Sherry Wolf (activist)

For the American surrealist painter and designer, see Sherry Wolf (artist).

Sherry Wolf (born in Brooklyn, NY, May 4, 1965) is an American revolutionary socialist, Jewish anti-Zionist, independent journalist and author. Openly lesbian, she was on the Executive Committee for the LGBT National Equality March for full civil rights in October 2009. Wolf is a member of the International Socialist Organization and an editor of the International Socialist Review.

Early life

Wolf grew up on Long Island, New York and attended Lawrence High School, where she was subject to homophobic slurs during her high school years. She later attended Northwestern College in Chicago, where she graduated with honors in philosophy, was first introduced to socialist politics and began identifying as a lesbian and an anti-Zionist. Wolf first met members of the International Socialist Organization, while helping them defend a women's clinic in downtown Chicago in 1983 and later became an ACTIVE member herself, saying she "had never met people who had a broader analysis of the way society worked". Wolf lived in Paris after college, where she learned to speak French and organized with other socialists against the fascist Front National (FN). She returned to her native New York in 1988 to work and organize with the ISO.

Activism

Wolf has been an active socialist and LGBT activist for several decades. When she returned to New York, Wolf organized within gay activist groups like the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). The group became active during a time when Wolf saw friends dying of AIDS on a regular basis. Wolf was, however, dissatisfied with ACT UP's approach, citing their hostility to trade unions, anti-racist organizing and other such issues "outside" the gay community. Wolf attempted to connect LGBT liberation with other issues, such as union and immigration struggles. In 2000, Wolf returned to Chicago to become an associate editor of the International Socialist Review (ISR). She maintains criticisms of large nonprofit and lobbying organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) for what she perceives as their mainstream strategies, or what she personally terms "Gay, Inc.":

Wolf argues that while society's attitudes towards LGBT people have become more favorable, gay-friendly legislation has not kept pace, blaming groups like HRC, who, she believes have substituted lobbying for struggle.

Wolf was part of a group of 13 activists arrested for sitting in at Senator [...] Durbin's office as a part of the Chicago Harvey Milk Week of Action. The activists demanded the senator add gender identity to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, of which he was a co-sponsor.

Wolf was also on the executive committee for the National Equality March in October 2009, which drew 200,000 protesters to Washington DC, to demand full equality for LGBT people. It was the first mass gay rights march in a decade and the first mass protest to pressure President Barack Obama to act on any of his campaign promises. She organized alongside other gay activists such as Cleve Jones. Unlike other LGBT events, such as the annual Pride Parade in Boystown, no corporations sponsored the National Equality March. Wolf spoke of the march:

Wolf, who is Jewish, is also a member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and argues that critics of Israel are not anti-Semitic. She is also an advocate of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. In October 2010 she stated:

Writing

Apart from editing the ISR, Wolf has also written articles published in The Nation, MRZine, CounterPunch, New Politics, Dissident Voice and Socialist Worker.

She is also the author of the 2009 publication, Sexuality and Socialism, a series of essays on the roots of LGBT oppression, the construction of [...] and gender identities, the history of the gay rights movement, and strategies to fight oppression and exploitation by analyzing different theories such as Marxism, postmodernism, identity politics, and queer theory.

Don Gorton, Board Member of Join the Impact states of the book: "The ICONS of the new generation of activists are people like Lady Gaga, Dustin Lance Black, Judy Shephard, Lt. Daniel Choi (ret.) and Sherry Wolf."

Dana Cloud of the University of Texas at Austin called Sexuality and Socialism "at once politically important, theoretically and historically sophisticated, and clearly written... enlivened in its engagement with a number of controversies, including those over the alleged biological determination of homosexuality, the myth of Black homophobia, and the consequences of postmodernist theories for the politics of gay liberation... a cogent defense of the Marxist tradition—long and wrongly reviled as homophobic in itself—as a way to explain how LGBT oppression arose and what we can do to put it to bed."

Christopher Phelps of Ohio State University called the book "a manifesto of mobilization and equality that matches the challenges of the present with a far-reaching vision of social and [...] liberation inspired by the spirit of Stonewall and the [...]-affirmative liberatory socialist tradition."

Amy Grishek of Rain Taxi wrote of Sexuality and Socialism: "Sherry Wolf's little purple book is the operator's manual for a post-90's LGBT liberation movement. It shouldn't be read so much as carried, in backpacks and jacket pockets, on bus rides to marches; not shelved but passed, with meaningful glances and endearing words from hand to working hand. It is a text of purpose, 'a guide to action.' May every volume be well-used."

Selected books

Selected articles

Further reading

See Also

Sandra Bloodworth

Sandra Bloodworth is a labour historian and long-term socialist activist, based in Melbourne,...

Robert Malecki

Robert "Bob" Malecki (October, 1942-) is an American activist and Spartacist living in Robertsfors,...

Ahmed Shawki (socialist)

Ahmed Shawki is an Arab American socialist activist and journalist, the editor of the International...

Anthony Arnove

Anthony Arnove is a literary editor, agent and activist. He is a freelance editor, writer, and...

Paul N. Siegel

Paul Noah Siegel (1916 – 2004 ) was an American Marxist, a Professor emeritus of English and a...