Transgender Liberation: Liberal Betrayal, Marxist Answers

https://iclfi.org/pubs/wr/46/trans

Back in power, Donald Trump lost no time in unleashing a torrent of anti-trans measures. This escalates a trend seen around the world. Reactionaries of every stripe point to the relatively limited gains made by trans people as proof of the moral and social degeneracy of the West. More than any other group, trans people have felt the drastic right-wing shift in political winds. Parties and public figures which not so long ago had a liberal stance on the transgender question are now frantically trying to distance themselves. They started by avoiding the question. But very quickly, yesterday’s liberals are joining the reactionary chorus, understanding that their establishment careers depend on it.

Why is the transgender movement such a focal point for reaction? While the LGBTQ+ movement is keenly aware of the sea change in public opinion, it generally cannot explain the reasons for this change. As a result, there is currently no coherent perspective for how to fight back in this hostile environment. The transgender movement finds itself increasingly isolated and politically disoriented, unsure of what to do or who to trust.

The Marxist movement has so far not been able to fill this vacuum. Many self-proclaimed Marxists openly embrace reactionary anti-trans positions, using analytical methods closer to those of the Catholic church than to any serious Marxist theoretician. A lot of Marxist parties are simply silent on the question. Those that aren’t and that have denounced the attacks against trans people have not provided serious answers or perspectives. Generally, they simply add elements of Marxist verbiage and analysis onto a fundamentally liberal program.

The present article is a contribution toward filling this void. In the first instance, it will provide a materialist explanation for the current culture wars, explaining why they are taking place now and why they cannot be countered with liberal gradualist means. Secondly, it will provide a basic Marxist understanding of the trans question counterposed to the reactionary empiricism of the anti-trans discourse as well as to the liberal idealism of the mainstream pro-trans movement. From these two pillars, we will then start building the scaffold of a working-class program for transgender liberation applied to the context of mounting reaction and liberal backstabbing.

Part One: Gradualism and the Tides of History

In recent decades the mainstream view in the LGBTQ+ movement has been that history has its ups and its downs but, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Gays and lesbians faced intense periods of moral hysteria in the 1950s and late 1970s, but eventually attitudes and policies liberalized. Now, in many societies they are part of the mainstream and accepted across the political spectrum. The idea was, and for some still is, that the same will happen for trans people: despite the current setback, sooner or later we will get back on track.

Already this refrain is ringing hollow to many transgender people, and they are looking to the left for more radical answers. Even left-liberal author Shon Faye writes in her informative book The Transgender Issue (Allen Lane, 2021) that “there can be no trans liberation under capitalism.” However, this increased radicalism does not necessarily translate into revolutionary conclusions. For example, Faye also writes that “the only hope trans people have of achieving beneficial policy changes enacted in Parliament is through internal lobbying and, ultimately, the election of the Labour Party.” This shows that one can in general believe that capitalism is incompatible with trans rights but concretely speaking still view gradual social reform rather than revolution as the road forward.

Therefore, it is not enough for Marxists to state the platitude that trans or women’s liberation is incompatible with capitalism. It is necessary to show why revolutionary working-class methods are necessary to achieve liberation as opposed to liberal reformist means. To do this we must take on the underlying illusion that progress for LGBTQ+ people was possible before and will surely be possible again. We will do this by showing the specific circumstances that made these reforms possible in the first place, how those circumstances are rapidly disappearing and why it is suicidal to think they will come back.

From Reaction to Liberalism

To understand how the condition of sexually oppressed groups has evolved over time, it is necessary to go beyond the ideas and attitudes in individuals’ heads. Marx famously stated that the “ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force” (“Theses on Feuerbach,” 1845). Since the Second World War, the American capitalist class is the class that has dominated the world economically, politically and militarily. Because of this, the dominant ideas on sexuality have evolved in tandem with the interests and aims of U.S. imperialism.

During the high points of the Cold War, when capitalist domination was threatened, the priority for U.S. imperialism was to ensure internal stability in the face of an external enemy. It is no coincidence that the Lavender Scare in the 1950s—the moral panic about gays in the U.S. government—was joined at the hip to the anti-Communist McCarthy witchhunts. Nor is it a coincidence that Anita Bryant’s crusade against homosexuality in the late 1970s intersected the need for the U.S. to recover from the political and military setbacks it suffered in the ’60s and ’70s.

As a rule, there is no more potent weapon to smash the left and unify a country for reactionary aims than to lean on the most conservative social prejudices regarding sexuality and the family. Many militant working-class activists ready to suffer beatings and jail for their convictions crumble at the hint of being associated with sexual deviations. U.S. rulers have a long history of using moral panics over sexual deviance as an instrument of social control.

That said, after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the U.S. no longer had a formidable external enemy to mobilize against. Rather, its aim was to expand its economic and social influence in every corner of the planet. In this context the universalist principles of freedom, democracy and human rights were the perfect ideological tools to justify U.S. interference and domination. Moreover, with class struggle at an ebb and no serious geopolitical rivals, the U.S. ruling class could afford looser social norms domestically and could unchain the wild and profitable spirits of consumeristic individuality.

