Pride 2024: Fighting for Queer Rights with a Working-Class Strategy

As Pride month begins, trans and queer people around the world are searching for ways to fight back against escalating attacks on their basic rights. In 2024 alone, 580 anti-trans bills have been proposed in state legislatures around the United States. This number is already set to surpass the appalling record set in 2023, when right-wing legislatures passed dozens of draconian anti-trans bills attacking everything from pronoun use in schools to gender-affirming care. How do we stop these anti-trans attacks, and win bold positive demands, like free universal healthcare which includes gender-affirming care? Young and queer people should look to the lessons from the history of the fight for queer rights, including Stonewall and ACT UP. We urgently need to get organized with other working people and build our own, independent organizations like Workers Strike Back to win the change we need. The fight for trans rights is also firmly bound up with the fight against other forms of oppression, including the growing movement to stop Israel’s murderous campaign against the people of Gaza. We need to get organized to stop these attacks and end oppression in all its forms. On Strike is joined this week by trans socialist activists Sophie Scholl and Margot Stewart to discuss the militant roots of Pride, and the way forward for trans and queer liberation, including the fight for gender-affirming care and the role of the LGBTQ movement in the fight to end Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.