Talk:Queer anarchism

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Suggestions on improvements
It might be more appropiate to rename this article Anarchism and LGBT rights as the usage of the word "queer" in a positive sense from LGBT rights activists only emerged at the end of the 20th century while advocacy of LGBT rights within anarchism goes back to the 19th century. The phrase Queer anarchism could be better referenced showing specific usages. Also saying queer anarchism is an anarchist school of thought might be a bit premature but anyway i will love to hear other´s opinions on this.--Eduen (talk) 05:49, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I suppose, though stating it's distinct school of thought isn't really premature if you can consider Anarcha-feminism it's own school, and there are "Anarcho-queer" organizations. But do so if you feel it's appropriate. --Mike Oosting (talk) 03:25, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the term "LGBT rights" is problematic in anarchist discourse because post-left anarchists, as well as classical anarchists, such as Kropotkin, have been critical of "civil rights" reform movements for their approach of lobbying government to protect rights. This would seem to be an ahistorical labeling. I would think "Anarchism and LGBT liberation" would be more apt. However, we must go with a naming scheme that would be appropriate given source information. Do most Anarcho-queer writers refer to "LGBT rights" as their goal? --Cast (talk) 22:36, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * LGBT issues?--Eduen (talk) 02:53, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. --Cast (talk) 16:44, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Mainly bullshit.
The article does not show the existence of any "Anarcho-queer" movement but happily recruits a number of deceased gays into it, sometimes (Bakunin) by innuendo only. This article is therefore substandard by any encyclopedic norm. Pure, unadulterated drivel, filled to the brim with weaselwords, namedropping and innuendo. Kleuske (talk) 11:51, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * well, the Bakunin mention almost sounds like gossip so it might be better to take that out even though historian of anarchism George Woodcock Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements mentions his relationship with Nechaev in that way. But the individualist anarchist Adolf Brand editing the first homosexual publication in the world is hardly gossip. John Henry Mackay was an important anarchist who was cited by both Emma Goldman and Peter Kropotkin so that is not gossip either. anyway if you can be more specific as to what is not convincing to you, that might be more helpful.--Eduen (talk) 23:10, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

The existence of such a movement should be shown, goals listed, and manifesto's, pamphlets and other sources cited prior to recruiting deceased persons on questionable grounds into a "movement" i still consider mythical, a bad excuse to lump "Gay" and "Anarchist" together in order to scare the shit out of gullible fundies. I've perused the sources you mention, and they have only convinced me the persons in question were (perhaps) gay, not that a movement like the one suggested by the article actually exists or ever existed. Even if someone is homosexual, has anarchist views (which wasn't all that uncommon at the end of the 19th century) and published on human sexuality it _still_ does not justify incorporating him into some mythical anarcho-queer movement. He/she is simply an anarchist author who happens to be gay. Where's the Anarcho-Straight movement? The Anarcho-Married-with-Children movement? The Anarcho-cheeselovers movement? I'm sure Bakunin liked cheese. Kleuske (talk) 12:29, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, i didn´t create this article and so i hope its creators will come to defend it or accept the criticisms. As far as scaring "gullible fundies" maybe you can tell that to them but i hope you are not getting too angry at this whole thing. What I do suggest is pointing out specific examples of what is wrong in this article and less things like "sacaring shit out of guillible fundies" and "Bakunin liked cheese" which makes it less easy to take your case seriously. i hope we can get more opinions on this anyway.--Eduen (talk) 05:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

At most i'm slightly miffed for finding this kind of article in Wikipedia, but that is not the problem. I have pointed out at least a few serious problems with the article, let me sum them up for clarity (and without smartalec remarks) Kleuske (talk) 06:48, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The existance of an anarcho-queer movement has not been shown. There are no manifests, pamphlets or other reliable sources.
 * Entertaining anarchistic views while being gay does not add up to a membership of some "anarcho-queer" movement.
 * The fact that some anarchists were (probably) gay does not add up to a "Anarcho-queer" movement.
 * Recruiting deceased persons into any movement, without reliable sources saying that they were, in fact, members of such a movemement is, frankly, rude and does not suit Wikipedia. WP:VER should prohibit that.

