Workers Solidarity Movement

The Civil Partnership Bill was signed into law in July and the first civil registrations are expected early next year. The new legislation provides same-sex (and heterosexual) couples with ‘marriage-like benefits’ and can be seen as a move towards equality for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transsexual) people.

There will be celebrations of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT)
 Pride across Ireland this summer, including Cork's Pride Parade on June 5th and Dublin's Parade on June 26th. The original Pride marches were held to commemorate the Stonewall riots in New York which began on June 28, 1969, and which were led
mainly by working class Black and Puerto Rican trans people, butch dykes and drag queens sick of being beaten up and arrested by the police. The following year, in commemoration of the riots, the Gay Liberation Front organised a march from Greenwich Village to Central Park. Almost 10,000 women and men attended the march. Today, many major cities all over the world hold LGBT/Queer Pride Marches on the last Sunday of June in honour of Stonewall.



Up until 2006 all WSM articles published after 1990 were hosted as part of the Struggle collection on another server.  We hope to eventually move all the articles stored there to this site but in the meantime these subject indices take you to the pages still stored on that site.

Sunday, August 9 saw over 5,000 demonstrators take part in a march support of an equal marriage status for gay couples. The ‘March for Marriage’ was organised by lobby group LGBT Noise, and was supported by the LGBT community, heterosexuals, and political groups, including the Worker’s Solidarity Movement (WSM).

The contemporary Euro-American LGBT movement emerged out of the gay and lesbian liberation struggles associated with the radical politics of the 1960s, which in turn were inspired by mass revolutionary movements prominent at the turn of the twentieth century. Yet today the majority of men and women active in LGBT politics seek not revolutionary social change but inclusion within the boundaries of mainstream liberal culture. They tend to organise as a single-issue interest group seeking legislative reforms (for example, amendments to marriage laws), and unlike their forebears pose no radical challenges to either capitalism or the state.

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Subject: DRAGNET RETURNS!! Dragnet Two Fri. 7th Nov. 8pm @ The Sugar Club

Hey Noisy People!

DRAGNET is returning to the Sugar Club on Leeson Street this Friday 7th November with a new exposition of the GLORIOUS ART of CABARET! See our up-coming event page for photos from the previous Dragnet and a snazzy trailor for this Dragnet!

All your favourites from Dragnet One will be back - Miss Bunny, Sid Viscous, Julian Mandrews and more; plus a host of Dragnet newbies such as Bertha Defect and Juicy Dangler will be taking to the stage for your entertainment - and for a good cause.

Most young people start to become aware of their sexual identity from the age of 11 or 12 onwards. However for young lesbians, bisexuals and gays this can be the beginning of a lot of trouble. They will have to listen to almost constant homophobic (anti-gay) crap from their school mates and will often feel very isolated by the strong emphasis placed in youth culture on the importance of who-is-going-out-with-who.

*1 In February 1992, Emmet Stagg - a self-proclaimed "socialist" closely identified with the left wing of the Labour Party - resigned from Labour's Parliamentary Party, claiming that Dick Spring was preparing to lead the party into coalition and proclaiming that he would "never vote for a right wing Taoiseach from Fianna Fail or Fine Gael."

The coming into effect last June of legislation which decriminalised certain male homosexual acts was the subject of much celebration in the gay community. The Minister who introduced the legislation, Maire Geoghan Quinn was awarded the Magnus Hirschfield award for her contribution to the gay community by the National Lesbian and Gay Federation. For many it was felt the battle for equality had been won. This was certainly the outlook in the national and international press. Champagne flowed freely in the capital's gay pubs and clubs.