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Scoop
2 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
How Inclusionary Social Movements Succeed
Social movements are powerful engines for change, and they coalesce around a vast range of issues, causes, and communities. But they fall into two basic categories: inclusionary and exclusionary. Inclusionary social movements attempt to 'widen the 'we.'' That means they work to expand the circle of power, securing the allegiance of a widening galaxy of groups by appealing to their material needs and desire for participation and empowering them to make decisions, thus building a caring society and driving democracy forward. The examples are legion, especially in the U.S. postwar decades: the labor movement, civil rights, women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), and the anti-nuclear and environmental movements. Exclusionary social movements attempt to concentrate power and privilege in a narrow but fiercely loyal category of people. They do so by embracing—in the most negative form—the three perennial drivers of individual and social development: the impulse to bond, the scarcity mind, and historical and trans-historical trauma. The Ku Klux Klan and other racist movements of the first half of the 20th century are examples of social movements driven by the scarcity mind, as are the Tea Party and today's Christian nationalism, QAnon, and MAGA. The driving force behind inclusionary and exclusionary social movements is a desire to control the center of power. We define the center as not just the government and the commercial sector, but the common sense that people carry with them: how they view the world and human society, and what they believe is their responsibility toward them. The degree of influence they exercise over the center—their ability to govern—is also the degree to which a social movement can realize its vision for the whole society. Given their desire for control, movements inevitably clash, and in the process, attempt to expand their base by building off their adherents' antagonism. The New Deal/Great Society administrations exploited the hunger for change provoked by the Great Depression to build a coalition that eventually spanned farmers, industrial workers, and underserved racial and ethnic groups and brought about enormous social advances. The conservative 1971 Powell Memorandum was, in effect, a blueprint for building popular opposition to the New Deal/Great Society consensus. The waves of right-wing populism that followed moved the Republican Party toward nativism and xenophobic nostalgia while targeting the inclusionary impulse as un-American. Is There Hope for a New, Inclusionary Social Movement? Inclusionary and exclusionary impulses occupy two poles on a spectrum of social and political consciousness: the former, as historian Linda Gordon writes, driven by disappointments, the latter by grievances. With a malignant, grievance-fueled, exclusionist social movement in the political ascendancy today, this may seem to be a less-than-ideal time to launch (or relaunch) a movement founded on inclusivity. Any effort to do so must confront toxic elements, including: - Rejection of empathy for poor, marginal, and traditionally disempowered groups; - Alienation from a wider collective social identity not centered on grievance; - A punishing brand of religiosity; - Loss of faith in government as a tool for implementing broadly inclusionary social programs; and - A culture of debt and austerity that reinforces the scarcity mind. There are reasons to believe, however, that a new inclusionary movement is not only possible but also practical. While political polarization and an appeal to nativism and culturally narrow nostalgia have enabled exclusionary movements to gain and consolidate power over the past five decades, they only paper over an increasingly widespread understanding that people's material needs are being ignored. This manifests itself as: - Immiseration: an eroding standard of living for working-class Americans; - Vast economic inequality and barriers to upward mobility, affecting even the upper-middle-class; - Relentless austerity, creating a sense that the economic and social problems the government traditionally has addressed are insoluble; - The undermining of basic services—Medicaid, Disability Insurance, and public infrastructure—that an increasingly broad range of people have come to rely on materially and morally; and - Alienation generated by the right's relentless efforts to keep its base loyal by scapegoating racial and religious minorities and the LGBTQ+ community. Addressing these disappointments is impossible without the widest possible social consensus. That being the case, they constitute an invitation to propose changes that bring society back together, even when the dominant movement is authoritarian and exclusionary. There are deeper resources as well that an inclusionary movement can draw upon: - A reservoir of goodwill and legitimacy that popular government enjoys even in the worst of times. - The historical achievements that confirm social policy driven by inclusionary social movements can improve the lives of the majority. - The plasticity of the human mind. Our minds are more flexible, capable of more transformation and growth than we think, and human interaction is often the leverage that enables us to change our minds. - The persistence of variety. While the range of political and economic structures on offer has lately appeared to narrow, this has not been the case for most of human history. Even today's mainstream political parties—in the U.S., Republicans and Democrats—were founded in opposition to the existing political establishment or in a conscious effort to address issues and conditions it was ignoring. There is no reason to believe our choices or our inventiveness are more limited now. This places the inclusionary impulse in the mainstream of our expression as a human culture: something that an exclusionary movement can only occupy partially and temporarily. The Challenge of the Third Force Exclusionary social movements have been the fuel that drives every reactionary turn from the end of affirmative action to anti-immigrant backlash to the defunding of government at all levels. But any fuel requires a match to ignite it. The match in