|
WELFARE WARRIORS – POINTS OF UNITY
created for the 8/5/06 Community Speak-Out
and signed onto by organizations across the city
This speak-out is an initiative of the Welfare
Warriors, a project of Queers for Economic Justice. We are a group of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Gender Non-conforming
(LGBTGNC) people with experience of poverty, who organize to make the welfare system accountable to low-income LGBTGNC people,
and to improve the benefits available for all low-income people. Through direct action, community education, and coalition-building
with other progressive organizations we seek to empower our communities, and to connect our struggle for welfare rights to
larger struggles for social justice.
On August 5th 2006, LGBTGNC people facing issues of poverty will have the opportunity
to give voice to our struggles in a community speak-out. Despite the dominant
media images of gay, white, affluent men, innumerable lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, trans and gender nonconforming people
of color and white people face high levels of poverty and economic crisis on a daily basis.
Classism
and the Mainstream LGBT Movement
For too long our voices have been stifled
by a homophobic/transphobic society. Moreover, because of racism and classism, our issues are overlooked and thereby not part
of the mainstream LGBT-rights agenda.
· Prior to the gay marriage movement, numerous LGBT organizations were busy fighting hate crimes by using conservative,
tough-on-crime tactics of increased jail time, instead of progressive alternatives.
· Today the fight for state-sanctioned marriage has completely eclipsed other attempts to address more pressing issues
faced by poor LGBTGNC people such as, homelessness, unemployment, inadequate healthcare, immigrant-rights, police brutality,
etc.
· Poor LGBTGNC people are frequently profiled and pushed out of LGBT spaces that should be open us. All too often our
behaviors are policed and we are labeled as being too poor, uneducated/unqualified, “acting ghetto”, too ethnic,
or simply not exhibiting characteristics stereotypically linked to a white, middle-class upbringing.
We urge economically privileged Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual and Transgender people to challenge this policing against our community and work hard to ensure that it is not reproduced
within spaces they control.
Welfare
Rights
Since the 1996 welfare reform act we have
seen the steady erosion of welfare rights and benefits, which has led to increased homelessness and hunger in NY. We fight
for the guarantee of economic security both because it is fundamental to our personal well-being, as well as critical for
our ability to collectively organize in our communities, instead of just surviving.
We strongly support the work of the Gender
Action Coalition in demanding that the Human Resources Administration (HRA) comply with NYC Human Rights Law, which protects
trans and gender non-conforming people from discrimination
We condemn current welfare policies that:
· increase proof of citizenship requirements for Medicaid applicants and deny of health coverage to non-citizens or people
who can not prove citizenship.
· relegate poor people to low-skilled jobs, through welfare programs like the Work Experience Program, where we are not
offered living wages, benefits and/or opportunities to learn new skills.
· cut States’ welfare funding if they fail to plug enough poor people into low-paying, dead-end jobs.
· force LGBTGNC substance users, who are addicted and seek public assistance, into homophobic/transphobic treatment programs,
where, because of harassment, we sometimes drop out and are denied benefits
· enable discrimination and harassment of LGBTGNC people at welfare centers and/or workfare sites, which eventually compels
us drop out and earn a living in ways that are criminalized by the State.
· enforce heterosexual marriage by allocating $100 million for marriage promotion and $50 million for “responsible
fatherhood” programs, which do not recognize non-biological lesbian mothers as family
· deny homeless LGBTGNC youth, who have been thrown out of their homes by homophobic/transphobic parents, access to benefits
because they can not provide letters from parents attesting to their independence
Housing/ Homeless Crisis in NYC:
We are witnessing the crystallization of a
comprehensive strategy to displace low-income people from New York. Corrupt and undemocratic political structures,
such as the Rent Guidelines Board, erode affordable housing and fail to hold irresponsible landlords accountable for code
violations
and illegal evictions. At the same time the homeless population is increasingly criminalized through selective law enforcement
that protects the “quality of life” of economically privileged New Yorkers. We oppose the concerted effort to
gentrify and privatize public spaces that homeless people call home, which typically leads to intensified targeting of poor
and homeless people by the NYPD. The struggle, led by poor queer youth, to maintain public access to and use of the
piers in the West Village,
perfectly illustrates what happens when a previously public park with long LGBTGNC history is privatized. We commend the efforts
of FIERCE! for fighting to maintain public access to public land.
