Scapegoated communities, shared struggles: A call for solidarity with people who use drugs and queer and trans people

Abstract

Efforts to control, repress, and punish drug use and queer and trans existence are rising as right-wing extremism becomes increasingly mainstream. These connected efforts are seen through the stifling of bodily autonomy and agency using criminal-legal, biomedical and political apparatuses, and have been executed similarly for people who use drugs and queer and trans people alike. This is most notable for those who exist at the intersection of these communities. Both groups have withstood attempts at manufacturing internal hierarchies – always at the expense of those who are already most marginalized – and eradication and erasure from public existence altogether. In this editorial, we argue that these mechanisms of oppression link not only the struggles of queer and trans people and people who use drugs, but also threaten those outside of these groups. As such, this paper is an urgent call to cultivate shared solidarity and action based in theorizing developed by people who use drugs and queer and trans communities. These tools support resistance against oppression not only through the reclamation of bodily autonomy and agency, but also by centering pleasures, desires, dreams, and the ability to imagine ‘utopian’ futures and versions of ourselves.