A chairdre! I’m leading a discussion group on this collection of essays, and I thought this might be of interest to some of my Internet comrades.

Firstly, the essay collection in question: https://transreads.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2021-07-15_60f0b3d5edcb7_jules-joanne-gleeson-transgender-marxism-1.pdf

Alright, so I’m reading through this in order to prepare some notes for my discussion. Thought it might be fun to have a few discussion threads here. This first thread is for the lengthy editors’ introduction. I will make a separate thread for each essay as I read them.

I’ll grab some quotes, type up some thoughts, hope I can spark a discussion! If not, that’s fine, I at least hope someone will benefit from having the link to the PDF.

I’ll edit this post with links to the subsequent posts (though I’m only going to be doing the intro and the first essay today, I’m a busy lady).

Edit 1: The discussion for the first essay by Noah Zazanis is here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/396403

Edit 2: The discussion for the second essay by Michelle O’Brien is here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/397671

Edit 3: The discussion for the third essay by Rosa Lee is here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/401480

Edit 4: The discussion for the fourth essay by Jules Joanne Gleeson is here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/402441

Edit 5: The discussion for the fifth essay by Nat Raha is here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/408500

Edit 6: The discussion for the sixth essay by Virgínia Guitzel is here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/412487

Edit 7: The discussion for the seventh essay by Kate Doyle Griffiths is here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/414322

Edit 8: The discussion for the eighth essay by Farah Thompson is here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/417377

Edit 9: The discussion for the ninth essay by JN Hoad is here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/424986

Edit 10: The discussion for the tenth essay by Zoe Belinsky is here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/437038

Edit 11: The discussion for the eleventh essay by CAACD is here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/444545

Edit 12: The discussion for the eleventh essay by Nathaniel Dickson is here - https://lemmygrad.ml/post/508468

  • Seanchaí (she/her)
    OPM
    3•2 years ago

    “The wrath ‘trans ideology’ triggers among reactionaries is not simply mindless contempt. It is not reducible to psychodrama. Instead, capitalism’s right wing treats apparent breaches of continuity in the operation of its private households for good reason. This open contempt will not be quieted, however skilfully the left wing of capitalism offers hollow promises of accommodation, of an ever more encompassing bourgeoisie featuring reformed households, modernised subjectivities, and gender enlightened oppressors.”

    I see this a lot, people acting like transphobes are just “behind the times” and that equality is inevitable. But the attack on transness is an attack on anti-capitalism and radicalisation itself, and no amount of integration into capitalism will ever bring queer liberation.

    Reactionary thought must be excised from society, and revolutionary progress must be the goal.

    • Seanchaí (she/her)
      OPM
      3•2 years ago

      “This wounding across generations will not find itself mitigated through any institutional shift, or any movement that falls short of the commune. To emancipate trans people requires, above all else, overturning class divisions, reversing our separation from the means of production, and developing new forms for nurture beyond the family.”

      Queer liberation is, at its very core, liberation for all from the constraints of a capitalist and class-based society

      • Seanchaí (she/her)
        OPM
        3•2 years ago

        “Property appears as natural through patterns of ownership and entitlement, both of which are simultaneously deeply gendered and racialised. And so it is that those abdicating their expected role for new, self-fashioned positions are read as a mortal threat to the continuity of capitalism. To transition is to renege on agreements that were previously assumed, albeit never actually signed for.”

        It is through these terms that we see the common struggle between queer liberation and racial equity, a struggle against the stratifying hierarchies of capital accumulation that favour the centralization of wealth into the families of the capitalist settlers

        • Seanchaí (she/her)
          OPM
          3•2 years ago

          “The dissonance between these simultaneously surging forces cannot be answered by left-liberal proposals for ‘trans rights’, nor even the busted flush of social democracy, which has time and again offered the illusory prospect of thrashing the right and installing economic equity via the ballot box.”

          You can’t vote oppression away.

          • Seanchaí (she/her)
            OPM
            3•2 years ago

            “Transgender Marxism leads us not to deny the joys, or ourselves, while equally never allowing ourselves to be deterred from the path of internationalist revolution. Our end is not just a more rigorous understanding of our social afflictions, but fuel for the abolition of what has long been intolerable. What we have suffered was logical, but never necessary. What has been made can be unmade.”

            • Seanchaí (she/her)
              OPM
              3•2 years ago

              PHEWF! What a long introduction!

              If you read along, or just skimmed what I was writing, thanks for joining in the education and discussion!

                • Seanchaí (she/her)
                  OPM
                  3•2 years ago

                  What a very sweet thing to say!

                  I really hope that this helps to paint a little light on trans people’s place in Marxism, and can help to dispel the notion that queer liberation is a petit bourgeois decadence at worst or a distraction from labour class struggle at best.

                  Queer liberation and labour class struggle are merely two fronts in the same fight!

                  Edit: “paint a little light” ??? What was I even saying. Need more coffee, I’m mixing metaphors.

              • Ratette (she/her)
                1•2 years ago

                🤯

                This was incredible, thank you for all this ❤️

                Also I need this quote on a mug now: “as an enemy not fully grasped is one not easily strangled”