We applaud the Gender Identity Project, Sylvia Riviera
Law Project, and other organizations that worked along side Queers for Economic Justice in successfully lobbying the Department
of Homeless Services (DHS) to recognize gender self-determination in the New York
City shelter system. We eagerly anticipate the full implementation
of trans-sensitive policies, which would hopefully include comprehensive sensitivity trainings for staff at intake/assessment
shelters.
We demand that:
· NYC develops truly affordable housing and, in particular, develops housing for people living with AIDS and other special
needs.
· DHS stop putting the burden on domestic partners to prove the validity of their relationships
· control of housing policy is returned to NYC through the repeal of the Urstadt Law, which took away home rule and brought
rent-regulated housing under the control of an unaccountable state legislature.
· the city enforces its own maintenance codes which protect the well-being of tenants, instead of targeting the most
vulnerable New Yorkers by enforcing classist “quality of life” initiatives.
We strongly support the “Right to Repairs”
bill and “Healthy Homes Act”.
Immigrant
Rights
As Immigrants we are forced to leave our homes
because of U.S. imperialist policies that
strip us of our rights, ravage our land, pollute our air and waters, and corrupt our governments. Undocumented residents of
the U.S. are forced to either live a destitute
existence without access to welfare, or obtain jobs that pay below minimum wage and work under deplorable conditions. Even
though all immigrants pay taxes, either through paid work, sales tax, and other taxes, we are categorically denied access
to many tax funded services. We condemn the racist and xenophobic “immigration debates” currently occurring in
congress, and oppose indefinite and mandatory detention of non-citizens, as well as the mass incarceration of people of color
and low-income communities in the U.S.
more broadly.
As documented and undocumented residents in
the US we:
· demand full access to ALL public benefits, genuine legalization and opportunities to adjust status for all undocumented
immigrants, and the repeal of the HIV ban
· oppose heightened policing and criminalization of immigrant communities, including the increased militarization of
the border and the use of city and state agencies to enforce federal immigration law.
Police
Brutality
Poor and working class LGBTGNC people are
constantly targeted by the NYPD. This was made evident by the arrests of two
young marchers of color during the 2006 Pride Parade, as well as the outright denial of marching permits by the City of New York and NYPD to TransJustice and allies.
We demand an end to the classist, racist,
transphobic, and homophobic attacks by the NYPD and oppose any attacks that further funnel our community into the Prison Industrial
Complex.
The issues listed above come from our lived experiences, however we recognize there are many other poverty-related
issues we did not mention that are just as important. We call on all poor and working class people, as well as anti-poverty
allies, to join us on Saturday, August 5th as we
celebrate the creation of Welfare Warriors, a NYC-based LGBTGNC
grassroots organizing project, and speak out against the welfare system.
For information about the Welfare Warriors
– contact Queers for Economic Justice at 212.564.3608. Ask for Doyin.
_______________________________________________________________
BEYOND SAME-SEX
MARRIAGE:
A New Strategic
Vision
Executive Summary
(for
the full statement, go to www.BeyondMarriage.org)
The time has come to reframe the narrow terms
of the marriage debate in the United States.
Conservatives are seeking to enshrine discrimination in the U.S. Constitution through the Federal Marriage Amendment. But
their opposition to same-sex marriage is only one part of a broader pro-marriage, “family values” agenda that
includes abstinence-only sex education, stringent divorce laws, coercive marriage promotion policies directed toward women
on welfare, and attacks on reproductive freedom. Moreover, a thirty-year political assault on the social safety net has left
households with more burdens and constraints and fewer resources.
