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[[Category:Essays]] | |||
[[Category:Essays by Anna]] | |||
[[Category:LGBT+ topics (essays)]] | |||
{{Infobox_essay | |||
| title = Welcome to TERF Island | |||
| author = Annamarx | |||
| date = 2024-06-27 | |||
| excerpt = Disclaimer: This essay contains transphobia and quotes from transphobic authors. If you are sensitive to this, please take caution while reading this essay. | |||
| image = Trans Soviet flag.png | |||
}} | |||
<big>'''Disclaimer: This essay contains transphobia and quotes from transphobic authors. If you are sensitive to this, please take caution while reading this essay.'''</big> | <big>'''Disclaimer: This essay contains transphobia and quotes from transphobic authors. If you are sensitive to this, please take caution while reading this essay.'''</big> | ||
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The ''BBC'' is a transphobic media outlet. There are numerous articles which criticise the BBC on trans rights. | The ''BBC'' is a transphobic media outlet. There are numerous articles which criticise the BBC on trans rights. | ||
The BBC is not just a news piece. There exists 5 BBC Radios, and also TV Shows as well. One of the shows, on BBC Newsnight, the BBC staunchly defends the 'debate' being only with 2 cis people.<ref>{{Web citation | The BBC is not just a news piece. There exists 5 BBC Radios, and also TV Shows as well. One of the shows, on BBC Newsnight, the BBC staunchly defends the 'debate' on trans rights despite being only with 2 cis people.<ref>{{Web citation | ||
| title = BBC defend decision on holding trans healthcare debate with no trans representation | | title = BBC defend decision on holding trans healthcare debate with no trans representation | ||
| author = Katie Donohoe | | author = Katie Donohoe | ||
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}}</ref> Of course this parallels the idea of cis women not wanting to date trans people because of genitalia. Again, this idea is weird, why would someone date a person purely because of genitalia? If it is off-putting, ''just don't date them''. No, instead they must hear their words and scream it out, scream that they don't want to. A private matter turns into a whole center of "debate" (where the debate is only between cis people and no trans voices are ever heard). | }}</ref> Of course this parallels the idea of cis women not wanting to date trans people because of genitalia. Again, this idea is weird, why would someone date a person purely because of genitalia? If it is off-putting, ''just don't date them''. No, instead they must hear their words and scream it out, scream that they don't want to. A private matter turns into a whole center of "debate" (where the debate is only between cis people and no trans voices are ever heard). | ||
This article claims that activists are "policing their sexual preferences" (how?) and they state that they attacking someone for not dating trans people as they are "biologically male". See how this term is reiterated dozens of time to demonise transgender people? Yet this person states that they have a right to say 'no' to ''all'' males (including the supposed "biological male" trans people), as it defines their sexuality. It does not. Being a lesbian doesn't always mean same-sex attraction. A ''transbian''<ref group="note">Transbian refers to a transgender person who is a Lesbian.</ref> and a cis lesbian can be together and they would be lesbians. The transbian would not be straight, and the cis lesbian would not be straight either. See the nuance happening? This concept of nuance seems to fly over the author's head. | This article claims that activists are "policing their sexual preferences" (how?) and they state that they attacking someone for not dating trans people as they are "biologically male". See how this term is reiterated dozens of time to demonise transgender people? Yet this person states that they have a right to say 'no' to ''all'' males (including the supposed "biological male" trans people), as it defines their sexuality. It does not. Being a lesbian doesn't always mean same-sex attraction. A ''transbian''<ref group="note">'''Transbian''' refers to a transgender person who is a Lesbian.</ref> and a cis lesbian can be together and they would be lesbians. The transbian would not be straight, and the cis lesbian would not be straight either. See the nuance happening? This concept of nuance seems to fly over the author's head. | ||
Then the person talks about Lesbophobia, a concept which is ''entirely'' irrelevant when talking about trans people and dating. The rest of the paragraph is filled with things you expect to see in an article titled about lesbians. | Then the person talks about Lesbophobia, a concept which is ''entirely'' irrelevant when talking about trans people and dating. The rest of the paragraph is filled with things you expect to see in an article titled about lesbians. | ||
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</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
They state that 'children' are going through surgical and | They state that 'children' are going through surgical and hormonal interventions, but children cannot consent to have circumcisions or not. Great hypocrisy there. Gender dysphoria is not temporary. It happens and it stays. People who have experienced gender dysphoria (including myself) know what it feels like to not be the desired gender. Gay (not trans) people going through gender dysphoria is utter stupidity. | ||
The end is just a conclusion, but see how short of an article is clearly characterising transgender people and "trans ideology". | The end is just a conclusion, but see how short of an article is clearly characterising transgender people and "trans ideology". | ||
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The piece states that NHS England will now adopt a "more-evidenced based approach" to analysing gender dysphoria. What this means we can only guess. Because gender dysphoria is already extensively studied. They state social transition should only be done on children on the basis of "clinical distress or impairment of social functioning". In other words, as long as you can talk and don't cry when someone calls you a gender assigned at your birth. | The piece states that NHS England will now adopt a "more-evidenced based approach" to analysing gender dysphoria. What this means we can only guess. Because gender dysphoria is already extensively studied. They state social transition should only be done on children on the basis of "clinical distress or impairment of social functioning". In other words, as long as you can talk and don't cry when someone calls you a gender assigned at your birth. | ||
Next they implicitly advocate for ''trans conversion therapy'', by stating that there are people who willing to make conversion therapy impossible and also that trans conversion therapy is ill-defined! They state that it is ill-defined, so when a doctor does not prescribe puberty blockers is also considered illegal. | Next they implicitly advocate for ''trans conversion therapy'', by stating that there are people who are willing to make conversion therapy impossible and ''also'' that trans conversion therapy is ill-defined! They state that it is ill-defined, so when a doctor does not prescribe puberty blockers is also considered illegal. | ||
At the conclusion, they state that doctors are at risk, only because they can be outlawed for under "conversion therapy practices"! They are outrightly stating that conversion therapy should ''not only'' be explored, but implicitly states that it should be legal too! | At the conclusion, they state that doctors are at risk, only because they can be outlawed for under "conversion therapy practices"! They are outrightly stating that conversion therapy should ''not only'' be explored, but implicitly states that it should be legal too! | ||
The Guardian ( | The Guardian (and the Observer) is another ''clear as day'' transphobic outlet. However, they do post 'pro-trans' stuff every now and then. This is only so that they can 'appeal' to both sides and appear neutral. Imagine if nowadays an outlet like the Guardian posts anti-racist and pro-racist content simultaneously. That analogy is similar to what trans people are facing. | ||
=== Daily Mail === | === Daily Mail === | ||
The ''Daily Mail'' is another transphobic media outlet. They're another medium that wants to promote transphobia. Let's consider an article, this time an author being a ''trans'' woman. This trans woman seems to promote transphobia, how ironic. This is why | The ''Daily Mail'' is another transphobic media outlet. They're another medium that wants to promote transphobia. Let's consider an article, this time an author being a ''trans'' woman. This trans woman seems to promote transphobia, how ironic. This is why not ''all'' trans people are to be trusted. The article in question is titled "'It's a betrayal of children to ban experts from asking tough questions before they can change gender': Transwoman DEBBIE HAYTON gives her view on a new Government bill which she fears will have damaging, unintended consequences".<ref>{{Web citation | ||
| title = 'It's a betrayal of children to ban experts from asking tough questions before they can change gender': Transwoman DEBBIE HAYTON gives her view on a new Government bill which she fears will have damaging, unintended consequences | | title = 'It's a betrayal of children to ban experts from asking tough questions before they can change gender': Transwoman DEBBIE HAYTON gives her view on a new Government bill which she fears will have damaging, unintended consequences | ||
| url = https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10273719/Transwoman-DEBBIE-HAYTON-gives-view-new-Government-bill.html | | url = https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10273719/Transwoman-DEBBIE-HAYTON-gives-view-new-Government-bill.html | ||
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}}</ref> | }}</ref> | ||
The article starts from a anecdote, stating her ''deadname''<ref group="note">A deadname is a name someone once used (usually their birth name) but they have a new name they use as a replacement for the old name.</ref> proudly. Hayton wanted to transition because she felt feelings of gender dysphoria. And the psychotherapist stated that they were not stop talking until every alternative to transition is explored. This is a red flag already. This psychotherapist shouldn't have been so bold to state that the person (Hayton) shouldn't have been transitioning. The alternative to transitioning is to not. And that is harmful to trans people. | The article starts from a anecdote, stating her ''deadname''<ref group="note">A '''deadname''' is a name someone once used (usually their birth name) but they have a new name they use as a replacement for the old name.</ref> proudly. Hayton wanted to transition because she felt feelings of gender dysphoria. And the psychotherapist stated that they were not stop talking until every alternative to transition is explored. This is a red flag already. This psychotherapist shouldn't have been so bold to state that the person (Hayton) shouldn't have been transitioning. The alternative to transitioning is to not. And that is harmful to trans people. | ||
Hayton states that without painfully analyse her feelings via "therapy", she would be consumed with guilt. She states questions about the people around her instead of herself. That's her first thought. | Hayton states that without having to painfully analyse her feelings via "therapy", she would be consumed with guilt. She states questions about the people around her instead of herself. That's her first thought. | ||
Her second thought is that she is concerned with the government making the measure that it is illegal for therapists, doctors, even parents to question their children and their gender. She states she is not happy with this. | Her second thought is that she is concerned with the government making the measure that it is illegal for therapists, doctors, even parents to question their children and their gender. She states she is not happy with this. | ||
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=== What do we make of this? === | === What do we make of this? === | ||
We have seen a certain trend for these media. "Gender ideology", "Conversion Therapy", "Feminism", "Trans people are targeting children". Even if these pieces of mainstream media do not directly state their transphobic intentions, every single piece of media we have thus | We have seen a certain trend for these media. "Gender ideology", "Conversion Therapy", "Feminism", "Trans people are targeting children". Even if these pieces of mainstream media do not directly state their transphobic intentions, every single piece of media we have seen thus far promotes transphobia to a large capacity. We cannot trust the media when it comes to promoting trans voices. Primary sources and Studies are unfortunately our only means of collecting data for the most part. | ||
You can see the same regurgitation stated in each article, even if what they say differs slightly. It's almost as if transphobes follow a similar line of thinking. Compared to me, a transgender Marxist-Leninist, who differs in thought from a transgender liberal. This is because transgender theories (or queer theory as it is sometimes known), are diverse, and requires not only an understanding in philosophy, but also politics and history, something which Marxism already provides. A transphobe in this case never looks into history. We are thought of as a 'trend', something which will eventually die or that we are silenced. Our oppression has returned to the 50s (or even 30s), as we do not have a say in what we do with our bodies. The current media that is "bestowed" upon us is nothing more than the same regurgitation, the same vomit on a shining platter. The only thing we need to do is to not eat it. | You can see the same regurgitation stated in each article, even if what they say differs slightly. It's almost as if transphobes follow a similar line of thinking. Compared to me, a transgender Marxist-Leninist, who differs in thought from a transgender liberal. This is because transgender theories (or queer theory as it is sometimes known), are diverse, and requires not only an understanding in philosophy, but also politics and history, something which Marxism already provides. A transphobe in this case never looks into history. We are thought of as a 'trend', something which will eventually die or that we are silenced. Our oppression has returned to the 50s (or even 30s), as we do not have a say in what we do with our bodies. The current media that is "bestowed" upon us is nothing more than the same regurgitation, the same vomit on a shining platter. The only thing we need to do is to not eat it. | ||
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== The LGB Alliance == | == The LGB Alliance == | ||
I specifically titled this heading "The LGB Alliance" due to an organisation known by its respective. It's also the most well known of the other transphobic charities, including other groups like Bayswater. I will consider Bayswater later, but currently let's see this organisation. What is the LGB Alliance? | I specifically titled this heading "The LGB Alliance" due to an organisation known by its respective name. It's also the most well known of the other transphobic charities, including other groups like Bayswater. I will consider Bayswater later, but currently let's see this organisation. What is the LGB Alliance? | ||
According to its about page, it is a page dedicated to protecting Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual people in regards to same-sex attraction.<ref>[https://lgballiance.org.uk/about/ About page on the LGB Alliance]</ref> On the surface, it does not ''seem'' like a transphobic organisation. But it definitively is. | According to its about page, it is a page dedicated to protecting Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual people in regards to same-sex attraction.<ref>[https://lgballiance.org.uk/about/ About page on the LGB Alliance]</ref> On the surface, it does not ''seem'' like a transphobic organisation. But it definitively is. | ||
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CPB in particular claims to be a successor of [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] (CPGB), a party which had dissolved around the time that the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet Union]] dissolved. CPGB had turned to revisionism and eventually [[Eurocommunism|eurocommunism]], with its British Road to Socialism which the CPB later carried the torch. | CPB in particular claims to be a successor of [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] (CPGB), a party which had dissolved around the time that the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet Union]] dissolved. CPGB had turned to revisionism and eventually [[Eurocommunism|eurocommunism]], with its British Road to Socialism which the CPB later carried the torch. | ||
CPGB-ML is not innocent either, often denying the self-determination of the Welsh, Scottish and even Cornish peoples, with the exception of Ireland which it supports a full reunification. They are more 'principled' than CPB but that is irrelevant to this essay. The matter is that this sets a precedent of the transphobia that ''both'' parties enact. We will start with the CPGB-ML first since they are the first party to engage in such transphobia. | CPGB-ML is not innocent either, often denying the self-determination of the Welsh, Scottish and even Cornish peoples, with the exception of Ireland which it supports a full reunification. They are more 'principled' (to what extent you can call it "principled") than CPB but that is irrelevant to this essay. The matter is that this sets a precedent of the transphobia that ''both'' parties enact. We will start with the CPGB-ML first since they are the first party to engage in such transphobia. | ||
=== Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) === | === Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) === | ||
The CPGB-ML has a harsher stance on Identity politics in contrast to any other communist | The CPGB-ML has a harsher stance on Identity politics in contrast to any other communist party, a stance which harms its own marxist stance. Case in point, there are plenty of articles 'dismantling' the so-called "Gender Ideology" of Transgender people, all under the Newspaper label '[[Proletarian (newspaper)|The Communists]]' or alternatively known as 'Proletarian'. In the Eighth Congress of the CPGB-ML, the party passed with an ''overwhelming'' majority of denouncing the so-called "LGBT Ideology": | ||
<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
Congress therefore resolves that the propagation of identity politics, including LGBT ideology, being reactionary and anti-working class and a harmful distraction and diversion from the class struggle of the proletariat for its social emancipation, is incompatible with membership of the party, '''rendering those involved in its promotion liable to expulsion.'''<ref>{{Web citation | Congress therefore resolves that the propagation of identity politics, including LGBT ideology, being reactionary and anti-working class and a harmful distraction and diversion from the class struggle of the proletariat for its social emancipation, is incompatible with membership of the party, '''rendering those involved in its promotion liable to expulsion.'''<ref>{{Web citation | ||
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Next they attempt to use the same method of "They're the exception so we do not need to care." Exceptions are still exceptions no matter how minute they are. If 10% of the people are LGBT of some kind (which is a conservative estimate, there may be a lot more bisexual people than we realise), then it is about 800,000,000 people. If 1% is transgender, then it is 80,000,000. Are 800,000,000 LGBT people just a minority because they're only 10% of the population? They still exist and have ''always'' existed, and suffered the same oppression as women did back then. And as always they just backpedal their arguments to make it seem less than worse than it is. | Next they attempt to use the same method of "They're the exception so we do not need to care." Exceptions are still exceptions no matter how minute they are. If 10% of the people are LGBT of some kind (which is a conservative estimate, there may be a lot more bisexual people than we realise), then it is about 800,000,000 people. If 1% is transgender, then it is 80,000,000. Are 800,000,000 LGBT people just a minority because they're only 10% of the population? They still exist and have ''always'' existed, and suffered the same oppression as women did back then. And as always they just backpedal their arguments to make it seem less than worse than it is. | ||
Next is an argument which is filled with deliberate half-truths. Note the word 'suddenly' in the sentence "The western imperialist bourgeoisie has suddenly discovered and embraced gay and transgender rights". They are arguing that the LGBT people have only suddenly appeared, when in reality they have always existed. There was a 'gay panic' in the 80s in the both the United States and TERF Island, and now there exist a 'Trans panic' in the 2020s where transgender people are being ''actively'' affected. They did not 'embrace' gay and transgender rights, that is an aspect of pinkwashing, an aspect which still exists in | Next is an argument which is filled with deliberate half-truths. Note the word 'suddenly' in the sentence "The western imperialist bourgeoisie has suddenly discovered and embraced gay and transgender rights". They are arguing that the LGBT people have only suddenly appeared, when in reality they have always existed. There was a 'gay panic' in the 80s in the both the United States and TERF Island, and now there exist a 'Trans panic' in the 2020s where transgender people are being ''actively'' affected. They did not 'embrace' gay and transgender rights, that is an aspect of pinkwashing, an aspect which still exists in countries like "Israel". This is a form where the bourgeoisie tries to downplay the radicalisation of the LGBT people to make sure they cannot have any revolutionary potential. Next they argue that it is not the LGBT people that are being persecuted, but the so-called "Communists" now, that they are now being persecuted for being vocal and attempting to criticise their stance on transgender people. This is not even Marxian analysis at this point. This is already bordering the talking points of [[Ben Shapiro]] and [[Matt Walsh]]. | ||
Next they point towards the bourgeoisie taking advantage of gay rights in the bourgeoisie. This is the only line I would agree with, ''if'' they did not stop at the oppressed countries part. Because, despite having correct analyses on racism and women oppression, they have failed to point out the ''cultural imperialism'' which occurred on the oppressed nations centuries earlier. These are not traditional, they are forcibly ingested from the colonialists that had lived on the land before. Nonetheless, it is true that LGBT liberals have criticised other nations for being anti-LGBT and the third world nations have used the talking point of the 'LGBT being a western concept therefore they have to oppose it'. But this is not an issue of internationalism, this is a domestic issue that can only be solved through local contradictions. This paragraph is wrong only merely by ignoring the nuance and oversimplifying the aspects of cultural imperialism and colonialism. | Next they point towards the bourgeoisie taking advantage of gay rights in the bourgeoisie. This is the only line I would agree with, ''if'' they did not stop at the oppressed countries part. Because, despite having correct analyses on racism and women oppression, they have failed to point out the ''cultural imperialism'' which occurred on the oppressed nations centuries earlier. These are not traditional, they are forcibly ingested from the colonialists that had lived on the land before. Nonetheless, it is true that LGBT liberals have criticised other nations for being anti-LGBT and the third world nations have used the talking point of the 'LGBT being a western concept therefore they have to oppose it'. But this is not an issue of internationalism, this is a domestic issue that can only be solved through local contradictions. This paragraph is wrong only merely by ignoring the nuance and oversimplifying the aspects of cultural imperialism and colonialism. | ||
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</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
It is a clear metaphor. Lenin said this to describe human nature, that being: whatever does not exist | It is a clear metaphor. Lenin said this to describe human nature, that being: whatever does not exist in the context of natural reality must be thrown out and replaced with a newer model. That is exactly the process that the idea of science operates under. That is "what he meant". | ||
The author then clearly states the formula of a sphere and the area of a triangle, as if it is important to know. This is what the author considers their 'premise', to present it more ''logically'' speaking. But then it is not logically sound as the author did not presuppose that said shapes can 'think'. This is a classic example of a ''non sequitur''. | The author then clearly states the formula of a sphere and the area of a triangle, as if it is important to know. This is what the author considers their 'premise', to present it more ''logically'' speaking. But then it is not logically sound as the author did not presuppose that said shapes can 'think'. This is a classic example of a ''non sequitur''. | ||
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There is a desmos link<ref group="note">[https://www.desmos.com/calculator/3hkybt8kf0 Link to the graph]</ref> to where you can find such example. Now, why does all this matter? Why do we need this such mathematics? Well the point is that this author does not know how to understand fluidity. Both shapes can exist, but there also exists a middle shape called a "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squircle Squircle]", does this mean that they are the same? No, they are fundamentally different from one another. | There is a desmos link<ref group="note">[https://www.desmos.com/calculator/3hkybt8kf0 Link to the graph]</ref> to where you can find such example. Now, why does all this matter? Why do we need this such mathematics? Well the point is that this author does not know how to understand fluidity. Both shapes can exist, but there also exists a middle shape called a "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squircle Squircle]", does this mean that they are the same? No, they are fundamentally different from one another. | ||
The author is trying to establish a precedent for the transgender people, that there exists a material reality for a circle, square, and a squircle. The values of <math>\alpha</math> can range in many, ''many'' values, even values that are not positive or beyond the spectrum. This means that there exists a square and | The author is trying to establish a precedent for the transgender people, that there exists a material reality for a circle, square, and a squircle. The values of <math>\alpha</math> can range in many, ''many'' values, even values that are not positive or beyond the spectrum. This means that there exists a square and a circle, but that there is also exists squircles that are ''in-between'' or even ''out of the spectrum''. This is not idealism, this is just a simple nature of material reality, taken from the analogy mentioned here. Why we differentiate at all between a circle and square is because in mathematics, a square and a circle is defined differently. A square cannot be defined through a graph<ref group="note">There does exist an equation of a square that is tilted by 90 degrees which is <math>|x| + |y| = r</math> however it is still a square that is tilted so it may be considered a rhombus instead of a square.</ref> while a circle can be defined easily by the Pythagorean theorem. | ||
Next they actually move onto the topic of Sex, Gender and Gender Fluidity. | Next they actually move onto the topic of Sex, Gender and Gender Fluidity. | ||
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Next they argue about Radical Feminism, again, this is not important, and I really don't disagree with anything they say. | Next they argue about Radical Feminism, again, this is not important, and I really don't disagree with anything they say. | ||
Then they bring us back to the attention of "transwomen". This is not my wording, this is what their heading says. To reiterate, they use the exact same thing point with "LGBTs". It is not "transwomen" It is | Then they bring us back to the attention of "transwomen". This is not my wording, this is what their heading says. To reiterate, they use the exact same thing point with "LGBTs". It is not "transwomen" It is ''trans women''. Trans is an adjective, women is a noun. Combination of both makes it a target, it dehumanises people. Take the case of "blacks" for example. | ||
<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
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They again make the same argument that just because they're a minority does not mean they do not need to be looked out for. They claim it's insignificant yet they can't prove that it is the case. Unfortunately transgender people are already understudied, and it will likely be the case for a long time. But they argue something strange. Being gay does not mean you are 'transgender'. No transgender person argues that. Also 'confused' during puberty is another false statement. As stated before, it is not gender dysphoria that may make you transgender, but gender ''euphoria''. | They again make the same argument that just because they're a minority does not mean they do not need to be looked out for. They claim it's insignificant yet they can't prove that it is the case. Unfortunately transgender people are already understudied, and it will likely be the case for a long time. But they argue something strange. Being gay does not mean you are 'transgender'. No transgender person argues that. Also 'confused' during puberty is another false statement. As stated before, it is not gender dysphoria that may make you transgender, but gender ''euphoria''. | ||
Transgender people is not a product of alienation. The feeling of gender dysphoria exists as a result of society not directly helping transgender people. That is an effect that alienation ''provides'' to transgender people, by not making them appear as their true selves. This is not individualism, where society represses a quality of themselves, it is not individualist in any way to attempt to be yourself. | Transgender people is not a product of alienation. The feeling of gender dysphoria partially exists as a result of society not directly helping transgender people. That is an effect that alienation ''provides'' to transgender people, by not making them appear as their true selves. This is not individualism, where society represses a quality of themselves, it is not individualist in any way to attempt to be yourself. | ||
I will conclude this long ramble of this so-called party statement by putting this lovely message by the CPGB-ML themselves; | I will conclude this long ramble of this so-called party statement by putting this lovely message by the CPGB-ML themselves; | ||
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</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
The fact this had gotten popular has resulted in people like ''J.K. Rowling'' herself, an infamous TERF in the United Kingdom | The fact this had gotten popular has resulted in people like ''J.K. Rowling'' herself, an infamous TERF in the United Kingdom to post a response to this.<ref><blockquote>Can't wait for the Guardian columns denouncing the British Communist Party as far-right.</blockquote> [https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1641392110036197376 Link to the twitter post]</ref> | ||
