America is fairly abysmal when it comes to material protections for LGBT people. Having no public health care becomes a serious problem when you’re trans and want to medically transition, or when it comes to issues like HIV prevention and treatment that disproportionately affect gay men, or when we’re talking about reproductive medicine for gay and lesbian parents. America has an absurdly large religious right, getting kicked out of your parents’ house for being LGBT is so much more likely in the US than anywhere else in the West and finding shelter in that incredibly precarious situation is a lot harder with America’s nonexisting social safety nets. LGBT people are at greater odds to be economically marginalized and overexploited and living in the US makes that a lot more severe. The same goes for mental health issues, which are more likely to be a problem that ails you when you have a lifetime of trauma and hostility to look back on like many LGBT from rural communities do. America just isn’t a country where you want to find yourself in a rough place, and marginalized groups unfortunately find themselves in such places a lot more often.

So i’d argue that while America was ahead of many EU countries on gay marriage, and while it may be a great place to live for rich and affluent LGBT people, the idea of trading places with any of my trans comrades in the US sounds utterly terrifying. This is why it’s crucially important to view such issues, in fact any “social justice” issues, through an intersectional lens that does not only consider if we offer ideological support and vocal acceptance to marginalized people, but take a thorough look at how to meet their material needs. American LGBT people can rightfully be proud of what the vocal, militant part of their LGBT community achieved historically, but these achievements have taken place within America’s ultra-capitalist social framework and that framework always severely limits any advances that are made on civil rights. The same goes for women’s rights and its economic aspects like public child care, paid maternal leave etc.; or for racial equality and the economic aftereffects of slavery, redlining and Jim Crow that are still felt today; it goes for ableism more than for anything else i’ve just mentioned, for reasons that should have become clear by now.

This is why such issues always, without exception, have to be viewed through a materialist lens. And that’s something American liberals are awfully, awfully bad at. This should never be forgotten, no matter how indeed outstanding American liberals are at performatively speaking out for the plight of the marginalized. Sometimes, we just need more than warm words of solidarity. In fact, that’s when support matters the most.