Meanwhile, the LGBT movement has recently
focused on marriage equality as a stand-alone issue. While this strategy may secure rights and benefits for some LGBT families,
it has left us isolated and vulnerable to a virulent backlash. We must respond to the full scope of the conservative marriage
agenda by building alliances across issues and constituencies. Our strategies must be visionary, creative, and practical to counter the right's powerful and effective
use of marriage as a “wedge” issue that pits one group against another. The
struggle for marriage rights should be part of a larger effort to strengthen the stability and security of diverse households
and families. To that end, we advocate:
· Legal
recognition for a wide range of relationships, households and families – regardless of kinship or conjugal status.
· Access
for all, regardless of marital or citizenship status, to vital government support programs including but not limited to health
care, housing, Social Security and pension plans, disaster recovery assistance, unemployment insurance and welfare assistance.
· Separation
of church and state in all matters, including regulation and recognition of relationships, households and families.
· Freedom
from state regulation of our sexual lives and gender choices, identities and expression.
Marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship,
and it should not be legally and economically privileged above all others. A majority of people – whatever their sexual
and gender identities – do not live in traditional nuclear families. They stand to gain from alternative forms of household
recognition beyond one-size-fits-all marriage. For example:
· Single
parent households
· Senior
citizens living together and serving as each other’s caregivers (think Golden
Girls)
· Blended
and extended families
· Children
being raised in multiple households or by unmarried parents
· Adult
children living with and caring for their parents
· Senior
citizens who are the primary caregivers to their grandchildren or other relatives
· Close
friends or siblings living in non-conjugal relationships and serving as each other’s primary support and caregivers
· Households
in which there is more than one conjugal partner
· Care-giving
relationships that provide support to those living with extended illness such as HIV/AIDS.
The current debate over marriage, same-sex and
otherwise, ignores the needs and desires of so many in a nation where household diversity is the demographic norm. We seek
to reframe this debate. Our call speaks to the widespread hunger for authentic and just community in ways that are both pragmatic
and visionary. It follows in the best tradition of the progressive LGBT movement, which invented alternative legal statuses
such as domestic partnership and reciprocal beneficiary. We seek to build on these historic accomplishments by continuing
to diversify and democratize partnership and household recognition. We advocate the expansion of existing legal statuses,
social services and benefits to support the needs of all our households.
We
call on colleagues working in various social justice movements and campaigns to read the full-text of our statement “Beyond
Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision”, and to join us in our call for government support of all our households
___________________________________________________
IMMIGRATION REFORM AND THE LGBT COMMUNITY
a position statement by Queers for Economic Justice
Queers for Economic Justice calls upon all of our allies to support immigrant rights. We stand in
solidarity with immigrant communities for many reasons. First of all, because
the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and the immigrant community are not mutually exclusive. There are thousands of LGBT immigrants in this country. We
recognize the historically interconnected nature of the immigrant and LGBT struggles — such as the ban on “homosexual
immigrants” that extended into the 1990’s, and the present HIV ban, which disproportionately impacts LGBT people
— and we believe that only by understanding these connections and building coalition can we ensure real social change
for all. We also know that LGBT people and immigrant people have historically
been portrayed in this country as scary and as “other”, and we have been used in this country as scapegoats for
many issues.
We know that this country has a long history of denying citizenship and legal protection to many groups of people. Immigrants and LGBT people are just two of those many communities, and we must stand
together. Citizenship for all people of African ancestry born in this country
was not settled without a civil war that took millions of lives. And even then, it took another hundred years to eliminate
overt and official limitations on the citizenship of the descendants of African slaves, and we are still fighting the battle
for true citizenship. There is no God-given birthright to citizenship. US citizenship is, indeed, a bundle of rights and privileges that have been bestowed
on select groups of people by the powers that have been in this country, or that have been wrested from these same powers.
And those in power in this country have consistently treated the rest of the people of this planet as resources or obstacles
to resources that belong to them.
For so many people, migration, within this country and to this country, is as much a reflection of patterns of capitalist
"investment," (more appropriately entitled imperialism and exploitation), as it is of any "choice" of workers. Withholding
of the bundles of rights and privileges of citizenship is just one more aspect of that exploitation. To not challenge
current immigration law is to endorse nothing less than the brutal expropriation of people's labor, lives, cultures, and homes.
We understand that anyone who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender cannot in good conscience support
current immigration law, an area where overt discrimination is still considered the privilege of Congress and the Executive.
