A Million to March for Gay Rights April 25

Washington— Activists from across the country gathered in the ballroom of the Dupont Plaza here Feb. 6-7. The occasion was the final meeting of the national steering committee for the 1993 March on Washingtonn for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, set to take place April 25.

Staffers from the march’s national office predicted the march will draw a million people. They announced that the NAACP has endorsed the march —an important development in building unity.

A number of units —led by the Service Employees, the country’s fastest growing union— also supports the march and plan to send contingents. The AFL-CIO will host a labor solidarity reception at its national headquarters the day before the march.

At the meeting, transgender activists won strong support as they drew the steering commitee’s attention to the vital need to focus on demands to end the oppression of transgendered people, including transsexuals, transvestites, and others who don’t conform to socially prescribed gender roles. The executive committee is to issue a letter confirming the march’s commitment to fighting gender oppression.

In the wake of the uproar over lifting the ban on lesbians and gays in the military, march organizers reported, interest and enthusiasm has skyrocketed.

The national office has been receiving 50 to 100 calls a week before the generals went ballistic. The week after the “controversy” dominated the front pages, the march office counted 1,100 calls.

A representative of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, a gay-rights lobbying group, reported a similar experience. HRCF’s phones have been ringing off the hook, he said. Lesbians, gays, and transgendered people are outraged at the Pentagon’s stand for discrimination, he said, and eager to fight back.

“It’s almost as though the military is helping us organize the march,” said one activist.

Several people from Colorado and Oregon reported on ongoing struggles against the right wing in their states. A lesbian from Colorado said there have been five anti-gay murders since an anti- lesbian/gay ballot measure passed there in November.

The march steering committee voted overwhelmingly to endorse the national boycott of Colorado, a tactic meant to bring economic pressure on the state to rescind the law.

Donna Redwing of Oregon, where voters defeated a similar anti-gay referendum in November, said lesbians and gays there have not even has a breather. The right wing is renewing its efforts to ban gay-rights laws in her state.

To demonstrate solidarity with the struggles in Colorado and Oregon, the steering committee invited contingents from those two states to march near the lead on April 25.

The march’s main demands include passage of a lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender civil rights bill, and an end to all discrimination and “sodomy” laws; massive funding for AIDS and universal health care; full rights for lesbian and gay families and an end to homophobia in education; an end to all racism and racist discrimination; full reproductive freedom and an end to sexism.

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[This article was reprinted February 16, 1993 issue of Workers World Newspaper, 46 West 21 Street, New York, N.Y. 10020. Subscriptions are $20 for one year. Back copies of this publication can be borrowed from the A.O. Staff.