However, despite all the speeches about enlightenment and freedom in the 1990s, liberalization of homosexuality, in particular the right to marriage, was still considered taboo by most of the political establishment in the U.S. It was only following the 2008 financial crisis, when Obama was president, that same-sex marriage was legalized. At the time, the ruling class needed to bring down the conditions of the working class while keeping the peace through an aura of progressivism. Reforms on social questions such as marriage were perfect since they cost nothing in economic terms and were natural extensions of the liberal principles of tolerance and free individual choice. Paradoxically, it is only because of the literal bankruptcy of the liberal world order that the capitalist class could advance as far as it did toward sexual liberalization.

Similar reforms were made around the Western world during this period, for example, in France, Germany and Britain. As the economic backbone of Western dominance eroded and the imperialist ruling classes attacked material living conditions, they relied more and more on liberal ideas to compensate for their declining power. This is why pro-LGBTQ+ discourse became mainstream in the cultural and political sphere of most Western countries: sitcoms featured gay protagonists, and it became the norm for corporations, politicians and cops to march in Pride parades. On top of providing a hypocritical veneer of progressiveness, such liberal positioning offered a convenient stick with which to beat workers, immigrants and Third World countries; any form of opposition to the liberal status quo could be easily countered with charges of backwardness and chauvinism.

So, while social liberalization is certainly progressive, the underlying economic reasons it occurred in the early 21st century were rooted in regressive economic conditions and reactionary class interests. This does not negate the long and arduous struggles waged by generations of LGBTQ+ activists. Rather, it explains why they were able to succeed to the degree that they did and why the movement became less radical and increasingly compatible with corporate capitalism.

The Trans Question and the Decline of U.S. Hegemony

Overall, the conditions for trans people followed the same general path as for gays and lesbians, but with a significant delay. Trans rights and public awareness of the question were only making their first inroads into the mainstream at the time right-wing populist reaction started to gain momentum. In 2014 Time magazine featured a cover with transgender actress Laverne Cox that read “The Transgender Tipping Point—America’s next civil rights frontier.” One year later Donald Trump announced his first bid to become president.

As it happens, the trans issue wasn’t just American liberalism’s next frontier but really its last frontier. That is the farthest it could push sexual liberalization before hitting a wall. Liberals went as far as they did on LGBTQ+ and other social issues to compensate for their declining social influence. But while the liberals were going further and further, the backlash to liberalism was only growing stronger and stronger. Conservative social forces sense this growing weakness and are using the trans question as a political battering ram against the liberal status quo of the past decades.

On the one hand, the trans question embodies the limits of liberal reformism over the question of sexuality. The notion of free choice and tolerance runs up against the economic and social limits of capitalism. Scarcity of material resources and vested conservative interests make it ultimately impossible to transcend a social organization based on the monogamous heterosexual family—a question we will explore in more detail below.

But at the same time, the trans question today also embodies the limits of the liberal world order that the United States built following the Second World War. We have reached a point where the economic and social pillars of this order clash with the interests of the ruling class that established them. Increasingly, liberalism has become an unnecessary nuisance in the drive to restore the U.S. position in the world. If the trans issue is such a flash point in the culture wars, it is because it stands at the border between the liberal order of U.S. imperial hegemony and the emerging order of reaction born out of U.S. imperial decline.

As for broad sections of the working class, liberalism has come to symbolize everything they hate about the status quo. For decades they were told to swallow economic attacks and a decomposing social fabric in the name of empty ideals. Now it is easy for the right to seize on this discontent to foster a generalized social backlash. The immediate targets are minorities, but the real aim is to put Western imperialism on a more bellicose course against the working class at home and rivals abroad. With both the ruling class and the working class moving away from the status quo of the past decades, the social order that made limited reforms for LGBTQ+ people possible is entering terminal crisis. This is the underlying factor behind the raging conflict over the trans question.

The only prospect for substantial gains for women and sexual minorities would be through a renewed and sustained period of global economic prosperity. However, this is completely ruled out given that the U.S. capitalists are intent on maintaining their grip on the world and can only do so by increasing national competition and generally driving down living standards (see “The Breakdown of U.S. Hegemony & the Struggle for Workers Power,” Spartacist No. 68, September 2023). Ultimately, it is the economic realities of a world ruled by imperialism that rule out serious gains for any oppressed group, not to speak of a gradualist and reformist path for trans liberation.

Part Two: Untangling Gender

The Conflict Behind the Gender Wars

Much of the debate over the trans question revolves around definitions. Before diving into these turbulent waters, it is important to look at the political issues that stand behind the battles over gender, sex and biology. Much of the literature on the question starts with definitions as a basis to argue a distinct political perspective. While this appears logical on the face of it, really it covers the debate with a false sense of objectivity. Underlying the clash of definitions is a clash of interests. So, before we provide our own answers and definitions, we will identify the political objectives of the trans and anti-trans movements, as well as our own communist worldview.

As the word “transgender” implies, trans people are individuals who wish to be socially recognized as a gender distinct from that in which they have been hitherto socialized. As such, the transgender movement as a political movement seeks to make it possible and socially acceptable for individuals to make such transitions. The way in which it explains the world and the various arguments it elaborates are all derived from this political objective.

Those making up the anti-transgender movement, whether they be TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists), religiously based, male chauvinist or even pseudo-Marxist, are united in fighting against the social acceptance of trans people. Of course, these various strands have distinct and often conflicting interests. But they are united in wanting to make it more difficult or impossible for trans people to be socially accepted as the gender they identify as. The various theories and arguments they elaborate are all aimed toward this political goal.

