Queer to the Left: Intersectional Activism in Action
Queer to the Left: Intersectional Activism in Action
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This left-wing organization sought to redefine the issues facing their community
Uptown’s long history of working-class movements has had its impact on its Queer community as well, as the story of Queer to the Left (Q2L) shows. In 1995, politically active members of Chicago’s lesbian and gay community experienced a political vacuum: the Chicago branch of ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) had dissolved, and the mainstream gay and lesbian movement had begun to adopt a more assimilationist stance, aiming to tell society “we are just like you,” rather than pushing more radical emancipatory agendas as they had in previous decades. In Uptown, many affluent, white gay and lesbian residents became supporters of anti-poor urban renewal. Founders included Joey Mogul, Deborah Gould, and Jeff Edwards.
Joey Mogul, in a 2007 interview with LGBT organizer and journalist Tracy Baim, describes the aims with which Q2L began. Full interviews with Joey Mogul and Deborah Gould are available online at Chicago Gay History. Credit: Tracy Baim.
By asserting that matters like gentrification, police brutality, and a broken criminal system were queer issues, Q2L took a leftist approach that relied on building solidarity with other social movements in Uptown.
A Q2L flyer on an awareness event against police brutality, highlighting the role of race and the increased vulnerability of LGBT individuals. Courtesy: Therese Quinn.
Thus, Q2L began to be actively involved in Uptown’s struggles for affordable housing. They became part of the Community of Uptown Residents for Affordability and Justice (COURAJ), where they worked with an unlikely ally: the Jesus People USA (JPUSA), a group of Christian community workers who believed that homosexuality was a sin.
A Q2L pamphlet explaining the many ways in which housing becomes a queer issue: for low-income LGBTQ people, for LGBTQ people with aids, for LGBTQ people suffering domestic abuse, for LGBTQ people of color, and so on.
Q2L’s campaigns also included being part of a larger push to abolish death penalty in Illinois, and they successfully campaigned to exonerate those on death row at the time. They conducted investigations into how homophobic and transphobic stereotypes often contributed to death penalty verdicts. After Q2L’s dissolution around 2003, Joey Mogul, as an attorney with the People’s Law Office, continued their work fighting racism and queerphobia in the criminal justice system, most prominently representing the Black torture victims of Chicago Police Commander John Burge.
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