this case is the Third Force. The Third Force consists of society's elites: propertied individuals and families who accumulate most of the national wealth, control access to it, and pass it on as inheritance, and the institutions that defend and promote their interests. It occupies the deepest seats of power and manipulates the state and the public to its ends. Its objective is to minimize its required contribution to the common good and maintain the governing power's devotion to the state-capitalist system. The Third Force is not a social movement, however, but a power vector. It achieves its ends by two routes: - Exploiting the three drivers: By leveraging the impulse to bond, the scarcity mind, and historical and trans-historical trauma, the Third Force nurtures the growth of exclusionary movements that feed off these forces financially, and encourages them to direct their resentments against marginal groups that benefit, however inadequately, from government social programs. - Capturing social movements: The Third Force tends to promote exclusionary movements, with which it has the most natural ideological affinity. But it can also capture inclusionary movements when reliance on elite knowledge and resources creates distance between movement leadership and goals. At the global level, the Third Force has succeeded over the past century in promoting a succession of economic regimes that augment its ability to accumulate wealth: the gold standard, the postwar Bretton Woods monetary management system, the dollar-based system of floating rates that followed, and the neoliberal regime of fiscal austerity that has now prevailed for decades. At the national level, the Third Force fights to deepen its influence over the electoral process and the media: for example, the elite class bankrolled the lawsuit leading to the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision that enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited money on elections. The end result of the Third Force's constant application of pressure is to turn society and its economy into what social scientist Peter Turchin has called a 'wealth pump' that enriches elites at the expense of everyone else. Self-Inflicted Wounds: How Inclusionary Social Movements Undermine Themselves The Third Force, especially in tandem with an exclusionary social movement, poses a formidable barrier to any inclusionary movement seeking power. At the same time, weaknesses in inclusionary movements can make them vulnerable to manipulation and undermine solidarity. Letting the Third Force in: Once an inclusionary movement has matured and is recognized as a viable political opposition, it finds itself competing for society's political and cultural center. To do so, it requires greater resources to continue growing and carry on the struggle on a larger scale. This makes it a magnet for the Third Force, which will seek to influence the movement's leadership by exploiting its need for money in exchange for diluting its commitment to the practical needs of its base. Political power becomes an end in itself, as the leadership becomes alienated from its base and comes to rely on coercive measures to maintain its position. This, in turn, allows malignant elements to assert themselves. Failing to understand the big ask: Every social movement passes through three phases: grassroots movement, campaign, and government. Face-to-face meetings in private homes and community spaces—the proverbial 'kitchen table'—are where new, more inclusive communities and social visions begin to coalesce and build goodwill, where, in the words of philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, they can 'make what is being lost and invisible a reality of thought.' At some point, the movement will pose a 'big ask': an undertaking that is critical to one or more segments of its coalition but is especially difficult for other groups to endorse. This could be helping another ethnic or religious group obtain rights they were previously conditioned to think belonged to their members alone, or agreeing to treat that group's members as their equals in the job market. In either case, the movement and its leadership must listen carefully to other groups' concerns and be prepared to answer the question, 'What's in it for us?' Understanding and responding effectively to the big ask is essential to keeping an inclusionary movement together as it widens. Failing to address the needs and desires of all groups in the coalition conveys to the public that they are not being heard and that the leadership is not representing them strongly and sincerely. This becomes all the more likely when the leadership comes under the influence of the Third Force. Failing to celebrate the inclusive movement's achievements: These achievements, while never unchallenged by the Third Force and exclusionary movements, embed themselves in the culture and become part of its way of life. When the leadership no longer sees celebrating its role in building a freer, more inclusive society as compatible with its desire to retain power, it loses touch with the process around which the inclusive movement initially coalesced. Over time, the movement's rank and file forget that the goals around which they solidified—the right to vote, security in old age, the right to organize, and freedom from racial and gender discrimination—were not the work of the government but their own, attained as a social movement. 