As we can see, even though much of the debate over the trans question focuses on biological sex versus gender, on the definition of womanhood and so on, this is not the heart of the matter. The issue is simply whether it is socially desirable and permissible for individuals to be allowed to transition from one gender to another. All the conflicts about concepts gravitate around this fundamental question.

As communists, our political aim is to achieve a fully egalitarian society of abundance, free of classes and all other forms of oppression, including those caused by the gendered division of society. Thus, our aims are compatible and overlap with those of the transgender movement. We unambiguously think that yes, individuals should be allowed to transition and in general do whatever they want with their own bodies. We also argue that society should facilitate this process. But more than this, we believe that the fight for sexual liberation—including trans liberation—is a cause which is not only compatible with the fight to emancipate the working class but integral to its day-to-day struggles in present society. In other words, the task is not to wait for the communist future but to fight today to advance this cause.

Where we distinguish ourselves as communists is that we view the struggle for trans liberation as part of a broader struggle for working-class emancipation. Crucially, we also diverge from the trans movement in the means and methods through which we seek to achieve our political objectives. In our struggle, we are guided by the doctrine of scientific socialism also known as Marxism.

Biology and Society

Much of the discourse against greater social acceptability and integration of trans people revolves around biology. The basic argument is that there is an undeniable biological difference between men and women and that to argue that a trans woman is a woman is a rejection of basic science. This leads to the question always asked by bigoted talk show hosts or provocative YouTubers: “What is a woman?” Any answer that is not based on reasserting the essential biological difference between men and women is then mocked and dismissed.

While it is undeniable that there are fundamental and qualitative biological differences between men and women, these tell us very little about what it means to be a man or a woman in any given society. It is simply false to think that social relations are determined by biology. In fact, human evolution itself belies this myth and shows a constant interaction between the development of culture and technique and changes to physical anatomy. For example, the development of language and the use of tools directly led to the growth of the human brain, i.e., culture changed biology. This goes to show that biology is not the decisive factor in understanding human social relations.

In the same way, biological differences between the sexes neither are independent from nor dictate social relations between men and women. The ability to carry babies has a significance across cultures, but what it means concretely to be a “woman” changes radically across cultures and epochs. Reasserting the biological characteristics of a female human says nothing about what it means to be a woman living in a modern Western society or a woman in a traditional village in sub-Saharan Africa. This is why it is misleading and counterproductive to focus the debate over the transgender question in modern capitalist societies on the anatomical differences between men and women.

The trick question “what is a woman?” seeks to merge the biological and social significance of being a woman. To answer it, one must untangle the two issues. Sometimes demagogues make this impossible. But too often it is the pro-trans voices themselves that contribute to confusing the matter.

Spectrum and Dichotomy

In response to anti-trans ideologues and society in general insisting on the fact that there are fundamental biological differences between men and women, many trans intellectuals have misguidedly attacked the very idea that there is a dichotomy between male and female biology. Most will not deny that there are important differences between men and women, but they will insist that these are on a spectrum and that the sex binary is purely an invention. To support this argument, they will point to the great degree of variation in the physical characteristics of each sex and to the fact that for certain intersex people it is not possible to unambiguously assign them as biologically male or female.

In his revolt against rigid social categories, trans academic Jack Halberstam goes so far as to attack the drive to ascribe “categories” to basically anything in the natural world:

“The mania for the godlike function of naming began, unsurprisingly, with colonial exploration. As anyone who has visited botanical or zoological gardens knows, the collection, classification, and analysis of the world’s flora and fauna has gone hand in hand with various forms of colonial expansion and enterprise.”

While it is certainly true that science developed together with capitalism and its many crimes, the problem is not “naming” and “classification,” or science for that matter. You simply cannot understand the world, natural or social, without categories and names. And if you cannot understand the world, you cannot change it.

The key point is that it is not in any way regressive to recognize that there are indeed a set of qualitative biological differences between men and women—or between plants. To accept a dichotomy does not undermine the fact that there is a great variation within categories or that there are certain specific cases that are difficult to classify. Everything in nature combines discrete categories and transitory, intermediate states.

For example, the evolution of species occurs through a process whereby the accumulation of minor genetic differences eventually leads to the emergence of a fundamentally different type of animal or plant. It is generally impossible to point to the exact moment when quantity passes into quality. But that does not negate the fact that at a certain point it becomes clear that a qualitative change has occurred. Just as we can say that a tiger and a lion are two different species, we can say that a male and female human are two different sexes. This does not mean that ligers or intersex people do not exist. But both are extreme variations within a dichotomy.

Variation and opposition coexist in everything. To deny the former leaves you with a rigid view of reality blind to change and contradictions. To deny the latter leaves you with an amorphous view of reality where everything is relative and subjective.

Bringing this back to the trans question, we have on the one hand anti-trans ideologues who view the world only through rigid biological categories. This leads them to reject or denounce certain contradictory situations, not least those in which humans consciously act to change elements of their physical and chemical existence to approximate the biological characteristics of a different sex. On the other hand, we have many trans activists who deny any qualitative difference at all between sexes, leaving them unable to intelligently address the realities of the physical and social world.

