By RUSS O’SHEA
One of the most emergent issues of our time is the fight for transgender rights. In recent years, an enormous amount of vitriol has been directed against this community. The hostility has long existed but it has become so disproportionate that many are asking themselves why politicians focus so much on trans people when there are plenty of other issues facing working people that desperately need to be resolved. Some of these include lack of housing, a cost of living crisis, climate devastation, just to name a few. Yet an overwhelming amount of bills being posed address not these but curbing the rights of trans people, who comprise less than 2% of the adult population in the U.S.
In fact, a recent poll found that 77% of people in the U.S. think the attacks on trans people are a distraction by politicians to divert attention from “real issues.” Why, for example, were trans people a constant topic of discussion at the Republican National Convention? What is behind the constant fear-mongering in the press? What is it about trans people that is so urgent that it means focusing an incredible amount of political energy to restrict the rights of a tiny minority?
To answer these questions, we have to understand where transgender oppression comes from, and to answer that question we must consider the origins of gender itself.
As class society began to develop, along with private property, a gendered division of labor was established. “Men” were designated as the heads of the families and given control over the herd and the tools to provide meat and shelter. Those inhabiting “female” bodies were generally assigned the role of performing reproductive labor—including child-rearing, domestic tasks, and care.
This development attempted to erase intersex and trans people, especially later on, when these identities were encountered in Indigenous societies by colonial empires. Gender expressions that didn’t conform to the imposed binary were violently suppressed. Two Spirit and the Hijra are examples of people who faced violence for not conforming.
The profit-making system is dependent on structures like the nuclear family and the assumption that the life aspiration of most people should be to start a family. These are deliberately cultivated cultural phenomena to ensure there is always a fresh supply of workers being born, raised, and assimilated into the workforce. Overwhelmingly, these tasks are taken up by women and Queer people with no compensation for their labor. The sexualities of birthing people are regulated to meet this end, so this system and its efficiency are threatened by agency over one’s own body. For this reason many aspects of bodily autonomy including reproductive and gender rights are being rolled back.
Attacks on trans people in particular are made by the ruling class with the knowledge that the consciousness that may develop from advances on trans rights would strengthen the struggles for Black, Indigenous, women’s, immigrant, and other rights. This is all the more threatening in the context of a generation that has already been mobilized in huge numbers against police brutality, genocide, and climate destruction.
The ruling class is terrified of how the dominoes might begin to fall if a structure as pervasive and effective as the gender division could be overcome. So to preempt this situation, extreme brutality is exacted on trans people and divisive rhetoric is employed that points to the existence of trans people as cataclysmic for the living conditions of the working class. A huge part of this rhetoric focuses around maintaining the family; here the ruling class shows its hand and reveals also just how important the family is to maintaining the current mode of production and its inherent exploitation.
Why do we defend trans people’s right to self identify? Why do we fight for trans liberation?
Defending trans people is about much more than making a statement on the construct of gender. Defending trans people and fighting to advance trans rights must be taken up by the entire working class, not just because trans people are a section of the working class but also because they are a vehicle through which the entire working class is being attacked. Workers in fields that in any way validate trans people, like teachers, librarians, and care workers, are being attacked for doing part of their job. Oppressed groups like women, immigrants, and Black and Indigenous people are similarly being targeted on the basis of combatting “transgender insanity.”
What is necessary to achieve trans liberation?
The interest (or lack thereof) of the political wings of the ruling class in defending trans rights was put on full display at their respective conventions. The RNC was rife with anti-trans, anti-Queer, anti-immigrant, and generally anti-worker rhetoric. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) remembered Trump’s first term as a time when “there were [only] two genders” (such a time has never existed). Another called trans people filth. This happened at the same time as the GOP attempted to pander to gay men.
The DNC, on the other hand, saw trans people mentioned a mere two times, and a trans person was not allowed to speak. But the task of sowing illusions in the Democratic party is carried out by peripheral formations, like the union bureaucracies and Drag PAC, each of which are meant to funnel the most ardent champions of issues like trans rights into a dead end in the form of the Democrats. This is the only possible outcome of placing faith in a party that on the one hand can barely even pay lip service to trans people and on the other is meant to uphold the very system from which trans oppression stems.
Bearing this in mind, what options do we have? How can we wage a real struggle for trans rights that will not be herded into empty promises or reforms that get overturned within a couple years of being won? What is our vision for trans liberation and how would that be achieved?
The foundation of gendered oppression is the capitalist system, which divides the working class into categories to most efficiently exploit it. Not even a “progressive” capitalism can overcome this; there is a fundamental contradiction between the interests of the exploited and oppressed and the interests of the exploiters and oppressors. It is never in the interest of the capitalists to do anything that will restrict profit-making.
Reforms that make life a little better for workers are hard fought, and any moves by the business owners or politicians made outside of such reforms are part of a calculation to quell uproar by appearing to be progressive. In Queer contexts, this is referred to as pinkwashing or rainbow washing, and we can see that, as the social pressure for progress dies down, companies and politicians are reversing or shying away from reforms and posturing en masse.
Absent a mass movement, this reversal (and new attacks) can take place unchallenged. Reforms amount to a process; they act as pressure valves that open to ease tension as social movements surge and are closed after some time to protect and maximize capital gains.
The only thing that can really break this cycle and bring about permanent change is a transformation of the entire society to one not predicated on exploitation. This would mean a society organized in the interest of serving people’s needs, able to guarantee things like food, housing, education, and health care. Diverse gender expressions and identities would have room to flourish, as it would also mean an end to restrictions on and usage of bodies to serve the interests of capitalists. For this, a socialist society is necessary, which itself necessitates a socialist revolution.
