Why Can’t the LGBT Movement Include People of Color?

California’s 2008 anti-marriage Proposition 8 created enough momentum to birth dozens of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy efforts around the country. I try to stay abreast of them, but can’t quite keep up with the many organizations that have sprouted, even those in my home state of California. Perhaps it's because most of them look and act the same. That is, they lack a strong and non-tokenized presence of LGBT people of color at the helm.

The struggle to create a national race-conscious LGBT movement is one that dates back several decades. After all, though the Stonewall Riots of 1969 — which many consider the birth of the modern day gay rights movement — were largely an act of resistance by working-class, transgender women of color, over the years, the movement has evolved into one mostly comprised of middle-class, white gay men.

In the 1980s, people of color responded to this lack of inclusiveness by creating organizations by, for and about LGBT people of color. Even as they were accused of being separatist, organizations such as the (now defunct) National Latina/o LGBT Organization (LLEGÓ) and Texas's allgo, a Queer People of Color Organization (one of the longest-standing ones in the country) took off, with the goal of forming spaces that recognized LGBT people of color's many-sided identities and likewise complex challenges. Unfortunately, despite the important role they play, such organizations have gotten the financial short shrift.

The fact that LGBT organizations aren't always inclusive is no secret. Activists, artists and scholars of color and allies have long challenged established “white” LGBT organizations on the issue. Yet change within the movement has moved at glacier speed, and even many emerging organizations continue to mirror the less-than-diverse nature of their predecessors.

Earlier this month, I was invited to speak on a panel discussing the LGBT movement’s failure to embrace people of color at the Equality Across America Conference, which was hosted at a community college in a historically black and Chicana/o neighborhood of East Austin, TX — only blocks from the offices of allgo.

I asked why a resident of San Francisco like myself was invited to speak, when a key, historic organization like allgo was located just steps from the conference site. After receiving a disappointing response, I ultimately declined the invitation (my presence at the conference would only have reinforced how organizations like allgo are sidelined).

Over the years, I've repeatedly asked myself and other LGBT people of color why the LGBT movement continues to fail us. After watching the movement's strategies, priorities and representations evolve, I am left to believe that its primary purpose is to fight for the privileges that white men lose as a result of being gay. Sadly, in the gay rights movement, it seems that people of color are only an obstacle or side constituency — and only the occasional, unintentional beneficiaries of its work.

Photo Credit: Punxutawneyphil