The trans movement has no need to reject the sexual binary to advance its cause. Quite the contrary, a better scientific understanding of the biological differences between men and women could conceivably lead to one day overcoming biological sexual differences altogether. The obstacle to this outcome and to trans liberation more generally does not, however, lie in current scientific limitations but in capitalist social relations.

Capitalism and Gender

The most common argument of anti-trans advocates is that “a man is a man” and “a woman is a woman,” that everyone knows this to be true and that you cannot change from one to another. For them, anyone contesting these obvious “facts” lives in la-la-land. In a sense, the most basic argument against this reasoning is that there are plenty of trans people who live their lives every day without anyone noticing or caring that they are trans. In actual fact, it is clearly possible to socially transition from one gender to another. This, of course, does not settle the debate. At bottom, the anti-trans movement thinks that such transitions are detrimental to society and should either be halted altogether or severely limited.

This raises the questions “Why is there so much resistance to transitioning?” and “Why does the argument that transitioning is impossible hold so much sway?” To answer, we must start with the fact that the ideas regarding gender roles, sexuality and gender transition do not simply originate in the heads of individuals but are a reflection of society as it is currently organized.

In his brilliant book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), Friedrich Engels explains how women’s oppression, that is, unequal gender relations, is rooted in the advent of class society and the development of the patriarchal family. From the epoch of slavery all the way to modern capitalist societies, this form of the family has been the basic unit of social organization.

Every modern capitalist society is organized around a norm consisting of a heterosexual monogamous couple raising children to whom they will bequeath their property (if they have any). It is in the private realm of the family that essential tasks such as child-rearing, education, care and domestic work are provided, centrally by women. This family structure is an essential institution of capitalism. At the same time, modern capitalism undermines the foundations of the institution by providing women with a degree of financial independence, breaking down the role of the church and developing individuality. But while the norm can be undermined, sometimes to a significant degree, this cannot provide the social conditions necessary to fully replace the social role that the family plays.

In simpler terms, the family can be replaced only to the degree that its tasks are taken over by society. The more there is socialized healthcare and education, the less these rest on the family. The more individuals are free from economic competition and want, the more they will be free to associate and live in whatever way they want with whomever they want. The problem, of course, is that capitalism can at most only begin to provide such conditions. In the current period of capitalist decline, with the productive forces contracting, we will only see a rollback of whatever has been gained, and an ever-greater reliance on the basic family structure. It is this reality that is behind the global crisis in healthcare, education and care for the elderly.

Moreover, capitalists have a direct interest in upholding the traditional heterosexual family for both political reasons (to reinforce social compliance) and economic reasons—to raise and maintain a large workforce. These factors point to the growing hysteria against transgender people as only the beginning of a wave of reaction which will ultimately be directed against women and everyone who does not narrowly conform to the rigid standards of the monogamous family.

In Western societies, Christianity has been in the front line of the anti-trans campaign. Through its unchanging moral codes dictated by God himself, religion offers a doctrine that enshrines the sanctity of private property, the subordination of women to men and, naturally, the impermeability of one’s gender. Religion as an institution always provides the most consistent voice in defense of the patriarchal family and a foundation for conservative social norms and values.

However, just as capitalism erodes the pillars of the heterosexual family, so too does it undermine the hold of religion. In most Western societies, the realities of modern life have led to a majority not adhering to rigid interpretation of religious text. Even among religious people there has been growing acceptance of equality between men and women, gay and lesbian rights and, until recently, of transgender rights as well.

On their own, religious arguments have not been the most effective in fostering the anti-trans backlash. Rather, where traditional conservative thought has been able to connect with more modern ideological discourse is through the defense of womanhood. Ironically, when it comes to the trans question, feminism has been an auxiliary to the very patriarchal values it seeks to challenge.

Why Do TERFs Exist?

In Britain, considered by many to be the epicenter of the anti-trans backlash, much of the debate has been between pro-trans advocates and feminist women who sometimes consider themselves progressive or even leftist, i.e., the so-called TERFs. The underlying feminist argument against increasing trans rights is that it comes at the expense of hard-won rights for women. There are very bigoted versions of this argument which basically accuse trans women of being predatory sexual deviants intent on “appropriating” womanhood. However, the most effective—and most dangerous—versions of these arguments are made by liberal-sounding women like Kathleen Stock, a mild-mannered academic who is herself a lesbian.

Against people like Stock, it does not work to simply shout them down and accuse them of being anti-trans bigots. Rather, to defeat the feminist argument against trans rights it is necessary to understand what lies behind the conflict. What pushed women like Stock or J.K. Rowling to enter the debate on the trans question, and more importantly, what has made their interventions popular among many? The simple answer is that they lean on women’s oppression. They use the fact that women are subject to violence, have less economic opportunities and are beset by all kinds of sexual prejudice to present trans women as competitors for women’s rights.

In its brochure “Beyond Binaries” (July 2024) the Socialist Workers Party (in Britain) dismisses out of hand the argument made by TERFs, writing that “the right—and some socialists and feminists who gave them left cover—have based opposition to GRA [Gender Recognition Act] reform on the lie that trans women are a threat to women’s rights” (our emphasis). Let’s be clear: It is false to counterpose the cause of women and that of trans people. That said, to simply dismiss the question as a lie is not a serious or effective argument. The truth is that viewed solely through the prism of society as it is currently organized, where everyone is competing for a limited and shrinking pool of resources, there is a certain tension between improving conditions for trans people and improving those for women.

