What are we doing? What is anyone doing? We vote.

This is like bare minimum to be a normal human being. It’s not doing anything extra.

what we’re not doing is attacking people online for trying to help

I haven’t attacked you. If you’ve taken a request to do more as an attack then you’re feeling some sort of internal guilt because some of the things I’ve said hit home and you’re rewiring that into “I’m being attacked” instead of self reflecting.

What we’re not doing is attacking allies for not being “enough”. Inclusivity vs exclusivity.

Inclusivity in Pride events has in fact watered down Pride from a successful radical protest movement created by literal communists of the Gay Liberation Front into what it is today, a festival coopted by liberals and cities into a tourist attraction that is ineffective at advancing lgbt conditions and is probably functioning as a barrier to more radical action because people believe they’re doing enough by going to a big party once a year when they’re clearly not because lgbt rights have gone backwards, under both democrat and republican presidencies. This is also why I dismiss “we vote”. It doesn’t mean anything to vote if the Biden presidency oversaw the start of the trans genocide in the US and did absolutely nothing to stop it.

What are you doing?

Well for one I’m trans and British, so my conditions are different to yours. But I’m part of a team of marxists, a few years ago we secured positions on the local council, a year into that position we evolved those positions into Deputy Mayor, and this year one of those positions was unanimously voted in as Mayor (we have both tories and reform members on our council so our work has been extremely effective to achieve that). I attend my local food bank once a fortnight to give them time. I take part in direct action against terf events. I organise locally with unions and I maintain strong lgbt focus in that organising because I am trans myself. Could I do more? Perhaps. I am visibly trans though which makes everything I do somewhat harder and I have to contend with the issue of ensuring anything and everything I do does not generate a backlash for any other projects. On top of that I have some other org work but given that I’m not technically supposed to be a member of those orgs while simultaneously a member of other orgs I can’t talk too frankly about some of that on the offchance someone one day successfully doxes me, I mess around with dates and times to fuck with anyone trying to do that though.

What more do you suggest we do?

Well my initial thinking was that what you’re selling should be giving some of proceeds to an lgbt org. It was what I was gently pushing you to try and realise yourself. But if you’re not making a profit that’s going to be hard. Instead you could volunteer for something else and make it part of your vendor stall, for example there’s a number of people at one of our events who are straight, but they also do volunteer work for a local std clinic and make that clinic and its lgbt sexual health campaigning part of their work in other events. Part of your vendor stall could be pushing your work in something tangible, if you were doing something tangible like taking part in an org then you could be including some of that org in your stall.