LGBTQIA+ Communities Need Paid Time to Care
We’ve been celebrating and reflecting on Pride this month. You’ve probably seen our content about safe days for LGBTQIA+ communities, chosen family, story-telling, and now we are talking about the importance of queer resistance to authoritarianism, and how the movements for paid leave help to bolster queer resistance. Authoritarianism uses the levers of patriarchy and white supremacy, while creating anti-queer laws and systems, as ways to control individuals and families.
Authoritarian regimes have historically used control of LGBTQIA+ people and families as a way to build their power, but LGBTQIA+ communities and our allies have always resisted. In this election year, politicians are pushing anti-trans legislation and running election campaigns based on anti-trans hate, and it’s essential that allies understand how to help trans people defend themselves and how paid time to care can help LGBTQIA+ families. From LGBTQIA+ people and allies protecting Drag Queens at public libraries from fascist Proud Boys to communities raising funds for gender-affirming healthcare in the face of trans healthcare bans, we are showing up for each other and must continue to do so! Paid time to care to help trans loved ones in accessing healthcare and in recovery from hateful attacks is crucial to our shared survival and pursuit of liberation.
Authoritarian governments promote an “ideal” family–a married woman and man who have children–in order to control the lives of women and children and maintain a patriarchal, strong-man society. Any family that doesn’t fit this ideal, like LGBTQIA+ families, won’t get government support or equal rights. Our movement for paid time to care has become more and more inclusive, affirming that we need paid family and medical leave AND paid sick and safe days to take care of our chosen and extended families. Now eight of the 14 state paid family and medical leave laws cover caregiving for chosen families, and over 20 of the paid sick and safe day laws do too.
Authoritarian governments often use “culture war” issues, like discriminating against LGBTQIA+ people, to distract from other, less popular government actions, like passing tax cuts to benefit the wealthiest, or to distract from areas where the government is ignoring unmet needs – like how our communities need paid family and medical leave! We know that those same anti-queer politicians are also anti-paid time to care and are also anti-choice. In fact, the states with the harshest abortion bans also don’t have any paid sick and safe days or paid family and medical leave laws!
LGBTQIA+ communities need paid time to care, for ourselves and for each other. Our paid time to care movement is inherently anti-authoritarian because we are fighting for all types of families and organizing activists from communities often targeted by authoritarian governments, including survivors of domestic and sexual violence, LGBTQIA+ families, people who need reproductive healthcare, low-income workers, BIPOC, disabled, and immigrant communities. This diverse coalition will face down authoritarianism and build a future where everyone can have paid time to care.