We will address the question of how to overcome these tensions later in the article. But first we must insist on the importance of recognizing the reality of this conflict of interest. Whether it is the question of sports, awards, shelters, prisons, bathrooms or affirmative action programs, the problem of limited economic resources is everywhere. Often the most controversial issues—like the question of trans women in elite sports—are not the ones that touch most people in their everyday lives. That said, these are important symbolic issues that are concentrated expressions of real, underlying tensions.

At bottom, the problem is that trans-inclusivity not only puts an extra strain on resources that are already limited for cis (non-trans) women but also challenges the rigid gender segregation through which society is organized. While this division is ultimately the reason for women’s oppression, gender-segregated spaces and social programs are seen by most women as important rights offering a degree of protection in a patriarchal and often violent society. The road forward for trans integration and inclusivity lies in providing answers to the various conflicts and tensions that will lead to increased benefits for both trans people in general and cis women. Such answers will never be found by denying or minimizing the conflict of interest or by arguing that bigotry is the only factor pushing progressively-minded women in an anti-trans direction.

Part of the problem is that both TERFs and LGBTQ+ activists view the world through a feminist lens. Of course, there is a clear difference between the reactionary role played by TERFs in actively working to restrict the rights of trans people and LGBTQ+ activists who want to improve conditions for one of society’s most oppressed groups. It is, after all, no coincidence that more and more there is a merging of TERFs and far-right political currents. That said, in their feminist worldview both TERFs and the mainstream of the LGBTQ+ movement approach the problem of women and sexual oppression in terms that are focused both on identity and on what is possible according to current social and economic norms.

For example, TERFs place a huge importance on who does or doesn’t belong to the category of “woman.” This is because “womanhood” is the defining lens through which they view all social relations. Being a woman or not determines whether one is an oppressor or not, whether one is allowed to attend women-only meetings, and whether one has benefited or not from “male privilege.” Not only does such an understanding of the world do very little to advance the condition of women, but its divisive logic leads to ever-increasing fragmentation and conflict between various oppressed groups—starting with the feminists themselves.

As for the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement, its focus has been on lobbying corporations and institutions to change the language they use so that it will be inclusive of an ever-growing array of identities. This insistence derives from the feminist notion that language and ideas rather than materially rooted social institutions are the source of oppression. This type of activism leads to little if any positive changes in the lives of trans people but does the maximum in provoking a social backlash. The classic example is J.K. Rowling deriding the use of the phrase “people who menstruate.”

When it comes to concrete policy decisions, both sides of the debate generally view the question only through the lens of what is possible within the political mainstream. Without understanding that capitalism itself is taking resources away from all oppressed groups, feminists, whether trans-inclusive or not, as a rule propose policies that would come at the expense of the material interests or sensibilities of another oppressed group. For example, including trans women in the female carceral system without changing anything else in the barbaric way people are imprisoned is bound to create tensions and socially explosive incidents. Again, without understanding the tension brought about by limited resources and existing social relations, it is impossible to offer solutions that can lead to overcoming or at least minimizing conflicts between oppressed groups.

The Problem with Liberal Idealism

We have already touched on some of the problems with mainstream pro-trans ideology as it pertains to biology and feminism. Both relate to a broader underlying issue: the movement has an idealist ideological foundation. By “idealist” we mean a philosophical worldview that does not see oppression as fundamentally derived from economic relations but from wrong conceptions floating around in people’s heads.

Judith Butler is a leading academic in the world of gender studies and has had a huge influence in laying the ideological underpinnings of the modern LGBTQ+ movement. According to Butler:

“The political assumption that there must be a universal basis for feminism, one which must be found in an identity assumed to exist cross-culturally, often accompanies the notion that the oppression of women has some singular form discernible in the universal or hegemonic structure of patriarchy or masculine domination…. The urgency of feminism to establish a universal status for patriarchy in order to strengthen the appearance of feminism’s own claims to be representative has occasionally motivated the shortcut to a categorial or fictive universality of the structure of domination, held to produce women’s common subjugated experience.”

Behind the jargon, Butler rejects that “patriarchy,” i.e., women’s oppression, is rooted in any single social institution. That is, Butler denies that the patriarchal family is the institution that enshrines and reproduces the gendered division of society. As a result, Butler does not seek to fight gender oppression through creating social conditions that can replace the family as an institution but through challenging and subverting existing social norms:

“As a strategy to denaturalize and resignify bodily categories, I describe and propose a set of parodic practices based in a performative theory of gender acts that disrupt the categories of the body, sex, gender, and sexuality and occasion their subversive resignification and proliferation beyond the binary frame.”

While transgressing gender norms can be a liberating prospect for those who reject their gender and/or the social expectations that come with it, such actions do absolutely nothing to challenge how society as a whole is organized.

The division of society into two genders is a social fact, which is just as real as the biological division between sexes. It is not the product of ideas but of a historically evolved institution maintained by material constraints and bourgeois class interests. This is not to say that patriarchal relations must be permanent. But to break down gender norms, it is ultimately necessary to transform society, not one’s identity.

One can hate capitalism and go live in a commune in the forest, but that does not change the fact that capitalism will continue to exist. In the same way, one can identify as nonbinary, gender non-conforming or anything else, but this will not change the fact that society (outside of very isolated petty-bourgeois circles) will continue to place individuals in a gender binary. Individuals who on a personal basis reject such norms marginalize themselves from society; they do not change it.