3 months after the post was released, there was an article posted on ''Challenge'', a magazine blog site managed by the Youth Communist League (Britain). This article is titled | 3 months after the post was released, there was an article posted on ''Challenge'', a magazine blog site managed by the Youth Communist League (Britain). This article is titled "Towards working class unity on sex and gender" which a particular individual named Eben Williams, a member of the YCL Glasgow branch, and not only that an ''LGBT+'' member of the YCL Branch. Because they are a part of the LGBT community, I will make sure to be ''more'' meticulous on their article which is necessary to prove that not everyone in the LGBT Community is an ally. | ||
<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
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</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
So this is the crux of the matter in how they define or rather ''refute'' gender identity. First they talk about Gender dysphoria. They describe it as if their desired gender contradicts the apparent "birth sex". This is nonsense, and as described in my past essay, ''not all trans people suffer gender dysphoria''. It is not dysphoria, but ''euphoria'' that is desirable to them. To present themselves as who they while feeling such comfort. To ignore this connection where the trans person wants to be happy with their desired gender and instead focus on gender dysphoria as if it is some sort of disease ignores the entire purpose of trans people in general. This leads to tangents especially in ableist circles where people think autism is caused by vaccines, or that autism can be cured by "therapies". This same line of reasoning can be devastating to a potential transgender or even cis reader. And they claim that such transgender people are attracted to the apparent "murky" waters of the sex definition, even though we can already state sex is already murky as it is. | So this is the crux of the matter in how they define or rather ''refute'' gender identity. First they talk about Gender dysphoria. They describe it as if their desired gender contradicts the apparent "birth sex". This is nonsense, and as described in my past essay, ''not all trans people suffer gender dysphoria''. It is not dysphoria, but ''euphoria'' that is desirable to them. To present themselves as who they are while feeling such comfort. To ignore this connection where the trans person wants to be happy with their desired gender and instead focus on gender dysphoria as if it is some sort of disease ignores the entire purpose of trans people in general. This leads to tangents especially in ableist circles where people think autism is caused by vaccines, or that autism can be cured by "therapies". This same line of reasoning can be devastating to a potential transgender or even cis reader. And they claim that such transgender people are attracted to the apparent "murky" waters of the sex definition, even though we can already state sex is already murky as it is. | ||
Next they talk about the popularisation of the 'Gender Identity' definition. Even though it is practically irrelevant as it does nothing but bring context on how the definition came about. | Next they talk about the popularisation of the 'Gender Identity' definition. Even though it is practically irrelevant as it does nothing but bring context on how the definition came about. | ||
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</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
I agree with Williams that Gender Essence and Gender as Performance are both flawed approaches to understanding gender identity. That is why as Marxists, we must make our own analyses as to understand what Gender really is. Williams states the obvious if you know anything about materialism, however it becomes clear that they use it as an argument to debunk the idea that a man or a woman (or a non-binary person, funny how did they not mention that given they're ''LGBT''). As I said in my last essay, self-identification is not necessarily immaterial or undialectical. The cisgender people do not wish to see exceptions, they wish to see "cisgender" individuals. It is not that self-identification is wrong, rather the reductionist viewpoint of cisgender people. Exceptions exist within gender identities, and it's clear with their denial of self-identification, it means that Williams | I agree with Williams that Gender Essence and Gender as Performance are both flawed approaches to understanding gender identity. That is why as Marxists, we must make our own analyses as to understand what Gender really is. Williams states the obvious if you know anything about materialism, however it becomes clear that they use it as an argument to debunk the idea that a man or a woman (or a non-binary person, funny how did they not mention that given they're ''LGBT''). As I said in my last essay, self-identification is not necessarily immaterial or undialectical. The cisgender people do not wish to see exceptions, they wish to see "cisgender" individuals. It is not that self-identification is wrong, rather the reductionist viewpoint of cisgender people. Exceptions exist within the typical notions of gender identities, and it's clear with their denial of self-identification, it means that Williams denies non-binary identities in general. | ||
<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
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I have boldened the word "testified" as it leads to a link to a study. We will take a closer look later. | I have boldened the word "testified" as it leads to a link to a study. We will take a closer look later. | ||
They state that Gender Dysphoria can | They state that Gender Dysphoria can be triggered by trauma, body issues, internalised homophobia and ''many other things'' to escape their examples with little substance. We can easily disclose internalised homophobia as sexual orientation and gender identity are two different concepts, as for trauma, we can easily apply this to homosexual people, in fact this is what some Christian groups say, that homosexual people deserve pity because it is ''trauma'' that gives them their homosexuality, and to eliminate homosexuality, one must rid themselves of trauma! For an LGBT person to say this is ''ignorance'' at best, deception at worst! For body issues, cis and trans people can experience body dysmorphia, but it is only ''transgender'' peoplee that can experience gender dysphoria. no person with body dysmorphia thinks about their genitalia being not correct with their desired gender, or the fact they are still their assigned gender, only transgender people with gender dysphoria think this! | ||
Some transgender people do not want to transition. That is respectable and acceptable. However there is certainly a large number of people who ''do'' want to transition both medically and socially. People with gender dysphoria often medical transition because it is how they will feel once they pass. This alternative suggestion leans into the discussion of ''conversion therapy'', which is a dangerous outlook to see. | Some transgender people do not want to transition. That is respectable and acceptable. However there is certainly a large number of people who ''do'' want to transition both medically and socially. People with gender dysphoria often medical transition because it is how they will feel once they pass. This alternative suggestion leans into the discussion of ''conversion therapy'', which is a dangerous outlook to see. | ||
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</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
Gender Identity ''is'' separate from transitioning and dysphoria. Transgender people share different experiences from one another. Of course they will not have the same examples as Williams listed. "They have always been women" is the most reasonable explanation, given that they had feelings of doubt about their gender identity. It is also the reason I despise the word ''transitioning'' despite using it a lot.<ref group="note">'''Transitioning''' implies that someone starts with their assigned gender at birth. This is an incorrect statement. Many transgender people don't always grow up the same as their peers. Whether it is the case of neurodivergency or their gender identity is irrelevant. The transgender person is not changing from one to another, it's instead making them their true selves. Unfortunately I cannot find a better term for this.</ref> The other two | Gender Identity ''is'' separate from transitioning and dysphoria. Transgender people share different experiences from one another. Of course they will not have the same examples as Williams listed. "They have always been women" is the most reasonable explanation, given that they had feelings of doubt about their gender identity. It is also the reason I despise the word ''transitioning'' despite using it a lot.<ref group="note">'''Transitioning''' implies that someone starts with their assigned gender at birth. This is an incorrect statement. Many transgender people don't always grow up the same as their peers. Whether it is the case of neurodivergency or their gender identity is irrelevant. The transgender person is not changing from one to another, it's instead making them their true selves. Unfortunately I cannot find a better term for this.</ref> The other two statements fall into transmedicalism. The 2nd is the same as what I said before, and for the 3rd is transphobic in of itself. The ''sex-materialists'' as Williams calls them, Williams is actively defending these ''sex-materialists''. This is not a transgender experience. This is ''transphobia''. | ||
From then on, Williams seems to go into a ''rabbit hole'' and goes into TERF rhetoric. It seems to me as if Williams is showing their true selves, not actually being LGBT supportive. This is why I was skeptical of their position as 'LGBT' because there's a T in LGB''T'' | From then on, Williams seems to go into a ''rabbit hole'' and goes into TERF rhetoric. It seems to me as if Williams is showing their true selves, not actually being LGBT supportive. This is why I was skeptical of their position as 'LGBT' because there's a T in LGB''T''. They do not support LGBT people. Maybe they are queer, but they are not supportive of transgender people. | ||
<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
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The wording in the next sentence is vague yet telling. "''Along the line of sex,''", "''beyond our physical bodies''". It is clear there is a political motive. Is gender a social construct? Absolutely. But this line of thinking makes me realise that Williams could be a gender abolitionist, again, a reactionary position. | The wording in the next sentence is vague yet telling. "''Along the line of sex,''", "''beyond our physical bodies''". It is clear there is a political motive. Is gender a social construct? Absolutely. But this line of thinking makes me realise that Williams could be a gender abolitionist, again, a reactionary position. | ||
Gender identity "ideology" does not deny gender is a social construct. It denies that sex is a material thing, it is also a ''social construct''. They comparate between a male | Gender identity "ideology" does not deny gender is a social construct. It denies that sex is a material thing, and it is also a ''social construct''. They comparate between a "male trans woman" and a "female trans man", both oxymoronic and transphobic. And they conclude that this leads to denial of female oppression. We have discussed this already in regards to the section of Red Fightback, so I will not repeat myself again. But it is clear that misogyny does not have its root in biological 'sex'. It has its roots in ''private property''. | ||
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Pregnancy does not explain why women are hired less over men. It does not explain why the housewife is a ''wife''. Private property explains it clearer, rather, women are treated as property. They are not meant to have to occupational roles aside from house roles. This has been clear since the witch trials, where their | Pregnancy does not explain why women are hired less over men. It does not explain why the housewife is a ''wife''. Private property explains it clearer, rather, women are treated as property. They are not meant to have to occupational roles aside from house roles. This has been clear since the witch trials, where their reproductive organs are owned by the man, and thus they are property. Gender roles decided that women need to be "in the kitchen", or serve roles which require "delicate operation" such as computation, cotton spindling or tailoring, while men are working with other industries such as metallurgy. Sex is not the determinant, rather the ''discriminant'', which from Williams' line of reasoning means you are utilising transphobic arguments. | ||
It is true that sex-based protections are necessary to end discrimination in regards to employment. But it is not necessarily sex that matters but rather reproductive rights. Trans men are men, at the end of the day. It is not genitalia that determines that they are men. Next they state including trans men with "biological" men will lead to confusion. There is nothing wrong with including trans men with cis men. There will be no confusion, only expanding the strict definitions of a man and woman. | It is true that sex-based protections are necessary to end discrimination in regards to employment. But it is not necessarily sex that matters but rather reproductive rights. Trans men are men, at the end of the day. It is not genitalia that determines that they are men. Next they state including trans men with "biological" men will lead to confusion. There is nothing wrong with including trans men with cis men. There will be no confusion, only expanding the strict definitions of a man and woman. |
Revision as of 00:19, 28 June 2024
Disclaimer: This essay contains transphobia and quotes from transphobic authors. If you are sensitive to this, please take caution while reading this essay.
Preface
“This essay will likely be already out of date by the time I publish it. The tides of the country I live in known as 'TERF Island', are rapidly changing. Transphobia is ever more increasing, and give it a few years, even months, everything I wrote here has become an extremification of what this essay captured within a moment of its time. But this essay is not solely about research, this essay serves as a baseline for all marxists and socialists to understand the conditions of which this country is falling towards. The downfall of the quality of life in Britain has lead to the transphobes blaming the transgender people instead of Capitalism. By the time you finished reading this essay, and as I attempt to capture every group of transphobia I can find, you will find a deeper picture and perhaps even use this knowledge to try to eradicate transphobia in your own country. I extend my solidarity to all transgender people all over the world, as I wish nothing more than for us to have the least painful way to get what we need for us to survive. We will never be eradicated, we will always continue to exist.”
—Anna
Introduction
The title of the essay in question only gives more questions for those not too involved in transgender groups or spaces, specifically the term "TERF Island". This is an alternate name for the United Kingdom, but with it includes a negative connotation to this new title. Why is this the case? This is due to being the United Kingdom being a place filled with "TERFs".
What is a TERF?
In short, TERF is an acronym which stands for "Transgender Exclusionary Radical Feminist". It is a form of Radical Feminism which excretes its most reactionary form. It removes all aspects of a real Feminist struggle (that being the dismantlement of capitalism, the patriarchy, gender liberation, and objectification) that which the LGBT people can benefit from such struggle, and instead offers an alternative which asserts that sex and gender are the same, and ultimately determines the sex/gender by genitalia or sex chromosomes. We will not be debunking TERFs per se as I have already made an essay analysing the LGBT question from a marxist perspective,[note 1] rather I would want to set a foothold for those people who are unaware of what a TERF is.
This essay will attempt to cover all basis of the transphobia of the United Kingdom (or so joyfully I will call "TERF Island") specifically all the transphobia lying in the National Health Service (NHS), the British Parliament, organisations not often talked about, such as the transphobia of the communist parties in the United Kingdom, and lastly, certain people or peoples who had involvement with the public conscious of the British people.
Transphobia surrounding Britain
Transgender groups did not begin entering the public sphere until around the 2000s, and even then it wasn't considered very popular as the fear of 'homosexuality' and 'crossdressing' was still popular within the public sphere. Nonetheless, transgender oppression exists, and it was upmost essential for transgender people to 'pass', to fit within the gender binary, and non-binary people did not had any real means to fit inside the gender binary unless by suppressing their gender. There was some improvements, such as the development of the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) by the Tavistock clinic in 1989, but transphobia was still present on the surface, and the transgender people were oppressed heavily if they did not engage in stealth.[note 2]
However there were big improvements within the transgender people. In this case, the 2004 Gender Recognition Act passed by the British government (under Labour), which allowed people to legally change their sex with the addition of a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). There are problems with this idea of a GRC, since it means it is a legal thing and it shouldn't be necessary to go through a legal process to state your sex has changed, but I digress. It seems the labour aristocracy, now at this moment of time, includes the LGBT people in the first world. However this will soon to be learned, short-lived. I will not be going over the increasing rights of the transgender people, as this is not about privilege of the transgender people over transgender people in third world, but rather the contradictions of capitalism that soon arise that has soon put transgender people (and consequently the LGBT people) under oppression.
The Transphobia within the British Parliament
The British Parliament as of now does not support the rights of Transgender people as of today. Both Labour under Keir Starmer and the Conservatives (informally known as the Tories) under Rishi Sunak both oppose the rights of transgender people. Here is a quote by Rishi Sunak, who defends his transphobia under the guise of 'Common Sense':
[W]e shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t. A man is a man and a woman is a woman — that’s just common sense.”[1]
And this general line is in line with every party member in the Conservative party. The Conservative Party, despite having an LGBT wing,[2] is clearly transphobic.
The Labour party is no different. Keir Starmer is nothing more than a contrarian, and as typical of Identity politics, he chooses a side which only proves him against his rival, which is as of this making this essay, Rishi Sunak. Around 2 years ago, Keir Starmer took part in an Mumsnet interview which Keir Starmer had the delightful idea to oppose transgender youth being able to decide their own gender:
We all know what it’s like with teenage children. I feel very strongly about this. This argument [that] children [can] make decisions without the parents is one I just don’t agree with at all.[3]
The quote alteration was not made by the essay author.
Another example is Keir Starmer being asked by ITV if trans women should be allowed in single-sex spaces. He responded: "I disagree".[4]
It is clear that the two dominant parties which rule the British parliament do not disagree with each other on the stance of transgender rights. Transgender rights are not safe in TERF Island, and they will not be until there is some solution that could be done to combat this. In this case it would be socialism. It is clear that the overall British parliament does not support trans rights.
Even if it is the case that the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, or any other party in the pseudo-multi party system would support transgender rights, they are not powerful enough to stop this duopoly system. There are a few "critiques" that can be made from this analysis which I will get onto, and it must be addressed first before we continue on.
What about "Tactical Voting"?
The British Government has the so-called "British Values" which promotes these tenets in schools. These tenets still exist to this day in schools, where it has blinded so many of the still labour aristocrats in TERF Island:
- Democracy
- Rule of Law
- Individual Liberty
- Mutual Respect and Tolerance
I have highlighted the 'Democracy' part especially since the British public has put an emphasis on the so-called "Democratic" aspect of society. For example, it is now a multi-party system, not like the "stupid dumb two-party system over at America." However consider the fact that it was Labour who has been the dominant party before Thatcher's rise to Prime Minister, and now it has been the Conservatives dominant since then (with the exception of a few years of rule under Tony Blair from the Labour Party). There has been no other party in dominance, and most other parties would just merge with one another usually because of a 'coalition government' (this will also be addressed later).
Tactical voting is a process of voting the right party so that whatever the person wants, they can just support the ideas of that particular party. However this is a dangerous idea as it falls right under reformism. This means that no revolutionary potential would be set. Also certain democratic values are not tolerated whatsoever. Jeremy Corbyn, a social democrat, has been ousted from the Labour party on the basis of 'Anti-semitism' despite leftist jewish people supporting Corbyn. This is not democracy. This is just consolidation of capitalist ideas where capitalism only allows you make certain choices before restricting it. Unfortunately many of the British public believe in this fallacious idea, and this makes it harder for it have revolutionary potential.
Speaking of consolidation of capitalist ideas,
What about coalition governments?
The coalition system in the British parliament does not necessarily stop the parties from enacting what they want. If anything it proves that the idea that parties share similar transphobic tendencies with each other. This is another reformist proposition. Just because ideas can be discussed does not mean they will get passed. Bills introduced are not introduced out of thin air or by the British public, they are discussed in house with both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The House of Lords, meanwhile, is never in line with the British Public, and it mainly consists of reactionary bygone feudal lords that still want to retain their place from the bygone days of the 'Divine Rights of Kings'. The idea that somehow by coalition governments working together it means that they will help to prevent transphobia is an unrealistic proposition at best, deceptive at worst.
Why don't you just "spoil" your vote?
'Spoiling' a vote refers to not voting any candidate and instead making it so that the vote is 'invalid'. It will be still be cast and recorded but it will not be selected for a specific candidate. This is just a 'Get out of jail free' card for those who still believe in the foolishness of "Tactical Voting". These will never be useful to anyone, and even getting the entire British public to spoil their votes is not an efficient nor is it a necessary endeavour.
Just make a petition on the official website!
The British Government allows petitions to be made on their official website where it will be made into a 'bill' if enough signs are done. However this never works, and it is known that the British Government will just outright deny many requests made by the British public. Even if we make a supposed petition and a lot of people sign it, it won't make a difference at all, especially if the people are not represented at all in this supposed democracy.
It is clear that not only that the British government is filled with transphobic people, but also that it is useless to vote for this. Therefore it is necessary to initiate revolutionary potential within the British public. That is why communist parties exist in the United Kingdom so that we can finally achieve socialism. Right? Right?
Transphobia within the British Public
The sphere of influence within the British Public and the British Influencers still remain elusive, and far and wide. Therefore we must look closely into these aspects.
Data collected from the last 2 years shows that the United Kingdom is getting more transphobic each year, it is an upward in trend and more people are increasingly transphobic of transgender people,[5]
And given two years later, it would be even worse. So it's clear not only the British Public is getting more transphobic, it also means that the trans voices that exist are being overshadowed.
The narrative of "Transgender people are targeting our children!" is being more than prominent now. Let us now consider the lowest common denominator, the levels of where children tend be a lot more dogmatic, that is the education system.
Transphobia within the Education System
The education system has organised itself into 3 different sections though the examples mentioned does not imply that they are completely separate. These 3 different 'schools' are:
- State Schools (Goverment Funded)
- Private Schools (Privately Funded)
- Single-sex Schools (Generally Privately Funded)
These schools are the norm for most of England, though home-schooling exists as well. So how do schools treat transgender people? Horribly, to say the least. And that was back before a specific event. Now, it's even more horrible.
Single-sex schools do not permit transgender people within their schools, and they only consider their assigned gender at birth. As for State and Private Schools, these also depend. There can and does exist parents who commit child neglect or abuse to their child. So protecting their children is necessary for the school (Ideally this shouldn't exist to begin with but the United Kingdom doesn't care about children to begin with). This includes the schools allowing their children to hide their desired gender, and not telling their parents about it. However a draft guidance being introduced known as the 'Guidance for Schools and Colleges: Gender Questioning Children'[6] and in the provided document titled 'Gender Questioning Children' they have stated that:
- Parents should not be excluded from decisions taken by a school or college relating to requests for a child to ‘socially transition’.
- Schools and colleges have specific legal duties that are framed by a child’s biological sex.
- There is no general duty to allow a child to ‘social transition’.
This is just on Page 3! It only gets worse, as it states more things such as stating that a child's sex (not gender) must be recorded. Changing legal names is not allowed, only informal ones are. They say that primary school children should not have different 'pronouns' even though pronouns can be easily taught.
As for older children, the school can deny a child's request to change a person's pronouns! And when a change of pronouns is requested, it must be contacted with the parents first before anything could be done! We do not know if these parents are abusive or not, this is in direct violation of the school's trust on the children, as children are supposed to be taught in a safe manner! I guess it doesn't matter when it's outside the school gates.
Next they state that the change in pronouns can be done if and only if they are confident that the benefit of the change of pronouns outweighs the impact of the school community. I never knew that a change of pronouns could have such a profound impact towards (typically) thousands of children or the local community. They state it will only be in rare occasions, and if it does happen, no teacher or pupil is obligated to use pronouns, nor should it prevent from referring to the children as 'girls' and 'boys'.
Single-sex spaces must be 'protected' from transgender people who somehow manage to give offense somehow by socially transitioning. And they will only offer 'alternative' arrangements which will only lead to further bullying. The same case is with changing rooms. Note that providing 'alternatives' in these cases is an example of segregation.
This new draft guidance which had closed shows us that the education system is not only flawed in general, but also flawed to especially transgender people.
Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary has outrightly stated herself that: "[W]omen do not have, nor have ever had, a penis."[7]
Transphobia within British Influencers
Of course, I have to mention J.K. Rowling. A transphobe through and through, who has written long documents and has been attacking transgender people to the point where she no longer considers transgender women as women. As much as I would like to say "She's a transphobe, let's move on", there are of course more than a few people who state that she is not, and she is just trying to protect women. So we have no choice but to already reiterate what was said before many times.
J.K. Rowling is a TERF who has created the Harry Potter franchise and currently has a net worth of around £875 million.[8] This is a lot of money for an influencer, therefore her words must be carefully chosen for a person like her. Of course, I wouldn't be writing this if she did that, so I must talk about this.
Let us first begin with the essay made by J.K. Rowling, published in June 2020, where she has made her mainstay as TERF. The first thing Rowling does is backpedal, stating she does not want to state toxicity (How despicable she becomes later). She wrote this in response to her defending Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who lost her job for transphobia.
She stated that she was interested in the 'debate around gender identity' two-years prior to this, who she met transgender people and intersex people. This is most certainly interesting, given the rabid TERF she is now. This all started from Twitter (as all things do), where she liked a person named Magdalen Berns, a Lesbian TERF who was dying of a brain tumour.
When she thought about supporting Maya, she apparently thought that she was going to get backlash, but instead she got the opposite:
What I didn’t expect in the aftermath of my cancellation was the avalanche of emails and letters that came showering down upon me, the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive. They came from a cross-section of kind, empathetic and intelligent people, some of them working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people, who’re all deeply concerned about the way a socio-political concept is influencing politics, medical practice and safeguarding. They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights.[9]
How interesting that her first influences were brought about by transphobes already. There already appears to be a prejudice. What's even dumber is that she states that not all TERFs are TERFs, which is a statement that does not prove anything. She cites examples such as claims of an older women not visiting Marks & Spencer (M&S) because they allow "any man who identify as a woman into the changing rooms"[9] and also she states that TERFs aren't trans-exclusionary because they include 'trans men' under feminism! That is not how feminism works! By equating trans men under 'feminism', she is implying that transgender men are not men but rather women! This is trans-exclusionary.
