ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how alternative iterations of sexual and gender politics might eschew liberal frameworks and instead advance a radical critique of the social and economic forces that reproduce queer oppression. To do so, it excavates a historical example of an interstate network of grassroots queer anti-capitalist groups in Australia in the early 2000s. These groups challenged the conservatism and consumerism associated with the emergent politics of homonormativity, reflected in the growth of a highly marketable gay pride movement during the 1990s. Taking a coalitional approach to LGBT issues, queer anti-capitalist groups such as Queers United to Eradicate Economic Injustice in Melbourne drew on prior gay liberationist and ACT UP tactics in their efforts to ‘queer’ a burgeoning anti-globalisation movement in Australia and extend the radicalism of the LGBT movement. By tracing the critical contributions of these activist interventions, the chapter highlights the heterogeneity of sexual and gender politics. Dissenting voices, archives, and experiences produce counternarratives that complicate the conventional story of LGBT rights gains as one of linear progress and remind us that spaces of LGBT pride are important sites for queer debate and contestations.
