Official opening speech for IQPB 2022
Hello from the orga team of the Internationalist Queer Pride 2022! The second IQPB, a revolutionary, queer-led protest that reclaims our voices and reaffirms our presence in Berlin! We are queer and trans groups and individuals, connected by the same goal: a transformed world where all of us live free from oppression and discrimination; where our sexualities are freely expressed and explored; where our identities are self-determined; where our bodies — and all bodies — are free to be, to choose, to move; where we care for each other; where there are no borders, no weapons, no cops; A world organized around well-being.
We come together with our bodies, our voices, and our struggles to connect, to be in solidarity, and to build collective empowerment. Through our queerness, we imagine and define alternative ways of being, of living, of organizing. In the face of warfare and fascism, we stand firm in our determination to survive and thrive, united in revolutionary love and solidarity.
Our queerness opposes the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the very few, who profit from centuries of exploitation, genocide, war, and colonialism. We support the struggles of those subjected to colonial order. We demand justice and reparations for the damages that Europe and the EU have inflicted on the global majority.
We are in solidarity with liberation, freedom, and justice struggles from around the world.
In Abya Yala
In Turtle Island
In Western Sahara
In Palestine
In Kurdistan
In Darfur
In Aotearoa
In Tamil Eelam
In Kashmir
In West Papua
With the Aboriginal peoples of Australia
With the Amazigh
With the Mapuche
With the Uyghur
With all who resist colonial violence!
We condemn the instrumentalization of queer rights and identities to pinkwash nationalist and colonial projects. Germany and the EU use our rights for their political and economic agendas when convenient, yet they sponsor and give political cover to homophobic, transphobic and anti-feminist regimes. Our rights and lives are not pawns for German foreign policy. We demand Germany and the EU stop sponsoring regimes that violate our existence.
Our queer liberation is rooted in anti-militarism, anti-policing, and anti-war activism. We don’t just want marriage, we want the abolition of white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy and all its institutions!
We denounce the German and EU/US weapon industries. We denounce their support for repressive governments and dictatorships, fueling civil conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
We condemn the horrendous war on Ukraine, and we stand in full solidarity with the Ukrainian people.
Yet we note the hypocrisy and double standards of Western countries. Not only in relation to other wars and injustices, but also in the racist discrimination against BIPoC and third-country refugees from Ukraine. The ongoing violence against BIPoC communities, from the Afghan refugees at the Belarussian-Polish border to those left to drown in the Mediterranean or pushed to their death by the Libyan mercenaries and Frontex.
Borders kill! The Ausländerbehörde and Germany’s anti-migrant policies kill!
All people are legal. All people have the right to live with dignity.
We must abolish the border regime! Everyone must have access to residency and freedom of movement.
As queers we know the dangerous impacts of policing. The police do not keep us safe. We have been the target of police violence. We have been the target of social, medical, and economic policing of our bodies, our identities, our expressions. We oppose the policing of our voices.
We demand a queer world without policing of any form!
Trans-exclusionary and far-right groups are fanning the flames of hate. Trans women and trans femmes are targets for exclusion, violence and femicide, even in spaces that claim to be “safer.” We mourn too many of our trans sisters—like Ella here in Berlin—killed by a transmisogynist, classist, and racist system. We demand to be treated with respect and an unconditional right to self-determination, regardless of residence status, gender performance, or social background.
We demand protection for intersex people from non-consensual surgeries intended to violently force our bodies into a binary norm. Intersex bodies are not shameful.
We demand self-determination and a free, unprejudiced health system for all bodies and gender identities.
We stand in solidarity with all sex workers, many of whom are trans, queer, migrant, disabled, sole caregivers, and/or BIPoC, in their fight against stigma and against laws that make their work unsafe and illegal. We demand the decriminalization of sex work.
There are no bad whores, only bad laws!
Like our bodies, our lives, and our desires, our environment has been exploited and oppressed. Climate justice can start only with the acknowledgment that the climate emergency we are in is the consequence of 500+ years of colonialism, capitalism, and extractive politics in global majority countries. We must move beyond 1.5-degree policies and greenwashing. We demand socio-ecological transformation.
We demand affordable housing and the re-communalization set in motion by DW enteignen. Housing is a basic human right!
We demand an education that respects all genders and affirms the exploration and development of our identities and sexualities.
We demand a world where our bodies are not valued by their ability to contribute to capital. A world where our abilities and disabilities, visible and invisible, are not a reason to be excluded from society. Where our physical, emotional or mental health, stop being reasons for marginalization and stigma. Wear your masks!
We demand decriminalization, an end to stigmatization, and guaranteed free access to abortion.
We demand agency and self-determination over our bodies and identities.
We demand guaranteed free access for everyone to a healthcare that affirms our bodies.
We demand a world without borders.
We demand a world without policing.
We fight for an anti-colonial and anti-capitalist world.
We demand a world centered on love. On our love for freedom, our love for justice, our love for ourselves, and our love for each other. A world where we thrive together and not at the expense of others, be it humans, the environment or other creatures.
None of us are free until all of us are free!
Have a rebellious, safe and fun Internationalist Queer Pride March for Liberation 2022. Remember! Always anti-colonial, always anti-racist, always anti-capitalist, proud queers!
Whose streets?
Our streets!
Whose streets?
Our streets!