Next Rowling continues to state that she is against people being 'intimidated' by being called out as transphobic, like how a white person is afraid of being called out as a racist for saying the n word. And she states "as a biological woman" (whatever that term is), a lot of people in power need to 'grow a pair'. She also put parenthesis in regards to trans people who don't regard humans as a sexually dimorphic species. While it is true that humans are a sexually dimorphic species, in contrast to other animals, we are the least sexually dimorphic as very little changes in regards to sex aside from genitalia and sex chromosomes. She states Clownfish prove humans are not a dimorphic species. This is incorrect. Clownfish prove that the idea of a biological division on the basis of sex is muddled and not accurate. It is not about sexual dimorphism, rather how sex is perceived by humans in general. Sexual dimorphism only states how much an animal changes on the basis on sex, which in this case is only defined by the number (and size) of gametes produced, which opens up a lot of nuance.
With her essay moving on, she decided to speak up against trans people, and she puts 5 reasons, for which I will take a look at each one.
1. She has charitable funds for each charity. Oh how kind of her (The UK allows reductions in Corporate Tax to those to fund charities).[10] Her 'trust' supports female prisoners and victims of domestic and sexual abuse, but she doesn't state she supports trans women prisoners, who do not get put in prisons of the desired gender. Being a woman in a man's prison is a nightmare that TERFs imagine, while it is a nightmare that exists for trans women! This is hypocrisy! She also doesn't imply that trans women are also just as likely to be victims of rape, just as any regular cis women. She also funds Multiple sclerosis (MS), and she states there are differences between each gender. Fair enough, but why does the difference need to be between genders? Why does it need to be different? Eventually she admits that the trans activists go against her cause, and she doesn't want the erosion of the legal definition of sex, making her a full TERF.
2. She is an ex-teacher and a founder of a Children's charity, so she has interest in education. She has deep concerns with education, where she is more likely to instill her ideas of biological essentialism into the children.
3. She is interested in the so-called "freedom of speech", which she states that she supports Trump as much for this reason. This is a red flag already.
4. The fourth is 'personal reasons'. She takes note that there is an increase of young "women" (Note that she directly states women, as if she's stating it is not right for trans men to exist), and also an increasing numbers of those who are detransitioning, regretting what they have done, and also in the extreme cases causing infertility. The people in this instance state that the transition was caused by same-sex attraction, or by (internalised) homophobia.
It is true that there has been a rapid increase in trans men over the years, but that is because of two things. Firstly, Testosterone is a controlled substance in the United Kingdom, so transitioning is a lot more difficult and requires to go through the legal and bureaucratic process to do so. Second, People are a lot more aware of transgender people and those who feel like they will feel better as their desired gender, would want to transition. With an increase in transgender people, there will always be an increase in detransitioners. However they will always remain a minority and never increase at the same percentage level as those who have fully transitioned.
Rowling pulls statistics stating that there was a 4400% referral increase in Questioning people who were assigned female as birth (AFAB). A x44 times increases sounds a lot, but it's only the case given that there will exist gender questioning people. The rapid increase of treatment and acceptance shows that there will be an increase. She also states that that Autistic AFABs are overly represented (Ableism? Is she implying that autistic people shouldn't transition? Or that autistic people can't make their own decisions?).
She cites an American "physician" known as Lisa Littman, who coined the term Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD), A term which is not recognised by any credible scientific institution.[11] She produced a "study" which its sample source was from transphobic parents who have obvious biases, and not from the actual transgender people themselves. Therefore she should not be taken seriously at all. She portrayed Littman (like Forstater) as some "valiant heroine" working against the scientific establishment.
Rowling disregards the idea that transitioning saves lives. Suicide and depression rates are only getting worse for transgender people as time moves on. The suicide rate for transgender is on the rise, that is the case. Transitioning does alleviate this, and it alleviates it to a certain extent. It allows the person in question to feel their true selves.
Next she uses personal experience, of how she had severe OCD, and how she would've transitioned 30 years later, as if she has no brain and follows the narratives despite contradicting herself and supports Trump instead. This is pure stupidity.
She talks about her feminists roots which are irrelevant and is only there to provide emotional sympathy which I wish for you all to avoid. She backpedals and states that transitioning works for some people, and she states that teens will 'grow out of their gender dysphoria'. Note that she doesn't cite any sources. Then she talks about meeting a 'transsexual' person (an olden term which should not be used anymore). She also states at the bottom of a paragraph that a "man" who has no surgery nor hormones is allowed to have Gender Recognition Certificate and be recognised as a woman. I don't see how this is wrong, yet she formulates like it is a bad term, clearly with her biases when she put "man" instead of a trans woman. If she put "trans woman" instead, no one would bat an eye.
Next she states things about misogyny, about a porn-saturated culture and incels, which I agree with, but she doesn't state how transgender people are fetishised, with trans porn being a popular topic, chasers being commonplace with trans women, futanari existing (Do not search it please), and also 'he-shes' being a commonplace term within fetishes. But no, she equates trans women to men, and she is being "bashed" for this. No. Trans women are being affected by a pornography addicted western world too, either include trans women or do not call yourself a feminist.
Next she strangely states that women do not have common experiences. They do not. Rowling is part of the bourgeoisie. She has no experience compared to a trans woman who often works in prostitution in many parts of the world to survive. A black woman and a white woman will have different experiences. A black woman faces oppression from her race, while a white woman faces no such racial oppression. White women (cis white women specifically, which J.K. Rowling is) are the 'honorary' group of women, and are treated with far more respect than women part of an oppressed race, sexuality, or being transgender ever will. Do white women face oppression? Of course. Gender oppression still exists. All women should be liberated from oppression. This is to just show that not all women share a common experience.
She states that women's oppression are based on 'biological realities'. This does not explain gender oppression. Women are not a political class. She is using Identity politics, and I am not surprised given she is bourgeois. She states this is undoubtedly one of the stupidest things I read in this essay thus far;
It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.[9]
She separates trans women and "women" in this case, even though this should be Trans women and cis women. Because trans women are women. Whatever material difference there exists is irrelevant when they are both women who are given gender oppression regardless of their relations to each other. The material difference (and the only material difference) between a trans woman and a woman is that a transgender people does not identify with their assigned gender at birth. That is it. If you can't accept that, you are not a trans ally.
Next she states that a woman is not costume, nor an idea in a "man's" head, nor a pink brain. A woman is a nuanced and complex idea, so reducing the definition of a woman to any of these concepts is redundant. Attempting to apply the definition of a woman to something biological will also land in exceptions, one which Rowling would need to solve. Next she states that applying more inclusive languages such as 'menstruators' and 'people with vulvas' is not good because it is dehumanising. It isn't. If anything it meant to include more people, or identify a specific group which is more inclusive. Calling it dehumanising is a stupid idea.
5. This brings us to our fifth reason. She is deeply concerned about the consequences of trans activism.
She claims that she is a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor. Okay. She said she isn't doing for sympathies but for solidarity around women. She claims the same thing for those trans women as well. She states that trans women are also victims of the same sexual abuse.
However at the same time, she's arguing that trans women can go into bathrooms and women feel uncomfortable. Why should they feel uncomfortable when said trans woman hasn't done anything wrong? She felt 'triggered' (that's a word she actually used), and said she didn't feel safe. That won't happen with trans women.
She's supporting TERFs who are afraid of being called out because they don't want to criticise. Nothing different from a white man being afraid of being called out a racist for saying the n word.
She calls for empathy, so that you may join in and indulge in her transphobia.
The end of the essay draws to a close, but not her harsh actions towards transgender people. She made several hate posts on X (formerly Twitter), which do not count as criminal, the police state.[12] She also did holocaust denial by implicitly denying that transgender people were a target.[13] Transgender people were victims of the holocaust, and she just shrugged it off stating that the person in question was just dreaming did not search for any sources. The clear anti-transgender bias within JK Rowling has only extended. It has extended so far that JK Rowling would rather be in jail for two years than respect someone's pronouns.[14] It is clear from JK Rowling she is one of the prominent anti-trans influencers that also extends to the United States.
And people are willing to defend her for "art's sake". There is no art for art's sake. All art is created under a specific mode of production.[15] All media created under J.K. Rowling, which is anything from her books to the newly released game Hogwarts Legacy, has bourgeois biases ingrained within it. The biases being whatever JK Rowling had imagined as means to make profit. There is no "art for art's sake".
She is one of the main influencers paralleling transphobia. Of course there are far more influencers if we stretch it beyond the bourgeois sense of an 'influencer', but I have covered a lot of them already.
Also interesting to note is that JK Rowling has propeled the Communist Party of Britain more than a few times. This will be even more interesting when we get to understanding transphobia within Communist Parties, but we can clearly say that JK Rowling is an opportunist and not a class traitor.[16]
Transphobia within British Media
I cite the British Media a lot in this essay, but I never actually talked about how biased they are in regards to trans people. Let's consider this a case by case basis, first by the 'public' media, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
BBC
The BBC is a transphobic media outlet. There are numerous articles which criticise the BBC on trans rights.
The BBC is not just a news piece. There exists 5 BBC Radios, and also TV Shows as well. One of the shows, on BBC Newsnight, the BBC staunchly defends the 'debate' on trans rights despite being only with 2 cis people.[17]
One of the more infamous articles from the BBC is the one titled: "The lesbians who feel pressured to have sex and relationships with trans women" (Formerly "We're being pressured into sex by some trans women"),[18] an article which has garnered an infamous reputation. This article in summary just shows a series of women, one of these people being a Lesbian porn actress who has been found on twitter and being called out. The BBC loves to feature transphobic people in the articles.
Another is "Woman suing rape charity over transgender row",[19]who has been raped in the past has sued a rape charity for letting transgender people in the group. The language of this article. The entire article takes place within the woman in question, trying to garner sympathy for her. Yes, the woman is a rape victim, but so are trans women. She states that "she saw a person presented as male". She claims she isn't transphobic despite presenting herself as transphobic as she can be.
There's also the one labelled for the Cass Review, but I will take a look at it later.
They released another transphobic article, titled "BBC Elite British Sportswomen's Study 2024: Athletes on ‘difficult’ transgender debate".[20] This is a study on trans people in sports. Many of these female elite sportswomen expressed 'fear' in public because it would be seen as discriminatory. Of course, why wouldn't they? They don't support trans people already. An interesting sentence is this which states:
There were also feelings that there "should be a place in sport for transgender people"[20]
This is just classic segregation. They do not want us to compete in the same region because they are 'afraid' somehow. Seems there's a double meaning to the word 'phobia', they are afraid of us, so they hate us.
They also state multiple sports banned transgender people participating in elite women's sports because of "concerns". They state that transgender people are coming in and putting 'women under the pile again'. Is this the case? Well trans women when put on testosterone suppression have no clear advantages to cis women in sports.[21] So this is clearly false. The article states the sample size (n = 143), and the questionnaire was handed to 615 athletes. The result shows 104 athletes were 'uncomfortable' or 'very uncomfortable', while only 11 said 'comfortable' or 'very comfortable'.
They falsely state that there is limited research on what transitioning can have on an athlete (despite there being an abundant amount of information on how HRT and Testosterone suppression works), an athlete states that 'time is going back and putting women at the bottom of the pile'. Is that true? Of course it is not. This quote is not only transphobic but also highly misogynistic and it applies that women are inherently weaker are men. When men have been doing competitions first and have been training, it is to be expected, even with little biological difference, that the man will win. They have also linked an 18-month review, a review which is flawed. Evidence literally shows Testosterone suppression does help.
It is clear that the BBC displays elements of transphobia, and does not mind being transphobic at all.
The Guardian
The Guardian is a "left-leaning" (their words, not mine),[22] outlet that is also transphobic. The Guardian has a sister outlet known as 'The Observer', however since it operates under the Guardian domain, we will consider them as well. Let us start with a piece that already rings alarm bells titled: "If a lesbian only desires same-sex dates that’s not bigotry, it’s her right".[23] Of course this parallels the idea of cis women not wanting to date trans people because of genitalia. Again, this idea is weird, why would someone date a person purely because of genitalia? If it is off-putting, just don't date them. No, instead they must hear their words and scream it out, scream that they don't want to. A private matter turns into a whole center of "debate" (where the debate is only between cis people and no trans voices are ever heard).
This article claims that activists are "policing their sexual preferences" (how?) and they state that they attacking someone for not dating trans people as they are "biologically male". See how this term is reiterated dozens of time to demonise transgender people? Yet this person states that they have a right to say 'no' to all males (including the supposed "biological male" trans people), as it defines their sexuality. It does not. Being a lesbian doesn't always mean same-sex attraction. A transbian[note 3] and a cis lesbian can be together and they would be lesbians. The transbian would not be straight, and the cis lesbian would not be straight either. See the nuance happening? This concept of nuance seems to fly over the author's head.
Then the person talks about Lesbophobia, a concept which is entirely irrelevant when talking about trans people and dating. The rest of the paragraph is filled with things you expect to see in an article titled about lesbians.
Then the author talks about trans women who cannot find a date because they have transitioned, including cis women. However in the next paragraph, they claim about "vocal" activists about lesbians who want "exclusively female" attraction (Whatever that means). Next they state that it is "coercive" to shame an oppressed sexual minority into "dropping their boundaries" or risk being called a bigot. What boundaries they set up is a result of their transphobia. They said that women who "prefer only female attraction" are accused as transphobes, genital fetihists and worse. Is that a bad thing?
And the classic "gender ideology", where they state it has divided the LGB people, somehow. LGB people can include the T. It's not difficult, and in fact they share commonalities between each other as a result of class oppression.
Next they state this:
Another flashpoint is the fear that in the service of this ideology, adult trans identities are being foisted on to gay, gender non-conforming children who are experiencing gender dysphoria, through hormonal and surgical interventions that have long-term health consequences. Many gay people say they temporarily experienced gender dysphoria during puberty and an independent review into the care of children with gender dysphoria has outlined how it sometimes naturally resolves itself and that gender identity can be fluid until someone’s early to mid-20s.[23]
They state that 'children' are going through surgical and hormonal interventions, but children cannot consent to have circumcisions or not. Great hypocrisy there. Gender dysphoria is not temporary. It happens and it stays. People who have experienced gender dysphoria (including myself) know what it feels like to not be the desired gender. Gay (not trans) people going through gender dysphoria is utter stupidity.
The end is just a conclusion, but see how short of an article is clearly characterising transgender people and "trans ideology".
Let's look at it more generally: which the editorial wrote "The Observer view on gender dysphoria: criminalising therapy poses risk to children’s welfare".[24]
The piece states that NHS England will now adopt a "more-evidenced based approach" to analysing gender dysphoria. What this means we can only guess. Because gender dysphoria is already extensively studied. They state social transition should only be done on children on the basis of "clinical distress or impairment of social functioning". In other words, as long as you can talk and don't cry when someone calls you a gender assigned at your birth.
Next they implicitly advocate for trans conversion therapy, by stating that there are people who are willing to make conversion therapy impossible and also that trans conversion therapy is ill-defined! They state that it is ill-defined, so when a doctor does not prescribe puberty blockers is also considered illegal.
At the conclusion, they state that doctors are at risk, only because they can be outlawed for under "conversion therapy practices"! They are outrightly stating that conversion therapy should not only be explored, but implicitly states that it should be legal too!
The Guardian (and the Observer) is another clear as day transphobic outlet. However, they do post 'pro-trans' stuff every now and then. This is only so that they can 'appeal' to both sides and appear neutral. Imagine if nowadays an outlet like the Guardian posts anti-racist and pro-racist content simultaneously. That analogy is similar to what trans people are facing.
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is another transphobic media outlet. They're another medium that wants to promote transphobia. Let's consider an article, this time an author being a trans woman. This trans woman seems to promote transphobia, how ironic. This is why not all trans people are to be trusted. The article in question is titled "'It's a betrayal of children to ban experts from asking tough questions before they can change gender': Transwoman DEBBIE HAYTON gives her view on a new Government bill which she fears will have damaging, unintended consequences".[25]
The article starts from a anecdote, stating her deadname[note 4] proudly. Hayton wanted to transition because she felt feelings of gender dysphoria. And the psychotherapist stated that they were not stop talking until every alternative to transition is explored. This is a red flag already. This psychotherapist shouldn't have been so bold to state that the person (Hayton) shouldn't have been transitioning. The alternative to transitioning is to not. And that is harmful to trans people.
Hayton states that without having to painfully analyse her feelings via "therapy", she would be consumed with guilt. She states questions about the people around her instead of herself. That's her first thought.
Her second thought is that she is concerned with the government making the measure that it is illegal for therapists, doctors, even parents to question their children and their gender. She states she is not happy with this.
She states that she is "deeply troubled about the consequences of rushing through sketchily thought-through legislation that might do more harm than good." Next paragraph, she states Conversion therapy which involves physical or sexual violence should be violent... but other than that, this form of "therapy" should continue.
Now we see why the Daily Mail put Hayton on the spot. Because she is one of the few transgender people that opposes the supposed 'gender ideology'.
Hayton is arguing the same as the past authors we looked, that they will be 'coerced' into doing this out of fear of being called transphobic. Next she states that Stonewall, a liberal charity organisation is supporting the bill and having sway! Yet Hayton can't say the same for the conservative organisations that fund the British government.
Next her anecdote continues, practically irrelevant. Except for a few points. She states while her gender changed, her sex did not. Is this some form of cognitive dissonance? It doesn't matter. What she's regurgitating is that her sex has never changed despite doing gender reassignment surgery (or sexual reassignment surgery as I call it, as it directly changes your genitalia). She states that she is a male and her evidence is that she has 3 children. Adoption and Surrogacy are a thing, that doesn't prove anything. She also wore a t-shirt showing "trans women are men", and she (rightfully) got accused of transphobia.
She states that gender identity will be woven into law yet she also states that gender identity has not proven to exist. Gender identity does not need to be proven because gender itself is a social construct. Whatever genders society imposes, someone has a gender identity which puts themselves as that gender. Nowadays this is forced on by western society as a result of the gender binary, but there existed in primitive communist societies 3 or more genders. Gender identity does not need to be proven because gender exists, so gender identity exists.
She states it's a lazy label yet many people try to discern what gender identity means (including me). She states the true victims will be children. She's pandering to the idea that 'trans people are targeting children' once more.
She states that children may believe in Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy yet they can also question their gender. They can. Both things can happen at the same time. The only difference is that the feelings of the child are internal, and thus will likely not change, while Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy will eventually disappear.
Hayton now talks about detransitioners, the favorite golden angel of the transgender "debate" which anti-trans people cling towards. It's only for one paragraph, and it's about the increase in people who 'regret' transitioning.
Next Hayton states that since puberty blockers were paused, that means the next step would be hormones for children. No, that is not what will happen. She states that banning any therapy will lead to more suffering, even though Conversion Therapy is already doing this.
Next is a theory Hayton proposes, that people are transgender because it is 'brave' to be trans. This is one of the dumbest theories I have heard in my life, but it is a theory that is circulating around transphobes today.
She states by teaching children to be accepting and accept other genders, it simply isn't healthy to do so! Because she states that children don't want to be boring cis people! I truly wonder why "cis" children think this way...
Next she states that being cis, white and male is oppressive. That's correct. Being cis, white, and male is a privilege. A privilege which a black person, a trans person, or a woman, does not have. This links back to class struggle.
"Children are just children", so Hayton says. I agree, which is why we should let children explore their identities. They are not fed lies, as Hayton stated. She states by the end that they might as well not grow up at all, implying that LGBT people are immature or childish.
Her final sentences are anecdotes which I could not care to read.
So in this case, the Daily Mail is publishing an article by Debbie Hayton, who promotes Conversion Therapy. Which means the Daily Mail is also promoting Conversion Therapy. Therefore they are transphobic.
What do we make of this?
We have seen a certain trend for these media. "Gender ideology", "Conversion Therapy", "Feminism", "Trans people are targeting children". Even if these pieces of mainstream media do not directly state their transphobic intentions, every single piece of media we have seen thus far promotes transphobia to a large capacity. We cannot trust the media when it comes to promoting trans voices. Primary sources and Studies are unfortunately our only means of collecting data for the most part.
You can see the same regurgitation stated in each article, even if what they say differs slightly. It's almost as if transphobes follow a similar line of thinking. Compared to me, a transgender Marxist-Leninist, who differs in thought from a transgender liberal. This is because transgender theories (or queer theory as it is sometimes known), are diverse, and requires not only an understanding in philosophy, but also politics and history, something which Marxism already provides. A transphobe in this case never looks into history. We are thought of as a 'trend', something which will eventually die or that we are silenced. Our oppression has returned to the 50s (or even 30s), as we do not have a say in what we do with our bodies. The current media that is "bestowed" upon us is nothing more than the same regurgitation, the same vomit on a shining platter. The only thing we need to do is to not eat it.
The LGB Alliance
I specifically titled this heading "The LGB Alliance" due to an organisation known by its respective name. It's also the most well known of the other transphobic charities, including other groups like Bayswater. I will consider Bayswater later, but currently let's see this organisation. What is the LGB Alliance?
According to its about page, it is a page dedicated to protecting Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual people in regards to same-sex attraction.[26] On the surface, it does not seem like a transphobic organisation. But it definitively is.
Its campaigns feature the following things:
- Don't call me queer
- Gay teens aren't sick
- End Conversion Therapy
There's plenty more but these are the ones that I will consider. Let's start with the odd one out, that being "End Conversion Therapy". Despite its innocent message, it is immediately twisted where they state that "Gay people are transed", whatever that means.
They also state that affirming a child as trans, where they might be LGB, is a form of a conversion therapy. Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity are two different things, yet they posit as if they affect one another!
"Don't call me queer" is another strange thing to consider. Why? Gay people are happy to call themselves Queer. This isn't the 60s. They state the "LGB" group and "TQ+" group have different objectives. They do not. In fact some trans people may be part of the LGB bracket too. They state that 'same-sex attracted' people must have specific representation. What does this mean? Do this "charity" not wish to help us fight for queer rights? Does this mean fracturing and dividing our group such that we won't have a chance against our transphobic government?
They even have a template for you to send to your MP (Member of Parliament), which makes this even worse. They are really set on transphobia.
Finally, here is the conspiratorial side of the LGB Alliance. They engage in conspiracy theories (i.e. theories which hold no real substance when analysed correctly) in regards to transgender people. They pull the statistic of an increase in 4,000% of people who were identified female at birth (they use the term 'women' in this campaign), and they also state puberty blockers is banned in some European countries. This doesn't mean anything. It is not a surprise to see an increase in such rates given the spread of community over what it means to be transgender. This is nothing wrong.
They consider 'social contagion' which does not affect one's willingness to transition, and the worst thing they state is that pharamceutical industries are influencing this transition! Note that Pharma industries already produce estradiol and testosterone for cis people as a result of osteoporosis, and given the minority of transgender people, how much profit will they actually make as a result of this?
It's clear the LGB Alliance is a transphobic organisation. It should not be considered a 'charity', despite what the label proclaims.
Now to what effect does the LGB Alliance have on British Media or the Public? Well the media seems to platform this 'charity', as in one BBC radio news show, they platformed two straight cis men, and an 'LGB Alliance Representative' to discuss conversion therapy.[27] The representative said "Conversion therapy has become mixed up with gender identity". Clearly this transphobic organisation seeks to divide the LGBT people, and this division only helps the favor of the homophobic and transphobic groups, and does not help themselves in any conceivable way!
To what extent and reason why they're propelling this as a charity is not known to me, but how I see this is that they feel a genuine attack from the transgender community, despite no attack being occurred. This 'charity' formed as a result of other LGB people feeling the same way, in a way it is a form of cognitive dissonance. It reconciles their conservative nature and also allows them to retain their sexual orientation, without negating one or the other. This still means they are attacking us, the transgender community.