'The fact that these achievements are under attack,' Linda Gordon argues in her 2025 book, Seven Social Movements That Changed America, 'should not keep us from celebrating what was accomplished—and understanding that these gains were produced by a social movement.' Celebrating these accomplishments does not mean glossing over failures. Rather, the movement must continually explore how it can build on the lessons from its past successes to create a civic solidarity that doesn't rely on the allocation of blame. Failing to value local knowledge: As we noted earlier, inclusionary social movements are built at the kitchen table and around kitchen table issues, as perceived by the public who experience them and who, most often, best understand how to address them. Mobilizing public support is done most effectively when it is informed by this local knowledge. Often, however, as the movement grows and becomes more professional organizationally, the leadership comes to disdain local knowledge in favor of elite opinion. The perceived distance widens between the leadership and the movement's base, who come to feel that their experience and their contribution are being shunted aside. Once in government, the leadership may experiment with giving local bodies more direct control of services that address community needs and the opportunity to apply local knowledge to meet those needs. This results in a more democratic decision-making process, more equal power relationships, and better feedback about the government's work. Unfortunately, these initiatives seldom receive the time, attention, or funding needed to chalk up successes and build a constituency. This was the case with the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), which was established in 1964 and ran many of the Great Society programs under Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency. Subsequent Republican administrations were able to dismantle the OEO without much opposition from the groups it served. The effect of this cycle is to alienate the base and brand the movement as a vehicle for the technocratic elite. Failing to universalize promises: When progress for one segment of the movement is seen as mitigating progress for another group, exclusionary elements are encouraged, and cultural differences can overwhelm the universal messages that keep the movement together. Insisting on the rights of women, people of color, immigrants, gender nonconforming individuals, and other marginalized groups to equal participation and representation in the movement and its campaigns is essential to fulfilling the movement's promise to these groups. The challenge is to balance this demand for the rights of the marginalized with an understanding of the adverse threads of experience that have converged for white Americans, from concrete issues like economic precarity and loss of workers' clout in the jobs market to a perceived loss of status as both members of a dominant group and citizens of a dominant global power. Balancing the concerns and demands of all sides of the movement is especially difficult in an austerity environment in which allocation of resources is framed as a zero-sum proposition. Previously marginalized groups—such as working-class whites—who gained a measure of social and economic advancement, in part by pressing their demands as members of a specific ethnic group and as part of a larger working class, forget that they themselves have benefited the most from government programs and initiatives aimed at promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. They can be manipulated into a state of social entrapment as the impact of that prior success becomes embedded in their expectations, and they blame the government for their current downward mobility, rather than the economic order and the impact of policies benefiting the Third Force. These groups can then be maneuvered into a scarcity mindset and fail to see that other groups—for example, Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans—are making the same demands they once did, simply because, as working-class people, they share the same vulnerabilities. In the face of these tensions, fostering a moral logic of just distribution becomes increasingly difficult. Refocusing on the common material needs that sparked the inclusionary movement to begin with is critical to reviving a universal message. One element of this is to emphasize forgiveness and restitution, encouraging working-class whites to view racial and gender differences as part of human experience and expression and embrace them as embracing themselves. Failing to consider the continuing impact of malignant bonding, the scarcity mind, and trans-historical trauma: These drivers are latent in inclusionary as well as exclusionary movements; ignoring them can erode the leadership's affinity with portions of the public, causing the movement to lose momentum even when it is winning significant victories. Guarding against this should be a conscious part of any inclusionary movement's organizing and outreach strategy; otherwise, the three drivers can open a channel for an exclusionary movement or movements to regain momentum. Examples include the purging of radical leaders in the labor movement during the McCarthy era and, most recently, efforts by corporations and major universities to accommodate the political programs of the party in power. Such actions, seemingly politically expedient, erode the movement's base and rob it of momentum. However, the three drivers can be resisted and reversed, inspiring a new inclusionary movement. For example, by focusing the movement's message on actual conditions of scarcity rather than searching for a marginal group to blame. Doing so is challenging but not impossible. Earlier, we noted the plasticity of the human mind and the persistence of variety in our political and economic structures. And in our first article, we noted Benjamin Libet's demonstration of the 'free won't' (as opposed to free will): humans' capability to veto predictions generated deep in the brain. Failing to respect the boundaries of the holding environment: The term 'holding environment' was originally used in psychological literature to describe the conditions making for a healthy childhood. We borrow it here to delineate a social and political context in which the people feel emotionally understood, their disappointments and grievances recognized and taken seriously, and they are actively involved in a common quest to actualize a universal set of values reflected in a shared common sense. Also referred to as the caregiving sector, the holding environment is a constant in social life, existing at all times, whether the center is dominated by exclusionary or inclusionary movements. But it typically does not call attention to itself as a distinct force in society. As such, it forms the necessary basis—the legitimation—for any social movement that seeks to develop an inclusive response to the three drivers of individual and social development. It does so by generating a reserve capacity: a store of trust and assurance, otherwise known as goodwill, which a social movement can draw upon when its goals are in sync with the holding environment's