From Stonewall to releasing crickets at a conference, direct action is still an important part of the fight for LGBTQIA rights
BY NANCY KELLEY, IMAGES BY SERED, LESBIAN AVENGERS UK AND TRANS KIDS DESERVE BETTER
“We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers. The only weapon we have is our bodies, and we need to tuck them in places so wheels don’t turn” – Bayard Rustin
Last Friday, a small group of teenagers from the Trans Kids Deserve Better direct action network released thousands of crickets at the LGB Alliance national conference, disrupting programming and sparking significant (mostly hostile) media coverage. Their goal was to end the conference early – a conference they describe as “a horrendous breeding ground for fervent and violent transphobia”.
Across our community, I saw a lot of support for the TKDB action, but I also saw some community leaders who wanted to publicly critique that action, and many who were privately jubilant, but publicly silent.
It got me thinking about the role of direct action in our movement, and the way we shellac historical direct action in sticky nostalgia with one hand and reject our contemporary radical siblings with the other.
Because this TKDB action against LGB Alliance is a direct echo of a 1995 action by the San Francisco Branch of the Lesbian Avengers, who stormed the headquarters of Exodus International, a terrifyingly powerful organisation of “ex gays” that peddled conversion practices to the masses (watch the brilliant documentary Pray Away if you have the stomach for it). The Avengers released 1,000 crickets into the building in an attempt to shut it down, leading to a 911 call from a staff member who spoke the immortal line “the lesbians are here with bugs!”
The Lesbian Avengers here in the UK were no joke either. In the same year, the UK Chapter invaded the offices of the Sunday Times and handcuffed themselves to the editor’s desk in protest against an article that had described them as man hating. They also staged an action targeting then MP Emma Nicholson, holding a tea party / protest on the lawn of her home after she refused to sign a UN Year of Tolerance declaration because it included tolerance of minority sexual orientations (Emma Nicholson is now Baroness Nicholson, a vocal supporter of LGB Alliance and attendee at last week’s conference).
Further back, in the 80s lesbians who were part of the movement against Section 28 which stormed the six o’clock news live on air and abseiled into the House of Lords. Remember the ActUp die ins? Remember the “radical drag” of OutRage? All of it loud and messy and queer and *brave*. If you fantasise you’d have been abseiling with those lesbians, or leading the die-ins then but can’t support the actions of TKDB activists now you’re kidding yourself.
I’m not naïve. Direct action alone is unlikely to change government policy on access to gender affirming healthcare or trans inclusion in schools. To achieve the TKDB goals of respect and bodily autonomy for trans children and young people in the UK will take mainstream lobbying organisations, supportive politicians, effective journalism, bold cultural creators. I’ve spent my whole career lobbying for progressive change: I know this kind of policy change is not simple, and rarely has a single driver.
But it’s wrong to pretend that direct action, with all its disruptive and creative power, isn’t part of our collective liberation story. And it’s also wrong to sentimentalise the direct action movements of the past while you criticise teenagers engaging in direct action now. Stonewall was a violent riot against police brutality not a coffee morning with decision makers.
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