It also means there are also trans 'allies' who seek to undermine our movement, thus we should be careful about who is an ally, as they might use us for nefarious deeds. The LGB Alliance is a transphobic organisation, which is based on predicates which are false. These predicates which are: the already existing transphobia; portrayal of transgender people as nothing more than child predators; Their lack of real knowledge or adopting to the scientific community. They rely on conspiracy theories such as "big pharma", which is a real issue and ties into capitalism, but they constrained it into an idea regarding identity politics, such that they feel as if their very existence is being attacked because the transgender community has become popular. This is a liberal, transphobic organisation, which does its job. Dividing the LGBT community so that we cannot protest the real issues at play, that being capitalism and how capitalism perpetuates transphobia.
Bayswater "Support Group"
A lesser known group is Bayswater Support Group, which dedicates itself to helping "trans-identified" kids. Despite its innocent stature, clearly using the word "trans-identified" already gives off red flags, since "trans-identified" is a transphobic dogwhistle.
This guide provided by the group known as "Safeguarding Trans-Identified Children And Adolescents"[28] clearly gives off red flags but to the average person who isn't aware of trans issues at all, it is nothing. This is what it makes worse than some other transphobic groups, as they are not as vocal as say, the LGB Alliance, as stated earlier.
The summary before the article is provided, and it clearly portrays pictures and red flags about trans people.
Firstly, they blame Autism, ADHD, or any other mental illness before considering the existence of gender dysphoria. It seems they do not wish to portray trans people in a positive light. Worse yet, they invoke detransitioners because they said transitioning won't fix your issues, and of course it won't. It only fixes gender dysphoria.
They also claim that internalised homophobia may also be the underlying issues instead of gender dysphoria! This is stupidity at its finest! There is no link between sexual orientation and gender identity. Internalised homophobia never affects ones gender identity. If it is ever the case, then it is not internalised homophobia that is the clear issue, it is being irrational.
They continue with their caricature, showing that is 'harmful' to perform actions to be more in-line with their gender identity. And this is only the summary of the guide.
The guide itself is 39-page document, featuring nothing but nonsense. The document in question cites the Cass review (2022), ROGD, and of course, detransitioners. This document is nothing but filler, and blames other social issues so that the idea of gender identity can be discarded.
Gender Identity is called a 'theory', to dismiss it as anything but a 'contest idea' that will never enter the scientific field. This means that Bayswater does not advocate support for trans people, they advocate for transphobia, they want to "safeguard" children by introducing them towards biological essentialism!
Despite this being a lesser known group, this group must be treated the same as LGB Alliance: vile, despicable, atrocious. They are similar to "Autism Speaks" in this case, where they advocate for conversion therapy, especially given how they treat ADHD people as having "poor decision making". This is ableism at its finest, it treats trans people as nothing more than depressed people with a multitude of underlying issues, and even if we can eliminate the issues at play, it still won't eliminate the problem of gender dysphoria!
They state that trans people are now buying "illegal" drugs (in this case HRT), and they state the advice people receive online is dangerous. It is, but not when you look at the right places. And instead of advocating for easier access to "legal" drugs, they instead state that trans people shouldn't buy "illegal" drugs at all! What kind of "support" group is this?
But the worst thing to come out of this is the idealisation of trans women as "groomers". In the section regarding pedophilia, they state that trans people can be "groomed" just because they want to access to transition. Note that being groomed requires the knowledge of said person prior, it also means the people has intention to groom someone, to exploit them for their own desires. What does Bayswater say? By buying items which affirm the youth's gender identity, it means they will be complicit into sexual activity! They even admit that it raises the same red flags aimed towards Gay and Lesbians, yet they want to do it anyways for the sake of "safeguarding".
These accusations are flawed, and even if they do occur, the general case of pedophilia should be considered, not how the methods were conducted. If a person recommends a youth to see how their gender identity will go, it is not pedophilia, but mere advice.
Bayswater, while a less-known transphobic group, has been featured by the Guardian before, which means they are high profile within the media. It also means we must be cautious, so that we do not accept anyone just because they claim to protect "Trans-identified" kids. Trans kids exists, and by "safeguarding" them, you are actively removing their right to exist as who they are.
Transphobia within British Communist Parties
There are still plenty of Communist Parties within the Imperial Core, and TERF Island is no exception. I will not be going over all the Communist Parties in the United Kingdom, but I will go over two which have earned a reputation amongst Marxist-Leninists and even the general British public, that is: the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (CPGB-ML).
CPB in particular claims to be a successor of Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), a party which had dissolved around the time that the Soviet Union dissolved. CPGB had turned to revisionism and eventually eurocommunism, with its British Road to Socialism which the CPB later carried the torch.
CPGB-ML is not innocent either, often denying the self-determination of the Welsh, Scottish and even Cornish peoples, with the exception of Ireland which it supports a full reunification. They are more 'principled' (to what extent you can call it "principled") than CPB but that is irrelevant to this essay. The matter is that this sets a precedent of the transphobia that both parties enact. We will start with the CPGB-ML first since they are the first party to engage in such transphobia.
Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
The CPGB-ML has a harsher stance on Identity politics in contrast to any other communist party, a stance which harms its own marxist stance. Case in point, there are plenty of articles 'dismantling' the so-called "Gender Ideology" of Transgender people, all under the Newspaper label 'The Communists' or alternatively known as 'Proletarian'. In the Eighth Congress of the CPGB-ML, the party passed with an overwhelming majority of denouncing the so-called "LGBT Ideology":
Congress therefore resolves that the propagation of identity politics, including LGBT ideology, being reactionary and anti-working class and a harmful distraction and diversion from the class struggle of the proletariat for its social emancipation, is incompatible with membership of the party, rendering those involved in its promotion liable to expulsion.[29]
From this quote alone extracted from a party statement, it is clear that this party is transphobic. But, let's just say that we give this party the benefit of a doubt. We do not know enough to denounce this party as transphobic necessarily. Maybe this party just merely denounces the pinkwashing of the LGBT people, or LGBT liberals specifically. This is not just one party statement, as there are multiple articles and party statements denouncing 'Identity politics' (how the party perceives IDpol), and 'LGBT ideology'.
For example, this article with a misleading title: "Why gay rights is not a class issue"[30] not only denounces homosexuality but also transgender people as well. We will focus on both because a lot of transgender people are also part of the 'LGB' subclass (though there does exist heterosexual transgender people too).
The article says that Racism and Sexism are both class issues, which is a truth. However it immediately denounces homosexuality even within its tagline. But here is the statement I want to focus on the part of gay rights specifically under the heading "Contradictions among the people and how they are manipulated by imperialism":
Now the question of people being unpleasant to others who are a bit different, that is not a class question. We don’t approve of being mean to people who are different. We don’t approve of mocking people because they have wooden legs or are different in any other way. It tends to be a feature of human nature, but of course we are opposed to people being persecuted for being a bit different to the norm.
Only a minority of people are gay, and only a very tiny minority of people have gender dysphoria. However, these people are harmless to society and there is absolutely no need to persecute them.
The western imperialist bourgeoisie has suddenly discovered and embraced gay and transgender rights, which only yesterday it was vigorously opposing, to the point that today it is those who raise even the slightest question over even the most absurd demands of self-appointed LGBT activists who find themselves persecuted.
The advantage to the bourgeoisie of its newly-discovered enthusiasm for gay rights is that it can use them to castigate oppressed countries who stick to traditional religious prejudices on this issue whenever they fail to fall in line with imperialist demands.
Needless to say, the full force of this ‘human rights’ assault never falls on such client states of imperialism as Saudi Arabia, but only on those countries that resist imperialist hegemony. An excessive obsession with LGBT rights can therefore lead the unwary into backing imperialism against anti-imperialist governments.[30]
Italic emphasis was not made by the essay author.
I have bolded the parts for clarity and to make it easier to analyse the parts I will critique. Instead of making proper analysis, they have merely reduced it to 'Being unpleasant to others'. This is a mockery of not only LGBT rights, but it is also a potential mockery of how race and women oppression play in class society. For example, I can just as easily say "White people are just being unpleasant to black people, there's no racism (anymore)" or "Men are just being unpleasant to women, so there's no women oppression (anymore)" and none would be the wiser. Therefore to make a shoddy analysis like this is damaging for a communist party. They just merely state that they don't approve being mean to those who are different after that as if to cover their main point. This is not journalism or proper Marxian analysis.
Next they attempt to use the same method of "They're the exception so we do not need to care." Exceptions are still exceptions no matter how minute they are. If 10% of the people are LGBT of some kind (which is a conservative estimate, there may be a lot more bisexual people than we realise), then it is about 800,000,000 people. If 1% is transgender, then it is 80,000,000. Are 800,000,000 LGBT people just a minority because they're only 10% of the population? They still exist and have always existed, and suffered the same oppression as women did back then. And as always they just backpedal their arguments to make it seem less than worse than it is.
Next is an argument which is filled with deliberate half-truths. Note the word 'suddenly' in the sentence "The western imperialist bourgeoisie has suddenly discovered and embraced gay and transgender rights". They are arguing that the LGBT people have only suddenly appeared, when in reality they have always existed. There was a 'gay panic' in the 80s in the both the United States and TERF Island, and now there exist a 'Trans panic' in the 2020s where transgender people are being actively affected. They did not 'embrace' gay and transgender rights, that is an aspect of pinkwashing, an aspect which still exists in countries like "Israel". This is a form where the bourgeoisie tries to downplay the radicalisation of the LGBT people to make sure they cannot have any revolutionary potential. Next they argue that it is not the LGBT people that are being persecuted, but the so-called "Communists" now, that they are now being persecuted for being vocal and attempting to criticise their stance on transgender people. This is not even Marxian analysis at this point. This is already bordering the talking points of Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh.
Next they point towards the bourgeoisie taking advantage of gay rights in the bourgeoisie. This is the only line I would agree with, if they did not stop at the oppressed countries part. Because, despite having correct analyses on racism and women oppression, they have failed to point out the cultural imperialism which occurred on the oppressed nations centuries earlier. These are not traditional, they are forcibly ingested from the colonialists that had lived on the land before. Nonetheless, it is true that LGBT liberals have criticised other nations for being anti-LGBT and the third world nations have used the talking point of the 'LGBT being a western concept therefore they have to oppose it'. But this is not an issue of internationalism, this is a domestic issue that can only be solved through local contradictions. This paragraph is wrong only merely by ignoring the nuance and oversimplifying the aspects of cultural imperialism and colonialism.
So, this article was about gay rights, what about transgender people? Why are we talking about gay rights if we haven't even talked about trans rights? Well they did not mention transgender people within the article title, but they definitely put mentions of transgender people. This is where their analyses go from incorrect due to underanalysis, to incorrect because of their inherent biases.
Under the heading "LGBT ideology wants more than equal rights", they say something that is outright transphobic:
But, to return to the question of the demands of the self-appointed LGBT activists. Unlike ordinary people who happen to be gay or transgender, they are not happy with simply being allowed to live their lives in peace and without discrimination; it is not just a question of men and women wanting to be accepted even though they’re different.
For the so-called activists, it is a question of going far further than that, to the point of absurdity. Transgender activists want us, for instance, to encourage little boys and little girls who prefer the lifestyle that society offers to people of the opposite sex to the one that accords to their own sex to actually physically mutilate themselves in order to achieve the appearance of a person of the other sex.[30]
This sentence if you were to read it from any conservative outlets like the Daily Wire or Fox News would appear no different. This is not a marxian analysis. Not only is it not marxist, it is also a direct attack on transgender people. They would rather let transgender people continue to engage in stealth, which was the case over 20 years ago, instead of letting people openly accept their gender. They also played the argument of "they're attacking the kids"! This is a reactionary sentiment, and also a lie. There is a certain word they use: 'mutilation'; as a portrayal that the transgender people are attempting to force kids to medically transition. This sentiment is continued later on, as they use anecdotal evidence (which is not evidence whatsoever) to state that the author and another girl grew up to be 'tomboys' but later they disregarded this 'tomboyish' appearance later in their lives. Good for them. What is not good is that they think by saying "It's okay to be who you want to be", it means that they are now being implanted with 'bad thoughts' and now they want to transition. Somehow this person feels threatened because she imagines herself to be in a situation where she had to transition. This author, who is cisgender, does not know how transgender people work, nor does she know what gender dysphoria is.
They later on put a textbook case of Tailism later on stating this:
Actually, the working class as a whole has a lot of common sense, and their attitude will be: “I’m sorry but a man’s a man and a woman’s a woman and you’re not going to be able to mess me around.” Any party that is claiming to be serious, but actually expects workers to believe that a fully equipped male who hasn’t even had an operation is actually female and ought to be allowed to come into women’s changing rooms, is going to be laughed out of court and told: “Look, get lost. This is not a serious party. This is not a party that I can trust to represent my interests, to overthrow capitalism and get a better life for everybody – including the LGBTs.”
I am not going to confirm nor deny that the masses are neutral or even transphobic towards transgender people. But what I am stating with the assumption that if the proletariat supports transphobia, it does not mean the line is correct and it should be followed. This is in direct contradiction to the vanguard party model which has been the leading model in every communist party. Next they state that those who haven't had Sexual Reassignment Surgery and Hormones are still 'men', clearly ignoring the contradictions between sex and gender. Note that they said the word 'LGBTs'. They treat like how a racist would say 'blacks' instead of a Black person. They intentionally attempt to dehumanise LGBT people, which is more inline with people who have no idea what they are talking about when they are "transwomen" or "transmen" or even say the god awful slur which I will not write here. They write this multiple times, which is a clear deterioration of quality from the beginning.
They also said this which is a clear misdirection and misunderstanding of the Base and Superstructure:
In fighting for the interests of the working class as a whole, LGBTs will obviously also benefit.[30]
Socialism will be instantiated, but the contradictions within the masses remain. The masses will continue to hate LGBT people, and the party itself will continue to enforce this under the guise of Identity Politics. As Marx said "No nation can be free it oppresses other nations", and the analogy can applied towards the LGBT people. With rising contradictions, it will be clear that there will be a revert to capitalism, because they had not worked on the superstructure. Without making the masses believe in what they call "Gender Ideology" or making the masses believe it is normal for people to love one another regardless of gender, there is no "socialism". Socialism is not an automated process, and they mindlessly believe it is.
Near the end, they talk about the debate with "Girl Guides" a movement which was originally designed for women, and since they had a debate on whether including transgender women or not (which they should), the author wrote this,
Recently there has been an argument in the Girl Guides. The Girl Guides have been told that a man, a fully equipped hairy male with all the necessary appendages, who self-identifies as a ‘woman’, is perfectly entitled to take young girls out on camping trips without supervision.
Now, can you really accept that nobody is even allowed to protest about that? Nobody is allowed to say: “Well I’m sorry but I’m unhappy about that. I think men are men actually, and I don’t want young girls exposed to the danger that that conceivably could produce. I’m sure this particular person is a lovely person, my daughter would probably be perfectly all right with him/her/them, but I can’t take the risk, I’m sorry.”[30]
They used the euphemism of 'necessary appendages' as if saying they care about gender based on genitalia or not. Will there be 'trans' people who abuse the new system? Absolutely. Does that mean that every trans person is now a predator? Absolutely not. This is directly accusing transgender people (some who are not able to or do not want to transition), of being predators just because they don't have the 'necessary appendages'. I forgot to mention not all people assigned male at birth even have a penis. It is rare, but they directly ignored the existence of intersex people. They directly ignored this issue, one of many issues that they have ignored, then the author has the gall to say this at the end,
And finally, if I’m a man because I say I’m a man – if that is the criterion, then that is surely the purist idealism … and I don’t think I need to say more.[30]
Which is in direct contradiction to what they said earlier!
We don’t approve of being mean to people who are different. We don’t approve of mocking people because they have wooden legs or are different in any other way.[30]
They are directly being 'mean', making the point of this article utterly useless as there is no 'debate' or 'truth' being made, it was nothing but only a jab at transgender people. That is all it was, and the fact it follows this line for the whole party is not only disgusting, but an indication of the whole revisionism of the whole party.
If you, dear reader, think I am done dissecting the entire transphobia on CPGB-ML, I am afraid there is one more which we need to discuss, which not only goes into greater detail of their definitions of sex and gender, but also shows their deep roots in revisionism.
The final article that will be dissected further is called the "The reactionary nightmare of ‘gender fluidity’".[31] This is another speech delivered to the eighth congress.
They begin to express their statement that they wish to have a debate, and that they clearly think that transgender people did not exist years ago,
Marx and Engels and Lenin and Stalin didn’t devote much attention to the politics of gender fluidity because it did not exist as an issue. This concept – contrary to the opinion of those opposed to this motion – is not “as old as humanity”.[31]
Just because Marx and Engels did not devote much to transgender politics is due to how society worked at the time, with a devoted gender binary as a result of preceding societies beforehand. Transgender people existed before, so much so that they are featured in both the Bible (Deuteronomy 22:5 and 23:1), under a negative view of course due to the slave society when the book was written, but it is clear that transgender people have always existed and always will. A fundamental flaw in their historical materialism.
Next they argue the basic of question in their heading "Does material reality exist?" I do not need to answer this question. Because this heading is yet again, misleading, the words under the heading lead to this,
I gave up those subjects and I concentrated on the sciences, thinking that science at least is objective; no-one will argue over the question: is two plus two equal to four?
Lenin quite rightly told us that “if geometrical axioms affected human interests, attempts would certainly be made to refute them”.
What did he mean? There are simple formulas that tell one the volume of a sphere, or how to work out the area of a triangle: half the base times the height. Does anyone fundamentally disagree with that? If a circle thinks it’s a square, is it a square? What a stupid thing to say; no-one’s saying that!
Why can’t a circle self-identify as a square? Is there not some kind of shape fluidity between circles and squares? Are they not fundamentally the same? They all fundamentally consist of area. Why do we differentiate between them at all? Why has humanity worried to define objects as green or blue?
Is there a material reality? There are those who will argue there is no material reality; we are not among them. That is not a Marxist concept.
Emphasised italics not made by essay author
Let's look at what Lenin said when he said the quote.
There is a well-known saying that if geometrical axioms affected human interests attempts would certainly be made to refute them. Theories of natural history which conflicted with the old prejudices of theology provoked, and still provoke, the most rabid opposition. No wonder, therefore, that the Marxian doctrine, which directly serves to enlighten and organise the advanced class in modern society, indicates the tasks facing this class and demonstrates the inevitable replacement (by virtue of economic development) of the present system by a new order—no wonder that this doctrine has had to fight for every step forward in the course of its life.[32]
It is a clear metaphor. Lenin said this to describe human nature, that being: whatever does not exist in the context of natural reality must be thrown out and replaced with a newer model. That is exactly the process that the idea of science operates under. That is "what he meant".
The author then clearly states the formula of a sphere and the area of a triangle, as if it is important to know. This is what the author considers their 'premise', to present it more logically speaking. But then it is not logically sound as the author did not presuppose that said shapes can 'think'. This is a classic example of a non sequitur.
Next the argues that there is a 'fluidity' between a circle and a square. Given that the author loved science, and specifically talked about geometrical axioms, it is a surprise that the author does not consider that there may be a fluidity be them.
If you know your GCSE maths, it is clear that there exists the equation of a circle, that being:
For simplicity sake we will use the unit circle (where ).
However if the square parts was replaced with another variable, let's say alpha (), we now have an equation,
And if we make it so that alpha approaches infinity with absolute values (makes the equation positive at all times),
It does indeed become a square,
The value used in this image is 50.
There is a desmos link[note 5] to where you can find such example. Now, why does all this matter? Why do we need this such mathematics? Well the point is that this author does not know how to understand fluidity. Both shapes can exist, but there also exists a middle shape called a "Squircle", does this mean that they are the same? No, they are fundamentally different from one another.
The author is trying to establish a precedent for the transgender people, that there exists a material reality for a circle, square, and a squircle. The values of can range in many, many values, even values that are not positive or beyond the spectrum. This means that there exists a square and a circle, but that there is also exists squircles that are in-between or even out of the spectrum. This is not idealism, this is just a simple nature of material reality, taken from the analogy mentioned here. Why we differentiate at all between a circle and square is because in mathematics, a square and a circle is defined differently. A square cannot be defined through a graph[note 6] while a circle can be defined easily by the Pythagorean theorem.
Next they actually move onto the topic of Sex, Gender and Gender Fluidity.
Is sex important? Attempts are being made to confuse us as to what ‘sex’ is. Are ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ synonyms? Well they are synonyms, but a certain group of academics in the seventies in the United States decided that they weren’t synonyms. They were going to use ‘gender’ in their own way; they were going to use ‘gender’ to mean the social construct of behaviour surrounding what was expected of the biological differentiation among human beings (men and women).
But biological differentiation between male and female is a real thing. It doesn’t just exist in humanity, it exists in many species throughout the natural world. Sexual reproduction is a natural biological process that has persisted in nature due to the diversity it engenders; it is a phenomenon encountered in the natural world.
[...]
[Idpol] is a fashion; it is a trend. And it suddenly – from being very marginal to certain academic institutions in the 1970s – became mainstream globally worldwide; it was actively promoted. Not promoted by communists, not by socialists, but picked up on and accepted by many of them, because they are led by, and they blindly followed, bourgeoise society down this dead-end.[31]
Next they start by saying another rhetorical question. "Is sex important?" They then state a completely different proposition that does not answer this question, whether 'sex' and 'gender' are synonyms or not. They of course argue that they do not support the separation of 'sex' and 'gender', as if they prefer their language to remain isolated and prescribed. It is not a hard thing to understand between gender and sex, yet they treat like it is an active threat that is harming the revolutionary potential of communism.
Continuing on, they talked about the aspects of biological differentiation. It is true that some animals are able to distinguish between each sex, some animals are more differentiable in sex than others. For example female snakes tend to be larger and heavier than their male counterparts due to the necessity of carrying eggs.[33] or that there exists a matriarchy in Hyenas despite hyenas looking virtually the same.[34] Humans are the least sexually dimorphic species (meaning that they display the least differences between males and females) and often our brains cannot tell or 'clock'[note 7] whether a person is a transgender or not. And even some species can change their own sex, for example, if a female clownfish dies within the school fish, a male changes their sex and becomes the new female.[35] In other words, biological differences do exist for an average male and female, but these biological differences are largely irrelevant unless if in the context of sexual reproduction, and for same-sex couples there exists the option of adoption or even surrogacy. For humans past the primitive communist mode of production (up until recently), sex, and consequently gender, had always referred to sexual reproduction. Moving past this idea is not only ideal, it is necessary for communism. People are not just sex objects to be used for reproduction. Humans are much, much more than that.
Next they complain about Identity politics as they usually do. Despite it being a real and existing phenomena, they have a clear misunderstanding of Identity politics. Their justification, based on transgender appearing recently from their eyes (which is just empiricism, an idealist phenomenon), means that they blindly accept it as an anti-marxist tendency. It is true that Marx, Lenin, Stalin or Mao did not consider gender initially. But it does not mean there is no understanding of theory regarding gender. Communist parties are beginning to recognise the importance of gender, hell even Maoist parties have already begun to accept transgender people! If you do not accept that for the fact they're maoist, then look at Marxist-leninists such as Leslie Feinberg, a marxist who had made works based on the gender and sex binary.
I will ignore their next heading as it is a reiteration of tailism, so moving on, they talk about the material reality of gender;
Why did it become a fashion to say there’s no such thing a male and female? I think the use of our internal bulletin has evolved to the point where we actually used it successfully to conduct that inner-party debate. The debate came up because of some posts on the party’s main Twitter account; the controller of the account was denounced on Twitter as “fascist” and “racist”.
Is it true? Are we going to get up here at congress and denounce comrades in debate? Will we tell them that “If you say X,Y and Z – then that’s it! I’m off! Screw the lot of you!”?