It seems that i did give the original authors of this article some similar criticisms as those you seem to give up to a certain point. This can be seen in the previous section to this one on this Discussion part of this article which i called "Suggestions on improvements". I suggested them that they change this article to "Anarchism and LGBT rights" and afterwards "Anarchism and LGBT issues" because i did have reservations about this being a "school of thought". This article i think could do well in talking about the relationship between anarchism and LGBT activism and issues and so it gives enough good information on that.

As far as provinding sources pointing out to the LGBT activism of anarchists such as Oscar Wilde, John Henry Mackay, Adolf Brand and Daniel Guerin that is already given later on in the article and so the person who put [citation needed] tags might have not been careful enough to notice this. I think that could be improved though but i dont think it will be too hard as can already be seen now

In the case of John Henry Mackay and Adolf Brand a line of thought for a Queer anarchism is already present since they adhere to Max Stirner´s positions on self-ownership and ilegitimacy of the state (see: philosophical anarchism) so as to disregard or rebel against state prohibitions on personal sexual preferences and activities.

And so i will try to improve this weakneses and i suggest again changing the name of this article to "Anarchism and LGBT issues" and erasing the part that says this is "school of thought". In this way this article will not be different to similar ones related to anarchism such as "anarchism and religion" and "Anarchism and Marxism".--Eduen (talk) 07:49, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

As a proposal for a new introduction which i think solves the problems with this article i suggest the following new introduction which includes the change of name of this article:

"Anarchism and LGBT issues (new title of the article

Anarchism has had a relationship with LGBT liberation struggles since the late 19th century. LGBT Anarchists who campaigned for LGBT rights both outside and inside the anarchist and LGBT movements include Oscar Wilde, John Henry Mackay, Adolf Brand and Daniel Guerin. Individualist anarchist Adolf Brand published Der Eigene which was the first publication dedicated to gay issues in the world, published from 1896 to 1932 in Berlin. ."

So there goes my proposal. Anyway if someone can bring up articles and collective platforms which present an "anarcho-queer" perspective we could add again a mention of that term but i think it is better to change the name of the article as i suggested.Eduen (talk) 09:39, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I think I can agree with that. Kleuske (talk) 16:04, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

So then we might proceed with the change. Nevertheless as said before, a mention to "Queer anarchism" within this article could be incorporated as for example this academic talk given by influential queer theorist Judith Butler with the name ""Queer Anarchism and Anarchists Against the Wall" shows the term could start to be taken more seriously.--Eduen (talk) 04:05, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Since I have been involved in improving other articles in this encyclopedia I have lost contact with this article. I propose now to discuss again the issues raised by user User:Kleuske with which as can be seen here, I tended to agree as far as naming this article "Queer anarchism" is not supported by good sources. As can be seen in the previous dialogue, we reached an agreement that it might be better to rename this article "Anarchism and LGBT issues" which doesn´t mean not talking about "queer anarchism" within the article but of course with good sources for support. So I hope we can take into account more opinions but personally I continue to support the change. If we can´t count with more opinions in the following days I think we could very well then proceed with the change.--Eduen (talk) 01:22, 21 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Small suggestion: I might prefer the article to be called Anarchism and queer theory or anarchism and queer issues. Anarchism and LGBT issues not only excludes intersex, genderqueer and other queer people from the scope of the article, which is exactly the sort of thing queer anarchists rail against, but the "anarcho-queer" movement/ideology/whatever (which generally rejects me as I am an anarchist and a queer but married - DESTROY ASSIMLLATION RAR!) is really a form of queer theory and anarchism working together, and Judith Butler, for one, is often quite close to anarchist philosophies herself. Julie McCrossin, Australian lesbian anarchist, has also written on the convergence of anarchist and queer thought (long ago) in Women, Wimmin, Womyn, Womin, Whippets: On Lesbian Separatism. These are the sorts of sources we should be looking at for this article probably. As for "establishing a movement", obviously Bash Back! and Queer Mutiny are the main groups maintaining a "queer anarchism". I think ACT UP had anarchist members but was less of an anarchist group; DUMBA had an anarchist link, as does queercore generally. ~  Swi tch  ( ✉ ✍  ☺  ☒ )  02:35, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

