Transgender Marxism
Transgender Marxism
Edited by Jules Joanne Gleeson & Elle O’Rourke
Pluto Press, 2021
9780745341668
After years of countless informal discussions, blog posts, and the occasional journal entry, a book that attempts to intersect trans studies and Marxism has finally been released. This is a book that I have long waited for; since Feinberg’s historical materialist Transgender Warriors there’s been little in terms of published work that feature perspectives from trans communists. This collection, edited by Jules Joanne Gleeson and Elle O’Rourke, at last brings about the current generation of ‘transgender warriors’, attempting to move away from the limitations of the ‘theorisation of trans lives available through traditional academic channels.’ It covers trans histories, psychoanalysis, queer and trans social reproduction, social cognition, aleatory materialism, epistemology, metabolic rifts, disability, as well as personal observations from San Diego, to Lancaster to Brazil. Bringing these themes and topics together, Transgender Marxism moves ‘beyond the limits of ornate in-joking, and communal self-referentiality, and towards social revolution.’
Immediately evident is that this is a book for those of us already engaged in Marxism, a Marxism that moves past vulgar materialism from so-called ‘Marxists’ promoting trans-antagonistic views native to those on the far-right. There’s something immediately refreshing to this – a collection which doesn’t fall for the traps of trans-antagonism. Nor is it another trans memoir with very little in the way of anti-capitalist analysis and the oft-repeated phrases of ‘validity’. The global situation necessitates something more militant and radical, and a Marxist framework is certainly the way forward in this. Trans Marxism has been emerging in the past few years in various informal formats, with the release of Invert Journal in 2020 being a notable example of a UK-based publication influenced by Marxism. Transgender Marxism carries on this necessary trajectory, the need of a Marxist response. When so many have failed us, it is on ourselves as both trans people and as established communists to investigate the situation, past liberal affirmations or the false promises of social democrats. This book is very much about understanding the limits of such approaches: when the military and landlords will say ‘trans rights are human rights’, our strategies must change. In such contradictory, turbulent circumstances, this collection emphasises the necessity of trans Marxism, one that ‘presents trans life as it is lived. Neither figural nor instrumental, but unadorned. Not for the sake of fidelity or “representation” to others.’ This is a collection for and by trans Marxists, more than anything. Solidarity matters but if anything can be taken from the book, it is that pleas to cis allies during these turbulent times are not going to bring about the goal of liberation. If any solidarity is established, it will be on our own terms.
Beyond the overarching question of ‘Why are trans people drawn to Marxism?’, two essays in particular are titled with questions, Jules Joanne Gleeson’s own ‘How do Gender Transitions Happen?’ and Xandra Metcalfe’s ‘“Why are we like this?”: The Primacy of Transsexuality’. None of them have simple answers, some answers are contradictory, some are unanswerable. These questions are part of our lives, whether through introspection or in bad faith to perpetuate trans-antagonism. These little details and the various responses, from ‘mastery over the encounter’ or ‘community engagement’, towards psychoanalysis on the traumatic-Real. This collection promotes a trans Marxism which has semblances of unity but understands that trans people are not a homogenous entity and even between ourselves our analysis will produce different results. Zoe Belinksy’s piece on trans and disabled bodies suggests the ‘dialectic of the “I can” and the “I cannot” is the phenomenological horizon of the social reproduction of capitalist societies.’ Attempts aren’t made to try and consider essentialist reasons as to why there is an overlap of trans and disabled people, instead an economic model of disability presents us with an overlap as proletariats.
A unitary factor evident in most pieces, if not all of them, is the influence of Social Reproduction Theory (SRT). SRT can best be summarised by first asking the question, ‘if the worker produces commodities, who (re)produces the worker?’ This can include various social processes that produce labour power and how in turn, become involved with other social processes that produce the commodity. Historical examples within Marxist feminism focused almost exclusively on the unpaid labour of housework, disproportionately done by women. Later studies on SRT would include processes such as healthcare and education to public transport and pensions. Initial attempts by SRT to consider trans people have been flimsy or limiting, but the influence of the theory within wider trans Marxist analysis is undeniable. It makes sense that SRT appeals to many trans Marxists, when transition can feel like work. Years of waiting lists, dehumanising processes – including how we should look, how we should talk, all based on gendered assumptions themselves – and even then if you’re lucky to get a ‘diagnosis’ all that is produced from that is a letter to your GP where more work begins: work making sure they understand what hormones to prescribe, more waiting, and more paperwork for more procedures – and that is without going into detail of the work of vocal therapy or attending hair removal sessions. Many of the essays understand this, and it’s this focus on our experiences that forms the foundation of this book. SRT helps to challenge both the far-right and even ‘affirmative’ trans liberal notions of biological essentialism, while also presenting historical materialist analysis that proposes that the realities of transition, according to Noah Zazanis, are not ‘inherent or even necessarily constant.’ Trans identities ‘are formed responsive to their social context.’ Building on this, a specific queer and Marxist transfeminism from Nat Raha uses the historical case studies of the London branch of Wages Due Lesbians and the work of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera in running STAR House to articulate the role of SRT in trans Marxism – highlighting the need to reconfigure it to consider this ‘labour as both work of resistance that enables our being … and as unpaid labour, work that is valuable and necessary.’ These essays consistently surround this theme of work and our labour, paid and unpaid, being valuable and necessary, to the point that Marxism needs the realities of trans people to establish itself as a legitimate strategy for all workers and oppressed peoples.
