Fighting transphobia: a practical and theoretical guide

Transphobia is on the rise in Britain and around the world. It’s being spread by the far right, ruling political parties, and even by liberals and socialists in social movements and unions. The fight for trans liberation goes beyond just countering bigotry, misinformation, and oppression where we come across it – we need to build power within and across movements, and put forward positive demands.

rs21 believes that trans liberation means gendered liberation for all people, that it is a crucial part of the struggle against patriarchy, and that it needs to be linked up with the workers’ movement.

This pamphlet was written in the context of the rising transphobia in Britain in 2023. We originally started it as a practical guide to tackling transphobia in trade union spaces, which many of our comrades in rs21 have personal experience with. But as we wrote and met to discuss the pieces we started to feel that it was wrong to separate the practical and the theoretical. So this pamphlet aims to sketch out a theoretical basis for fighting transphobia in Britain in the 2020s, share practical experiences and lessons we’ve learned doing this ourselves, and lay some foundations for a revolutionary socialist understanding of the link between trans liberation and class struggle.

Contents

Introduction: trans struggle is class struggle
by Charlotte Powell

‘I was born a baby not a boy’: sex, gender and trans liberation
by Shanice McBean

Right-wing gender politics: regenerated
by Lisa Leak

Fighting transphobia in UCU Edinburgh
by Grant Buttars

Transphobia – PCS case
by Jane Smith

Fighting transphobia in Living Rent
by Úna O’Sullivan and Jamie Lewis

Transphobia in environmental movements
by Gus Woody

Struggles within trans liberation
by Connor Liao