{Now I like to make this as clear as possible, I do not and shall not speak for LGBTQIA+ peoples. But I like to express my thoughts on why political activism is very useful for LGBTQIA+ peoples. This cannot be stressed enough, for any attempt to divorce the two will weaken the existing rights LGBTQIA+ peoples have and make it easier to shut down any rallies, protests and movements that want to make LGBTQIA+ peoples less oppressed.}
Why does one commit to political activism?
Defending gains?
In any political organization, one must commit to defending any gains one has made. This goes for any ideological organization, from conservatives to liberals to Anarchists and Marxists; nobody is free to relax and think that nobody is willing to reverse the gains produced by their activism. The LGBTQIA+ community, despite effectively rupturing the political landscape since the '60s, is still facing an uphill battle to not only gain their civil rights, but to just function at all in daily life without the fear of repercussions of their identity. What's even more worse is the fact that from conservatives are curtailing LGBTQIA+ gains since they cannot profit out of their activism, and liberals are slowly but surely following suit along with them as its becoming unprofitable to support them. For this trend will shake up the community rather harshly and it'll be a long pain if the LGBTQIA+ community continues to ally with liberal groups and not turn more radical solutions in their programmes.
Yet there's more to the story that what lies beneath the eyes, for often while parties do exist to maintain the gains of a group - they do more. And it's a necessity that they do more than defend, and that more is fighting for their right to exist. While legal rights are nice to talk about, they often do not get enforced if there's no enforcers for such. (And it's pretty telling that there's not only an anti-LGBTQIA+ movement to curtail LGBTQIA+ rights, but it's growing as well.) For who shall enforce the newly executed rights or rulings if the liberals are in retreat and the conservatives are in full motion? Why it takes the very people and their allies that refuse to retreat to build the bulwark for their movement. Those very people are the ones that raised the rainbow banner to those that protested to those that are willing to ally with both and never fret in the face of Death are those that willing to put the first and last defences of the movement.
Without the existence of rebel, radical organizations wouldn't exist to begin with. One must not only stand up to laws, but know that it's right to rebel against reactionaries. The defence of presupposes their right to exist, and nobody shall compromise the right to exist with lesser gains than that. Yet once the right to exist has been established, it follows necessarily that the whole system has to be reconfigured to fit them in or ultimately abolish them. And the political activists are there to ensure that the latter option is not a possibility they can follow through with without a sacrifice to the existing order of things.
Earning more rights?
As such, if the system can ultimately stay the same but pass on minor recognition to the group that has won its rights, than it shall follow suit that it shall remain benign to the entire ordeal and history of the group. Thus, there's another presupposition that comes out of political activists: the double movement of defence and gain. For the latter movement, gain, is a necessary inclusion for the movement to even exist in the first place, but easily can it be tamed if it feels that it has gain all there is to gain. And the subsequent deradicalization of the group can leave the entire group on defence of what they got until they internally disband themselves. As why to remain on the defence of a World that grows ever more hateful of your group?
Thus there should be attempts to resist taming and a propulsion to go even further than what one has succeeded in gaining at any one moment. For the inclusion of earning more rights not only further inspires the group to defend the new gains but allows them to see what else they can do to fight to extend on the founding right that allowed them to be, where it goes from the right to exist to the right to exist as one wishes. The LGBTQIA+ had fundamentally made it clear that it'll be impossible their right to exist, but they don't have the right to exist as they please without being harmed in the process. Thus, the spirit of '68 should be the driving force that teaches them not only to struggle but to remind people of why they struggle to begin with - for they have the right to rebel against reactionaries.
Combating the Base-Superstructure of this Social Order?
Yet in the double movement of political activism, it will eventually come to clash with the Base-Superstructure of today's Social Order.
Why so? Because the group will get to the point where the Superstructure will see them as a threat to the things that already are that allows itself to exist and to reproduce themselves. Yet from the Base side, the economy which has no reason to change the way things operate will fundamentally resist any attempts to modify the Superstructure that wish to make less painful the principled ills and byproducts of such. For the Base is in fear of any change except the ones it wants or expects to happen. The economy is the final resting point of all movements - for all movements know they must see the economy as it is currently but dare to change if it's required.
And for some LGBTQIA+ people, they had made the radical shift away from liberalism towards Anarchist and Marxist groups that not only wish to incorporate them in their larger movement, but, hopefully, see them as a natural and important ally to their causes. For while we could speak of pure empathy the groups can transmit across each other, there's a higher order that dictates their coming together - the contradictions that generate their oppression to begin with. For while the more radical sects, the most important sects, of the LGBTQIA+ often came with slightly modified contradictions to the contradictions that faces and generates the faith of Anarchists and Marxists, they fundamentally share the original contradiction that incites them to rally support to change the things that compels them to rebel.
How does one commit to political activism?