Is that a comradely way to have a debate? Does that forward our arguments? Does it help us reach a sound understanding? It does not! We’ve got to reckon with science, we’ve got to reckon with social phenomena. We have to come to a correct position which serves our class, and if we fail to do so, our organisation will fail to exist.[31]
Italic emphasis was not made by essay author.
Instead of investigating why they just claim instead that it became a fashion, something out of thin air. They claim 'debate' but instead of doing the research that is asked of a communist party, they do the exact opposite, uphold their dogma instead of supporting transgender people. They did not held a principle discussion, rather they claim to uphold science, when they do the exact opposite.
Compared with the other articles we have seen, there is just filler which has nothing to do with transgender people. It contains topics about how the bourgeoisie use science to keep their profits high, yadda yadda. It is important to talk about, but not in this essay.
Thus they start get into the party known as Red Fightback, a group which had dissolved in January 2023 due to its racist stances. They had released an article about gender and now they are attempting to dismantle it;
So the question is sexuality: how does this tie up with the question of sexuality? And we come back to that innocuous post on Twitter, which I thought was obviously hilarious because I thought it was non-controversial.
We wrote: “There is a group of self-proclaimed ‘socialists’ who are not actually any longer fighting against our oppression, they’re fighting against reality!” and posted a link to an article.
Why did we say that? They’re a circle of people who broke away from a very small group which you may know, called the RCG. This circle wrote a blog called ‘Red Fightback’, and the bottom line is, their position is that there’s no such thing as gender.[31]
Now let us see if that is correct. After the demise of their website, the only way to look at it now is through an archival site. After acquiring the article in question, let us see what they actually say:
The idea that women’s oppression originates in their biology is most strongly associated with ‘radical feminism’, which holds that women are a biological ‘caste’ and that this fact, not class, is the primary social contradiction – a position that has led to radical feminists obscuring racism and numerous other forms of oppressions. Yet strangely enough there is some overlap between radical feminism and the position of many socialists on ‘the woman question’. While Marx and Engels remain foundational as they related women’s oppression to class relations, problems arise with dogmatic readings of especially Engels within the short-sighted, self-contained organisations that plague the British left. This is most apparent with the flagrant transphobia of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), but it is also prevalent in Trotskyist groups. For instance, the International Marxist Tendency (IMT, successor to the Militant Tendency) have an article on LGBT oppression that asks, ‘what is the point of denying the existence of the male and female sex, with all their anatomic and biological differences?’.
[...]
if Engelsian orthodoxy ‘explains why houseworkers are economically dependent; it does not explain why houseworkers are women.’[4] Engels’ account of patriarchy relied on the claim, since falsified by more recent anthropological studies, that to ‘procure the necessities of life had always been the business of the man; he produced and owned the means of doing so.’ In other words, for Engels there had always been a fundamental natural division of labour along “sex” lines. This led to an overly mechanistic account of women’s subordination... The problems with this mechanistic account are particularly apparent if we critically examine patterns of ‘primitive accumulation’ in transitions to capitalism.
Under feudalism in Europe, while land was usually transmitted via male lineage and there was nothing like any idyllic ‘primitive communism’, women peasants often did have a considerable degree of autonomy from the men of their own class, particularly because of the shared use of the ‘commons’ – forests, lakes and wild pastures etc.
This changed with the land privatisations, the enclosure of the commons and the forced wage-labour which Marx associated with primitive accumulation... As one would expect, this was met with intense peasant resistance, and the feudal and rising bourgeois classes endeavoured to stabilise and discipline the impoverished landless population, notably by making women into a new, more easily exploitable underclass.
[T]his primitive accumulation coincided with the ‘Great Witch-Hunt’ of the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries, which predominately targeted women and especially women’s attempts to control their reproductive life: abortion and infanticide were strongly associated with witchcraft, as were “deviant” sexualities.
[...]
[T]hroughout history there have been a variety of human relations that falsify crude arguments about natural binarised “sex” roles – for instance the South Asian hijra and Lakota wíŋkte, and dozens of other instances. Such relations have entailed people being ‘reassigned from masculine to feminine or vice versa; in other cultures, trans people have been defined as a third or even fourth gender; in still others, they have been defined as non-gendered.’ While in pre-capitalist class societies these and other forms of gender/sexuality expression were rarely allowed completely free expression, it is undeniable that under capitalism they have been subjected to unprecedentedly systematic suppression.
[...]
Arguments that the ‘two-sexes model’ is proved correct by scientific “discoveries” about human biology, including the recent spurious concept of “sex chromosomes”, is nonsense; there is no unified experience that can be called biological womanhood. Biological variations among humans, though consequential, are not uniform. For instance far from all women can become pregnant, or menstruate, belying notions of biologically-determined sexism. Human biological variations have always been a spectrum: scientists now acknowledge that as many as 1 person in 100 have a so-called ‘intersex condition’ – chromosomal, gonad, genital or secondary sex characteristics that don’t easily fit into two distinct sexual categories. Indeed, scientists are now finding that almost every human body is ‘a patchwork of genetically distinct cells, some with a sex that might not match that of the rest of their body’.[36]
This article was released a month after the party statement was released by the CPGB-ML, however it is still their stance and the blog did state that they have written about sex and gender in past. I also recommend reading the entire article for yourself to get a clear understanding of sex and gender, just abridging it is not enough to give it justice.
So it is clear that Red Fightback does not agree with the 'Engelsian' hypothesis that Women's oppression had existed on the basis of sex, but rather presupposes a gradual increase of women's oppression, which meant that private property, while still in the hands of the man due to them holding the first instruments of labour and currency, had spawned women's oppression; the tension and contradictions between the oppression of a woman by man only gradually increased as time went on. This can be exemplified by homosexuality and transgender people as well. Homosexuality was not uncommon in Ancient Greece, but it soon became a taboo topic, especially exemplified by the Bible (Leviticus 20:13 and Romans 1:26-31) and the increased Roman influence once it had adopted Christianity.
Red Fightback is arguing that it is not the basis of 'sex' that is the oppression but rather private property, a non-controversial statement within Marxists. What does CPGB-ML say about this?
Rather, gender, they claim, is some kind of medical conspiracy where, at birth, the doctors go away and huddle together and they ‘assign a gender role’ to you. So, pregnant mothers: when you have your 20-week ultrasound scan, you’re not having a scan to see whether your baby is a boy or a girl (say ‘Red Fightback’). No; that’s all medical conspiracy! And when the baby is born, they inspect the baby to say it’s a boy or a girl – well that’s all medical conspiracy, too! These things (boys and girls, men and women) aren’t real – don’t you see??[31]
A medical conspiracy. This is the pinnacle of non-seriousness from the CPGB-ML that it can be regarded as a joke by a dedicated troll who wants to infiltrate socialist spaces. But unfortunately we must take this statement as serious as we can, so thus I will do.
Gender (or more specifically gender roles) is not a matter of conspiracy. Doctors do their job like a worker does. Gender is ingrained with these people as a matter of subsistence, they must know what gender it has mainly by genitalia and often genitalia alone. Doctors do not huddle to assign what 'gender' you have. This is not only stupid but also inefficient. Pregnant people (not necessarily women) often get their 20-week ultrasound scan, and at around 20 weeks is when genitalia begins to form. From there, the doctor states that the gender of the child based only on the genitalia alone. This is the conspiracy bit if you can take the word "conspiracy" in any seriousness. The gender of the child is not formed as a result of their initial characteristics (that being genitalia) but rather their interests which will only grow to become more and more complex and even experience gender euphoria towards particular things. "One is not born but rather becomes a woman."[37]
Next is that they complain that they are called TERFs, and their only response is that the author is not a feminist. There is nothing of substance in this paragraph.
However the next is one that they actually disregard the existence of 'ableism',
There is even a movement termed ‘ableism’ or ‘trans-ableism’. There exist people who say: “I look as if I’ve got two arms and two legs, but actually in reality, I feel like I was born disabled.”
There are people who are petitioning for the right to have an arm or a leg cut off; to have an operation which will make their physical form conform to how they feel; “my inner essence”.[31]
They don't consider the existence of hidden disabilities (Autism, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia), and not only that, they think that people want to petition to have their arms or legs cut off. I want to ask how this relates to transgender people. I do not disagree with the second paragraph. There should be no right to be able to mutilate yourself. However in this case, they are pushing a narrative that shifts the goal posts towards the "mutilation" of Sexual Reassignment Surgery. They do not say it, but they certainly imply it.
Next they argue about Radical Feminism, again, this is not important, and I really don't disagree with anything they say.
Then they bring us back to the attention of "transwomen". This is not my wording, this is what their heading says. To reiterate, they use the exact same thing point with "LGBTs". It is not "transwomen" It is trans women. Trans is an adjective, women is a noun. Combination of both makes it a target, it dehumanises people. Take the case of "blacks" for example.
First of all, I would urge then to look very carefully at their figures and their sources. What is the actual percentage of the working class that are transgender?
It’s very difficult to find out. (A member of audience: “Ten percent of the population!”)
No. It’s very far from that figure. It is statistically so small as to be insignificant. It’s absolutely tiny. But, if you take everyone who is ‘gay’ and tell them “actually really, you’re transgender”; if you take everyone who is ‘confused during puberty’ – well, everyone’s confused during puberty! – “but actually, probably you’re transgender”. If transgender becomes your fashionable label that you impose on everyone who feels alienated in society, then you start to arrive at these incredible figures.
Because actually, the percentage of people who are alienated in society is massive; absolutely bloody massive. Because alienation is a product of capitalist exploitation, of its individualism and its dissatisfying, isolationist, selfish culture.
Italic emphasis was not made by essay author
They again make the same argument that just because they're a minority does not mean they do not need to be looked out for. They claim it's insignificant yet they can't prove that it is the case. Unfortunately transgender people are already understudied, and it will likely be the case for a long time. But they argue something strange. Being gay does not mean you are 'transgender'. No transgender person argues that. Also 'confused' during puberty is another false statement. As stated before, it is not gender dysphoria that may make you transgender, but gender euphoria.
Transgender people is not a product of alienation. The feeling of gender dysphoria partially exists as a result of society not directly helping transgender people. That is an effect that alienation provides to transgender people, by not making them appear as their true selves. This is not individualism, where society represses a quality of themselves, it is not individualist in any way to attempt to be yourself.
I will conclude this long ramble of this so-called party statement by putting this lovely message by the CPGB-ML themselves;
So I will conclude by saying: We are not transphobic! There’s nothing to be afraid of in this statement.[31]
Italic emphasis was not made by essay author
Note that the definition of "phobia" is either fear or hate. And hate this is.
The CPGB-ML has made their message clear. They do not support transgender people, which is shocking for a communist party. Their message continues to be perpetuated to this day, with CPGB-ML aligning themselves with reactionary organisations and groups. Case in point, Joti Brar, one of the leaders of the CPGB-ML, had been interviewed by Caleb Maupin, who said this about "Transgenderism",
We're not against a trans person, It's the ideology that's being pushed on that says you are what you think you are. Now this is total idealism.[38]
CPGB-ML is a "communist" party that does not deserve support nor recognition by any communist or transgender person.
Communist Party of Britain
As stated earlier, the CPB claims itself to be a successor of the later dissolved party of the CPGB. This meant it carried the torch, holding onto its ideal of the "British Road to Socialism", another method to attempt to reach Socialism, and also consequently to support Labour as a result of it.[39] Which, I might remind again, is filled with transphobic people. Which is no coincidence that this means that they also present transphobic statements too.
Thus I present a statement on the 'Gender Recognition Bill and Equality Law' made by the CPB. For context, this bill was presented in Scotland where it did not require people with Gender Dysphoria to get a Gender Recognition Certificate. You only needed to self-identify as transgender to get access to a Gender Recognition Certficate. The CPB, of course, had disapproval of the statement, and presents a series of points. But before they denote any transphobia, they perform a smokescreen of pretending to support transgender people;
The Communist Party of Britain believes that the current system for transgender people to gain access to services and achieve safe and legal gender transition requires substantial resourcing. If the aim of this Bill is to make the lives of trans people easier, then it is a failure. The Communist Party supports the right of trans people to live free from discrimination and prejudice. This attempt to change the law does nothing for their access to health, medical, housing, advisory and other services sensitive to their needs.[40]
What does that mean? This bill is intended for easier access towards transgender people. Bureaucracy within the National Health Service (NHS) has been a big problem for transgender people, especially given how horrid the service is. This is intended to make it easier and make it so people can transition more easily without bureaucracy being a factor.
They also state the same bureaucracy, that the definition of 'sex' must be united across both countries,
A system for allowing someone to change their legal sex has to work across Britain as a whole. This is because the legal term ‘sex’ is referred to in hundreds of pieces of legislation which are both reserved to Westminster and devolved to the Scottish Parliament. For this reason, when the Labour government decided to introduce the 2004 Gender Recognition Act it reached agreement with the devolved assemblies/ parliaments that the Westminster government would create a single legal framework for Britain as a whole. To make this possible, the Scottish Parliament passed the Sewel resolution granting consent for Westminster to legislate in devolved areas for this specific purpose.
These facts were known by the Scottish government and by civil servants before it embarked on going it alone in reforming the GRA in Scotland. It was always clear that a Scotland-only scheme would mean that Gender Recognition Certificates issued in Scotland would apply only to reserved areas of law. Anyone applying for and obtaining a GRC in Scotland under the new scheme could be sure of their rights in relation to devolved areas – such as the recording of births, deaths and marriages by the National Records of Scotland, or the Scottish NHS – but would have no idea where they stood in relation to reserved areas such as pensions, (most) social security benefits and areas covered by the Equality Act such as employment protection during pregnancy, maternity pay and other important rights.
Instead of resolving these issues, ideally in advance of introducing legislation, the Scottish government stuck to its position that the GRR bill had no effect at all on the operation of the Equality Act. They continue to claim it is an administrative change only and there is simply nothing to consider.[40]
So they are despising Scotland on the basis that decentralisation would make it more chaotic, a formation of 'legal chaos' as they would put it. And yet the CPB claims to be in support of "Self-determination". Such lies were spread indeed.
Legal jargon aside, this is where the issue matters, where the CPB considers the definition of sex,
The effect of the Bill is that the legal definition of a ‘man’ and a ‘woman’ and the people who are included in these categories will be different in Scotland than in England and Wales. In other words, there will be two different legal definitions of sex in operation within the UK. No-one knows how that will work in practice. It has never been examined. It is likely to mean that people with a Scottish GRC will have separate legal identities for different purposes.
The effect is to create legal chaos for service providers and organisations in the different countries of the UK and for UK- and Britain-wide organisations. The groups of people in sex-related categories will be entirely different in Scotland on one side and England and Wales on the other.[40]
Note that there existing two different definition of sex in two nations was formed a separation measure between the bureaucracy of the NHS England and NHS Scotland. They already process things different in contrast to England. The idea of 'legal chaos' presupposes the CPB does not support self determination.
However here is where they argue the same arguments as a TERF, where they state such bullshitery,
In particular, the UK Gender Recognition Act 2004 focuses on people with ‘gender dysphoria’ – their sexed body causes psychological distress such that medical/ surgical interventions are deemed necessary. They are the only group eligible for a GRC and thereby entitled to change their legal sex on their birth certificate.
The Scottish GRR Bill allows anyone over the age of 16 access to a GRC, with no medical requirement. Anyone is eligible who self-identifies into an ‘acquired gender’ and can provide fairly minimal evidence of living in this for at least three months is eligible. Sex offenders and those charged with sexual offences can apply, MSPs having voted down amendments to exclude them. The implications of self-ID as the sole requirement for access to single-sex spaces and facilities are serious when it comes to safeguarding women and children from predatory and abusive behaviour by men who can simply declare themselves to be women.[40]
They do not define the 'man' in this case. And the fact they only consider women and not men too means they fall right into the aspect of 'TERFs', exactly as stated. There has been no evidence that predators who claim to be transgender actually exist, as of now. This is fearmongering.
This reform could pose great difficulties for education institutions, sports organisations and other clubs and societies. They have to work out how to meet their legal duties under the 2010 Equality Act and make defensible decisions. They must balance conflicts of rights under the Equality Act and, if they are public sector bodies, fulfil the public sector equality duty and promote good relations between people with different ‘protected characteristics’ (which include ‘sex’ and ‘gender reassignment’). This is not a simple matter, and there are sure to be legal challenges. Navigating complex legislation while managing different legal definitions of sex which contain very different groups within them will not be easy.[40]
They whine about how difficult it will be to change the laws now given how the bureaucratic system works in the first place. Also specifically what groups? The definition of sex has not changed, only a means to acquire the change of sex.
Some argue these changes involve very small numbers of people and therefore the impact will be minimal. However, the wider context of the social transitioning of children in schools under government guidance puts that in doubt.[40]
The context of social transitioning within schools has nothing to do with the inclusion of transgender people within single-sex spaces. The fact they include this at all is concerning when they are two different issues that relate to transgender people.
The CPB makes a horrible statement once more,
The real innovation of this Bill is to legislate for the self-ID of someone’s legal sex, embedding self-declared ‘gender identity’ in law. But when pursued to the exclusion of such considerations as the sex-based rights of women, and the fragmentation of equality legislation across Britain, it undermines the drive to build unity within and between the working class and the oppressed and disadvantaged groups in our society.[40]
It undermines? It undermines the drive to build unity? Are they suggesting the same argument of the CPGB-ML, that helping transgender people would mean that there would a disunity in class struggle? And again they mention women, never about the transgender people themselves and how they feel about the Gender Recognition Bill.
The Communist Party is the only political party with a coherent political analysis of sex and gender. Gender as an ideological construct should not be confused or conflated with the material reality of biological sex. Gender is the vehicle through which misogyny is enacted and normalised. Gender identity ideology is well- suited to the needs of the capitalist class, focusing as it does on individual as opposed to collective rights, enabling and supporting the super-exploitation of women.[40]
They separate the idea of gender and sex yet assert the same answer as Radical Feminists but with extra steps; that the oppression of women is caused solely because the idea of a biological sex. They automatically assert the sexual division of labour and the creation of 'Gender' is thus what had lead to women's oppression. This is incorrect, and we had seen thus far that a sexual division of labour is not the precedent for oppression of women. And thus they state the idea of a Gender Ideology. The idea that is apparently suited to the needs of a capitalist class. This is, by definition, a TERF party.
What is the aftermath of this article that was posted? Well the website reached 1 million views (supposedly) and the website was down for a few moments. As a result, the CPB posted their on the X (formerly Twitter) account,
CP WON’T BE SILENCED - publication of our executive statement on ‘The Gender Recognition Bill and Equality Law’ has resulted in a million views and our website being zapped, but we won’t be silenced.[41]
The fact this had gotten popular has resulted in people like J.K. Rowling herself, an infamous TERF in the United Kingdom to post a response to this.[42]
3 months after the post was released, there was an article posted on Challenge, a magazine blog site managed by the Youth Communist League (Britain). This article is titled "Towards working class unity on sex and gender" which a particular individual named Eben Williams, a member of the YCL Glasgow branch, and not only that an LGBT+ member of the YCL Branch. Because they are a part of the LGBT community, I will make sure to be more meticulous on their article which is necessary to prove that not everyone in the LGBT Community is an ally.
Let’s start with what should be a simple position. Despite efforts by some postmodernists to reduce sex to a meaningless spectrum, 99.98% of human beings can be fairly equally divided into possession or not of Y chromosomes which also, all things being well, define our potential role in reproduction. By this or several other established definitions of sex, including gamete production or clusters of sex traits, we, like many other animals, are a sexually dimorphic species divided between males and females, and the existence of a very small number of intersex people does not contradict this binary trend. Sex is not “assigned at birth”, it is identified, and almost always identified correctly. To deny this would be to deny scientific fact which, as materialists, is unacceptable.[43]
What is this reduction? The idea of reduction has the implication that is something lost. Let us consider the opposite factor. If we reduce this assumed meaningless spectrum to the idea of sex as we know it today (What rules today's world is biological essentialism), then it is a reduction. And history shows it is the case. The end of Primitive Communism had brought a new era, Slave Society. This slave society, with the invention of private property, needed to ensure that private property was reserved "rightfully" to the hands of man. What does this mean? Only ensure that those who can engage in sexual intercourse are allowed. This meant the gradual degradation of not only LGB people, but also transgender people since they cannot reproduce as their desired gender and often are part of the LGB subclass. Not only that, transgender people are muddling the waters, ensuring that the idea of biological essentialism would remain forever faltered. Unfortunately this did not happen, and this had lead to further oppression of transgender people over the coming centuries.
Continuing on, they fall into the trap of being ignoramus regarding exceptions, essentially stating that either sex chromosomes or genitalia matters in determining our sex. Why does genitalia or sex chromosomes matter in determining sex? Do you need to define such matters or can you avoid them for a deeper, more nuanced analysis? Williams doesn't think so. And then they cast a wide net by presupposing the 'others' under "other established definitions of sex", thus allowing Williams to shift the goal posts as they desire. And therefore they conclude with their ignoramus, that intersex people do not contradict this binary trend. A sentence which in of itself a contradiction, as by any logic, you can easily conclude that the idea of a binary system cannot work with the existence of Intersex people, not to mention transgender people transitioning, who change their body to align with their desired gender, which may change from one to the other (or even neither), ensures that this definition of sex under the biological essentialist lens cannot exist.
With their incorrect logic with the addition of an incorrect premise, it creates an incorrect conclusion. That sex is not 'assigned at birth'. This is an incorrect statement. As stated earlier, doctors just look at genitalia and ensure that whoever this newborn person is, they are either male or female. This is how sex is characterised. At first sight, nevermore. And they conclude as 'Science', a 'science' which had failed its hypothesis, a 'science' which they have made the conclusion before its studies, a 'science' which had failed to adhere to the scientific method! This is a disgrace to science and not only that, Marxism-Leninism as well.
Marxists recognise that the oppression of women, here understood by its traditional sex-based definition, stems from class society, and that prior to class society, men and women, although different due to sex, were equal in status. With the emergence of private property and the division of society into classes, gender (i.e., socially constructed associations with the sexes) was then weaponised to ensure male dominance over women and male entitlement to property and wealth. Gender is also used to divide men and women and prevent them from uniting as a class against their common oppressors. As the basis of women’s oppression, class society must be overthrown through a working-class unity of the sexes.[43]
Williams does not even deny that these so-called "marxists" refute the traditional definition of sex! And from these premises causes devastating results. They first state that gender existed before private property (which is correct) but then later state that Gender is also used to divide men and women to not unite them? Which one is it? Does Williams advocate for gender abolitionism? Either way this is incorrect. Gender Roles formed as a basis of private property, which is reactionary and must be dissolved. Gender, on the other hand, had existed for thousands if not millions of years. It is not necessarily reactionary for a society to use the concept of Gender.
They later get onto the idea of Radical Feminists, whom Williams being the spokesperson for the CPB, states that the CPB is distant from the radfems. Williams defines these Radical Feminists as sex-materialists for the rest of essay, which means I will use that term for this critique as well.
One thing the author notes is the idea "Biological Determinism", which the author seems to adequately debunk this idea that male are innately superior to females. As a consequence, the author states this,
In reaction to this regressive worldview, some feminists have also come to argue that it is also biological determinism to claim that sex has any bearing upon women’s oppression whatsoever, but Marxists hold that it is an uncontroversial position that oppression of one sex over another could not have developed without sexual differences between them, with class society being the determining factor.[43]
We have already discussed the ideas from Red Fightback that the idea of oppression occurring based on purely sex lines is an overly mechanistic idea, so stating something that is outdated implies they advocate for gender abolitionism, a revisionist viewpoint. There are sexual differences between the average woman and man, but these ideas of sexual division of labour causing the instance women's oppression is a flawed aspect. And it is not necessarily class society that amplifies these aspects but private property. Classes formed as a result of private property.