As the article stands now, I think it can´t be called "anarchism and queer theory" since it tends to focus on anarchist activists and their activities for LGBTI rights and not really on "theory" per se. As far as "Anarchism and Queer issues" we could consider it as a second option but as I read the wikipedia article on "Queer" it seems there is a controversy around the use of the term queer and so I could not recommend it as a better option over LGBTI. I am not an expert on this particular issue so I am open for more discussion on this.--Eduen (talk) 05:42, 21 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I suppose you are right that the article as it stands doesn't really merit that title, though I think it is a subject worthy of more discussion here. Perhaps it will grow in that direction. Wikipedia generally uses LGBT as the abbreviation, so if queer is controversial (which I don't really find it to be, but caution is always useful) perhaps Anarchism and (issues of) sexuality and gender would be better. There is plenty written on the topic and much of it discusses queer identity, exclusion of bi/pan/fluid and trans people, and the (non-)usefulness of identity politics. There isn't much to say about anarchists' views on sexuality (almost uniformly pro-queer or pro-queer liberation since the 60s or so; sexuality and gender discrimination appear more commonly as you back through history from then to the 1800s. Oddly it seems there is little middle ground), and I'm sure as well as describing anarchist involvement in debates over LGBT issues there is room to talk about theoretical links between anarchism and queer theory (especially as anarchists are resistant to identity politics). More discussion of groups like Bash Back! and Queer Mutiny wouldn't hurt either, there's plenty of "reliable sources" on some of their more infamous actions. ~  Swi tch  ( ✉ ✍  ☺  ☒ )  12:03, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I don´t think the article can be called Anarchism and (issues of) sexuality and gender since there is already an article on wikipedia called "Anarchism and issues related to love and sex" which focuses on subjects such as free love, birth control, pornography, polyamory, women´s issues and anarcha-feminism, BDSM, etc for both LBGTI and heterosexual people. This article intends a focus on LGBTI/Queer issues only.

So we have two options Anarchism and LGBTI issues and Anarchism and queer issues. I think we can already have a consensus on these two options and so if people type on search either of these two titles they will be redirected to this article.--Eduen (talk) 19:32, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

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Controversial move reversed
If you want to try again, please request a move by following the guidelines at WP:RM. As a side note, the count of scholarly references for "queer anarchism" is one hundred times greater than for the alternative. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 06:41, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Splitting proposal
I propose that this article be split into two separate articles, one for Queer anarchism and one for LGBT anarchism. Queer anarchism is a specific LGBT anarchist ideology. Not all LGBT anarchists identify with the queer-anarchist ideology and many LGBT anarchists lived before the terminology of queer was reclaimed. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 02:51, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Would you have a breakdown of sources that cover "queer anarchism" as distinct from "LGBT anarchism"? I haven't delved too deep into the sources but do recall from a skim (years ago) that this article might be better scoped similar to the other "anarchism and" topical coverage, i.e., anarchism and LGBT rights/issues (or something similar, per discussion above). czar  14:05, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree "Queer" means sexual attraction, and is usually used for that term. Trans Anarchism as an example, which currently lacks a page is different from Queer anarchism. I fully support you're proposal. However splitting the articles would require a massive amount of time to do, like hundreds of hours to research, write, find images etc... So do it yourself. I don't think anyone would be against so. Vallee01 (talk) 00:05, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Image
Please discuss here. I am restoring the page, you want to radically change the article and an editor has stated they oppose it. So if you want to change the article bring it here. Vallee01 (talk) 00:12, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The bisected flag was the status quo ante lead image up until 22 August 2020. IMO it's more appropriate to use an abstract symbol than a low-quality photo of a random parade, for the same reasons I've expressed at Talk:Anarcha-feminism: queer anarchism is more than a protest movement, and a single, very recent protest does not adequately represent 100 years of associated writings, thought, and activism. No lead image at all would be better than one that disproportionately represents one aspect of the topic., any thoughts? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:41, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I would much rather have no image then a bad flag icon. Most Queer anarchists don't even use the flag, it is a horrible representation of Queer anarchism. Sangdeboeuf you only have an issue with anarchist pages, nowhere do you discuss this for the icon on Feminism itself. The parade may to a poor job at showing Queer anarchism but your random flag that little to no Queer anarchists use is worse. Vallee01 (talk) 00:42, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Then why add File:Moscow march for Nemtsov 2015-03-01 4896.jpg to the section? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:49, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , if there is already the sidebar, there should be no image in the lead. I do not think there is a single image that would represent the whole ideology and this goes for any ideology-related articles; we usually just put the sidebar in the lead and relevant images throughout the body. What does the flag really add either? Especially since it is not even a widespread symbol the same way the red flag is for socialism. Socialism is probably the best solution, where we have the sidebar and the red flag in it. Davide King (talk) 00:59, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with . It's the best solution. Vallee01 (talk) 01:05, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Works for me. I've also removed the "Moscow march for Nemtsov" image, since we seem to be agreed that the pink-and-black bisected flag is not a common symbol for queer anarchism, and there are no other obvious queer anarchist symbols in the photo. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:17, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Question about scope
This is another article where the scope is rather unclear. The "Early history" is currently just a loose collection of summaries about people with varying connections to both anarchism and LGBT rights, reading as a series of paragraphs saying "X was an anarchist and a gay man", etc. How these people happening to be anarchists and also happening to be LGBT fits into the specific subject of "queer anarchism" is completely unclear. It seems to me like this entire section consists of a novel synthesis of material.