Pro-Trans “Marxists”

Marxism as a revolutionary doctrine was developed in the 19th century in direct opposition to what was called at the time “utopian socialism.” Utopian socialists came up with various schemes to transcend capitalism by changing collective consciousness or by devising ideal micro societies. In contrast, the doctrine of scientific socialism elaborated by Marx and Engels identified the forces and dynamics within capitalism that have the potential to overthrow the existing class structure and lay the basis to evolve toward an egalitarian society. The motor force for this revolution was not a set of ideals but the interests of a class, the proletariat.

To any Marxist this is all ABC. Accordingly, many Marxists criticize postmodern gender theory for being idealist. However, those who are pro-trans do so half-heartedly while peddling the very illusions they claim to stand against. In an effort to not “alienate themselves” from the movement, they liquidate the Marxist program into run-of-the-mill liberal idealism. Not only does this disorient radical fighters for transgender rights, but it also makes it easy for reactionaries to attack the movement as entirely a product of idealism.

A clear example of this conciliation can be seen in the SWP pamphlet referred to above:

“We can understand gender as having two broad elements. Firstly, gender is external to a person. This is based on perceived gender roles given to us by society, from how we act, dress and behave and speak. Secondly, it’s also an internal sense of our self, or our gender identity. It is deeply felt within individuals, and people should be able to express that however they choose.”

Here the SWP confuses everything. On the one hand they present gender as having a social character, although one which is loosely defined. At the same time, they present gender as a personal “sense of self” open to a totally idealist and even religious interpretation. And finally, they voice the wish that people should be able to express their desires however they want.

At bottom, the SWP definition obfuscates the fact that gender is a product of social relations, not of one’s own mind. It is only when the internal desire to change gender interacts with other humans that it can be realized in fact. Moreover, one’s will to identify a certain way in no way means that one will be socially accepted as such. This is the basis for trans oppression. On the face of it this is obvious, and trans people more than anyone know this to be true. There is a huge difference between a “passing” trans person on one side and a “non-passing” trans person or nonbinary person on the other.

For the SWP and pro-LGBTQ+ liberals, defining gender only as a product of social relations would probably be considered offensive and a capitulation to anti-trans discourse. But it is an undeniable fact that capitalism will not allow most trans people to socially integrate into the gender of their choice. And it will never make it socially acceptable to be outside of the gender binary. Recognizing this is not a capitulation to the right. It is a recognition of what we are up against. To posit that one’s “internal sense of our self” automatically leads to a different social reality is not to be a good ally—it is to lead transgender people down the garden path, exactly what has been done for decades by the liberals.

The LGBTQ+ movement’s answer to trans oppression has been to insist that individuals should “affirm” gender. While this is certainly the socially conscious thing to do, not least for communists, it is utterly deluded to think that “social affirmation” itself can break down the rigid gender norms of society. In fact, gender affirmation has never left the narrow limits of the liberal intelligentsia and LGBTQ+ subculture—a fact patently clear today.

However, there is zero recognition of this among Marxists who write on the trans question. This is obvious in the “Ten Theses on the Gender Question—Revisited,” where comrade Roxy Hall writes that:

“While trans identity is not itself revolutionary—the weapon of critique will never replace the critique by weapons—we should encourage everyone to rebel in their own ways against the gender hierarchies that are thrust upon us. Would it not be beneficial to have all kinds of people resisting gender norms, breaking the symbolic link between sex characteristics and gender roles, living in bold and unconventional ways? Surely the process of abolishing gender will at first present as an explosion of different modes of living.”

No, “living in bold and unconventional ways” will not in any way help to abolish gender. In fact, it is quite the opposite. In changing one’s “mode of living,” one confronts the conservative ideas of society without doing anything to change its structure. In the context where the living conditions of the working class are under constant attack and where it finds itself more and more reliant on the family structure, pushing against social norms as a political strategy will only result in a conservative backlash. Rather than “living in bold and unconventional ways,” what is necessary is to show concretely how the material interests of the working class are advanced by defending transgender social and political rights.

Another expression of the idealist concessions made by Marxists writing on the trans question is the near-unanimous embrace of the notion that genders are “assigned at birth.” Both the SWP and Roxy Hall repeat this idealist myth. This concept once again downplays the fact that gender relations are an objective social fact, not a misguided notion or an arbitrary tag allotted to babies. The gender one has at birth is no less arbitrary than one’s race, nationality or class. While each of these examples is very different, they are all the product of the objective social relations one is born into. This does not mean that any of these categories are fixed for life. But it does mean that changing them is a social process, which is generally very difficult.

Most Marxist and LGBTQ+ advocates hit the roof when right-wingers compare changing one’s gender with changing one’s race. The classic example is that of Rachel Doležal, a woman born white who identified as black and held a leadership position in the NAACP. Liberals react in horror at the idea that one could choose and succeed in becoming black in America and come up with all kinds of convoluted reasons why changing one’s race, unlike gender transition, is morally reprehensible. This reaction belies a moralistic approach to racial oppression—just like changing one’s gender, there is nothing inherently wrong with changing one’s race. But this reaction also reflects an idealist view of gender, which we are led to believe is, unlike other social divisions, uniquely subject to individual will.