Back to the question ‘Why are trans people drawn to SRT?’ If any criticisms can be made of this collection, this hesitancy to challenge SRT can be one that feels reinforced by the geographic scope. One important criticism of SRT is voiced in Max Ajl’s recent proposal for a people’s Green New Deal: ‘Social reproduction theories seldom study the forms of very concrete production that lie beneath it in the [imperial] core.’ (A People’s Green New Deal, 2021, p. 103) Transgender Marxism certainly acknowledges that transphobia has been perpetuated via (neo)colonial logics, yet the specific ways in which imperialism has transmitted itself through transphobic and heterosexist violence globally lack the specific link to a trans Marxist conception. Occasional but valuable references towards imperialism, racial capitalism, and ‘global supply chains’ are present, so the development is there – evident in Farah Thompson’s essay on gender and organising. While well intentioned and aiming to ‘include a global range of perspectives’, Virginia Guitzel’s piece ‘Notes from Brazil’ is the only one that was written outside of the imperial core but spends a significant amount of time diverting from the situation under Bolsonaro to examine the history of the Soviet Union and the flourishing of sexual and gender fluidity in its foundational years. To see this then descend into a tirade against ‘Stalinism’ in the 1930s Soviet Union and 1960s France felt out of place, though within the editors’ intentions of not ‘burdening any author with the role of serving as local “representatives”, or native informants.’ Thankfully this tendency is only repeated once more briefly in Anja Heisler Weiser Flower’s essay, where ‘eclectic anarchisms and various Stalinisms’ are criticised for their ‘longing for state and father figures’, and ‘crudely religious attitude’. Understandably, this collection is not simply reporting on the situation of trans people in certain countries, yet potential future works could consider reaching out to trans communists from outside the imperial core to showcase a wider range of theoretical considerations.
If we are to consider why SRT is so popular amongst trans Marxists, the connections of SRT with Trotskyism as an acceptable form of (trans) Marxism within the academic milieu has to be acknowledged. It is not heavily disguised, however if we want a simple answer to why trans people are drawn to this, simply put, ‘We turn to the left for support, in a nation where lesbians and gays supported the miners and the miners led a pride parade in response, and find nothing.’ In Britain, trans communists face disillusionment from most Marxist parties or groups, Leninist, Trotskyist and even anarchist, as the transphobic ‘culture war’ affects all of the far-left in any organising capacity. Trans Marxists will reach for what we can that both acknowledges our lived realities and allows us to build something that comes close to trans liberation. Certain groups and people (academic, Trotskyist or otherwise) have consistently produced not only calls for solidarity, but allowed trans Marxists to have our emergent theories welcomed into their spaces and publishing sites. Through the lens of SRT or otherwise, it’s inevitable that it will shape and define our approach and analysis. Academic lines emerge in this collection because of this, producing a trans Marxism that tailors towards the influences of the academy in parts whilst still producing something that distinguishes itself from the numerous antagonistic or ill-researched pieces by so-called ‘gender critical’ ‘academics’. Further analysis, however, requires something that moves beyond SRT and brings further the political questions of imperialism and a wider scope of racial capitalism in just how trans lives are produced and reproduced, in the imperial core and elsewhere.
Future projects on trans Marxism must consider the most exploited and the most oppressed, only then can we have a fully formed trans Marxism that can bring about the goal of liberation. To paraphrase Anuradha Ghandy, the struggle for trans liberation cannot be successful in isolation from the struggle to overthrow the imperialist system itself. This book provides the stepping-stones towards that much-needed Marxism, finally acknowledging the material realities and best strategies for all working class, oppressed trans people globally. These stepping-stones, however, must now consider the place of SRT in our analysis and how best to move forward in the future.