The Empire State Pride Agenda is firmly committed to all people having the right to sexual privacy and control of their own bodies, including full access to reproductive healthcare and safe abortions.
At the most basic level, we recognize that reproductive choice and LGBT equality are connected because LGBT people have reproductive healthcare needs and are making decisions about having children. Six million children, in fact, are being raised by same-sex couples across the United States, dispelling the myth that LGBT people do not have children and thus have no connection to issues involving the bearing and raising of children. Breast and cervical cancer remain pressing issues for lesbians, as well as part of the complex spectrum of healthcare issues facing transgender people. LGBT youth need inclusive sex education, especially to prevent STD’s and HIV/AIDS. This becomes more apparent in an age of “abstinence only” sex education, which for LGBT youth leads to the ironic outcome that since they cannot get married, they can never have sex, which of course for many of the proponents of “abstinence only” is part of the goal.
From a legal and governmental policy perspective, choice and LGBT equality are connected because they both ask the fundamental question whether individuals will have the power to determine their own sexual and romantic lives or whether the government will. LGBT people understand that giving government control over sexuality is giving up the freedom to decide the most intimate and important decisions life has to offer. This dynamic is understood by our opponents as well, those who under the guise of morality want to control the sex and romantic lives of all Americans.
The liberty of both women and LGBT people is also threatened when governmental support of families is based solely on marriage or when marriage is promoted as the only legitimate setting for reproduction, which leads to the related argument that marriage exists primarily for reproduction. Instead, reproduction itself should be a choice available to all but not forced on anyone, and certainly not seen as a necessary outcome of expressing sexuality.
Finally, working on reproductive choice fits into the Pride Agenda’s vision of equality and justice, one where every individual and family has the freedom and tools to achieve their own personal fulfillment as they see fit, limited only by where another’s similar right begins. The issues of choice and LGBT equality and justice, like all progressive issues, are based on universal values of fairness, equal opportunity, human dignity, integrity of self, compassion, empathy and love.
In furtherance of these goals, the Pride Agenda is a member of Causes in Common, a working alliance between LGBT activists and those fighting to maintain and expand reproductive justice. We also work in New York State government in alliance with choice organizations such as Family Planning Advocates of New York State on issues including availability of comprehensive, LGBT-inclusive sex education for New York’s public schools.