Why is each community's gain every community's gain? Where do you see hope for oppressed communities right now? For LGBT communittes, specifically?

Where I see hope for oppressed communities is in the communal bridge-building across our various differences. What makes the gay community so unique, and also so very special is the additional perspective of sexual identity along with our individual ethnic, cultural, race and class backgrounds. As members of these communities we commonly share the capacity to learn and teach one another through our various perspectives based on individual experiences. With the resources available and the knowledge from our LGBT history to formulate the bonds that can ignite and produce the change we continue to fight for. Our past and present has brought us together during our most trying times and we’ve overcome them with hope, compassion, strength, and courage; qualities that define the essence of who we are. The struggles today are different from what we have come across in our LGBT history. This same history can be measured by the accomplishments and the lessons we have learned from our efforts to provide rights for all, not a selective few. It’s as Harvey Milk described, hope pushes us forward even during our bleakest moments. With this same hope we can fill the gaps in our communities that makes us vulnerable and subjective to the “-ism’s” and “–phobia’s” that have caused us communal and personal harm. For far too long we have endured physical, emotional and psychological traumas, yet hope has brought us here today. Amongst partners, friends, peers, colleagues, and lovers we have learned so much about who we are and how much one community’s gain is every community’s gain.