social function. On a practical level, the holding environment consists of delivery systems and volunteer networks reflecting people's impulse to engage in mutual aid. These have ranged historically from labor unions to volunteer organizations, like AmeriCorps VISTA, Habitat for Humanity, and Points of Light, to local food banks, coalitions for the homeless, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, volunteer fire departments, and social services affiliated with religious institutions. Less formal community initiatives like Food Not Bombs and grassroots disaster relief efforts that arise in response to catastrophes, like Hurricane Katrina and the fires that struck Los Angeles County in January 2025, flow from the same impulse and address similar needs. While social movements are inherently political, the holding environment operates in a non-political, 'civic' dimension. Critical to any inclusionary social movement's success, however, is its ability to establish an unformulated solidarity with the holding environment, which enables it to draw on the latter's reserve capacity. This ability derives from its adherence to moral and ethical imperatives that are inherent in the holding environment. Foremost among these is the shared mission of ameliorating the conditions of the neediest. Frequently, these also include: - Ensuring that everyone has access to vital services (for example, education, housing, health care, and public safety); - Ensuring that all members are cared for in the event of a natural or artificial disaster; and - Ensuring that everyone feels that someone will listen and respond if they have a grievance or pressing need. Together, adherence to these imperatives ensures that everyone feels they partake of a basic goodwill expressed through the community and have the opportunity to better their position. Both exclusionary and inclusionary social movements attempt to form an affinity with the holding environment: the former by promoting charitable organizations (for example, Points of Light) as the most appropriate to address the needs of those considered worthy, without involving the government, the latter by advocating a universalist approach, leaving no one behind, often with the aid of the government (for example, Social Security, Medicare). This unformulated solidarity has the most to offer to the success of inclusionary movements because the holding environment's grounding in the impulse to engage in mutual aid bolsters the movement's goal of building a caring society around a wider 'we.' But in either case, an unformulated solidarity should remain just that, respecting the independence of the holding environment; a social movement that attempts to turn this affinity into a stronger and more formal organizational tie risks losing access to the holding environment's reserve capacity. Conclusion: Nurturing Inclusivity in Dark Times Inclusionary and exclusionary social movements inevitably clash. Every movement, no matter how successful, will at some point meet resistance and experience at least partial reversal. Its goal, then, must be to sustain its period of ascendancy long enough to achieve its principal goals and to embed these so deeply in the social structure that they are irreversible. Even in periods when an exclusionary movement dominates, the seeds of a new, inclusionary movement are always sprouting, nurtured by the achievements of the last period of inclusionary dominance. To stay in command of the center long enough to achieve its goals, it needs to maintain a high level of public support. It can only do so if it pays attention to and draws on local knowledge, actively resists co-optation by the Third Force, and takes care not to fall victim to the self-inflicted wounds we detailed above. If it can avoid these pitfalls, an inclusionary movement, once it acquires a share of power or forms a government, has the opportunity not just to reform the system but to remake and redirect it, bringing about profound social and cultural change. This is, in part, because addressing people's practical needs, making them feel that they are listened to and represented, instills in them a greater acceptance of cultural diversity. Not only can the movement then become more inclusive, but so can society. By Colin Greer and Eric Laursen Colin Greer is the president of the New World Foundation. He was formerly a CUNY professor, a founding editor of Social Policy magazine, a contributing editor at Parade magazine for almost 20 years, and the author and coauthor of several books on public policy. He is the author of three books of poetry, including Defeat/No Surrender (2023). Eric Laursen is an independent journalist, historian, and activist. He is the author of The People's Pension, The Duty to Stand Aside, The Operating System, and Polymath. His work has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including In These Times, the Nation, and the Arkansas Review.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Meet 14 LGBTQ Rights Activists Who Have Transformed Society and Inspired Generations
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." LGBTQ activists have long been at the forefront of creating change. Over the years, these trailblazers have helped moved the needle on gay and transgender rights, whether they were on the front lines of the Stonewall Riots, writing about their identities, raising awareness about the HIV/AIDS crisis, or using their platforms to speak out against anti-LGBTQ laws. From early pioneers in the gay liberation movement to modern activists, groundbreaking advocates like Marsha P. Johnson, Edith Windsor, and Jim Obergefell dedicated their lives to the never-ending pursuit of equality. In celebration of Pride Month in June, here are some of the most prominent LGBTQ activists in the United States, both past and present.1932–2007 Considered the 'Mother of the Gay Rights Movement,' Barbara Gittings founded the country's first lesbian rights organization, the Daughters of Bilitis, in 1958 and was an editor at The Ladder, the first nationally distributed lesbian magazine. She later became involved in the American Library Association's first gay caucus and helped start the National Gay Task Force in 1973, now known as the National LGBTQ Task Force. She died at age 74 in 2007.1942–1992 Drag queen and transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson was a central figure in the 1969 Stonewall Uprising and cofounded the group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) to help homeless LGBTQ youth. She later joined the HIV/AIDS activist organization Aids Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in the 1980s. Johnson continued her activism work until her untimely death in 1992. She was 46 years old. Read Her Biography1951–2002 Sylvia Rivera was a drag queen and trans activist who played a prominent role in the gay liberation movement. She is best known for her participation in the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, but her legacy extends beyond that event. After Stonewall, Rivera joined the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance and teamed up with Marsha P. Johnson to c0-found STAR. She later joined ACT UP during the HIV/AIDS crisis and continued her activism until her death in 2002 at the age of 50. Read Her Biography1930–1978 Harvey Milk was one of the first openly gay elected officials in U.S. history. Milk became an outspoken force in politics when he first ran for San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in 1973. After losing two elections, he finally won a seat in 1977 and was inaugurated in January 1978. He served on the board for just 11 months before he was assassinated. Read His Biography1934–1992 Poet and writer Audre Lorde was a civil rights, gay liberation, and women's liberation activist who emphasized the importance of embracing intersectional identities. In 1979, she gave a powerful speech at the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, in which she highlighted the need to address racism, sexism, and classism within the LGBTQ movement. Lorde died at age 58 in 1992. Read Her Biography1943–present Trailblazing tennis star Billie Jean King, 81, was the first prominent female athlete to come out as a lesbian. After being outed in 1981, she told the world the truth about her sexual orientation and subsequently lost her endorsements. Since retiring from tennis in 1983, King has continued her work as an influential social activist, advocating for more opportunities for women and LGBTQ people in sports and beyond. She currently serves on the Elton John AIDS Foundation's board of trustees and continues to support and fund efforts to combat homophobia and reduce LGBTQ suicide rates. Read Her Biography1935–2020 Larry Kramer was a writer and outspoken activist who drew attention to the HIV/AIDS crisis that disproportionately killed gay men and trans women. He cofounded the Gay Men's Health Crisis in 1982 to support and advocate for men with AIDS and later wrote the semi-autobiographical play The Normal Heart about the rise of the AIDS epidemic. In 1987, he helped organize the radical AIDS activist group ACT UP, which successfully pushed the FDA to speed up its drug approval process for faster access to life-saving treatments for the disease. He was 84 at the time of his death in 2020. Read His Biography1912–1987 In addition to being a key player in the Civil Rights Movement, Bayard Rustin got involved in the fight for LGBTQ rights later in his life. Shortly after meeting his partner Walter Neagle, Rustin embraced the gay liberation movement in the 1980s and became an early advocate for HIV/AIDS awareness and education. In 1986, he famously testified on behalf of New York's Gay Rights Bill, asserting that 'gay people are the new barometer for social change.' He died a year later at 75 years old. Read His BiographyTK[[–2017 Best known for her landmark U.S. Supreme Court victory, Edith Windsor made history as a leading figure in the fight for marriage equality. She was the lead plaintiff in , which Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 2013. The legal victory paved the way for federal recognition of same-sex marriages. After decades of advocacy, she died in 2017 at the age of 88. Getty Images1966–present Activist Jim Obergefell, 58, will go down in history for his role in the fight for marriage equality. He was the named plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case , which granted same-sex couples the fundamental right to marry in 2015. Since the decision, Obergefell has continued his activism and even briefly pursued a political career. He regularly gives speeches about LGBTQ rights at events and colleges and is a board member of the nonprofit Family Equality. Getty Images1937–present Known for his role as Sulu in , actor George Takei is also a vocal advocate for and LGBTQ rights. Since coming out as gay in 2005, he has used his celebrity to promote LGBTQ rights and speak out against discriminatory policies. The 88-year-old has received numerous accolades for his activism, including the Human Rights Campaign's Upstander Award in 2015 and the Legal Defense Fund's National Equal Justice Award in Images1972–present Actor and filmmaker Laverne Cox made history as the first openly trans person to be appear on the cover of magazine in 2014 and subsequently became the first trans woman to win an Emmy Award the following year. Throughout her career, the 53-year-old has worked to uplift the LGBTQ community and advocate for trans rights through her documentaries and and has partnered with organizations like GLAAD and The Los Angeles LGBT Images1987–present In addition to his screen work in shows like , actor Elliot Page is a staunch advocate for LGBTQ rights. The 38-year-old Oscar nominee came out as trans and nonbinary in 2020 and has used his platform to become an outspoken critic of discriminatory policies targeting the trans community. Page also at the U.S. Capitol in Images1985–present Kelley Robinson, 40, is the president of the LGBTQ rights organization the Human Rights Campaign. She has used her position to advocate for the successful passage of the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022, mobilize LGBTQ voters in the 2024 presidential election, and push back against discriminatory legislation in states across the United States. Getty Images You Might Also Like Nicole Richie's Surprising Adoption Story The Story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Her Mother Queen Camilla's Life in Photos
Washington Post
22-05-2025
- General
- Washington Post
Is this your first Pride or your 50th? Tell us your Pride story.
