Chelsea Manning: SCOTUS’ Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Doesn’t Rule Out Need for LGBT Movement

In an essay published in The Guardian after the U.S. Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision, Chelsea Manning traced the arc of progress on the issue of LGBT rights, starting from the moment California’s controversial Proposition 8 (a statewide ballot proposition eliminating the right of same-sex couples to wed) was passed in 2008 to Friday’s stunning SCOTUS victory.

However, the point of Manning’s piece was not to celebrate the milestone and call it a day. Far from it. Here’s what her piece was about (via The Guardian):

But I worry that, with full marriage equality, much of the queer community will be left wondering how else to engage with a society that still wants to define who we are – and who in our community will be left to push for full equality for all transgender and queer people, now that this one fight has been won. I fear that our precious movements for social justice and all the remarkable advancements we have made are now vulnerable to being taken over by monied people and institutions, and that those of us for whom same-sex marriage rights brings no equality will be slowly erased from our movement and our history.

[…] despite our successes and our participation in the struggle for LGBT equality, there are still queer and trans folks who struggle every single day for the right to define themselves, to access gender-appropriate healthcare and to live without harassment by other people, the police or the government. Many queer and trans people live – and lived – in our prison and jails, in our homeless shelters, in run-down houses and apartment buildings, and on the corners of every major city. Marriage equality doesn’t help them; and the potential loss of momentum for trans/queer rights after this win could well hurt them.

In short, Manning concluded: “We need to send a powerful message to the world in a unified voice: that we can fight for social justice for everyone, everywhere and change the world, not just get married.”

–Posted by Kasia Anderson