Again and again, we find a similar pattern. The trans movement is under attack from right-wingers, bigots and feminists. These attacks reassert the rigid and impermeable social laws that regiment gender relations. The pro-trans movement reacts to these attacks by seeking to defend the right and possibility for individuals to change genders. But in waging this righteous struggle, they lean on idealist gender theories that simply fuel the backlash and reinforce the isolation of trans people.

To this they add a strong dose of liberal moralism: you must be kind, tolerant, enlightened, conscious of your privileges, etc., etc. This strategy had a certain success when it was echoed by the most powerful bourgeoisie in the world. But now that the U.S. has sharply turned against liberalism, with Amazon, Facebook and J.P. Morgan ditching their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and woke capitalism, the trans movement finds itself holding the bag and facing the hostility of all those sick of being subjected to empty preaching as their lives get worse.

The reason Marxists need to expose the falseness of the LGBTQ+ movement’s idealist conceptions is that they make it utterly impossible to organize a real fightback in defense of trans people, and every other category of sexually non-conforming individuals. The trans movement cannot afford to cling to the myths and illusions that led it into the exposed and vulnerable position it finds itself in. More than ever, it is crucial that it adopt a revolutionary and materialist program for trans liberation.

Part Three: A Marxist Program to Fight Reaction

In his 1909 article “The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion”, Lenin makes the following argument:

“No educational book can eradicate religion from the minds of masses who are crushed by capitalist hard labour, and who are at the mercy of the blind destructive forces of capitalism, until those masses themselves learn to fight this root of religion, fight the rule of capital in all its forms, in a united, organised, planned and conscious way.

“Does this mean that educational books against religion are harmful or unnecessary? No, nothing of the kind. It means that Social-Democracy’s atheist propaganda must be subordinated to its basic task—the development of the class struggle of the exploited masses against the exploiters.”

This basic approach can be fully applied to questions relating to trans oppression. It is essential for Marxists to argue against backward conceptions in the working class regarding gender relations, not least women’s oppression. But this work must be informed and guided by the class struggle.

In other words, we as Marxists want the dividing political line in society to be between workers and capitalists, not between pro-trans positions and anti-trans positions, between woke liberals and backward conservatives. This does not mean burying the issue and adapting to backward prejudices but rather bringing the transgender issue to the fore as a necessity for the pursuit of workers’ own emancipation. To apply this method and develop a program toward trans liberation is no easy task, not least in a period where the trans question has become such a wedge issue. This must be done concretely for every country and workplace, but as general building blocks for such a program we propose the following key points:

1) Ditch the Liberals

We must draw lessons from the disastrous course that led trans people to the position they find themselves in today. The clearest and most obvious lesson is that the liberals are an absolutely unreliable ally that cannot in any way be counted on. Democrats, British Labour Party, Green Parties, Die Linke: they have all shown that when the pressure gets high, they leave the oppressed high and dry. It is suicidal to expect that liberals can be pressured into being real champions of LGBTQ+ rights. Their establishment careers and capitalist appetites always come before their so-called values.

This does not mean that we must never form any kind of defensive bloc or engage in joint actions with liberals. In a period of right-wing offensives and attacks against democratic rights, such alliances may very well be called for. But they must be entered into with the understanding that liberals are spineless and treacherous. Ultimately, the purpose of such an alliance must be to break rank-and-file activists from liberalism by showing the correctness of the Marxist strategy. It must not be to liquidate the Marxist program in order to pacify the liberals, which is what pro-trans Marxists have done again and again.

2) Drop Empty Symbolism

Trans liberation is a material act. Its progress can be measured by the degree to which it is possible for individuals to change their gender and the degree to which gender divisions exist at all in society. Ideas and consciousness will change in direct proportion to the changes in social relations and institutions. They will not change through a woke ideological campaign berating people for what they think or how they talk. We must of course educate people and strongly oppose bigotry—including willful misgendering. But this cannot be the sole or main focus of the struggle. Instead of targeting language and symbols, the struggle must focus on defending the material conditions and rights of trans people against the current reactionary onslaught.

3) No Concessions to Bourgeois Morality

It is no coincidence that the backlash against trans people has focused so heavily on the question of trans kids. According to traditional morality, children are asexual beings who have no ability to make choices about their own lives and bodies. As such, there has been a hysterical campaign against puberty blockers and any sort of gender-affirming care for those legally declared underage. As a result of this campaign, trans people have been smeared as sexual degenerates and groomers while their supporters in the medical field have been accused of child abuse, malpractice and even committing “mutilation.”

In response to such disgusting and vociferous attacks, there is strong pressure to conform as much as possible to traditional sexual norms and values. For example, many people claiming to be pro-trans concede that children should not be given any ability to transition before legal majority. This is a total dead end. Not only will such concessions do nothing to tamp down the backlash, but they also open the door to further rollbacks of trans rights.

Concessions to bourgeois morality put the LGBTQ+ movement on a slippery slope. For it to concede in any way that individuals should not have the right to make decisions about their own bodies and sexuality is to cut the ground out from under the movement’s feet. It cedes the power to decide to the family, the state and religion—the very institutions responsible for the oppression of children, women and trans people.

