This text is a draft from the Programme of the United Communists of Europe. It represents a sincere effort of our organisation to address the issue of transgender liberation. We argue that just like other oppressed groups, the liberation of trans people is bound with the working class struggle for socialism. As we carry out our programmatic discussions, this document will develop further.
The liberation of transgender people is a key issue facing the communist movement worldwide. Despite being an oppressed minority, trans people continue to be undertheorised within Marxist theory. There have been a few books that address trans liberation within a Marxist paradigm, such as Trangender Marxism by Jules Gleeson and Elle O'Rourke, as well as a number of pamphlets, such as Transgender Liberation by the Workers World Party. In contrast to this, there are also a number of Marxist organisations that take an explicitly transphobic stance, such the Communist Party of Britain and the (expelled Irish section of the Fourth International) Socialist Democracy. These organisations explicitly deny the existence of trans people and claim that those claiming to be transgender are bourgeois idealists.
The United Communists of Europe thinks that the liberation of trans people is a fundamental task of the international working class. A communist organisation that does not take a correct position of trans oppression, whether due to dogmatism or because of transphobia, is unlikely to be in a position to offer revolutionary leadership to the working class. This is because transphobia is a major tool used by the bourgeoisie to divide huge sections of the proletariat and win them over to the politics of capital. In a way similar to how racism functioned in the past, anti-trans bigotry is designed to make workers fight other workers, rather than uniting and fighting the capitalist class together. Just like all other forms of oppression, the liberation of trans people is connected to the revolutionary struggle of the working class. Communists are the only kinds of people capable of producing a programme that can advance the proletariat beyond a mere reformist consciousness. Therefore, whether the workers movement takes up trans liberation as a key point in its programme is entirely dependent on whether communists correctly articulate the needs of trans people.
Communists needn't have an opinion on every aspect of trans existence. There are major issues within the trans community that are up to trans people to figure out. For example, questions related to passing and transitioning are issues that the trans community must decide on. How important is passing? What is involved in a social transition and how can trans people best let others know how they wish to be called? Communists need to be aware of these debates, but these need not become programmatic issues in a revolutionary programme. Where communists are needed is in demonstrating the impossibility of trans liberation under capitalism and the necessity for socialist revolution to achieve the demands of the trans movement.
Since only a politically conscious, united working class can overthrow capitalism, it is essential that communists actively agitate in favour of trans people within the workers movement. This can take the form of militant polemical action against transphobic union leaders, opposition to anti-trans measures within mass workers parties, and discussion with trans people about the importance of linking their struggle to the fight for socialism. Doing this makes transgender liberation less an individual issue and a more collective one. By demonstrating that trans people are an oppressed minority with specific needs, communists are able to articulate the specific demands of trans people within the workers struggle.
A key demand that communists must make is that transgender people are given the full opportunity to live as they please. This involves upholding the idea that trans people can wear the kind of clothes they want, request that people call them the correct pronoun, and that they have access to the material needs required for their transition. Within trade unions, demanding paid-leave during medical transition is a key way to raise the issue of trans liberation within the working class. Making such a demand avoids taking a specific position on passing or transition, leaving this up to trans people and their organisations to decide.
In order to win large sections of the trans community to a revolutionary socialist politics, we must adopt a united front policy towards trans and LGBT organisations, many of which are reformist. At pride demonstrations, communists need to clearly formulate slogans that articulate our revolutionary socialist politics and avoid reformism. While we can march together with those calling for reforms such as better access to trans healthcare, communists should only place slogans on their placards that connect every trans issue to class unity and the necessity for socialist revolution. We shouldn't place whatever radical sounding slogan comes to mind, but take care to formulate demands that advance the class struggle within the trans community. It is also important to prepare discussions and prepare to carry these in a way that wins trans people over to the politics of communists.
If a comrade is transgender or non-binary, then they can also advance a communist programme within their LGBT organisations. Most LGBT organisations speak in non-class terms about 'trans people' rather than trans workers. In a way similar to bourgeois feminism, bourgeois trans organisations seek to resolve the trans issue within the horizon of capitalist society. They will support bourgeois politicians, keeping up with legislative developments in parliament, but have no perspective outside of capitalist society. At meetings to discuss trans issues, communists should raise the call for class unity as the key to fighting trans oppression and struggle with the bourgeois reformists who run these organisations.