As WorldPride, one of the largest international LGBTQ+ events, descends on the nation's capital this year, I'll be covering the people and the issues at its core. I'm Marissa Lang, and I'm an enterprise reporter for The Post. I write about D.C. and the surrounding region, and I want to hear your reflections on Pride, what it means and what it has meant to you over the years. We're looking to talk to folks from all walks of life — those going to their first Pride events this year and those who have been longtime participants. If you were there for ACT UP die-ins of the 1990s, or marriage equality kiss-ins in the early 2000s or the 1975 march that marked the very first Pride in the District, we want to hear your story. To get in touch, please use the form below. I won't publish or share anything you write without following up with you first, so please include your contact information. Thank you for contributing, and happy Pride. By submitting, you agree to our submission and discussion guidelines, including our terms of service and privacy policy.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Visions of Solidarity: Lesbian writers on how we save the world from fascism
Both Sarah Schulman and the late Urvashi Vaid were born in 1958 — Schulman a fiery Leo to Vaid's more balanced Libra, or so the stars say. Both are renowned for their tenacious activism, bold thought leadership, and unyielding dedication to the lesbian and queer communities. Longtime friends and comrades in ACT UP, their professional and personal lives intersected in ways that demonstrated how the personal is truly political — further proof of the famously undeniable bond between Leos and Libras. While working in different sectors (Schulman in the arts and academia and Vaid in philanthropy and nonprofits), both have careers defined by a commitment to justice, with political sensibilities informed by the Civil Rights and feminist movements. And, as a lesbian who has witnessed too many lesbians dying far too young, it is impossible not to observe how both have undergone illness — Vaid's fatal — that has permeated and given urgency to their work. Keep up with the latest in + news and politics. This month, both have new books on the idea du jour: solidarity. From recent publications like Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor's 2024 tome on solidarity to the Hands Off! mobilization against the corrupt takeover of the US government that resulted in more than 1,200 protests nationwide earlier this month — Solidarity is in the air and in the streets. The Dream of a Common Movement: Selected Writings of Urvashi Vaid is a collection of Vaid's essays, interviews, letters, and speeches edited by her older sister Jyotsna Vaid and her ex-lover and friend Amy Hoffman. The coeditors emphasize that the purpose of the collection is to present 'Urvashi's vision for achieving the dream of a common movement from a queer lens.' Adopting the language from Adrienne Rich, Vaid threaded this 'dream' throughout her writings and activism. 'We see our work instead as building common ground — or cultivating soil,' she wrote in Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumption of LGBT Politics. 'We see ourselves as part of an earth in which race, gender, sexuality, all of our identities are churned up in a rich and fertile soil. And what we are trying to do is to create new institutions, new policies, new ways of imagining, creating a world out of this common soil of our identities and our experiences.' The 'common ground' of the 'common movement' is solidarity — the social force that bonds people, or what Hendrix and Taylor refer to as 'the visceral feeling of connection and mutuality.' Critically, while the politics of identity constitute one type of bond, it fundamentally limits the expanse and therefore power of the common movement for social transformation. Vaid's critique of identity politics is a prominent motif of the collection. 'I think one of the failures of our identity-based movements is that we let go of the project of developing common politics. We focused more on the identity and less on the politics,' she said in a 1998 interview. 'There's a feminist critic who has said that identity politics was a kind of necessary mistake. It's a formulation I appreciate. It was essential for us to deepen our understanding of our racial identities and various cultures. But for progressive people, it's a mistake to stop there.' Yet Vaid understood the significance of identity politics in terms of social inclusion (representation and visibility) and policy, since the United States historically has adjudicated rights on the basis of identity. She earnestly grappled with — yes — the fantasy and necessity of identity a year later in a keynote address at the East Coast Asian Students Union Conference at Brown University: Inside, I am a hybrid of several cultures and multiple identities — Indian, immigrant, queer, feminist, progressive, Asian, American. Outside, I face the challenge of articulating this hybridity as a politics that could make a cohesive movement for racial justice, economic democracy, the abolition of gender roles, and the liberation of human sexuality and family. We need to create this new common social change movement which allows us both the mooring and the freedom to work on the racial, gender, immigrant, economic, queer, and other human issues we face. My search for a new synthesis of identity with politics is rooted in the faith that we can find or will found this common social change movement. … Identity-based organizing is indeed vital and urgent — no matter if we are first generation or fifth. And making visible and included the different sexualities within Asian American communities is very important to those of us who