detroit).
In the 1920s and 1930s, French individualist anarchist publisher Emile Armand campaigned for acceptance of free love, including homosexuality, in his journal L'EnDehors.
From 1906, the writings and theories of John Henry Mackay had a significant influence on Adolf Brand's organisation Gemeinschaft der Eigenen. The individualist anarchist Adolf Brand was originally a member of Hirschfeld's Scientific-Humanitarian committee, but formed a break-away group. Brand and his colleagues, known as the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen, were heavily influenced by homosexual anarchist John Henry Mackay.
They were opposed to Hirschfeld's medical characterisation of homosexuality as the domain of an "intermediate sex".[6] and disdained the Jewish Hirschfeld. Ewald Tschek, another homosexual anarchist writer of the era, regularly contributed to Adolf Brand's journal Der Eigene, and wrote in 1925 that Hirschfeld's Scientific Humanitarian Committee was a danger to the German people, caricaturing Hirschfeld as "Dr. Feldhirsch".
Der Eigene was the first gay Journal in the world, published from 1896 to 1932 by Adolf Brand in Berlin. Brand contributed many poems and articles himself. Other contributors included Benedict Friedlaender, Hanns Heinz Ewers, Erich Mühsam, Kurt Hiller, Ernst Burchard, John Henry Mackay, Theodor Lessing, Klaus Mann, and Thomas Mann, as well as artists Wilhelm von Gloeden, Fidus, and Sascha Schneider. The journal may have had an average of around 1500 subscribers per issue during its run, but the exact numbers are uncertain.[citation needed] After the rise to power by the Nazis, Brand became a victim of persecution and had his journal closed.
Despite these supportive stances, the anarchist movement of the time certainly wasn't free of homophobia: an editorial in an influential Spanish anarchist journal from 1935 argued that an Anarchist shouldn't even associate with homosexuals, let alone be one: "If you are an anarchist, that means that you are more morally upright and physically strong than the average man. And he who likes inverts is no real man, and is therefore no real anarchist."[7]
Lucía Sánchez Saornil was a main founder of the spanish anarcha-feminist federation Mujeres Libres who was open about her lesbianism.[8]
The writings of the French bisexual anarchist Daniel Guérin offer an insight into the tension sexual minorities among the Left have often felt. He was a leading figure in the French Left from the 1930s until his death in 1988. After coming out in 1965, he spoke about the extreme hostility toward homosexuality that permeated the left throughout much of the 20th century.[9] "Not so many years ago, to declare oneself a revolutionary and to confess to being homosexual were incompatible," Guérin wrote in 1975.[10] In 1954, Guérin was widely attacked for his study of the Kinsey Reports in which he also detailed the oppression of homosexuals in France. "The harshest [criticisms] came from marxists, who tend seriously to underestimate the form of oppression which is antisexual terrorism. I expected it, of course, and I knew that in publishing my book I was running the risk of being attacked by those to whom I feel closest on a political level."[11] After coming out publicly in 1965, Guérin was abandoned by the Left, and his papers on sexual liberation were censored or refused publication in left-wing journals.[12] From the 1950s, Guérin moved away from Marxism-Leninism and toward a synthesis of anarchism and marxism close to platformism which allowed for individualism while rejecting capitalism. Guérin was involved in the uprising of May 1968, and was a part of the French Gay Liberation movement that emerged after the events. Decades later, Frédéric Martel described Guérin as the "grandfather of the French homosexual movement."[13]
Contemporary Queer Anarchism
Anarcho-queer originated during the second half 20th century among Anarchists involved in the Gay Liberation movement, who viewed Anarchism as the road to harmony between heterosexual and LGBT people. Anarcho-queer has its roots deep in Queercore, a form of Punk rock which portrays homosexuality in a positive manner. Like most forms of Punk rock, Queercore attracts a large Anarchist crowd. Anarchists are prominent in Queercore Zines. There are two main Anarcho-queer groups, Queer Mutiny, a British group with branches in most major cities and Bash Back! An American network of queer anarchists. Queer Fist appeared in New York City and identifies itself as "an anti-assimilationist, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian street action group, came together to provide direct action and a radical queer and trans-identified voice at the Republican National Convention (RNC) protests."[14]
Anarcha-feminist colectives such as the spanish squat Eskalera Karakola and the bolivian Mujeres Creando give high importance to lesbian and bisexual female issues.
