Leaving the Communist Party of Britain — A Response to ‘Gender-Critical’ Feminism

So, I’ve come to the decision to leave the Communist Party of Britain. I will be forthright and say that the main reason I’m leaving is because of the stances of certain people in the party, notably someone in my local branch, on transgender liberation. Being trans myself, this is an issue I naturally cannot separate from myself, my dignity, and my safety, as well as that of my partner and the queer community I’m part of more broadly. I won’t be naming names, because I don’t think this is a problem of a few bad apples per-se, more so of an incorrect and reactionary theoretical line that reflects a broader trend in certain sects of the communist and feminist movement. I will also say that this trend seems especially prominent in Britain. This critique is a way for me to articulate my thoughts and reasoning on the situation and is in no way an attack on those in the party who take the correct position on trans rights, and many do. The party programme ‘Britain’s Road to Socialism’ even expresses support for the liberation of transgender people. However, the existence and prominence of these ideas inside an organising space where it makes me nervous to even present how I want openly is not something I can or should have to tolerate, especially amongst communists. While these ideas aren’t pushed actively by the CPB, it seems to at least tolerate them to a degree to avoid rocking the boat. I’ve made the decision to leave the YCL also, not because of any problems I’ve had with it or its members, but purely because of its intrinsic link to the CPB. All the YCL members I’ve interacted with are doing excellent work and I particularly want to thank the two members in my local YCL branch who were nothing but supportive when I came out to them. While I will be joining another organisation, I want to retain and build on the connections I have with YCL members and those in the CPB who are allies of trans people.

That being said, I want to address some of the ideas that are hostile towards trans people I’ve experienced in the CPB. The trend in question refers to itself as ‘gender-critical feminism’, which takes the view that our gender identity cannot be separated from a clear biological sex binary. It does so under the guise of ‘materialism’, using the logic that biological sex is the material reality that we should look towards to define our identity and position under patriarchy, and that the so-called ‘gender ideology’ we’re seeing from the trans liberation struggle today stems from liberal, postmodern, and non-Marxist thinking at odds with this ‘material reality’. In addition to this, ‘gender-critical feminists’ often go one step further and argue that trans people (usually by that they mean trans women, as trans men and non-binary people are often left out of their discussions entirely) are actually a threat to the advancement of the struggle against patriarchy. They claim that, because of our ‘biological reality’, trans women are just men who are socialised as, and are therefore as inherently violent as, patriarchal men looking to invade/co-opt women’s spaces. This is in addition to trans women supposedly taking focus away from the struggle for ‘sex-based’ rights, namely reproductive healthcare, FGM opposition, abortion access etc… This is ridiculous because trans people have always been at the forefront of these movements too. These positions, while certainly reactions to strong patriarchal oppression and are products of the feminist movement historically, are incorrect, reactionary, anti-Marxist, and have no place in the communist movement.

Let me first off clarify that there are of course some differences between the issues of cis and trans women. Cis women often face struggles around reproductive healthcare, and trans women commonly face issues around accessing gender-affirming hormones, no-one is denying that these needs are different, but hyper-focussing on these differences ignore much broader, more common, and more telling class-based commonalities between the experiences of proletarian cis and trans people alike. Proletarian cis and trans women are both victims of unacceptable rates of domestic violence, sexualisation, sexual assault, rape, coercion into the global sex trade, and overall lack of political/economic power. These problems, whether faced by cis or trans people, are more prevalent in the imperial periphery, where imperialistic economic exploitation is all the more pronounced. By putting the primary contradiction of society between men and women, which are defined by gender-critical feminists as a purely rigid biological sex binary, above the contradiction between economic classes, gender-critical feminists ignore the root of patriarchy historically and void patriarchy of its social character and roots in the creation of class society. This wrongly places the root of patriarchy equally at the feet of proletarian men and bourgeois men. While it would be silly of me to posit that proletarian men have no role in perpetuating patriarchy, to suggest they’re as responsible for it or benefit from it to the same extent as the bourgeoisie who control our media and economic system would be ludicrous.

Taken to its logical conclusion, gender-critical ideas can lead us into a strange biological determinism that ends with working class cis feminists aligning themselves with bourgeois cis women over the mere prospect of associating with a working class trans person. Look no further than the defence of JK Rowling for evidence of this. This thinking has led some gender-critical feminists to even assert that there’s an intrinsic kind and gentle essence to ‘adult human females’ (cis women) that trans women (as well as cis men) are incapable of feeling, and that the way people behave is purely defined by their biology, as opposed to complex socialisation that has a dialectical relationship with the historical evolution of material economic conditions.

Gender-critical feminists sometimes assert that trans people and the ‘gender ideology’ we embody are actually products of late-stage capitalistic post-modernity, thus doing more to prop up capitalism than to challenge it. The logic is that because some corporations embrace the aesthetics of acceptance towards trans and queer people for their own profits and co-opt our struggle for liberation, that somehow means trans people are nothing more than products and pawns of ruling class ideology, hellbent on subverting revolutionary struggle. This is of course ridiculous. Brands and corporations attempting to de-fang and co-opt progressive social movements is nothing new, and recent attempts at brand association with the Black Lives Matter movement obviously doesn’t render struggles around racial oppression and police brutality obsolete. Gender critical feminists fail to see past this co-option of trans liberation and properly analyse it, despite their professed adherence to Marxism. A cursory glance at the material reality ‘gender-critical’ feminists profess to value so much would show them that trans and gender non-conforming people have existed throughout all human history, and that our oppression (like all of those who suffer under patriarchy) began at the conception of class society. A link to Leslie Feinberg’s pamphlet ‘Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come” can be found at the bottom of the page explaining this in more detail.

The dialectical and historical materialist view utilised above and in Feinberg’s work, I assert, is the true meaning of ‘materialism’ in the Marxist sense. This is in opposition to the vulgar, ahistorical, and one-sided materialism we get from gender-critical biological essentialism, which totally voids patriarchy of any economic, social and historical character. Because of theoretical blindness and inaction, transgender people have come to be seen as an ongoing ‘debate’ in the CPB, with the party in my eyes not doing enough to investigate, educate or challenge those with the incorrect and reactionary ideas it claims to oppose. The Morning Star has allowed pieces penned by CPB members to be published that are openly hostile to trans people. This puts trans people in a position where we’re unsure about the views of people they’re interacting with in organising spaces, not knowing whether the reaction to who we are will be warm and receptive, or cold and hostile. It creates a feeling of wariness and fear, and when faced with hostility and violence in virtually all aspects of life this just creates another space where trans people are constantly having to be on our guard and justify our own existence. This culture ultimately puts trans people at risk, alienates one of the most oppressed groups in society and denies the working class movement the perspectives and solidarity of trans people in the fight for our liberation.

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A short pamphlet on the case for trans liberation and our existence throughout history: https://www.workers.org/books2016/Feinberg_Transgender_Liberation.pdf

An introduction to Proletarian Feminism: https://maosoleum.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/what-is-proletarian-feminism/comment-page-1/