Next we get into the most contentious section of the article "Gender Identity Ideology". To which it begins by addressing the earlier statement from the CPB;
One of the most contentious parts of the Communist Party statement was this: “Gender identity ideology is well-suited to the needs of the capitalist class, focusing as it does on individual as opposed to collective rights, enabling and supporting the super-exploitation of women.” To some unfamiliar with contemporary gender studies as a field, this line has been interpreted as implying that trans people are dangerous or that we oppose their existence as anti-Marxist. This is absolutely not the case, and just as it is not misogynistic to critique radical feminism, nor racist to critique the flaws of intersectionality frameworks, a critique of gender identity ideology is certainly not transphobic.
Italic emphasis was not made by essay author.
The statement that the CPB imposed does necessarily suggest that trans people are dangerous or that their existence is anti-Marxist. It assumes that the idea of a "gender identity" had only existed for a certain period of time, as Williams states later on, the concept of a "Gender Identity" was only popularised in the late 2000s. They make the incorrect thing to assume that intersectionality and Gender Identity are the same thing. Radical Feminism is revisionist. Intersectionality is revisionist. Radfems is a revisionist concept popularised by liberalism. Intersectionality emerged out of racist and colonialist ideas.[44] Gender Identity on the other hand does not fit any of these categories. Gender Identity is merely a concept that is thought out of cultures from Primitive Communist societies, and it is the modernisation of such concept, where it suggests that a person may have a different gender than what was assigned to them. There is no idealism here.
After that, they get into the concept of queer theory, which I do not think is a material thing, and actually is a product or at least made around the same time as Intersectionality. However Williams confuses this with 'Gender Identity Ideology', as expected.
Gender dysphoria is the very real feeling of psychological distress felt as a result of one’s sexed body which can lead to desires to alter the body through hormones and surgeries to more closely resemble the opposite sex and make this distress less acute. It is completely understandable that postmodernism would be so enticing to a group who feels in conflict with their natal sex, and the idea that gender identity is biologically, socially, and politically relevant, but sex is not, therefore becomes very attractive.
Gender identity as a concept, popularized in the late 2000’s by trans activists such as Julia Serano, then spread to the public consciousness in Britain partly through liberal lobbying organisations such as Stonewall, is usually understood today as the internalised self-perception of a person as being a “girl”, “boy”, “man”, “woman”, or something else, including “non-binary” identities, with these terms divorced from their traditional sex-based definitions.
Some believe that gender identity is innate and immutable, arguing that it develops due to biological and environmental factors, much like sexual orientation. The comparison continues when it is argued that gender identity is discovered through a process of self-reflection, and can therefore be either accepted or repressed, but not changed. As a part of this theory, gender dysphoria is believed to develop as a result of incongruence between innate gender identity and biological sex—an incongruence which also makes a person “transgender”. If gender identity and biological sex coincide, then you are “cisgender”. By this logic, gender dysphoria may be alleviated by changing your body to match “who you really are” on the inside, i.e., gender identity. This “gender essence theory” argues that it is not your sex which defines you, but your immutable gender identity.[43]
So this is the crux of the matter in how they define or rather refute gender identity. First they talk about Gender dysphoria. They describe it as if their desired gender contradicts the apparent "birth sex". This is nonsense, and as described in my past essay, not all trans people suffer gender dysphoria. It is not dysphoria, but euphoria that is desirable to them. To present themselves as who they are while feeling such comfort. To ignore this connection where the trans person wants to be happy with their desired gender and instead focus on gender dysphoria as if it is some sort of disease ignores the entire purpose of trans people in general. This leads to tangents especially in ableist circles where people think autism is caused by vaccines, or that autism can be cured by "therapies". This same line of reasoning can be devastating to a potential transgender or even cis reader. And they claim that such transgender people are attracted to the apparent "murky" waters of the sex definition, even though we can already state sex is already murky as it is.
Next they talk about the popularisation of the 'Gender Identity' definition. Even though it is practically irrelevant as it does nothing but bring context on how the definition came about.
Next they use the assumption that gender identity is immutable. I do not agree with this approach, rather gender identity can change but in most cases that gender identity stays relatively the same within a person's life. Gender Identity does not necessarily develop through biology itself but instead it is also impacted by culture. Biochemical dysphoria is a real thing, and not experiencing the same puberty changes can be dysphoric to many transgender people. But there's also a social factor, where someone is called by their assigned gender. It can be true that someone can discover their true selves as some LGBT people call it, but it can also change. By how much varies, some may be genderfluid, some may be non-binary, some people may prefer to be a particular gender, or some may not prefer any of what I mentioned already, and prefer to not have a gender at all.
Regardless, this author uses queer theory analysis which will only lead them to detract from the issue at hand, and we will see it soon.
Next the author starts critiquing another gender theorist, stating that it is only the social role that defines us, in other words it follows the same analogy of "If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is most likely a duck". This is a flawed approach too, and the author acknowledges that the former theorists who argue it is immutable state that it places an emphasis on medical transition and passing. Passing is a construct formed by society so that society remains congruent with its binary sex structure. It must be abolished for any transgender people to fully express themselves. So this is a transmedicalist approach to transgender people.[note 8]
To Marxists, it should be fairly clear that gender identity ideology, be it gender essence theory or gender as performance, is in conflict with dialectical materialism. As materialists, we reject the idea that reality is shaped by either perception or self-perception. Reality exists first and then we perceive it second, so one cannot perceive oneself into becoming a man or a woman. In arguing that men and women are defined by their social role and appearance, gender as performance theory also falls flat. If a woman is so masculine that she looks male, does she then become a man? Is a man who breaks the gender roles of their sex really a woman? Would a woman who grows up on a desert island no longer be a woman because she has no concept of female gender roles, and because she does not know what a woman is? Depending on your position, these can either be interesting thought experiments or deeply misogynistic. Postmodernists may entertain them as possibilities, but Marxists cannot.
This does not, however, deny shared experiences of discrimination in very specific cases. A minority of passing trans women may experience some aspects of misogyny due to being perceived as female, in the same way that straight men may experience homophobia due to being perceived as gay, but this perception does not define social categorisation. Sex is still the defining factor, with misogyny experienced in relation to perceived sex, rather than gender identity.[43]
I agree with Williams that Gender Essence and Gender as Performance are both flawed approaches to understanding gender identity. That is why as Marxists, we must make our own analyses as to understand what Gender really is. Williams states the obvious if you know anything about materialism, however it becomes clear that they use it as an argument to debunk the idea that a man or a woman (or a non-binary person, funny how did they not mention that given they're LGBT). As I said in my last essay, self-identification is not necessarily immaterial or undialectical. The cisgender people do not wish to see exceptions, they wish to see "cisgender" individuals. It is not that self-identification is wrong, rather the reductionist viewpoint of cisgender people. Exceptions exist within the typical notions of gender identities, and it's clear with their denial of self-identification, it means that Williams denies non-binary identities in general.
There is a desperate need for more research into trans and gender identities, a contentious field of study partly obstructed by current divisions, but by considering the wide array of people with experiences of such identities, as well as gender dysphoria, we can at least draw a few conclusions. For one, gender identity is not innate and people may question or change their gender identities throughout their lives based on cultural and ideological influences, including non-trans people.
When I was very young, I had long hair, didn’t like football, enjoyed playing with girls, and looked like one. I was confused why everyone treated me different, and surprised my mum one day by asking her if I was a boy or a girl. Of course, she told me I was a boy, and I left it there, but in that moment, I had definitely questioned my gender identity and unintentionally adopted both the appearance and certain gender roles of a girl. Did this literally make me one? No. But if I had then gone on to develop gender dysphoria and start identifying as trans, I could easily point to this experience and argue that I had always known on some level that I was never really a man. This makes me highly doubtful of people who claim that they realised their gender identities in early childhood through retrospective accounts of performing masculine or feminine gender roles.
They brought up the issues of lack of studies on transgender people, which is a valid and definite concern. However there are numerous reasons for which transgender people are understudied, including but not limited to political reasons. They also state that gender identity is not innate which is also true. However they state with overexaggeration that this includes "non-trans" (or they should have said cis) people. This is true, but cis people do not think like transgender people. This should be well-known to an LGBT person like Williams here. Cis people may think once or twice of what would it be like to be the opposite gender, but none think that they should transition. A transgender person often think of what it would be to be transgender.
Then they bring up anecdotal evidence. They question of the idea of "signs". Signs can mean you are transgender, but it does not often mean so. You do not need to have "signs" that you are transgender. Some people realise that they are transgender from early childhood. That should be respected. I do not understand why Williams is doubtful on this.
As for gender dysphoria, people have testified to a variety of external causes which can be quite separate from any innate incongruence. Gender dysphoria can be triggered, or at least aggravated, by trauma, body issues, internalised homophobia, or many other things. Social and medical transition are proven to be psychologically beneficial in some cases, while others may be resolved through mental healthcare, which needs substantial resourcing. Either way, a science and evidence-based pathway must be chosen—a process which is obstructed by simplistic narratives of “altering physical bodies to match gendered souls”.
I have boldened the word "testified" as it leads to a link to a study. We will take a closer look later.
They state that Gender Dysphoria can be triggered by trauma, body issues, internalised homophobia and many other things to escape their examples with little substance. We can easily disclose internalised homophobia as sexual orientation and gender identity are two different concepts, as for trauma, we can easily apply this to homosexual people, in fact this is what some Christian groups say, that homosexual people deserve pity because it is trauma that gives them their homosexuality, and to eliminate homosexuality, one must rid themselves of trauma! For an LGBT person to say this is ignorance at best, deception at worst! For body issues, cis and trans people can experience body dysmorphia, but it is only transgender peoplee that can experience gender dysphoria. no person with body dysmorphia thinks about their genitalia being not correct with their desired gender, or the fact they are still their assigned gender, only transgender people with gender dysphoria think this!
Some transgender people do not want to transition. That is respectable and acceptable. However there is certainly a large number of people who do want to transition both medically and socially. People with gender dysphoria often medical transition because it is how they will feel once they pass. This alternative suggestion leans into the discussion of conversion therapy, which is a dangerous outlook to see.
Now let us consider the study.[45] It is published in 30th April 2021. This work is not peer reviewed. This is a study of detransitioners (n = 237) who took part in a survey. This consists of both male and female detransitioners. What is wrong with this study? They collected samples from two sources, r/detrans and a website known as "post trans", both transphobic groups, which will most definitely alter the answers. This is already not a good study to cite. These people will biased and thus their answers can and will be incorrect to the general population. Am I ignoring their answers? Yes because they already display political biases towards transgender people. There can and does exist detransitioners who do not despise transgender people.[note 9]
They a multitude of reasons why people chose to detransition, and the most common is because their "gender dysphoria was related to other issues". This is a vague statement. Why is it vague? Gender dysphoria can relate to other issues such as depression. Those who transition don't necessarily fix their depression. Transgender people are usually aware of this fact. Next was "Health concerns" which may suggest that these detransitioners are uneducated (no offense). Interesting to note that 43% of the population chose that their "political views change". 1 in 2 people chose this answer. It is no surprise given how toxic these two sample sources are.
Next they wrote on how well they believe to be well-informed. 45% of the population don't believe to be well-informed. 33% felt they were partially informed. 18% felt they are completely informed, and 5% is not sure. I do not trust these numbers given the biased nature of these sample sources. Ideally your sample should be as unbiased as possible, but it is not. The detransitioners should've been aware of what they were getting into. What does it mean that they were not informed? Are they lying? Most people use surveys to gain some money. However in this case, I believe it is political biases that cause this issue and not necessarily about truth given the sample source.
In other words, this is a bullshit study. Given this sample is biased, it will give us no information on actual detransitioners. The fact Williams cited this is a disgrace to her already damaging reputation.
Continuing on from our brief tangent, Williams continues to regurgitate nonsense;
Unlike gender identity, gender dysphoria could have some biological basis, in the same way that many other psychological conditions have genetic components. The problem with gender identity ideology is that it turns the phenomena on its head, ascribing dysphoria to a material inner identity, rather than the other way round. Gender identity ideology actually accommodates people who routinely change their gender identity in the case of people who identify as “genderfluid”. In this way, the ideology allows for the fact that gender identity is not innate by creating a new “innate” identity that changes, painting over clear contradictions in the belief system by allowing for a mutable immutable. Similarly, the tenet that “everybody has a gender identity” is upheld, while simultaneously defining some people as “agender” (lacking gender identity).[43]
So do they deny that Gender Identity exists? If that's the case then why do they assume it does? Regardless, they use Gender Dypshoria as a case for a gender identity, rather than Gender Euphoria. This is reductive as it does not take into account of transgender people that do not feel gender dysphoria. They state that because gender identity is not innate, they can create an "innate" identity. Except not everyone who experiences changes in gender identity is genderfluid, or wants to be called genderfluid. Someone may have be transgender female, but soon become a non-binary person with transfeminine tendencies, and they feel closer to it than what they were before. Genderfluid is better reserved for those who prefer or feel changes in their gender identity. There is no contradiction here, rather ignorance. And then they speak of the idea that everybody has a gender identity despite someone not having a gender. It sounds counter-intuitive, but someone lacking a gender identity is a gender identity. There is nothing that contradicts it. For example, 0 is a number, despite representing nothing. We can add with 0, subtract with 0 and multiply with 0. It has no value yet is a number. Or a better example, a number which has no real value. let's take for example, which is the the square root of negative one,
We can add with i, (in this case adding with 1 with ),
and subsequently subtract too. We can also also multiply and divide by i, which produces both of these values respectively,
It is not real, yet we can apply the same things. It does not contradict logic at all despite not being real. In fact it opens a new realm known as complex analysis, which is useful for many branches of mathematics. So we can conclude that without the existence of an agender identity, we may limit our scope of what a gender identity truly is.
Oftentimes, changes in identity are dismissed as corrections of mistakes: “I thought I was gender identity A, but then I realised I was actually gender identity B all along,” thereby invalidating the first identity with the second and resisting any logical deconstruction. A similar argument is used against people who formerly identified as trans but “detransitioned”, either by claiming that they are lying about their past experiences of dysphoria and trans identity, or that they were incorrect or misdiagnosed.[43]
"Changes in identity are corrections of mistakes". The fundamental flaw and blessing of what humans possess is mistakes. It is true that one can be mistaken, but they can never fake it. No one pretends to be transgender. Even if it is not who they realise they are, no one is stopping them from detransitioning. It is only a step closer to the realisation of the true selves. Detransitioners get a bad reputation because they are politicised by media. It is part of the transphobia. If people detransition to get a step closer to their true selves, I respect that. But it doesn't mean that they get to indulge in transphobia and not respect other people. Note that a study suggests that only 1% of people regret Sexual Reassignment Surgery (n=7928).[46] In contrast 18% of people regret Knee Replacement Surgery.[47] Therefore there is a reason we must treat certain detransitioners with suspicion. It doesn't mean everyone will be treated as such.
Indeed, gender identity can be quite separate from dysphoria and even transition, in the sense that three different trans women, although all experiencing dysphoria and at the same stage of transition, may hold mutually incompatible “gender essence”, “gender as performance”, and “sex-materialist” conceptions of themselves. Either they have always been women, they became women after transitioning, or they are men who live as women, rather than women in a literal sense. These three conceptions do exist side by side among trans people and can change over a person’s life. Unfortunately, ideological disagreements can become extremely hostile, with heretical sex-materialist views usually disregarded as the internalised transphobia of “TERF” gender traitors, rather than valid trans experiences.[43]
Gender Identity is separate from transitioning and dysphoria. Transgender people share different experiences from one another. Of course they will not have the same examples as Williams listed. "They have always been women" is the most reasonable explanation, given that they had feelings of doubt about their gender identity. It is also the reason I despise the word transitioning despite using it a lot.[note 10] The other two statements fall into transmedicalism. The 2nd is the same as what I said before, and for the 3rd is transphobic in of itself. The sex-materialists as Williams calls them, Williams is actively defending these sex-materialists. This is not a transgender experience. This is transphobia.
From then on, Williams seems to go into a rabbit hole and goes into TERF rhetoric. It seems to me as if Williams is showing their true selves, not actually being LGBT supportive. This is why I was skeptical of their position as 'LGBT' because there's a T in LGBT. They do not support LGBT people. Maybe they are queer, but they are not supportive of transgender people.
The contradictions between gender identity ideology and sex-materialism are so sharp, that they are currently dividing us along lines of sex, class, LGBT status, and more, with the only beneficiary being the united bourgeoisie. Along the line of sex, feminists have long argued that any differences between men and women beyond our physical bodies are socially constructed and learned, rather than innate, and that there is no objective reality as a male or female mind, or male or female behaviours. Gender identity ideology not only denies these sound feminist principles, it deliberately obscures the relationship between trans women and their maleness, and trans men and their femaleness, which poses problems when discussing and identifying female oppression and misogyny and classifying groups with shared interests and experiences for the purposes of political struggles or safeguarding.[43]
See what I mean, dear reader? They actively denying transgender people! They are nothing more than transphobes! I would finish this essay, but unfortunately I must "critique" (or rather demolish) this paragraph. They state that Radical Feminists and Gender "Ideologues" engage with each other and that only benefits the bourgeoisie. I do not disagree with this. Transgender liberals need to fight against capitalism, as TERFs are only a byproduct of capitalism and its base and superstrucutre. But where Williams gets it wrong is by equating the Gender "Ideologues" with TERFs, as if they are both reactionary! This is no different from equating Nazis to Communists, yet Williams seem happy to do so.
The wording in the next sentence is vague yet telling. "Along the line of sex,", "beyond our physical bodies". It is clear there is a political motive. Is gender a social construct? Absolutely. But this line of thinking makes me realise that Williams could be a gender abolitionist, again, a reactionary position.
Gender identity "ideology" does not deny gender is a social construct. It denies that sex is a material thing, and it is also a social construct. They comparate between a "male trans woman" and a "female trans man", both oxymoronic and transphobic. And they conclude that this leads to denial of female oppression. We have discussed this already in regards to the section of Red Fightback, so I will not repeat myself again. But it is clear that misogyny does not have its root in biological 'sex'. It has its roots in private property.
When a woman becomes pregnant, she is unable to work and costs her employer money in the form of lost profits, resulting in a market incentive to hire males over females and reinforcing a subservient economic position for females on the basis of their sex under class society. This is an example of sex-based oppression shared by most females that cannot be overcome while the profit motive remains the decisive factor in employment. Sex-based protections, although insufficient, are meant to end hiring discrimination on the basis of reproductive functions, and can therefore benefit trans men as well. This is one example in which a shared struggle is waged on the basis of sex, and where including trans men in a social and political category with biological men may lead to confusion.[43]
Pregnancy does not explain why women are hired less over men. It does not explain why the housewife is a wife. Private property explains it clearer, rather, women are treated as property. They are not meant to have to occupational roles aside from house roles. This has been clear since the witch trials, where their reproductive organs are owned by the man, and thus they are property. Gender roles decided that women need to be "in the kitchen", or serve roles which require "delicate operation" such as computation, cotton spindling or tailoring, while men are working with other industries such as metallurgy. Sex is not the determinant, rather the discriminant, which from Williams' line of reasoning means you are utilising transphobic arguments.
It is true that sex-based protections are necessary to end discrimination in regards to employment. But it is not necessarily sex that matters but rather reproductive rights. Trans men are men, at the end of the day. It is not genitalia that determines that they are men. Next they state including trans men with "biological" men will lead to confusion. There is nothing wrong with including trans men with cis men. There will be no confusion, only expanding the strict definitions of a man and woman.
Another example is how violence by biological men upon trans men stops being classified as crimes of misogyny, regardless of whether this would help us understand and prevent it. If a trans man is assaulted primarily due to being perceived as a woman, does his/her gender identity make any meaningful difference? Should this really be considered a man-on-man crime? Discussions around single-sex spaces have also been hampered by ideological conflict. If we hold that single-sex spaces are important for women and girls and should be protected, and gender identity does not necessarily impact how one looks, how one is socialised, or how one’s body works, then identity alone should not be a valid enough condition for entry. We can agree this without abandoning the struggle for trans people to be able to participate fully in a society that does not provide well for people who break gender norms.[43]
A trans man who is a victim of a cisgender man is not counted as example of misogyny but misandry instead. Gender oppression exists on both sides. It is women who are noticeably more oppressed, but men are also oppressed from this same gender binary. Toxic masculinity is this phenomenon. To understand this is to understand the true meaning of gender liberation. If a trans man is assaulted, it does not matter whether how the assault should be categorised. It is an assault, end of. Something so simple should be understandable to a 5 year old. Also using his/her isn't a great idea given there exist other pronouns e.g. they/them.
Exclusion of trans women from single-sex women spaces is transphobic on the basis that their "sex" is not alike with one another. Trans women can be victims of assault too. So they deserve the same respect as a cis woman. Identity should be enough, and it should not matter how the person looks. Does this violate single-sex spaces? No, it doesn't. Because single-sex spaces are not supposed to be transphobic to begin with.
Conflating a rejection of gender identity ideology with transphobia also creates class conflict. For various reasons, we as human beings are hardwired to identify the cues that determine a person’s biological sex (although we may sometimes get it wrong). This means that when we adopt a person’s preferred gendered language, we are making the effort to pretend that we don’t see their sex, either out of genuine conviction, social pressure, or tolerance of a person’s core beliefs about their identity and a desire to protect them from discomfort. This may be familiar practice to some, but to working-class people who are used to saying things as they see them, a postmodernist ideology better suited for university gender studies departments is extremely off-putting, and accusations of bigotry will not attract those who reject it.[43]
We are not hardwired to detect someone's gender. We only assume that they are that particular gender based on looks alone. In reality we would never know the gender of a particular person unless if we ask it for ourselves. Next they state that they pretend to tolerate them. This means Williams admits that they are transphobic, which is not surprising to hear at all. Also since the working class people are not used to transgender people, it is a good time to educate them, don't you think? Isn't what Marxism is?
Among gay people, too, gender identity ideology is divisive. For example, Stonewall no longer defines homosexuality as same-sex attraction, but same-gender attraction, with the implication being that either gender identity or expression defines orientation rather than sex. This is untrue. I am a man who dates men, and am not attracted to women, masculine or otherwise, regardless of how they identify. The only exception may be trans men who I perceive as male, but only because sexual attraction is based on perceived sex as well as actual sex, in the same way that a straight man may be attracted to a passing drag queen. This does not deny that gay men can have happy and healthy relationships with trans men, but a lack of attraction to the traits of the opposite sex is part and parcel of the gay and lesbian experience and it is homophobic to imply otherwise.[43]
Whichever gay person thinks a "gender identity ideology" exists is not part of the LGBT community. It is true many people define homosexuality as same-sex attraction, but a transgender lesbian exists. Even if the genitalia are not the same as of a cisgender woman, they can still be lesbians and engage as lesbians, for example. The same case can be for trans men. Not everything about a relationship has to involve sexual interests. Romantic interests can be there too. Hence why same-gender makes more sense given that love itself is a complicated subject.
Next they state it is homophobic to suggest that gay men a lack of attraction to the traits of the opposite sex. It is, but also, are they suggesting that they only date gay men based on genitalia alone? If so, this is rather weird of them to admit that. Regardless, if a trans man has sexual reassignment surgery, would that mean they would date a trans man? Likely not, given that they are transphobic.
The rest of the section is detailing about transmedicalism, and I believe I should spare you, reader, from this unmarxist regurgitation.