So with a simple baseline of why people choose to commit to political activism, there comes the question of how one should carry out political activism? Fundamentally, two strong tactics that persisted with the Anarchist and Marxist traditions should fundamentally be rechristened all across LGBTQIA+ communities. That of Direct Action and the Vanguard, respective of their tradition. But I'll ruminate a third tactic that all three communities (LGBTQIA+, Anarchists and Marxists) should fundamentally seek in their efforts to gain political power in any area they face themselves in.
Direct action?
Direct Action, in accordance with the coining and origination in Anarchist communities, is the philosophically-ideological (originating from philosophy that has an ideological output) tactic that seeks to combat the ills of current society in confrontations. Though heavily inspired by worker's movements that had long committed to it to gain more worker's rights, the Anarchist and Marxist both fundamentally use this tactic as to nowadays consolidate their gains and gather more rights than they had before. And while we could go into discussions of how differing their usages of this tactic is, the underlying basis goes back to this: the right to rebel against reactionaries.
And so to should LGBTQIA+ peoples commit to Direct Action. Now one could say the protests are an example of such, how can one be blind? The only response to it is they fundamentally need to utilize that tactic even more, to disobey the laws that surround organizing rallies and to have the courage to fight on when the movement is forced to retreat. For I can easily point at why a political activist must commit to their programme as before, let me espouse something more to it that fundamentally Anarchists and Marxists have learned when their movements have failed: there's never enough, there's only more that one can ever do.
Vanguard?
Running parallel to the Anarchist tradition, the Marxist tradition seeks proudly to bolster the Vanguard. Why so? For it is the spearhead of the movement that is utilized by the people to destabilize the current Social Order of things and to help create a New Social Order that precludes their oppression in the new one. And clearly the LGBTQIA+ community can stand to have organizations to take a more active role and to be the loudspeaker of their movement. For the ability to possess their voice without having to sacrifice for another group's whims, liken to the liberals, will leave the group to think what they actually wish to gain and how they wish to achieve such. And the Vanguard is the mouthpiece of the movement that wishes to abolish the state of things that necessitated them to exist in the first place for a group that is oppressed by such.
The Vanguard not only serves as a mouth piece but the centralization and mass planning of concentrated activities that can truly strike at the heart of whomever wishes to keep them down. Yet why to say this is a tactic? Why I say such for it's part of a grander strategy of any and all movements that uses them. For when a Vanguard succeeds in its mission, it will subsequently be changed to be the Party, for the Vanguard is limited in its potential to consolidate what is gained and cannot carry out all tasks that need to be done. Thus it eventually gets replaced with the Party, the true strategy of any movements. But this is constantly being transformed into the Party as the movement continues on, for when a movement gets bigger it needs more roles to be fulfilled and the tactic cannot truly fulfill it without sacrificing something in return with its limited size.
Thus it transforms itself into the Party, to truly carry the movement forwards and to inspire a new wave of determination and goals that has to be achieved in its entire life. Thus, the Vanguard serves as the first step in the creation of the party, to consolidate all the influential leaders and disunited forces that'll help steer the movement towards its end goals, one step at a time.
And of the Third?
Why the third is a rather strenuous but necessary one has to commit to when one wishes to guarantee the success of the movement. But the third is the tactic of reproduction, the most necessary one that gets forgotten until one makes one's first mistake, and dime-a-dozen if one is stubborn. For the tactic of reproduction takes on many forms but all consolidate under such and are reinforced for being under such. In fact, only two slogans are needed to truly explain away this: "Agitation, Education and Organization" as the first one and "help without asking a favor back" as the second one. For the former is, in essence, the necessary organs of keeping alive a movement, to generate new fervor, to keep one's group educated and to make best use of everyone in consolidated fashions. The latter is, in practice, a necessary conclusion to allow the former to even be possible, for trust is everything in a group that is ridiculed for existing as such. As to quote the Epictetus on struggling forward with one's passions: "[f]or remember that, if you adhere to the same point, those very persons who at first ridiculed will afterwards admire you."
And while we all do struggle and try to make it our best effort, we must remember that respect comes not out of submission but of triumph over a struggle. This is where the LGBTQIA+ can really shine here, they fundamentally have their experiences to tell and they can fundamentally help change people's minds that a non-LGBTQIA+ (not necessarily anti-LGBTQIA+) person can't. They can slowly make people see that the boogeyman of LGBTQIA+ is untrue and that it's all propagated lies that only seeks to protect what is already here. Also they can help agitate fellow LGBTQIA+ people on what is to be done and help organize a movement that will be most beneficial for them as they fundamentally know what they wish to achieve in their area - and no one should dictate whether or not they shall be able to get it and only they can truly discuss on how they'll achieve such as long as they still exist as a movement. And to hit home and make clear on the original question of why political activism is needed: it is out of one's dignity and exerting one's right to exist as to why one commits to political activism.