The rights of LGBTQI people are under attack, we have seen regressive moves across Europe the latest being Italy’s right-wing government ordering state agencies to cease registration of children born to same-sex couples and the retroactive cancellation and re-issuance of birth certificates of lesbian couples’ children, with only the gestational mother’s name appearing on them. This has endangered access to medical care and education for these families.
Following from this, British transphobe Posie Parker, attempted to speak in Dublin on the 16th of September and members of the Communist Party of Ireland were amongst those who added their voices to those letting her know that her ideology is not welcome here.
Posie Parker purports to support women but her positioning is one that supports the right-wing Italian government in its attacks on women and children. She openly welcomes domestic abusers and child abusers to her ranks, if they hate LGBTQI people. Parker is one that has and will continue to gladly share a platform with openly fascist individuals, even going so far as to explicitly welcoming fascist forces to her rallies.
Parker’s ideology is not based on a love for women but a vicious hatred, a hatred that is using LGBTQI people and their access to healthcare and protections as a wedge issue to divide the working class and stir up violence.
The gains made by the LGBTQI community over the last number of years has taken nothing from the straight or the cis population of Ireland and this fear that is being spread is what would be described in feminist circles as the “Backlash”. While sexuality and gender are personal issues, when states step in to remove the rights of people for simply existing that is an injustice that no one should tolerate.
The makeup of the crowd supporting Parker makes it is clear to see that there were many people who had been shipped into the country to stand with her. Something we have seen before with American right wingers marching on our street to call for the maintenance of the 8th amendment.
This is a form of cultural imperialism, where the assumption that we as a small island nation are not capable of having these discussions, debates and reaching our own conclusions on social issues and instead need to have the stories and slogans from Britain and the USA imported and used to “guide” us.
The people of Ireland spoke on the 8th and dismantled it, we have spoken in support of our LGBTQ youth and siblings and will continue to stand with them in their fight for equality and a life free from discrimination.
Women in Ireland too have spoken out as well. Women’s organistions in Ireland do not feel threatened or under attack from LGBTQ individuals, but we do by Posie and her ilk.
Parker and her ideology are unwelcome imports into Ireland. These social issues are ones we recognize that the right uses to mask their own plans and political ideology, we have stood against them before and will continue to do so. We know that this push won’t end just with trans people, any minority and marginalised identity will become the next victims should Posie have her way.
It is not so long ago that Declan Flynn’s murderers were given suspended sentences or that homosexuality itself was illegal here. We do not wish to welcome back a time where our LGBTQ comrades needed to live in fear because of how their sexuality or identity deemed them to be lesser.
To those who would say that gender politics has no place in Marxist theory; the Bolsheviks decriminalised homosexuality in 1922, one of the first countries in the world to do so. In 2022, the Cuban state adopted some of the most progressive laws concerning the family in the entire world. In the Philippines, where Marxist revolutionaries are fighting against the fascist US semi-colony, the revolutionaries conduct marriage ceremonies for queer individuals and the Communist Party of Ireland fights for the liberation of all those oppressed under capitalism, for a free and socialist world where a person will not be judge for the clothes they wear, who they love but for the drive, vision and commitment they have to building a workers world where we can all be free, where we can all be truly human.
