June 20

2:00 PM - 3:45 PM

2.A.05

Charles Hamilton

Abstract: What role did queer people play in the revival of British antifascism in the 1970s and 1980s? In many ways, queer antifascism was widespread, yet it remains underexplored by historians. As Copsey, Renton, Bray, and others have shown, postwar antifascism, while never completely in abeyance, became a dominant force in British politics in the late 1970s. Building on their work, this article argues that, unlike this larger antifascist movement, queer antifascists organized earlier, adopted novel tactics privileging direct action and substantive community work, and utilized an intersectional and coalitional approach centering queerphobia as a constitutive aspect of fascism. Utilizing archival materials, private collections, and interviews, my project seeks to reclaim and uncover the unique contributions of these queer activists who challenged both postwar fascists and antifascists while foreshadowing the greater intersectionality of the current antifascist moment. Going back to 1971, queer antifascists organized within the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance and viewed themselves as part of a militant, socialist struggle in coalitional alliance with feminists, anti-racists, and anti-colonial revolutionaries around the world. Queer antifascists also worked within the larger antifascist movement. Nonetheless, queer antifascists were unique in their community-based approach based on an analysis of fascism as rooted in the heteronormativity, sexism, and racism of western society. While tensions along race, class, and gender lines led to the demise of many early queer groups, queer antifascists maintained this intersectional vision into the 1990s in the face of a far right increasingly committed to electoral respectability.

Disciplines: History
Gender Studies

Substantive Tags: Gender and Sexuality, Radicalism/Extremism, Social Movements, The Left, The Right

Research Networks: None of the Above

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