We should point out that most of the people attending a trans event belong to the working class, which also contains other oppressed minorities and non-trans people. If they only fight as the trans community, they may win a few reforms, but will suffer from a permanent insecurity and a constant threat that their victories are taken away. Therefore, communists must win trans people to the perspective of class struggle as the key to trans liberation. By uniting with non-trans workers, trans workers will be in a much stronger position to agitate for their demands. A politically conscious, united working class possesses something that a bourgeois trans organisation does not: the ability to organise a general strike and an armed insurrection for socialist revolution. When trans workers join with non-trans workers, they can use the weapon of revolutionary struggle to fight for their demands outside of the limited horizon of capitalism.
It should be made clear that we are not advocating for a purely trade union fight for trans liberation; this is absurd and far from our perspective. Trade unions, while sometimes taking up a few trans issues, are mostly dominated by reformist bureaucrats who have no interest in socialist revolution. The most they will do for trans people is to demand acceptance at the workplace and oppose discrimination (if they even go that far). These class collaborationist bureaucrats are instruments of the bourgeoisie within the proletariat and hold back the full development of class consciousness.
What we are proposing is that transgender communists who are involved in reformist trans organisations agitate for a class struggle approach. Even if no mass workers party exists to wage a revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie, it is nonetheless possible to struggle for a proletarian standpoint within the trans community. In a way similar to how the black liberation movement in the 1970s often took a communist perspective, LGBT organisations have the capacity to become sites to wage ideological struggle. Such an ideological struggle involves breaking with reformist illusions and raising communist ideas within the organisation. This in no way means that a reformist trans organisation does not do valuable work, but only that their activities are highly limited. We should defend these organisations when they come under attack, as they are an essential support system for many trans people. They raise awareness in bourgeois society about trans issues and are often the only representatives of the trans community. However, until trans communists within these organisations succeed in breaking them free of reformism, they will always be limited to a bourgeois perspective that does not transcend the horizon of capitalist society. Winning a trans organisation to a revolutionary perspective requires a structural shift in how it perceives itself and the social forces around it. This is a long, protracted process that is only possible when a number of trans communists are organised and have a clear strategy for ideological struggle.
A note should be made on radical queer organisations. There are some queer organisations that claim to be against capitalism and for revolution. While this is a positive development, it should be noted that these organisations tend to be petty-bourgeois in their outlook and oppose a class struggle approach to trans liberation. This is because their understanding of capitalism tends to be informed by petty-bourgeois intersectional theory rather than Marxism. Although intersectional theory can make us sensitive to the complexity of social oppression, its perspective is limited in that it transforms every material reality into an identity. Class loses its meaning as a material, social relation and becomes nothing but an identity marker. Intersectional theory hyper focuses on individual experience, which is important in any discussion but harmful when it dominates it. As a result, these queer organisations will oppose the idea of a politically conscious united working class as the main force capable of transforming society in the interests of trans people. Instead, it will hyperfocus on fighting transphobic ideas and ultimately arrive at some form of reformism.
Our attitude towards petty-bourgeois queer organisations is informed by a united front strategy. We should unite with progressive sentiments within these organisations, but take a clear stance against the limitations of intersectional theory. It is important to do this in a caring, sensitive way, highlighting what is progressive in intersectional theory while opposing its limitations. We should acknowledge that the working class today is not politically conscious and does not possess class consciousness. Working class organisations are dominated by reformism, nationalism, and transphobia. It is not a surprise that many working people in the United States voted for Trump in the last US elections, for the proletariat entirely lacks an independent class perspective. If we can acknowledge this, it will be easier to have a productive discussion with members of a petty-bourgeois radical organisation. At the same time, we should be prepared to be met with hostility, as the class standpoint of many queer organisations is not proletarian but petty-bourgeois. This class, although uniting with the working class on some issues, must be won over if it is to fully march behind the proletariat. Until this happens, it will always carry some level of hostility towards the working class and its revolutionary vanguard.
The United Communists of Europe wishes to raise trans issues to a programmatic level by formulating the following demands. We wish to agitate for these demands within the trans and LGBT community, within our unions, and within the revolutionary Left:
–For the right of trans people to live in whatever way they wish!
–Defend the right of trans people to organise themselves, even if their organisations are limited by reformism!
–Paid-leave for trans people during the entire period of a medical transition!
–Fight within the workers movement to address the specific needs of trans people!
–Expose the trade union bureaucrats as instruments of bourgeois policy towards trans people in our unions!
–Down with transphobia, a tool of the bourgeoisie to divide the working class!
–Trans and non-trans workers: unite and fight the bourgeoisie together!
–Only a politically conscious, united working class can liberate trans people!
–Socialist revolution is the key to transgender liberation!
–For an international communist world in which trans people are liberated along with all other oppressed groups!
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