Despite being fairly new, an entire culture and language has developed around gender identity ideology, which has rapidly filtered into cultural, educational, and political institutions. “Man”, “woman”, “boy”, and “girl”, no longer have anything to do with sex, but instead refer to self-perception. Ditto for third-person pronouns, which may be swapped as preferred or discarded entirely in favour of “neopronouns” such as “zie, zim, zir”. Words associated with sex are avoided, with “male” and “female” replaced with “assigned male/female at birth” (AMAB/AFAB), terms originally used to describe rare cases of intersex people having their sex “assigned” due to ambiguity, which have now been expanded to include cases where sex is unambiguous and identified correctly, but is undesirable. This has emerged alongside the postmodernist conception that sex doesn’t exist anyway, but is rather a spectrum of individual characteristics which society has gendered for the purposes of oppression.[43]
What is wrong with the separation of sex and gender? There is a clear separation between one another. A man can like feminine appearance, a woman can like masculine appearance, and no one bats an eye, but when people declare themselves to be transgender, Williams decides to draw the line there? This paragraph alone demonstrates Williams's true reveal. All people have a gender assigned at birth. And Williams clearly states that sex is about genitalia.
By this point, Williams becomes no different from a conservative in regards to their writing, showing that they are no longer talking about Marxism, and instead using a revisionist mechanical materialist lens which is more typical of a Bernsteinist rather than a Marxist.
Williams has demonstrated nothing more than the branch they work is a transphobic branch indeed, and that the Communist Party of Britain displays elements of transphobia. The party in question should not be supported at all.
Transphobia within Transgender Healthcare
The transgender healthcare system has been steadily decreasing the 2010s. We must analyse this from multiple perspectives, and therefore I must introduce new terms here:
- Sexual Reassignment Surgery (SRS): Also known as Gender Affirmation Surgery, involves the changing of the genitalia to match that of the opposite gender.
- Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT): Changing the hormones of a particular person to match of one gender. HRT is also used in cis people.
- Puberty Blockers: A delay in puberty so that they do not need to feel the hormones of their assigned gender.
- Gender Identity Clinic (GIC): A center in the NHS where transgender people go for appointments. A referral from a General Practitioner (GP) is necessary in England.
- Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS): A service for youth (under 18) that deals with Gender Dysphoria.
NHS Waiting Times
The NHS assures that the maximum waiting times for a referral is 18 weeks.[48] Unfortunately that isn't the case for transgender people. The bureaucracy of the NHS system has lead to transgender people to wait for years a first appointment. Yes, a first appointment.
How the process works in the United Kingdom in a nutshell (for Public services that is), is that you must get a referral from a GP. Afterwards, the GP would redirect you to a GIC, and therefore you are placed onto a waiting list. As of the making of this essay, the longest time to get into a first appointment is 75 months.[49] That is 6.25 years or 6 years and 3 months. Again, for a first appointment. And this is assuming that demand does not change, because if you apply today, it will be even longer! This is in direct violation of what the NHS said it would take. And it likely will take longer given recent events I will refer later on.
The situation is grim on the transgender people, and it will only get worse as time gets on.
Private Healthcare
Another choice to lead would be private healthcare. It is clear the NHS failed us, so private healthcare would better, right? Unfortunately this means we trade the time for the high costs. How expensive can transgender healthcare be? To have Hormone Replacement, you may need to have a first (or even second) appointment. Let's consider the price updated from a service such as YourGP, one of the "cheaper" options for transgender healthcare.[50] The first appointment (which last 60 minutes) costs £396, and the second appointment costs £200. This means you can potentially spend thousands just to keep being on HRT. £500 is already gone, and HRT hasn't been given yet. I haven't mention the price of HRT yet since the price of HRT can differ if or if not your GP has considered shared care.
Note that if you do end up on the private route, you need a private endocrinologist to see you and give you the accurate information you need. And only private institutions can recognise this information, not the NHS, thus increasing the price of HRT even more.
If you have to pay for a private service, you can request your GP to be entitled to shared care. This means your GP works with the private service, and lowers the price of your prescription. How well does this work for transgneder people? Well with the idea that transgender people can cover the costs themselves, most GPs refuse shared care. GPs have no obligation to enter into shared care with any private service. It even includes to blood tests, which are important for measuring testosterone and estrogen levels. That means without blood tests coverage, or HRT coverage, you are looking to spend at minimum £100 / month for HRT and ensuring your health and safety, when you enter a private service. This means that private healthcare is out of the question for many transgender folk.
GenderGP
Another private service people (used to) consider is GenderGP. It is a private service, but unlike the other private services such as YourGP, they are based overseas. This means that even though the quality of the treatment and healthcare won't change much. However GPs seem to especially disregard shared care when it comes to GenderGP. However as of recently, GenderGP is in shambles, considering that their quality and service has went downhill. There is anecdotes of people seeing an increase in prices for no reason, and there is little to no communication from the company themselves.
Bridging Prescriptions
Another way of obtaining HRT is through bridging prescriptions. This is to ensure that the person is on HRT before they get their first appointment with the NHS. However, many GPs refuse to do bridging prescriptions.
They only do it if only you are at risk of suicide. That means only a few transgender people get access to bridging prescriptions, and note that it's only the minimal dose, therefore your transition may take longer or your testosterone suppression may be ineffective.
DIY HRT
This leaves transgender people in the UK with one option, really. How can we buy HRT that is both safe and cheap for us? If we spend all our time researching the effects of HRT, and the doctors refuse to help us due to cost or waiting times, that means we need to do HRT ourselves.
DIY HRT is only increasing as time goes on, but we do not necessarily know because there is currently no statistics measuring this. What we can know is that trans people are encouraging more people to DIY. Why? Isn't DIY dangerous?
This is where knowledge comes into play. A lot of trans people are familiar with HRT and its effects, hence why many trans people choose masculising and feminising hormone therapy so that they can feel more like their ideal selves. It can be dangerous like most things that are done without precaution. Hence why most trans people choose to buy HRT sources from medically recognised firms, or homebrewed sources with a good reputation. It is easier done with feminising hormone therapy than masculising hormone therapy, since testosterone is a controlled substance.
However with the rise of DIY HRT, it also means news outlets are attempting to spread false news about HRT. Consider the Guardian's newspiece on DIY HRT, titled: "Concerns as cross-sex hormones available online for just £11 a month".[51] Clearly, they appeal to the youth, when they state that under 18s can buy HRT with only £11 per month. They state the obvious when people can buy medicine from overseas, and they state that there is "few, if any, barriers to younger people making purchases." Note that these purchases are conducted through usually a card payment, or even cryptocurrency. What are they insinuating when the Guardian writes this?
Also note that they state they 'illegally' obtain HRT. It is not illegal to own or use a prescriptive medicine, it is only illegal to sell it to a person that doesn't own a prescription. They also state that it may turn users to the 'hidden economy' or 'drug dealing' as if buying hormones from a medically recognised source, or from a well-reputed home brewer is the same as buying weed or heroin.
Dr Alison Cave at the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) states "for the patient's safety" that they should not self-prescribe. But no one is forced to do to abide to this.
They even house transphobic groups like Bayswater, who argue that there needs to be a public campaign, a public campaign which would not only harm trans people, but also cis people, who rely on HRT due to osteoporosis.
They also add a detransitioner, seeming to uphold that detransitioning is ideal, and encouraged instead of going DIY. Clearly this is the well standard of a transphobic article from the Guardian.
It is clear that no border control will stop HRT from entering the UK. HRT will always be available through DIY as a last resort. The only real way to handle this is either making it cheaper for trans people to enter private healthcare or, better yet, reducing the wait times for transgender people. The safeguards there are harming trans people to the point where some are willing to consider suicide.
However despite DIY HRT being considered a last resort, it is definitely being considered as the most common way to gain HRT for anyone. The NHS doesn't listen or understand trans people.
It should also be noted under the authority of the UK government, Google has delisted two sites which provide DIY HRT in the UK,[52] meaning the UK has started to crack down on DIY, meaning that trans people (and cis people) will be affected with this crackdown.
Conversion Therapy
Conversion Therapy is banned under the UK... that is, for homosexual people. For trans people, it is perfectly legal for trans people to engage in it.[53]
Conversion Therapy, a method to subjugate a substrata of the people, whether it'd be Autism, Gay, Trans, etc. is a method devised such that those who are part of the oppressor group are satisfied with their now 'converted' person. In this case for trans people, it is "Gender Exploratory Therapy". Note that if conversion therapy does not work for homosexual people, it does not work for transgender people either. Because people cannot change who they are, they work and operate under their means of subsistence, living as themselves.
Gender Exploratory Therapy (GET) is an attempt of both sides, a centrist in the making, so it seems.[54] Since it plays both sides, it attempts to rectify both arguments. But if you ever seen what happens when you play both sides, they tend to side towards reactionary groups. That means they can consider themselves to be trans "allies" while harming the overall transgender movement.
Note that this transgender conversion therapy takes place in more than just GET. There was a trans women in question who was taken into a mental health ward known as 'Pandora Holmes', which she was forced to come in, and since she was on DIY, and mental health wards refused prescriptions unless they came with labels, the mental health ward has thrown out this DIY HRT, leaving her in menopause.
Note the reputation of NHS wards are terrible, there has been reports of sexual abuse[55] as a result of people being treated like criminals rather than people who need health treatment. As a result, Holmes was assaulted too, where the NHS wanted to place her in a men's ward rather than a women's, and she also reported being starved and gaslighted by the NHS staff. This is the conversion therapy at its finest. Instead of treating a women of her issues, such as gender dysphoria, they treat her like she's nothing more than a punching bag.
The situation is still on-going as of writing this essay, however it is clear that she is not the first, and clearly not the last of this situation. In my prediction, this will only grow worse, since transphobia is becoming more rampant in the UK. However I will only give one positive of providing a bridging prescription towards Holmes, however we do not know when this will last, if at all. A further comprehension of the scenario can be found in the reference.[56]
Puberty Blockers Ban
And it only gets worse. The NHS has recently commissioned a "research independent group" known as the Cass review, to make a statement on this, a document which we will certainly review later.
As a consequence of the Cass review, the Tavistock GIDS was forced to shut down,[57] meaning the youth have no available means to prescribe Puberty Blockers. Puberty Blockers were also no longer prescribed to Transgender children,[58] and Private transgender clinics are also forced to no longer prescribe them.[59] This includes services which operate overseas such as GenderGP. It is now currently a criminal offense to prescribe puberty blockers to under 18s.
This U-turn has resulted in Transgender children being the first group to suffer, in order to "protect children". I wonder if they considered to include transgender children in there. This has lead to the NHS consider adult care as well.[60] I (and many other transgender people) do not know what the consequences of this will be in regards to over 18s, it will likely either mean further restriction of transgender health services, or ensuring that HRT may be banned all together.
But the effects has already been seen in the transgender youth where there has been an increase in suicide-related incidents. However the NHS has been masking the evidence, resulting in people from the NHS whistleblowing stating that they are masking the increase in suicides from transgender youths.[61] This is disgusting to say the very least, and it shows that the NHS cannot be trusted with data, not at the very least data privacy.
Cass Review
The Cass Review has made a big effect on TERF Island, even if we are only beginning to see its effects. To understand the Cass Review, we must understand the chairwoman behind it (Hilary Cass), and why it was even commissioned to begin with.
As it is known, everything that exists within society does not exist for its own sake, but rather everything that exists is under a mode of production. Hence, the NHS being capitalist as they are, it is no coincidence that the NHS does not rely on its public sector to fulfill its required analyses. No, it must be an "independent" third party, a third party which still operates under the same mode of production. In this case, it is the Cass Independent Review. Cass Independent Review which intends to read and "understand" the current state of gender within society.
We now understand that NHS commissioned a report, and the report was submitted around April of 2024. There was also an interim report released 2 years prior, however we will not consider this version of the report, as the finalised version is more important and what had lead to more drastic changes. Now let's consider the chairwoman, Hilary Cass. Hilary Cass is a pediatrician, who has no knowledge in endocrinology, gender studies, and doesn't even work in the field of GIDS, or the GICs. This also raises red flag for us, as we now must no longer consider the Cass Review an academic report, but rather a political report.
This is the crux of the Cass Review, it is a political report, not an academic one. It is clear because the British government considered the Cass Review, and it is the only review of its kind thus far to state something, which does not run in-line with the general trend of Transgender Health. Consider the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), a group which is regarded as the leader of transgender health across the world, has made a response toward the Cass Review. The organisation states it has deep concerns, which it states that the Cass Review directly went against the statement of any patients who may have benefited from the treatments. That means that trans peoples voices were not heard at all during the report.[62]
In other words, there has been severe backlash on the Cass Review, which meant that it was a controversial report. But let's not consider any of that. Let's consider the report itself. The report is a 388-page document, which goes over many areas.
I will not go over the material in question as there are other materials that do it better, but to summarise, it is a political report masquerading as an academic one. There is an underlying assumption that transitioning is always a bad thing, and the review wants to bar from transitioning until the age of 25, which has been disproven already as there is no set or 'perfect' age that tells the brain is fully matured.[63] The report, while appearing neutral, it is definitely a political report and must be treated as such.
It attempts to analyse transgender people only from the context of other factors including but not limited to: Autism, Pornography, Social Media, and Mental Illnesses. In other words, it is attempting to explain why people are transgender in regards to other factors, without implicitly stating that it is the case. It also attempts to use biology as an underpin for many biological differences between males and females, even defines biological sex on the basis of sex chromosomes, such that we know this review's underlying biases. It even imposes draconian measures in regards to social transition, where they want the clinician to impose transition measures instead of the person themselves. Of what? Do they want to judge what kind of clothes people wear? It states that there is no clear evidence, and even if is true, it is because those who socially transition have medically transitioned too. Or they prefer to socially transition only.
To describe this report myself, it is the worst kind of transphobia, where one is not seen by most people, where if they do ever read it, most people will believe this transphobia if they read the report. The Cass Review sweeps away any evidence that is reliable, considers it "too small", "unreliable", and many other things. We have seen the effect already, where the Cass Review's consequences made the NHS ban puberty blockers as a result. The fact that they did not listen to trans people, shows that it is indeed a political report. An academic report like the Cass Review should have at least considered both sides, but it doesn't. Ideally, the Cass Review should have listened to trans voices, and even detransitioners to a certain extent, to understand transgender and what it means to be as such. It does not mean that they must listen to the detransitioners who adopt conservative biases. The amount of evidence is monumental, as seen by the WPATH, and the Cass Review did not look at this, as if the Cass Review just lives on an island...
called TERF Island.
An analysis of the State of Things
Everything until now has been mostly research towards the transphobic state of the United Kingdom. We now have a general view of how transphobic the United Kingdom can be. The question is, what do we make of this?
Everything that has happened does not happen in a vacuum. It happened under capitalism, therefore we must understand the transgender "debate" in the context of Capital. We cannot abstract transgender people from the context of class struggle, as doing so would fall right under liberal ideas. We must consider trans struggle as part of class struggle. Therefore we must consider both sides, i.e. the Transphobes and the Trans people, to make a proper analysis. This does not mean befalling to either side, as making an improper judgment would most definitely make us be placed into one category or the other.
It also doesn't mean ignoring or hating either side. To understand this is to remove ourselves from the moralist ideas that plague both sides. As moralism in the context of our mode production is an aspect of Liberalism (and therefore Capitalism), we must analyse this carefully, as the context of LGBT struggle is only a recent topic introduced into Marxist circles.
The United Kingdom is one of the few nations to actively go against the WPATH, European, and American transgender healthcare systems. But we must not use the terms 'good' or 'bad' as they pertain to moralist ideas. Rather, we use 'progressive' and 'reactionary' which are not synonyms but are used in the context of modes of productions across society. The United Kingdom is definitely one of the unique cases of transphobia, compared to the United States, therefore a comparison cannot be made where some transphobia in the United States is done on a State basis, while the United Kingdom is done in the context of the whole nation (specifically England, but it can also affects Scotland, Wales, and the Occupied Region of Northern Ireland).
It should also be noted that neither side is a monolith, but together they are part of a monolith, Liberalism. This sounds illogical when given the dichotomy between transphobes and transgender people. And this is true. Therefore, instead of transgender people specifically, it would be transgender liberals, therefore this dilemma would be solved. Now instead of illogical arguments, we now have the issue of being arbitrary in our choices. What even is a transgender liberal?
This question would answered later, but assume that it is true for now. Now that we established our connection of Transphobes and Transgender Liberals under Liberalism, we will consider the transphobic side of it first.
Transphobes
I stated that Transphobes are not a monolith, but they do indeed a common interest in spreading (with or without intention) transphobia towards other people. In the context of the United Kingdom, I have decided to split them into 3 categories which it would encapsulate the majority, and where the context of Capitalism matters here.
The first category would be cis transphobes who spread their message of transphoia. These are cis people whom for one reason or another, spread transphobia.
The second category would be detransitioners. Not all detransitioners are transphobes, but the fact the former category propels and idolises them to an absurd degree, they must be considered.
The third category would Identity Traitors, which similar to Class traitors, would be trans people who would be more likely to side with transphobes than transgender people. They may be transgender transmedicalists, or truscums, or trans people who do not wish to support their own people.
Each category is listed in terms of how popular they are in descending order. So the first category would be indeed the most popular given the vast majority of transphobes are cis people. TERFs are also a part of the first category.
Let's consider each of the three categories and why they might be transphobic. Let's start with the largest group.
Cis Transphobes
The transgender liberals I mentioned before might say that cis transphobes are brainwashed in some way. Yet those transphobes can state the same towards them. I will not argue that either side is brainwashed. In fact, I would state that most transphobes are not stupid, as what brainwashing implies. Instead of brainwashing, I will consider the term 'licensing' first used by American Marxist-Leninist Roderic Day as a counterargument to the brainwashing argument used by MLs.[64]
Using this term we must understand that, first of all, every person that works under society works for their means of subsistence,[note 11] regardless of anything. That means the transphobes in this case, in spite of the liberties bestowed upon liberals, choose to do transphobia. A liberal says it is mere cruelty, and it is. A marxist needs to see the further foundations of that rather than just moral duty. This is because the transphobe in this case, utilising a moral license, means that they are being transphobic as a means to optimise their survival. To put it simply, they are transphobic so that they can lift themselves at the expense of trans people. The media propaganda in this case only solidifies, not actively makes them transphobes. It is more correct to say that a transphobe goes along with the media portrayed rather than believing in it, because transphobes can "believe" (as in go along rather than the traditional view of belief) in media propaganda while also hating on certain parts. Because it is true, albeit sometimes and most definitely sometimes, that the media puts a view that supports transgender people, and the transphobes disregard it.
Transgender people can also lay out arguments and convince them to become trans allies, yet the transphobes refuse to do so. Does this mean that the transphobes are brainwashed? No, rather because it isn't optimal for their survival. By being trans allies, they are diminishing their own survival. This is not to pity transphobes, because they are again doing it at the cost of other trans people. This exact same line of thought can be applied towards imperialism. This means that the transphobe's moral license is that while they feel good at helping other people who aren't trans, they use their moral license to belittle trans people.
Now why do transphobes even optimise their survival? What does it even mean to optimise their survival? Well this is where I will split this into common scenarios, which are definitely not exhaustive, to see if there's anything we can analyse.
I have split the cis transphobes in the following categories:
The Logicians, those who use logic to "understand" transgender people. They use research, typically are researchers, doctors, etc. to belittle transgender people.
The Moralists, those who feel as if they are being belittled as a result of transgender people. This is where TERFs typically are.
The Empiricists, those who witnessed first-hand of their relatives being transgender.
These are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they do not intend to be. For example, TERFs can use logic to belittle trans people, and at the same time do it because they feel like they are being belittled by trans people. People who have a trans child may use logic to make them "understand" the biological nature of sex.
There is overlap between all of these, and there is no need nor would it be a good thing to separate any. We only consider these categories in relation to one another, where they are not opposites but rather share a dialectical relationship between each other, as they constantly help one another to form the transphobia as we know it.
There seems to be a level of biological determinism between all transphobes, and this lays the main basis of the logician. Biological determinism which states that one person acts this way due to biology. Of course, thought is nothing than neurons communicating with another with electrical impulses. Emotions exist due to hormonal imbalances in the brain. People's brains finish maturing at 25 years old. Sex is determined by Sex Chromosomes.
These are all examples of biological determinism, and those argue this are typically not biologists, and it is nothing more than a reductive analysis. There is always a level of nuance. In other words, their truths, lie only in such because they go along with them, and when evidence shows the contrary, they will still go along with it because it correlates with their means of subsistence.
What shows in all transphobes is some level of discomfort towards trans people. What is this discomfort? Well it depends on the cis person. However we can note that discomfort, whether proactive or not is a form of reaction. It is a reaction towards trans people. In other words, it comes from a place of privilege. We can say in the case of cis transphobes, it is a place of privilege that guides them. What is this privilege, exactly? How come trans people are being oppressed at the expense of cis people? To answer this, we must speak about the relation of capital towards Identity Politics.
Many people using IDpol consider transgender people an identity. But what liberals fail to understand is that being a transphobe is also an identity. In the context of capital, to prevent revolution by any means, it is a requirement to remove revolutionary potential of the proletariat as it threatens capital. Capital dominates the whole of society, and therefore the licensing trait is utilised in the context of capitalism. Transphobic organisations are uplifted by capital, and as such the continuation of the existence of transphobes is not hard to see here. The BBC, Guardian, Daily Mail, etc. all have capital behind them, and they perpetuate even false information to disunite the proletariat.
With the fracturing of the proletariat, it is clear to see that we must oppose cis transphobes. However we did not consider all subgroups of the transphobic group.
Detransitioners
Then there are those who "detransitioned". It is not correct to say that all detransitioners are transphobic. It is correct to say that detransitioners are treated as the holy grail, as a statistic even. What are detransitioners and how do we know that they have detransitioned?
All detransitioners detransition due to a change in gender identity. How they detransition matters little but let's consider it for a brief moment. If they socially detransition, then there would be only shame in social circles potentially. Medically detransition, and now it is pictured as a crime, a mutilation of themselves.
They may be genuine detransitioners who support trans people. But more often than not, there are detransitioners who oppose transitioning and towards other trans people. In such case, capital perpetuates within them as well. In fact academic papers use detransitioners who are often politically biased to understand detransitioning.
Detransitioners (especially female ones), are considered the holy grail by cis transphobes as the leading argument against the existence of trans people. That is in essence what they are to cis transphobes, regardless of sympathy or not from them, a mere argument to throw.
But those detransitioners who argue against the so-called "gender ideology", they use themselves as an argument, as a warning. They thought once that they were the opposite gender (it's always the opposite gender, it's never non-binary people), and they warn others to not transition. This argument comes from thinking in regards of being brainwashed, the exact line of thinking that transphobes thrown toward trans people.
Is it really brainwashing that detransitioners faced through or merely their own choice? Let's utilise our licensing methodology once more. They went along with the idea of trans people existing, including the fact they are now the opposite gender. In fact, this directly states that it now correlates with their optimal survival strategy. Then when they detransition, it implies it is now the opposite. In other words, it was their choice to transition, and their choice to detransition. Labelling your transition as mutilation, propaganda, lack of safeguards, is entirely the detransitioner's fault. We may express sympathy and empathy towards detransitioners as their body is no longer as it once was, but they were aware of the consequences beforehand. This means that detransitioners, while being well-intentioned, can perpetuate the exact line of thinking as cis transphobes.
This is not to say that all detransitioners are bad. I listed a note earlier which points towards a subreddit showing non-transphobic detransitioners. It is plenty informative, as reasons were listed had to with personal experience and how their survival turned out which lead to them choosing to detransition. But it is clear that capital perpetuates the existence of detransitioners, and therefore a lot of them are considered transphobic as well.
We should note detransitioners for their special place in the United Kingdom, being the center of attention or often a statistic. For example, the increase in transgender people correlates with the increase of detransitioners. It can be even argued that they are directly proportional. The solution, the transphobes say, is to increase safeguards, which do not help anyone except the transphobes themselves. Minimising detransitioners is ideal and should be necessary, but not at the expense of gatekeeping trans people who want healthcare. One doesn't know that even though the number does increase, the number of detransitioners are considerably low still. This means this system is working as intended, but it could be considerably improved to say the very least.
