Fight discrimination

leaflet produced by North and East London Solidarity Federation (2000)

The debate around repeal of Section 28 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1988 has focussed on schools. It has addressed homopho­bic bullying, discrimination against children without conventionally mar­ried parents and sex education policies. This is all very well, but Section 28 does not actually apply to schools because they are no longer controlled by Local Authorities, which is what the Act applies to.

The legal aspects of Section 28 are a red herring, its effects are more ideological. Instead of just campaigning for its repeal, we need to understand its real impact, and what can be done about it. Its effects can and should be fought now.

"Section 28" actually forms an amendment to Section 2 of the Local Government Act 1986. Section 2A, paragraph (1) of that Act states that: A local authority shall not -
(a) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality;
(b) promote the teaching in any maintained school of acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.

Other legislation like the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964, however, places a statutory obligation on Local Authorities "to provide a comprehensive and efficient service for all who wish to use it". More­over, Department of the Environment Circular 12/88, issued on 20th May 1988, states that: "Local authorities will not be prevented by this section from offering the full range of services to homosexuals on the same basis as to all their inhabitants. "

Section 28 doesn't legally restrict the provision of public services, it just bans the mythical "promotion of homosexuality". It has still done serious damage, however. It has created an atmosphere in which discrimination can flourish, and where there is little or no discussion of the provision and development of services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgen­dered people. It has reduced these services from being the responsibil­ity of all workers to the second class status of "personal interest".

Chiefly, this means lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered workers have taken on responsibilities by default. The responsibility for selecting library materials aimed at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people, for example. It also means anyone who takes these services
seriously is assumed to be "gay", leaving them open to snigger­ing speculation if they are straight, or not open about their sexuality. It has isolated these people; and they are assumed to be working in their own interests, not simply doing their job. The repeal of Section 28 alone will not change this.

Everyone needs to be involved in the provision and development of services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people. The standard approach of the trades unions to this would be to demand that management tackle the problem. Management are likely to throw the ball back to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered workers, this being our "personal interest". The issues are best tackled directly, by discussing them at workers' own meetings, to generate support for restoring these services to their proper status.

People will recognise arguments based on concrete examples, like the one given above. Discussion will also break down the vicious circle of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered work­ers being seen as the only people responsible for these services, and promote an understanding of heterosexism and why every­one needs to fight it.

The aim of this approach is to establish the responsibility of the workforce as a whole for these services, tackle discrimination and isolate the bigots Section 28 has supported. This has the added advantage of the workers retaining both the initiative and the means to combat heterosexism. At worst workers will be able to put pressure on the management to take responsibility and do something.
Direct Action
This approach is called direct action and it shouldn't just stop with the effects of Section 28. It involves actually doing some­thing about the problems we face in our daily lives where we work and where we live. It is direct because it doesn't involve asking politicians to change the law, trades union officials to negotiate on our behalf, lawyers to win a case for us, or the media to tell us what's happening. You face up to the problem, discuss a solution among the people who are going to apply it, and do it!
By taking direct action, instead of leaving it up to the "experts" whose loyalty to the status quo guarantees their status, we gain a sense of our collective strength and a measure of real control

over our lives. The more control we take the less power other people have over us. This is the only way to reduce and eliminate discrimination, which will always flourish while anyone has power over others.

We are not discriminated against because of ignorance, but be­cause capitalism needs heterosexism to maintain itself. Capitalism needs the nuclear family, and the ideology of "Family Values" which promotes the "traditional family" as superior to the ever more com­mon alternatives that fit our lives. New Labour aims to finish the dismantling of the Welfare State which the Tories became too weak to do. They promote family responsibility for health and social care as an alternative to the responsibility of society for looking after those who need caring for. This will help them cut taxes further and make Britain even more attractive to investors who resent paying taxes and decent wages.
Pride or prof it?
The organisation and sense of common purpose we gain from direct action also builds us a support network. The Lesbian & Gay Community, is supposed to provide us with support, but in reality it's dominated by business interests and is about them selling us vastly over-priced drinks and lifestyle accessories, not about us gaining a genuine sense of our own self-worth. There is widespread discon­tent with the commercial scene and the gay press, dominated by money, body fascism and conformism. Most of us need a real alternative but none exists at present. It is up to us to build one for ourselves.

The lesbian and gay business people who run the gay media and the commercial scene support capitalism because it delivers their wealth and privileges. They promote the Pink Pound, the idea that we can all buy equality and happiness. This idea reduces our value as human beings to our spending power. It is the flip side of capitalism's reduction of our value as people to that of our labour, and its exploitation of us through wages and salaries worth a fraction of what we produce.

The epitome of such "gaysploitation" is London Mardi Gras who have taken over the annual Pride march, and the arts festival, to use them as promotional tools for their profit-making festival. They need to recoup losses of nearly half a million pounds, incurred in a single year, and to start to make a profit for their investors. The much­maligned Pride Trust only managed to lose £45,000 in all its years - so much for the efficiency of business!

Pride should be about our diversity and our hu­man rights, but London Mardi Gras need to de­politicise the march to avoid frightening off the sponsors they need to recoup their losses and turn a profit. They have also defined the market they are selling to their sponsors as "Gay and Lesbian" - not bi, not trans, and dykes come second! This is not what they tell Community Forum meetings, where they are keen to portray themselves as "inclusive" because they need us to pay the entrance fee, spend money in the club tents, and be outrageous for the cameras.

We have to reclaim our humanity to truly liber­ate our sexuality, and to do this we have to destroy the capitalism which commodifies our lives. The only way to destroy capitalism is to build an alternative based on solidarity, mutual aid, social diversity and libertarian communism.