Yes, women are second class citizens as well. The rights for women and queer rights are directly linked with the fight against patriarchal culture. Queer people are attacked and brutalized because they are in violation of gender norms--gay men are supposed to marry women, trans* women are supposed to "be men", etc. All of it is directly linked to the same root cause, and that same cause is also the source of oppression against women queer and non-queer alike.
You can't un-link the need to eat and have a roof over your head from a minority status. Take, for example, the homeless youth in America. Over half of the homeless youth in the United States are queer. They are not homeless because they don't have jobs. They are not homeless because they don't have homes. They are homeless because of the discrimination and often abuse from their families. Then, once homeless, because so many services are run by religious groups--such as Catholic Charities--it is difficult for them to get services, or to find ways of being open about who they are.
Want to talk about jobs? What about the discrimination against queer people in employment? I am not talking about just being fired from a job, but being denied a job or even a promotion at a job because of your sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.
You cannot un-link these things. It is possible to make things better by targeting the overall whole, but it would only make things marginally better for the Queer community, while the heterosexual and cis-gender community reap most of the benefits and gains. It's not a situation where there is equal benefit. It is a situation where one community benefits disproportionately, while another community benefits marginally, and the overall situation becomes more unequal.
= new reply since forum marked as read