Bibliography
- Terence Kissack. Free Comrades: Anarchism and Homosexuality in the United States. AK Press. ISBN 9781904859116
- Lena Eckert. "Post-Anarchism as a Tool for Queer and Transgender Politics and/or Vice Versa?"
See also
- Bash Back! - an Anarcho-queer network in the United States
- Queer Mutiny - A British Anarcho-queer group
- Dumba - a New York collective living space with Anarcho-queer tendencies
- Queercore - a style of music mixing anarchist and gay themes
- Queeruption - a Queercore festival where anarchists are prominent
- Gay Shame - a movement self-described as a radical alternative to gay mainstreaming
- Anarchism and sex/love
- Socialism and LGBT rights
References
- ^ Robynski. 1994. Nechaev And Bakunin: Left Libertarianism's Lavender Lineage. Northcote, Vic: Autonomous Tendency.
- ^ Confino, Michael (ed.) Daughter of a Revolutionary: Natalie Herzen and the Bakunin-Nechayev Circle, trans. Hilary Sternberg and Lydia Bott (LaSalle, IL: Library, 1974), pp. 273, 275.
- ^ Hirschfeld, Magnus, 1914. Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes (Berlin: Louis Marcus)
- ^ Linse, Ulrich, Individualanarchisten, Syndikalisten, Bohémiens, in "Berlin um 1900", ed. Gelsine Asmus (Berlin: Berlinische Galerie, 1984)
- ^ Otto Gross
- ^ New York: Howard Fertig, 1985.
- ^ Quoted in Cleminson, Richard. 1995. Male inverts and homosexuals: Sex discourse in the Anarchist Revista Blanca, Published in Gert Hekma et al. (eds.)"Gay men and the sexual history of the political left" by Harrington Park Press 1995, ISBN 1-56023-067-3.
- ^ "basta pensar en el lesbianismo de Lucía Sánchez Saornil"
- ^ *The Parti Communiste Français was "hysterically intransigent as far as ’moral behaviour’ was concerned" (Aragon, victime et profiteur du tabou, in Gai Pied Hebdo, 4 June 1983, reproduced in Homosexualité et Révolution, pp. 62-3, quote p. 63.);
* The trotskyist Pierre Lambert's OCI was "completely hysterical with regard to homosexuality"; Lutte ouvrire was theoretically opposed to homosexuality; as was the Ligue communiste, despite their belatedly paying lip service to gay lib. (à confesse, Interview with Gérard Ponthieu in Sexpol no. 1 (20 January 1975), pp.10-14.)
* Together, Guérin argued, such groups bore a great deal of responsibility for fostering homophobic attitudes among the working class as late as the 1970s. Their attitude was "the most blinkered, the most reactionary, the most antiscientific". (Etre homosexuel et révolutionnaire, La Quinzaine littéraire, no. 215, no. spécial : ‘Les homosexualités’ (August 1975), pp. 9-10. Quote p. 10) - ^ Guérin, Daniel. 1975. Etre homosexuel et révolutionnaire, La Quinzaine littéraire, no. 215, no. spécial : ‘Les homosexualités’ (August 1975), pp. 9-10.
- ^ Letter of 27 May 1955, Fonds Guérin, BDIC, F° Δ 721/carton 12/4, quoted in Chaperon, ‘Le fonds Daniel Guérin et l’histoire de la sexualité’ in Journal de la BDIC, no.5 (June 2002), p.10
- ^ Berry, David. 2003. For a dialectic of homosexuality and revolution. Paper for "Conference on "Socialism and Sexuality. Past and present of radical sexual politics", Amsterdam, 3–4 October 2003.
- ^ Frédéric Martel, Le rose et le noir. Les homosexuels en France depuis 1968 (Paris : Seuil, 2000), pp.46.
- ^ Queer Fist blog
External links
- Queer Mutiny's Manifesto
- Archive of anarcho-queer publication Pink and Black attack at the zine library
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