We know, as people whose sexual activity was regarded as a crime in about half the states in this country until a Supreme
Court decision three years ago, that we must challenge those laws that are unfair.
We also reject any attempts, made by some in our community, to pit the struggle of multiple communities against each
other and firmly believe that "Rights" are not in limited supply. We condemn the “scarcity of rights” perspective
espoused by some members of the LGBT movement. But then, one reason why
it has always been so hard to shift power in this country is because the ruling class has successfully made us believe that
there are only a few deserving groups to whom rights can be given. This strategy has always been used to divide oppressed
groups from coming together to work in coalition.
We are painfully aware that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities still lack many basic protections under
the law in this country, including the right to care for and support all of our families, in the various ways in which we
construct family and kinship. Nevertheless, supporting immigrant rights, while
we continue to work for LGBT liberation, does nothing to hurt our cause. In fact,
we believe the opposite to be true, and want to work towards building powerful coalitions between immigrant and LGBT movements
to work together for social justice.
We are also aware that many immigrant right advocates have (intentionally or not) used anti-black rhetoric to move
their agenda forward. Arguments such as “Don’t
treat us like ‘criminals’” or “We are doing work that ‘other’
Americans won’t do” have the effect of positioning immigrant narratives as subtly juxtaposed with American
stereotypes of non-immigrant black communities. They leave native-born black
Americans as among the only people who do not have access to the immigrant narrative, and so are in a permanent position of
subordination, and the state consistently negotiates and redefines citizenship and “American-ness” for almost
everyone except non-immigrant blacks. Nevertheless, the solution to this problem is not to abandon support for the
struggle of immigrant communities. Rather, we call on immigrant movements
and (non-immigrant) black organizations to work together for real racial and economic justice in this country. Together these movements can work to end the exploitation and targeting of both communities, and to ensure
that black folks and immigrants do not end up having to choose between competing for low-paying jobs or being targeted for
detainment or imprisonment.
We support the current immigrant rights marches and rallies happening across the country this year, and we march too. We march to support groups like Audre Lorde
Project and the Queer Immigrant Rights Project whose work, with (and led by)
LGBT immigrants, serves as models for us all, and whose demands on immigration issues we support. We march because immigrants are among the most politically vulnerable, underpaid and exploited communities
in the country, and are asking for basic human rights, including the right to live free from torture and exploitation, and
the right to work. We march because we recognize the connections between the
state attacks on immigrant and LGBT communities and that LGBT immigrants in particular are disproportionately affected by
much anti-immigrant legislation. Our demands:
o We demand genuine legalization, and opportunities to adjust status, for all undocumented
immigrants.
o We demand the repeal of the HIV ban.
o We oppose the heightened policing and criminalization of immigrant communities, including
the increased militarization of the border, the construction of any wall around the US-Mexico border, or the use of city and
state government agencies to enforce federal immigration law.
o We oppose indefinite and mandatory detention of noncitizens—as well as the
mass incarceration of POC communities in the U.S.
more broadly—and envision a society that ensures the safety and self-determination of all people, regardless of national
origin, race, gender or sexuality.
o We demand the strengthening of labor laws and protections for all workers –
native and foreign born, and oppose the guestworker proposals, which would continue the exploitation of many low-wage workers.
o We oppose penalties imposed upon service providers and family members of undocumented
immigrants, and we oppose employer sanctions.
o We oppose the Real I.D. Act, which creates a national database, and makes it more
difficult to get a legal identification, thus causing hardship for thousands of people who cannot obtain identification.
o We demand the elimination of the high income requirements for immigrant sponsors,
and the elimination of the 3 and 10 year bars
o We support the Uniting Families Act, which allows LGBT citizens and greencard holders
to sponsor their partners for citizenship. We also support efforts to reunify
broader definitions of family.
Finally, we encourage all LGBT organizations to support the struggles of immigrant communities, including “illegal”
immigrants, because as people whose sexualities have been historically criminalized by this country, we understand that “legal”
and “just” are not the same thing.
___________________________________________________________________________________
|
