There is a lot of criticism from some in the LGBTQ movement that “gay rights” gains are being made at the expense of other members — in other words, the idea that we should band together and put our time and money behind fights we can win, issues in the public eye that we have reasonable support for, such as gay marriage, even if it does nothing for whole groups of people in the movement. There are some who feel like we should take what gains we can right now, and we’ll get to the more marginalized members (trans* folk, queer folk) later, once we’ve secured these tenuous gains.

Then, there are others who feel like trans* and queer folk shouldn’t have to sit down and be quiet and wait our turn to get justice. There are some who feel like the homeless trans* youth and issues like gender identity discrimination in the workplace are more important than whether Adam and Steve can have a marriage vs. a civil union.

It feels like there is a connection to the issue of abortion. For some people, being “pro choice” (fighting for “gay rights”) means fighting for certain gains, like everyone having access to abortion (every state allowing gay marriage). For others, abortion (gay marriage) is just one aspect of a multifaceted struggle involving prenatal care, maternity leave, comprehensive sex education, etc. (gender identity laws, homeless queer youth, hospital visitation for partners, etc.).

I think it can come down to two important sets of questions: 1. Can we only focus on mainstream issues? And, if so, will it help more, in the long run, to fight for these certain gains (gay marriage as a form of accepting LGB people into mainstream society / wide-spread access to abortion as a drastic form of preventing unwanted pregnancies)? Will fighting for and securing these highly-visible issues do immediate good and pave the way for more nuanced changes for the marginalized people in these groups?

And 2. Even if the answer to the above is yes, is it fair to ask those at the margins to wait while those at the center get a voice and have their needs met? How do we tell other people that their needs must take a backseat for the greater good? Who decides what the greater good will be? How confident are we that, once we secure these high-profile rights (gay marriage / abortion), we will still be interested in helping those we told to wait? In my experiences in the LGBTQ community, sometimes once those at the center get what they want, they don’t move over to make room for those at the margins.

And your point about environmentalism, I don’t think says what you’re thinking it says. So if environmental groups choose to limit their focus, does not place what they don’t address outside the scope of the movement. It just means that these groups don’t address them. The “pro-choice” movement’s declining to address more comprehensive issues of reproductive justice does not mean those issues are not worthy of addressing or outside the movement. It just means that the movement as a whole is failing to address them. And because those issues tend to affect certain segments of women more than others, it follows that large segments of women may feel excluded.

Like I said before, reproductive justice is a lot harder than focusing on abortion rights – because its so much bigger. But does that make the goal any less worth pursuing? No. Women who have their motherhood rights challenged have been working on these issues for a long time – but its only recently that they’ve started pushing the mainstream pro-choice movement to join them.

And really, perhaps you didn’t mean it this way, but you seem to be arguing motherhood rights aren’t under attack as much as other abortion-related rights? Thats subjective. Motherhood rights have been under attack for centuries (forced sterilization, eugenics, ect.). There was recently a post on Jezebel where many commentators jumped in to argue that a mentally ill woman should be able to be forcibly sterilized – if that’s not evidence of the need to fight for motherhood rights, well, I can’t think of a better example of how its all interelated. So, uh, no, women should not have to wait their turn to get justice for themselves. And the movement should acknowledge that.

What I take from this, especially in terms of my engagement with pro-choice and feminist movements, is that the past is necessary to understand where we come from. From our past we can then begin to reconstitute the future, and redefine how or what we understand the meanings and our engagement. This doesn’t mean that change will occur quickly and in that necessarily changes society overall, but those little battles over access, gender pay equity, etc will help shape our future poetry and how we live.

However, I don’t agree that the component issues can’t be broken out and worked on. The complexity of feminist issues is such that insisting that we get all or nothing will get us nothing. Look around this country and see how antis are stripping us of our right to abortion in state after state. There are TRAP laws, state invasions of privacy in the name of safety, violations of women’s First Amendment rights when we are forced to view or hear information we want to reject. Taxpayers are being required to pay for ultrasounds and patients are being sent to “crisis pregnancy centers” so they can have “educational” materials shoved down their throats before they can have abortions. The vast majority of counties in this country have no abortion provider. We must fight back NOW. We cannot afford not to.

I see pro-choice groups the same way I see environmental groups. Our environmental problems are, again, hugely complex, But saying that WWF or NRDC should address questions of consumer behavior, suburban sprawl, international wage inequity, and so forth, before taking action to protect the environment will get us stopped in our tracks. We have to have the larger discussions while working on the immediate crisis. Or else there will be no reason to have the discussion at all.