Pride is a multi-colored fight

Partido Sosyalista expresses its solidarity with all those participating in the Pride March in Quezon City today and in various other cities in the past weeks. We also condemn the violence used by the state against those who participated in the protest action organized by national LGBTQIA+ alliance Bahaghari last June 26.

For us in Partido Sosyalista, the struggle of the LGBTQIA+ movement is not subordinate to the struggle of workers, peasants, dominated nations or groups, or other oppressed groups.

We reject the view that we ought to fight for marriage equality, recognition of and support for alternative household arrangements, non-discrimination, etc. only after we have won the fight against class domination or against imperialism.

We refuse to wait for all these other social problems to be solved before we attend to the problems of the bakla.

At the same time, however, we also do not take the position that the fight of the LGBTQIA+ movement can be divorced from the fight of other oppressed groups.

No one is only ever straight or queer, after all: the bakla is also an overworked BPO employee. The bakla isalso a landless farmworker. The bakla is also part of an indigenous community. The bakla is also a Palestinian.

That means that for the bakla to be free, passing the SOGIESC Equality bill is a must. But so is banning contractualization. So is stopping land-grabbing. So is ending genocide.

Our struggles are inter-connected and inseparable: we can-and we need to-wage them all, celebrate them all, and win them all simultaneously.