are queer. … Does identity politics work? The answer is, it depends on your goal in using it. For what does it work and for what does it fail? I think it works to create self-esteem, empowerment, and visibility in the American political system, community building, and organizing. But it fails as a vehicle to revamp the social service system in this country. Ideology-based movements are more valuable than identity-based ones. Even though the collection unfolds thematically rather than chronologically, Vaid's writings demonstrate a deepening nuance of and passion for social and racial justice in building a common movement over time. She was never reluctant to call out the gay rights movement, or the LGBT community in general, for its racism: 'Neither the grassroots (race-inclusive) nor mainstream (liberal) parts of the LGBT movements have yet meaningfully tackled structural racism and racial privilege,' she said in her 2010 Kessler Lecture, titled 'What Can Brown Do For You?' As her career evolved and she took on executive roles in foundations and nonprofits, readers can feel her frustration with the racism, complicity, and capitalist, homonormative desires of the gay rights movement. It is this sensibility that fueled her critique of the movement's equality agenda in her brilliant 1995 book, Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay & Lesbian Liberation. In this book, she argued that 'if the LGBT movement ignored the broader dynamics of racism, economic exploitation, gender inequity, and cultural freedom, it would achieve only a partial, conditional, simulacrum of equal rights, a situation that I called virtual equality. Some parts of the LGBT community would enjoy legal rights and formal equality, but the institutions that repress, denigrate, and immobilize sexual, and gender minorities would not be transformed.' The editors of Dream had the impossible task of reducing the expanse and depth of Vaid's work into one collection. 'Engage with the life and work of Urvashi Vaid,' playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner implores in the book's forward, 'and you'll feel less lost, and braver and smarter about where to go, how to live, how to build resistance, how to move and how to build movements.' For this reader, the visit with Vaid was all too brief, a flirtation that had me longing for more. Perhaps that was the point, because as soon as I finished reading Dream I grabbed the 400+ page Virtual Equality from off my bookshelves. For the dream of a common movement to become reality, we must articulate and overcome the many fantasies that undergird notions of solidarity. A tactician of activism with the unflinching precision of a novelist, Sarah Schulman draws upon her decades of experience from the European Abortion Underground Railroad to ACT UP, to the BDS movement to show readers that solidarity work is hard work, and it is often dirty work. But in detailing the messy humanity inherent in this work, her intention is 'to make solidarity doable.' The most pervasive and impactful fantasy of solidarity is that it is a relation and collaboration of equals. It is this misconception against which Schulman situates her own understanding. 'Since solidarity is a relationship rooted in inequality, it is by definition fraught,' she contends. The fantasy of solidarity in equality coincides with other fantasies based in absolutes or purity. 'Part of the fantasy of being in solidarity is a magical combination of pure motive, clean action, and predictably victorious outcome. Part of the fantasy is that we will do everything right and give up nothing, and the afflicted will love us, as we will love each other and ourselves,' she explains. 'The delusion is that we are so entitled, we only have to intercede and the desired change will occur.' For Schulman, solidarity requires 'the collaboration and fellowship' of people at all levels of power. Solidarity is a continuous, relational practice that 'always requires awareness, self-criticism, consciousness, the decision to act, and the need to create strategy, to build alliances, and to listen. It always requires taking chances, making mistakes, and trying again.' In Fantasy and Necessity, she enumerates three responsibilities that carry forward the notable ideas of her earlier work, from Ties that Bind through to Let the Record Show: 'to intervene,' evocative of her ideas on 'third-party intervention' and refusing to be a bystander, impassive in the face of violence; 'to listen and also to hear,' meaning a kind of active listening whereby one takes initiative to problem solve rather than make demands ('What can I do?)' of the oppressed; and 'to be effective,' largely, by tapping into creativity and 'negotiating with flexibility.' In many ways, Schulman's definition of solidarity aligns with Hendrix and Taylor's concept of 'transformative solidarity': 'We understand solidarity as the recognition of our inherent interconnectedness, an attempt to build bonds of commonality across our differences. It is an ethos and spur to action rooted in the acknowledgement that our lives are intertwined. Intertwined, however, does not mean indistinguishable — solidarity depends on difference, on recognizing that we are not all exactly alike but that we can still come together and take collective action.' The emphasis on interconnectedness and difference also resonates with Vaid's conception of solidarity implied in her writings. What distinguishes Schulman's definition — and her oeuvre in general — is her fearlessness in tackling problems and calling out logical inconsistencies and injustices directly. Her refusal, in short, to abide a purity politics often demanded on the Left and especially in queer circles — what she refers to as 'the problem of criteria' that