Essay:Welcome to TERF Island

Note: This essay is being produced during the middle situation of the Cass Review in TERF Island. As the author editing this essay, I am ashamed of how low trans healthcare has gone, to the point where trans people are being affected and harmed in this country. Let it be known that I extend all my solidarity to all trans people as I am trans myself, so that this country can be rid of all transphobia.

Disclaimer: This essay contains transphobia and quotes from transphobic authors. If you are sensitive to this, please take caution while reading this essay.

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 the added 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, and objectification) that which the LGBT people also benefit from, and instead offer 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, 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 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 in the surface, and the transgender people were oppressed heavily if they did not engage in stealth.

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, but we will get onto this later. It seems the labour aristocracy has privileged 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.”

And this general line is in line with every party member in the Conservative party. The Conservative Party, despite having an LGBT wing 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.

The quote alteration was not made by the essay author.

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 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 usefulness 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 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' 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 part, 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.

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" 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.

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 nations 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: