Brunhilda Olding discusses the material oppression of trans people under capitalism.
Over the past few years, the Communist movement, and Transgender movements for liberation have become deeply intertwined. The vast majority of Trans people I know, would willingly and openly call themselves Communists, yet surprising this is a matter of extensive debate, and rejection from both Communists, and our siblings within the Trans community. Amongst Communists many hold this fetish of the industrial working class of the 1900s, labelling queer people as bourgeois deviants. Whilst Trans liberals accuse us, the ones who have been at the forefront of our struggles for liberation, and equality, as being apologists for genocide. Yet despite this, we continue to march forward. Now we’re not going to cover every facet of that very extensive debate today instead we’re going to outline a very simple position. Why do Communists support Trans Liberation?
The fundamental answer, the one at the core of the issue is that we always, have and always will stand up for the rights of the oppressed. In so-called Australia we have a long history of this, do you know who helped organise the first ever Invasion Day Rally in 1938? The original formation of the Communist Party of Australia. Because we stand against all forms of exploitation. From the oppression of women by the capitalist patriarchal system, the oppression of the third world, and the native people of the settler-colonialist states under the imperialist world system we live in, and of course the oppression of queer people.
Queer oppression is baked into the very nature of capitalism, from it’s birth it has required a means of social production in a manner that maintains and reinforces the labour force available, and never questions the world we live in. Queer people, and our opposing methods of social reproduction fly in the face of this need of capitalism for constant population growth, for this flood of new workers and slaves under the crumbling boot of the capitalist world system. The family takes on a role in capitalist society in which it serves as the final financial line of defence, and action under capitalism.
This understanding of the role of the family is a key part in understanding the material struggles that Trans people face, because to be blunt we are currently the tip of the spear in the global north, when it comes to struggles for Queer liberation. So, we are the community most affected by our parents disowning us, by being forced onto the streets. 31.9% of Trans women in the Private Lives 3 survey reported having experienced homelessness, amongst Trans men the number was 34.3, and amongst non-binary people surveyed 33.8%. These real material assaults against us can not be defeated by sharing pronouns in the workplace, or the government flying the Trans flag once year. As long as the capitalist world system exists, we will always be under attack. The liberal rhetoric of Trans rights are human rights, only works for a specific class of Trans people. Namely the white, binary conforming bourgeois Trans. To the proletarian Tranny, or faggot, it does nothing. Indeed, the very nature of transitioning pushes many Trans people into the proletariat. The long road to achieve hormones is not a cheap one, nor is it one that is easy to get to amongst the proletariat. Afterall who can afford the costly appointments with psychologists, and psychiatrists when you’re working three jobs just to make ends meet. This real material poverty affects us both as Trans people, and as workers, and it is those same pressures that pushes us into sex work. Because to so many Trans people it becomes a matter of life or death, of being able to live even vaguely independently, or to be forced to return to family that will stop your transition, or cast out onto the streets, as rent raises beyond your control, and prices spiral.
These real material threats are only reinforced by a culture that treats us as nothing more that fetish objects. To go out in public if you don’t have the luxury of ‘passing’ invites attack both physical, and sexual. Our bodies are reduced to nothing more than objects, something to be thrown into the meatgrinder of capitalism. This fundamentally proletarian nature of our struggle is the basis from which Communists understand the struggle for Trans Liberation in specific, and Queer Liberation more broadly. As long as capitalism exists, we cannot truly be free. Members of our ‘community’ may be free if they align with the capitalist class. If they join in the exploitation of their brothers and sisters to drive that ever important profit margin higher.
It is that idea that integration into the social order of the world today, that Trans rights holds. The demands raised are not calls for a negation for the world we live in, they are not calls to smash the material chains oppressing us. Rather they are arguments that if we vote hard enough, protest once a year, and write to our MPs that we might be accepted into society. Of course, what is never mentioned is that this acceptance will only be one of a servile dog at best. Look at the struggle for gay and lesbian rights, have the problems that face these communities vanished with the right to marry? Of course not, they are still under attack, yet the mainstream around Trans rights is simply a hope to be integrated and welcomed into capitalist society. For more ‘Trans CEOs’, for more representation in the ruling classes of capitalism, while the transphobic core of the system remains.
To that Faustian bargain, to that offer of farcical rights for those best able to integrate into capitalist society, I say no. I cast a gauntlet to the world. There are those who think that the Queer struggle is over. They are wrong, I say it has just begun, and it will not end with capitalism, it will not end until our liberation comes, liberation for all of us. We can have no faith in change from above, no god, king, or politician will save us. Our liberation is our own task, a task that is part of the greatest struggle in the history of mankind. The struggle for the emancipation, and liberation of the working class.
So, Comrades before we enter the discussion period I would like to end with a quote from James Connolly. ‘For our demands most moderate are, we only want the earth.’
PARTISAN! 
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