Per a search on Google Ngrams, the terms "queer anarchist" and "queer anarchism" only really gained a notable usage during the 21st century, after queer theory had already taken shape. This brings me to question how much most of the "Early history" section is actually verifiably connected to the subject and warrants some serious cuts.

I've managed to construct a bibliography of reliable sources that do verifiably use the terms "queer anarchism" and "anarchaqueer". But currently none of them are cited in the article and, on a cursory glance at them, I'm not sure if they actually support the inclusion of most of the people mentioned in the "Early history" section.

Per the queries raised by @Kleuske in an earlier talk page discussion, it seems like this has been an issue for a while and not much (if anything) has been done to rectify it. I'll probably be going ahead with some bold content removals, unless anyone objects. -- Grnrchst (talk) 20:05, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Harry Hay
asked above about scope. This article is currently missing coverage of Harry Hay, who I think is a major figure in queer anarchism.

Harry Hay founded Mattachine Society, which was for gay guys in suits, and Radical Faeries, for gay guys being freaks. The Wikipedia article about Harry Hay is biased and unfair against in him in my opinion, as it criticizes him in ways that I think the cited sources do not. I would like to clean it up, and also I think the bias in that Wikipedia is disrupting the flow of teaching queer anarchism.

Here are some sources about either Harry Hay or rad fae, and anarchism
 * https://joaap.org/issue8/MindelSaloman.htm
 * https://www.anarchistfederation.net/maxzine-weinstein-remembering-harry-hay/
 * https://escholarship.org/content/qt0xs1770q/qt0xs1770q.pdf

There is more if people look. This is kind of a generational thing unfortunately. There are still radical faerie publications and history but it is an aging demographic in the United States, and I am not sure how it works outside the United States. Radical faeries where influential to me in the 2000s. An active quarterly publication from this group is RFD (magazine).  Bluerasberry  (talk)  20:34, 5 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Do you have any sources to back up that he is a major figure in queer anarchism? Just asking because none of the sources you listed above even mention the term "queer anarchism". Considering one of my main concerns is about this article listing several people with no verifiable connection to the subject, I'm worried about adding yet another one.
 * Also, could you clarify how you think systemic bias on Wikipedia is disrupting education about this subject? This is an issue that I would like to deal with across a number of different articles, so I would be very interested to hear your thoughts. -- Grnrchst (talk) 21:10, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The above sources use the term "anarchism" and describe anarchism as a tool for advancement of LGBT+ interests. The article currently is framed mostly as queer tools for the advancement of anarchist goals, but I think any source which describes any relationship between anarchism and LGBT+ should go here.
 * If you or someone you know can help with admin of meta:Wikimedia LGBT+ then part of the solution to systemic bias is getting that group matched with Wikimedia sponsorship to churn out community conversation and consensus statements. A lot weird is happening in Wikipedia with systemic bias influencing the media ecosystem. If you want to talk that through then let's have a video or voice chat, and if you compile a list, consider presenting it later in the year at the meta:Queering Wikipedia event for 2023. If your list is online I would contribute examples.  Bluerasberry   (talk)  22:21, 5 February 2023 (UTC)