4) Look to Oppressed Religious Minorities

Oppressed minorities, in particular Muslims in the West, are not the first place most trans activists would look to find allies. While practicing Muslims can often be very conservative on questions of sexuality, they are also one of the most oppressed and victimized groups in many countries. Muslims just like trans people find themselves more and more isolated and targeted by the state. Unlike liberals who are busy trying to integrate into the new socially conservative status quo, Muslims are largely being barred from that possibility.

There is an objective basis for an alliance based on a defense of basic democratic rights. However, such alliances are only possible if the content in people’s heads is given a backseat to the common interests of both groups. In turn, engaging in joint struggle would go a long way toward changing mentalities on both sides.

5) Forge Unity Between Trans and Women’s Liberation

There has been no conflict more damaging to the trans struggle than that with the feminists. This is in part due to the conservative and sectoralist views of many women. But it also has to do with the way the trans issue has been pushed by the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement. In wanting to break down the rigid barrier between genders, the movement has often trodden on women’s sensibilities. For example, it is stupid to argue that associating female anatomy and menstruation with women is inherently exclusionary of trans men. After millennia of their oppression being linked to their bodies, it is understandable that many women react negatively to being told that this connection can no longer be made.

Moreover, thinking that trans people can be integrated into single-sex spaces for women without causing serious social tensions is to disregard how deeply rooted gender segregation and oppression are in society. There can be no perfect solution to this problem under capitalism. Strict gender segregation based on biological sex is no solution at all. It is not only totally impractical but dangerous and oppressive to trans people. Trans people should be allowed access to the gender facilities of their choice. But there should also be provisions made to accommodate conservative opinions and minimize the clash of values.

The solutions generally lie in increasing resources in a way that will benefit both trans people and women in general. An obvious solution to the conflict over trans women having access to women’s shelters is to build more, allow trans women to access them and also offer the options of strict biological segregation for women who so desire.

While at the moment the defense of womanhood is the main stick used to beat trans people, the current reactionary backlash is also directed against women. The conditions of women, LGBTQ+ people and workers are ultimately inseparable from each other. All have an interest in uniting in common defensive struggle and more broadly to fight for women’s, trans, and working-class liberation.

6) The Working Class Is the Decisive Force

The working class is the only class that can decisively defend trans rights. This is not because it is the most liberal-minded sector of society—it is not—but because it has a direct class interest in overthrowing capitalism and establishing a classless society which will have no need for gender oppression.

The basis for a trans and working-class alliance is not trans people abandoning the fight against their own oppression. Trans oppression—just like the oppression of gays, lesbians, women and racial minorities—divides and weakens the working class. Only through fighting for the liberation of every oppressed group in society can unity be forged. This is not liberal “kumbaya.” The glue that can bind these struggles together is the class struggle.

This is not an automatic process; the various causes must be fused consciously. But the class struggle, through its own laws and dynamics, provides the arena for this process to take place. Joint struggle for a common interest is the precondition to overcoming social backwardness. For such struggles to take place, we must not place preconditions. For example, it would be utterly reactionary to abstain from a strike because workers express backward views on the trans question. Rather, it must be shown through the course of the conflict that trans rights are connected to those of workers. Doing so will help change backward views.

We must keep in mind that the trans movement is not a unified movement. While all trans people are oppressed, they do not all share a common interest. Because of this, it is essential that trans activists always put the interests of the working class above all else. They must, for example, stay away from looking to corporate DEI policies as a means of defending their rights.

The trans movement should as much as possible seek to combine its own struggle with that of the working class. An obvious way to do this is the fight for healthcare, which is a burning issue all around the world. The crisis in healthcare goes hand in hand with the attacks against gender-affirming care, as well as reproductive rights. It goes without saying that fighting for better healthcare will benefit trans people. But making trans care a central issue of the fight for healthcare can also galvanize the cause by bringing thousands of trans people and their families into the broader movement.

7) Forget Gradualism

The gradual reform of capitalism was always a dead end for trans people and every other sexually oppressed group. No matter how much temporary progress can be achieved in eroding strict gender norms, this inevitably runs up against the foundations of capitalist rule: the family, the state and the profit motive. The period of relative progress for LGBTQ+ people in the Western world is now over, and the only prospect for the foreseeable future is increased social conservatism. Gradual reform is a fruitless prospect. Only revolutionary struggle offers a road to fight against increased oppression and march toward ultimate liberation.

8) Build a Revolutionary International Party

The struggle for trans liberation has mostly been focused in the Western world in the past years. However, trans liberation and the broader fight against gender oppression is an international struggle. Nowhere is this oppression more severe than in the countries oppressed by imperialism. And nowhere is there a more potent revolutionary soil than among the working-class women of these countries.

To make the connection between the trans movement in the West and the international struggle against imperialist oppression requires an international revolutionary party. Only with such a vehicle can the struggle against forms of oppression be fused. To build such a party, we must draw the political lessons of past failures, understand how the liberalism of the past decades has not only led the trans movement astray but also led the revolutionary left to be more splintered and weaker than ever. With the world becoming more reactionary every day, we have no time to waste in esoteric debates and sectarian hair-splitting: Forward to a reforged Fourth International!

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There is no doubt this article only begins to approach from a Marxist point of view the various scientific questions, social complexities and political tasks facing the transgender movement. There is much more to be done. However, we hope that our contribution can provoke a wider debate and political clarification among the radical left and LGBTQ+ movement.