thwarts the longevity of so many solidarity efforts. For example, she recounts of the life of novelist Jean Genet, whose pro-Palestine politics was partly rooted in his fetishization of Arab men and his cross-identification with the oppressed, as an example of 'conflicted solidarity': a solidarity 'still welcome, impactful, and necessary, even when its powers are dirty and dependent on historical supremacy, and even when they are rooted in erotic desire and fantasy, both colonial and erotic.' Of the mélange of case studies of solidarity both successful and not, perhaps the most poignant is that of the 'failed solidarity' that prompted a public discussion between Schulman and trans writer and historian Morgan M. Page concerning the backlash Schulman received from her political eulogy for her close friend, the trans writer Bryn Kelly. The final chapter of Fantasy and Necessity's reproduces the transcript from this event, in which Schulman and Page explained the processes by which they drafted and collaborated on their eulogies with each other and Kelly's closest kin, before reading their eulogies to the audience. When the floor opens for Q&A, it is as if all the insights that Schulman has articulated about solidarity throughout the book come to life. There is an emotional shift in the room — palpable on the page — that emerges from this space, which has been carefully cultivated by Schulman and Page, to allow for self-expression, listening, mutual understanding, and, ultimately, repair of a community that had begun the evening angry about the unadulterated contents of Schulman's political eulogy. There are several similarities between Vaid's and Schulman's works. On the theme of solidarity, while the word itself does not recur in Dream, the spirit is apparent in her commitment to building a common movement. It is a solidarity evident in the career she built working within both institutions and the grassroots liberation movement, as well as in her practice and belief that the movement must be anti-racist and anti-transphobic because transformative social justice can only be achieved through an intersectional, or common, movement. Creativity as a vital resource for innovation is also a point of connection between Schulman's and Vaid's works. For Schulman, solidarity is a 'creative endeavor' because 'using the imagination' enables people to overcome obstacles and figure out a path forward. In an acceptance speech she delivered just two months before her passing in May 2022, Vaid remarked that creativity is the tool we need to fight increasing threats against our freedom and safety: The LGBTQ movement is not just in a fight for a federal equality act. It's in a fight for the survival of freedom and pluralism. We are facing an existential threat. Our response must be strong, militant, and much more aggressive than it's been so tools do we have at our disposal? Creativity! It's creativity that enabled us to build self-esteem, to build power and our own institutions, despite rejection and hatred and fear. We have the tools of the vote, which they're doing their best to eliminate, but which we must deploy in the next election to vote every one of these monsters out of power. While we failed to vote the monsters out of power in the 2024 elections, we can incorporate the lessons from Schulman's and Vaid's books into our daily lives and into our larger solidarity efforts: The fight for freedom and justice never ends; solidarity is a practice. Solidarity work is messy and complicated because humans are messy and complicated — and because no two people are the same, or treated equally, in our society. Capitalism interferes with and impedes solidarity work, but capital accelerates it. Purity politics is the death knell of solidarity. The bystander's indifference, or refusal to act in any capacity, is a form of complicity with oppressive structures and cultures. Rather, we must be citizens — we must understand that our lives, and our freedoms, are interconnected and therefore mutually cocreated. Solidarity thrives in direct action, in the plurality of strategy and tactic, not consensus. Organization > mobilization: While both afford different strategic and tactical benefits, the material existence of infrastructure establishes a necessary stability and permanence to any solidary effort. Action precedes theory: Theory emerges from action, but both are required for a common movement to acquire the flexibility necessary for the movement to thrive long term. Creativity is the wellspring of effective solidarity efforts. Identity is a touchstone for, but not the foundation of, a movement to effect social transformation. Considering that conservatives are weaponizing identity politics and the language of equality (from 'fairness' to 'colorblindness') to attack and overturn our rights and freedoms, what both Schulman and Vaid are asking of us is to use our creativity to think, imagine, and act beyond the politics of identity to create a solidarity movement that strives for freedom and justice for all. This is the challenge ahead of us, since the gay rights movement has relied on identity/equality politics to achieve equal rights, which have failed to effect the society-wide transformation we need for our collective freedom, dignity, and care. However, with Schulman's and Vaid's new contributions, we have the blueprint to reinvent the movement to meet this perilous moment head-on. Marcie Bianco, PhD, is a writer, editor, and cultural critic. She is the author of Breaking Free: The Lie of Equality and the Feminist Fight for Freedom. Voices is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit to learn more about submission guidelines. Views expressed in Voices stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, equalpride.