Identity Traitors
Lastly is the Identity Traitors, in other words "transphobic transgender people". That sounds contradictory, but as Karl Marx said before "Nothing human is alien to me". The question now becomes, why would a transgender person become transphobic? Why would they go against the current trajectory and consensus of the transgender people such that they oppose their own very existence? Cognitive Dissonance can explain this. Whether their conservative views lie from experiences surrounding them, or from learning about the nuance of being transgender, They attempt to reconcile both natures of being transgender and being conservative. While cognitive dissonance may explain their reasons of being transphobic, it does not explain why sometimes they are complicit in following cis transphobes. Some transphobes accept certain trans people. Those who accept biological sex (or reject "gender ideology"), and accept the measures of the NHS. This costs themselves, it is not their optimal survival strategy. Until you consider that they may be privileged in some way. Earlier we looked at the Daily Mail, seeing that there was indeed an author who is transgender yet definitely does not follow the typical consensus of being transgender. She rejects "gender ideology" and even accepts and supports conversion therapy. One could say she is an asshole, and maybe she is. But I would state that this person, while transitioning, has lived consistently with the lives with cis transphobes, such this introduces internalised transphobia within herself. This internalised transphobia means that she is using it against others, in other words, for her own survival within the transphobic community, the utilisation of cognitive dissonance and moral licensing runs rampant in this case.
But she is not the only identity traitor. There are plenty others. Aside from Detransitioners, cis transphobes who can find and acquire transphobic trans people would use them as an argument, just like they do toward detransitioners. Capital is being funded towards these transphobic trans people. The pool of identity traitors is relatively small, as you need to find a trans person who rejects "gender ideology" and accepts biological sex. Most trans people would not make a caricature of themselves.
Transgender Liberals
We now seen how capital pours into transphobes. The media upholds transphobia, and it wants to circulate this capital into this news media, such that it would generate profit and disunite the proletariat.
But we forgot that, in regards to the superstructure, capital has no side. Capital funds all identity groups, whether oppressed or not, as a means of disuniting the proletariat. Wherever this transphobia exists, this transphobia is directed towards trans people.
Transgender people are not a monolith. In fact, trans people are more diverse in this regard. They typically seem to have more revolutionary potential compared to transphobes. However, what I gathere in the imperial core, while Marxists may have more trans people compared to the national average, Most trans people who have a political ideology are not marxists. I am a Marxist-Leninist, and I am also transgender. I accept everyone who is transgender, regardless if they're a capitalist-sympathiser or not. So using Marxism-Leninism, what can the rest of the trans community be considered?
The rest can be considered trans liberals. Before stating it is an overgeneralisation, we must consider that trans people are more likely to be "radical", but not more likely to be marxist. There are trans anarchists (there is also an ideology known as Anarcha-Queer). However Anarchists, regardless of their intentions or backgrounds, are more likely to be lapdogs for capitalism than actual revolutionaries.[65] And Anarchism is what Lenin considered "bourgeois individualism in reverse",[66] so Anarchists can be considered liberals in this case. Even if you disagree, the analysis I will make is not incompatible with anarchists. The other ideologies do not matter as much.
Now, let us consider why we are even critiquing transgender liberals in the first place. Does it mean that we are being transphobic ourselves? No, because we are not criticising trans liberals on the basis of being trans, but on the basis of being liberal. We must not never attack trans liberals on the basis of being trans. Acceptance and respect towards people being trans is necessary. Gender identity is the basis of many trans people, and I do not disagree with the model, but the debate over such model will be left in a future essay.
It's also interesting to note that while the ideas of "intersectionality" and "queer theory" may exist in the minds of some trans people in the United Kingdom, it definitely does not exist in all. So I will not criticise either aspect, despite being the basis of liberalism.
Let's consider with reformism. Most trans people typically despise the Labour party. What they do not despise is the party system in general. I've seen trans people advocate for voting the Green party, and using terms like "Tactical Voting". However I've seen trans people typically be "Anti-tory" rather than "Pro-Green". Despite the Greens advocating for trans rights, they are nonetheless a bourgeois party. Bourgeois party which may help trans people. Applying the licensing methodology, Trans people optimise their survival strategy by voting Green. Of course it comes at a cost. What does? This should just be a straightforward electoral process. Right around the introduction, I mentioned the Labour Aristocracy, how the bourgeoisie bribe the substrata of the proletariat (that being the British proletariat in this case), so that their revolutionary potential falters. Every single bourgeois party, regardless of their intent, upholds this labour aristocracy, which includes all trans people. Imperialism requires the super-exploitation (or extraction of superprofits) from the proletariat in the Third world, where they are still plagued with IMF Loans. This means that trans people benefit at the expense of the third world by advocating for electoralism. Regardless if they vote Labour or the Greens, both parties will not stop imperialism.
We marxists oppose electoralism not only because bourgeois parties in the imperial core endorse imperialism, but because whatever promises they make they make it at the expense of the general proletariat. In this case, it is detraction from socialism, by seeing electoralism as the only viable means to gain what trans liberals need. This is not ideal for anyone, and it does not matter what trans liberals state about democracy, about raising issues because there are certain people who have connections with MPs, or that they can directly address things with the Labour party, and if the Labour party refuses those people can go on strike. It isn't about addressing concerns, it is the lack there-of. Addressing whatever concerns that harms the general party means that they will not follow it, or there will be a concession towards social-democracy (and thus social-fascism) while keeping the bourgeois in power.
I will consult an obscure article in the Pravda, written by Vladimir Lenin known as "The Results and Significance of the U.S. Presidential Elections". It is based in the United States, however it still applies to this day, no less in the United Kingdom.
This so-called bipartisan system prevailing in America and Britain has been one of the most powerful means of preventing the rise of an independent working-class, i.e., genuinely socialist, party.
[...]
The old bourgeois parties (the “Democratic” and the “Republican” parties) have been facing towards the past, the period of the emancipation of the Negroes. The new bourgeois party, the National Progressive Party, is facing to wards the future. Its programme turns entirely on the question whether capitalism is to be or not to be, on the issues, to he specific, of protection for the workers and of “trusts”, as the capitalist associations are called in the U.S.A.
The old parties are products of an epoch whose task was to develop capitalism as speedily as possible. The struggle between the parties was over the question how best to expedite and facilitate this development.
The new party is a product of the present epoch, which raises the issue of the very existence of capitalism. In the U.S.A., the freest and most advanced country, this issue is coming to the fore more clearly and broadly than anywhere else.
The entire programme and entire agitation of Roosevelt and the Progressives turn on how to save capitalism by means of bourgeois reforms.
[...]
We shall save capitalism by reforms, says that party. We shall grant the most progressive factory legislation. We shall establish state control over all the trusts (in the U.S.A. that means over all industries!). We shall establish state control over them to eliminate poverty and enable everybody to earn a “decent” wage. We shall establish “social and industrial justice”. We revere all reforms—the only “reform” we don’t want is expropriation of the capitalists![67]
This was written in 1912 in the United States, and it still no less applies to the United Kingdom today. The United Kingdom operates on a pseudo-bipartisan (or two party) system. The Labour and Tories have held powers for decades, but as of recently the Tories held in power, the last time Labour being the majority in parliament since 2007 under Tony Blair. Since then, it was only the Conservatives. In other words, a stagnation, not only for LGBT rights, but also disability payments for the people. The Greens are at the forefront of the trans liberals, and perhaps more given how Labour just refuses to support trans rights. The reform that is promised, will only benefit the labour aristocracy at the cost of the third world. The Greens are not our friends, no bourgeois party is. The Green Party (if they ever get to power, which is unlikely) will just a temporary measure, one which will make trans rights still a debate, just one which is more solidified in support. It can be easily taken away, as we seen earlier in our research.
Transgender liberals, despite going vocal against the abuse of trans rights by the Tories, they may turn a blind eye on Labour or even the Green Party. This new party, whatever it may be, it will not help us in any way. Whatever they promises they will make, it will not be kept. How can we trust bourgeois politicians when they lie to our faces in regards to imperialism?
We marxists must oppose transgender liberals, but those who perpetuate such liberalism. There exists those who follow along, and must convinced to turn a new leaf.
What Is To Be Done?
Thus, we reach near the end. The journey to get here has been a tough one, especially to me since I am transgender myself. But now that we analysed things, I want to see what could be done within the context of Britain.
If you are a Marxist-Leninist, you should take the time to spread not only socialism but emancipation of all oppressed groups, which includes trans people. In regards to the communist groups in the United Kingdom, if you can find an organisation that isn't transphobic and promotes Marxist-Leninist views, join it. However, I do not recommend joining any transphobic groups.
I have made a list of all things that can and should be done. Whether you are a person in a communist organisation or a Marxist-Leninist who performs education to communists through other means, see that any of these may be done in the near future. This is all in the context of trans rights.
- All communists must support trans people, regardless of the persons' political background.
- Transgender struggle has its roots in class struggle. Therefore class struggle must include the emancipation of transgender people. When the base is socialist, the superstructure must change too, and we must educate the proletariat as a vanguard to ensure that reactionary beliefs are minimised. This may be done in the form of a cultural revolution.
- Opposition of transphobia is a must, and any form of transphobia shown by any human, whether with good intent or not, must be dealt with, with a struggle session or even removal of their position in an organisation. The opposition to the forms of transphobia include but are not limited to:
- Opposition of social forms of transphobia. This means the general public, influencers, politicians, who perpetuate to other people about transphobia.
- Opposition of medical forms of transphobia. This means any restrictions of Hormone Replacement Therapy, Sexual Reassignment Surgery, and any other forms of gender affirmation within the healthcare system. There should be no requirement for "gender dysphoria" to access transgender healthcare. Safekeeps should be done if and only if the person in question is not feeling gender euphoria.
- Opposition to any legal forms of transphobia. This means opposing the legal definition of sex, opposing sex markers on unnecessary items (like Driving Licenses), and the allowance of "Non-Binary" as an identity, along with other identities under the umbrella term of "Gender Non-Conforming" as gender markers.
- Opposition to any material forms of transphobia. This means the eradication of Identity Politics (IDpol) under a socialist society. Equal status must be ensured where trans people (along with other oppressed identities) have their voices heard, and are not repressed by cis transphobes. This means that socialism must hear out the voices of the oppressed, otherwise we will not have socialism.
- Opposition of liberalism should be done along with the opposition of transphobia. This does not mean denunciation of the gender identity model but those who present theory that is not dialectical nor materialist.
- Communist individuals and Communist organisations must take action to convince the British proletariat away from transphobia. At the very least, convince the transphobes of socialism, then educate them about what it means to be transgender. Through the use of democratic centralism, the transphobes who remain won't speak against trans people, and those who do will be punished.
- Bourgeois parties should be opposed even if they claim to support trans rights. We are not accelerationist, but recognise the broken promises of all bourgeois parties regardless of their position within the multi-party system. Any votes given counts as consent to their policies, which include enforcing and maintaining imperialism.
- Transphobia will only get worse as time continues forward. It currently has its mark in the United Kingdom, soon other parties must be aware of the incoming threats within the Imperial core. Some countries which are imperialist are already transphobic.
This is the only a short list. But it should give us a starting point towards what's coming next. To combat transphobia, we must unite as a proletariat mass, and fight against it. It will be difficult, especially in regards to the reformist thought of everyone, but it is necessary to establish a step forward to socialism.
Notes
- ↑ The essay can be found by clicking here.
- ↑ Stealth refers to a transgender person who has transitioned that does not share that they are transgender.
- ↑ Transbian refers to a transgender person who is a Lesbian.
- ↑ A deadname is a name someone once used (usually their birth name) but they have a new name they use as a replacement for the old name.
- ↑ Link to the graph
- ↑ There does exist an equation of a square that is tilted by 90 degrees which is however it is still a square that is tilted so it may be considered a rhombus instead of a square.
- ↑ Clocking refers to a transgender person being found out as transgender.
- ↑ Transmedicalism also known as Truscum is a flawed approach to gender identity which states one must be transsexual (an outdated term, which means one must either have Sexual Reassignment Surgery or Hormones, usually both), in order to be considered that particular gender. Both TERFs and a fringe group of transgender people uphold this which will be relevant to know later on.
- ↑ You can visit r/actual_detrans instead of the r/detrans toxic subreddit to get better opinions from detransitioners.
- ↑ Transitioning implies that someone starts with their assigned gender at birth. This is an incorrect statement. Many transgender people don't always grow up the same as their peers. Whether it is the case of neurodivergency or their gender identity is irrelevant. The transgender person is not changing from one to another, it's instead making them their true selves. Unfortunately I cannot find a better term for this.
- ↑ The Means of Subsistence is a synonym for survival, the process of doing anything to survive.
References
- ↑ Kelly Kasulis Cho (2023-10-05). "U.K. prime minister on gender: ‘A man is a man and a woman is a woman’" The Washington Post.
- ↑ About us page for the LGBT+ Conservatives
- ↑ Amelia Hansford (2022-11-02). "Keir Starmer urged to explain trans rights stance after worrying Mumsnet interview" PinkNews.
- ↑ Stats for Lefties Twitter post
- ↑ Nancy Kelley (2023-09-22). "Is the UK public getting more transphobic?" Medium.
- ↑ Guidance for Schools and Colleges: Gender Questioning Children
- ↑ Daniel Martin (2024-04-24). "Gillian Keegan: I’ll stop saying trans women are women" The Telegraph.
- ↑ "JK Rowling net worth — Sunday Times Rich List 2023" (2023-05-19). The Sunday Times.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 J.K. Rowling (2020-06-10). "J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues"
- ↑ “Just like a cash donation, your limited company can expect to pay less Corporation Tax if it gives equipment or trading stock (items your company makes or sells) to a charity or CASC.”
"How does HMRC tax a UK company’s charitable donations?" (2024-04-09). 1st Formations. - ↑ “The American Psychological Association and 61 other health care providers’ organizations signed a letter in 2021 denouncing the validity of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) as a clinical diagnosis. And a steadily growing body of scientific evidence demonstrates that it does not reflect transgender adolescents’ experiences and that “social contagion” is not causing more young people to seek gender-affirming care. Still, the concept continues to be used to justify anti-trans legislation across the U.S.”
Timmy Broderick (2023-08-24). "Evidence Undermines ‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria’ Claims" Scientific American. - ↑ Megan Bonar & Katy Scott (2024-04-02). "JK Rowling hate law posts not criminal, police say" BBC.
- ↑ Erin Reed (2024-04-13). "JK Rowling Holocaust Denialism: Author Pushes Claims That Trans People Were Not A Target" Substack.
- ↑ Chantelle Billson (2023-10-19). "JK Rowling would prefer two years in jail over using a trans person’s correct pronouns"
- ↑ Quotations from Mao Tse-Tung: '32. Culture and Art; Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art (May 1942), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 86'.
- ↑
If you were going to spoil your ballot paper, why not check this list to see whether there's a candidate in your constituency:
[link omitted on purpose]. - ↑ Katie Donohoe (2021-02-04). "BBC defend decision on holding trans healthcare debate with no trans representation" GCN.
- ↑ Caroline Lowbridge (2021-10-26). "The lesbians who feel pressured to have sex and relationships with trans women" BBC.
- ↑ June Kelly (2022-06-28). "Woman suing rape charity over transgender row" BBC.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 "BBC Elite British Sportswomen's Study 2024: Athletes on ‘difficult’ transgender debate" (2024-03-25). BBC.
- ↑ Transgender Women Athletes and Elite Sport: A Scientific Review: 'Executive Summary; Biomedical Findings' (p. 5). [PDF]
- ↑ “The Guardian, for example, is an explicitly left-leaning paper and everybody knows it.”
Nathan Robinson (2019-09-10). "Media bias is OK – if it's honest" The Guardian. - ↑ 23.0 23.1 Sonia Sodha (2022-05-29). "If a lesbian only desires same-sex dates that’s not bigotry, it’s her right" The Guardian.
- ↑ "The Observer view on gender dysphoria: criminalising therapy poses risk to children’s welfare" (2023-10-22). The Guardian.
- ↑ Debbie Hayton (2021-12-04). "'It's a betrayal of children to ban experts from asking tough questions before they can change gender': Transwoman DEBBIE HAYTON gives her view on a new Government bill which she fears will have damaging, unintended consequences" Daily Mail.
- ↑ About page on the LGB Alliance
- ↑ Patrick Kelleher (2021-03-12). "The BBC thinks it’s fine to invite two straight cis men and the LGB Alliance to debate conversion therapy" PinkNews.
- ↑ "Safeguarding Trans-Identified Children And Adolescents – Our New Guide" (2022-11-18). Bayswater Support Group.
- ↑ "Identity politics are anti-Marxian and a harmful diversion from the class struggle" (2018-12-07). The Communists.
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 30.2 30.3 30.4 30.5 30.6 Ella Rule (2019-04-20). "Why gay rights is not a class issue" The Communists.
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 31.2 31.3 31.4 31.5 31.6 31.7 "The reactionary nightmare of ‘gender fluidity’" (2019-03-23). The Communists.
- ↑ Vladimir Lenin (1908). Marxism and Revisionism.
- ↑ “Did you know that snakes can exhibit sexual dimorphism? They exhibit it in a number of different ways. For example: In the green anaconda, Eunectes murinus, females are heavier and longer than males. This works out well because the larger the female, the more offspring she could potentially produce.”
Ashley T. (2020-12-10). "Exploring Dimorphism" Zoo Atlanta. - ↑ “although spotted hyena society is acknowledged as the most social of all carnivores, it is also matriarchal. The larger females, which have a pseudo-penis, dominate the males.”
Stewart Wallis (2022-03-21). "Why female spotted hyenas rule the pack" Discover Wildlife. - ↑ “[D]id you know that male clownfish can become female?
Groups of clownfish are led by a female, while the second-in-command fish is male. When the leader dies, the next-in-line male changes into a female in order to become the leader.”
Daniel Vernick (2023-06-28). "Are there queer animals? Clownfish that change sex, and other species that demonstrate queer behavior" WWF. - ↑ "Misogyny is Not Caused by Biological “Sex”! The Historical-Materialist Theory of Gender" (2019-04-24). Red Fightback.
- ↑ Simone de Beauvoir (1949). The Second Sex (p. 273). [PDF]
- ↑ Caleb Maupin (2019-10-10). "Top British Communist Joti Brar talks with Caleb Maupin". YouTube.
- ↑ Robert Griffiths (2017-04-24). "Communists say: Vote Labour Everywhere for a Left-Led Government" Youth Communist League (Britain).
- ↑ 40.0 40.1 40.2 40.3 40.4 40.5 40.6 40.7 "The Gender Recognition Bill and Equality Law" (2023-03-29). Communist Party of Britain.
- ↑ Archived link of their twitter post
- ↑
Link to the twitter postCan't wait for the Guardian columns denouncing the British Communist Party as far-right.
- ↑ 43.00 43.01 43.02 43.03 43.04 43.05 43.06 43.07 43.08 43.09 43.10 43.11 43.12 43.13 Eben Wiliams (2023-06-10). "Towards working class unity on sex and gender" Challenge.
- ↑ Patrick D. Anderson (2021-09-08). "The Theory of Intersectionality Emerges out of Racist, Colonialist Ideology, Not Radical Politics—Rethinking the CRT Debate Part 3" Black Agenda Report.
- ↑ Elie Vandenbussche (2021-04-30). "Detransition-Related Needs and Support: A Cross-Sectional Online Survey"
- ↑ “Based on this meta-analysis, the prevalence of regret is 1%. We believe this reflects and corroborates the increased in accuracy of patient selection criteria for GAS. Efforts should be directed toward the individualization of the patient based on their goals and identification of risk factors for regrets. Surgeons should continue to rigorously follow the current Standard of Care guidelines of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WATH).”
Valeria P. Bustos et al. (2021-03-19). "Regret after Gender-affirmation Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prevalence" PubMed Central. - ↑ “Of the 348 patients who responded to a letter asking if they were satisfied or dissatisfied with their surgery, 61 (18%) reported discontent.”
Aamir Mahdi, Mia Svantesson, Per Wretenburg, Maria Hälleberg-Nyman (2021-03-19). "Patients’ experiences of discontentment one year after total knee arthroplasty- a qualitative study" PubMed Central. - ↑ “The maximum waiting time for non-urgent, consultant-led treatments is 18 weeks from the day your appointment is booked through the NHS e-Referral Service, or when the hospital or service receives your referral letter.”
"Guide to NHS waiting times in England". NHS. Retrieved 2024-04-23. - ↑ "UK service wait times". Gender Construction Kit. Retrieved 2024-04-23.
- ↑ Screenshot for the price list from r/transgenderuk
- ↑ N. Davis, S. Marsh (2024-05-03). "Concerns as cross-sex hormones available online for just £11 a month" The Guardian.
- ↑ Emanuel Maiberg (2024-05-08). "Google Delists Sites Providing DIY Hormone Therapy at Behest of UK Government" 404 Media.
- ↑ Twitter post by ITV Presenter
- ↑ Mallory Moore (2022-12-20). "NHS Trust uses "Gender Exploratory" training materials promoting conversion therapy lobbyists" Trans Safety Network.
- ↑ “Almost 20,000 reports of sexual incidents in the last five years have been made in more than half of NHS mental health trusts, according to exclusive data uncovered in a joint investigation and podcast by The Independent and Sky News.”
R. Thomas, R. Mulhern (2024-01-29). "Mental health patients ‘raped and sexually assaulted’ as NHS abuse scandal revealed" The Independent. - ↑ Megathread on Reddit detailing the torture of Holmes
- ↑ Hannah Barnes (2024-03-31). "Why the Tavistock gender identity clinic was forced to shut ... and what happens next" The Guardian.
- ↑ "Children to no longer be prescribed puberty blockers, NHS England confirms" (2024-03-14). Sky News.
- ↑ Denis Campbell (2024-04-11). "Ban on children’s puberty blockers to be enforced in private sector in England" The Guardian.
- ↑ “In a letter responding to Cass’s report, which NHS England sent on Tuesday to the seven trusts that host adult gender dysphoria clinics (GDCs), it told them: “We will be launching a review into the operation and delivery of the adult GDCs, alongside the planned review of the adult gender dysphoria service specification.”
NHS sources said that the review would be comparable to Cass’s inquiry. It was prompted by a lack of reliable evidence on key issues involved in the care of children and young people who are questioning their gender identity, such as the safety and efficacy of puberty blockers and cross-sex – masculinising or feminising – hormones.
“It will be external, rather than done in-house. It will be led by someone external. It will be fairly similar to what Cass did with children’s services, but this time it will be looking at adult services”, a source said. It could “conceivably” be a senior doctor like Cass.”
Denis Campbell (2024-04-10). "Adult transgender clinics in England face inquiry into patient care" - ↑ Mira Lazine (2024-06-22). "Trans Youth Suicides Covered Up By NHS, Cass After Restrictions, Say Whistleblowers" Erin in the Morning.
- ↑ "WPATH and USPATH comment on the Cass Review" (2024-05-17). World Professional Association for Transgender Health.
- ↑ Jane C. Hu (2022-11-27). "The Myth of the 25-Year-Old Brain" Slate.
- ↑ Roderic Day (2022-05-23). "Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing”" Red Sails.
- ↑ Ben Norton (2021-10-15). "In COINTELPRO, FBI used anarchism to ‘disrupt left’, attack Vietnam & USSR" Geopolitical Economy Report.
- ↑ V.I. Lenin (1901). Anarchism and Socialism (1901).
- ↑ V.I. Lenin (1912). The Results and Significance of the U.S. Presidential Elections.