Fight Transphobia in Feminism and on the Left
Lisbeth Latham
Over the past decade, we have seen a significant growth in the visibility of trans people, particularly trans women. This growth in visibility has been associated with push to promote and achieve full democratic rights and overturn transphobic legislation and policies. In response to the growth in visibility and demands of the trans rights movement, there has been a significant backlash from transphobic forces in society. While many would expect this backlash to come from the political and religious right, and much of it has come from these forces, it has also come from individuals who identify as part of the feminist and left-wing movements the most notable section of these are trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs). The struggles between TERFs and trans women and their supporters have become increasingly visible and fraught. Part of the struggle, trans women have at times called on progressive forces and organisations that supposedly promote social inclusion – to not amplify or include transphobic voices - a call which is often resisted in the name of "free speech". A notable example of this has been the decision by the British left-wing paper Morning Star to publish a large number of transphobic articles in response to the proposal by the Conservative government to review the 2004 Gender Recognition Act. These defenders of anti-trans voices within both feminism and the broader left rely heavily on misrepresentation and distortion of the character and impact of the anti-trans forces and who really has power in this debate.
While there are numerous examples of transphobes being given space within supposedly progressive institutions - the decision by the Morning Star newspaper, which is associated with the Communist Party of Britain, to publish a number of transphobic articles under the guise of "defending women’s rights" is particularly emblematic. These articles have touched on a range of issues including:
There has been a range of critical responses to these articles, included a withdrawn motion at the Trade Union Congress’s LGBT conference calling for a boycott of the paper. These criticisms have sparked letters of solidarity with the Morning Star's "stand for women" as well as articles, which while critical of the anti-trans articles defending the right of the Morning Star to publish the articles as part of a "debate". These arguments are fundamentally flawed because it isn’t a question of whether the Morning Star has the right to publish the articles, but whether they should publish them.
A number of authors who have been critical of the campaigns by trans activists and their allies against transphobic feminists have argued that the transphobia within feminism and the left is fundamentally different from the transphobia of the right. In a 2016 article criticising the campaign calling on Cardiff University to withdraw it's invitation to Germaine Greer to give the University's annual lecture, Australian socialist activist Louise O'Shea wrote in Red Flag "Greer’s comments about the legitimacy or otherwise of trans women’s claim to the label "woman" are indefensible and utterly disrespectful … but it is also wrong to equate such ideas with outright bigotry and demand they not be heard". In the January 2017 issue of Socialist Review, TKS argues "There is a massive difference between Germaine Greer and the bigots shown in the recent documentary on Channel 4’s 'My Trans American Road Trip', which explored the reality of toilet bans in the United States. The documentary showed right-wingers who insisted that gender was God-given, rather than a social construct. This is a far cry from Greer’s longstanding rejection of the passive acceptance of gender roles". In making these arguments, both TKS and O'Shea assert that a greater space exists between both the views of transphobic feminism and right-wing transphobes than exists in reality. Whilst there are differences in their argumentation and the expressed intention of their aggressive defence of an immutable binary demarcation based on biological sex, both groups are sex existentialists. As a result, both groups rely at times upon each other's arguments. Right-wing US psychiatrist Paul McHugh, who has relied upon heavily by the Christian Right to buttress their arguments, in turn, relies on the work of Australian trans-exclusionary radical feminist Sheila Jeffreys.
Importantly both groups have frequently joined forces to help each other to defeat legislation advancing the rights of the trans community and to defend and extend existing transphobic legislation. Last year in the US the Women's Liberation Front launched an amicus brief in support of the legal case by evangelical Christian groups Focus on the Family and the Family Policy Alliance against the Department of Education's interpretation of Title IX Legislation against sex discrimination in education as providing protection based on gender identity and requiring schools and universities in receipt of federal funds respect the affirmed gender identity of trans students. During the debate on British Gender Recognition Act 2004 (which removed the requirement for transgender people seeking gender recognition to undergo surgery but retained medical gatekeeping and requires transgender people to live as their affirmed gender for at least two years), prominent Australian anti-trans feminist academic Sheila Jeffreys said that in opposing the legislation the people she agreed with the most was the radical right, particularly Norman Tebbit, former chair of the Conservative party.
In arguing that the transphobia of anti-trans feminists and leftists is fundamentally different to that of the political and religious right, the defenders of the place anti-trans forces within feminism and the left argue that efforts to exclude these forces from platforms, venues, and publications particularly those controlled by feminists and the left is a violation of freedom of speech. These arguments make some fundamental errors about both the amount of power that trans women have and the question of freedom of speech. The struggle for free speech is a struggle against the intervention of the state to criminalise or punish people for the ideas they articulate – or potentially against employer actions against their employees for articulating unpopular ideas – but the trans community does not have this power. Moreover, the calls of the community have been for transphobic forces to not be given a platform either in the media or be invited to speak on campus. Whilst these calls can be seen as a violation of freedom of speech. Indeed O'Shea argued it is a reflection of an authoritarian outlook within the trans community. However as both Sam Hope and I have pointed out – no one has a right to have a university-sponsored public meeting, or for that matter have an article published in publication – indeed publications have editors precisely to determine what will or won't be published and the Morning Star has refused to publish articles by activists which accuse anti-trans feminists of transphobia on the basis that such claims are potentially defamatory. The result of this position is that the defenders of "free speech" on transgender experiences take a position of actively silencing trans women and their allies who seek to call out transphobia – and in these circumstances they have a much greater power to enforce this decision.
Part of the argument to justify the defence of transphobes' "freedom of speech" and inclusion in the movement are not articulating "hate-filled bile". There a number of problems with this argument, the major one is that is primarily being made by defenders of the place of transphobes in progressive movements. Challenging the identities of the trans community and opposing basic democratic rights for the community, is a violence, it wears people down and it is part of the broader transphobic discourse in our society and aimed at both blocking the advancement of rights and winding back existing rights. Beyond the arguments about whether specific articles constitute violence, the authors are part of networks of transphobic feminists that engage in the harassment and vilification of the trans community, particularly of trans women. Even if these articles being published by anti-trans feminists are less hostile in their language than that of other transphobes, the questioning of the validity of the identities of the trans community and challenging their right is a violence which has the potential to wear down the mental health of the trans community. Just as the homophobia and transphobia – some of which was politely worded - which was unleashed during the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey in late 2017 which resulted in a 40% increase in the demand on mental health service by young LGBTIQ people. Moreover, the claims of a lack of violence rely heavily on a sleight of hand where concerns about the consequences of self-identification is framed in terms of concern for the rights of "women and girls" against "men seeking to take advantage the system to gain access to women's spaces" which might seem reasonable and not targeting trans women, except that these anti-trans feminists see all trans women as men. By contesting the presence of trans women in women-only spaces on the basis of both a rejection of their womanhood and by posing all trans women as potential rapists - writers such as Jo Bartosch are not just being transphobic. They are contributing to an atmosphere where trans women, and cis women for that matter, are at risk of violence for not only accessing women's spaces but when moving through society generally
Justifying the publication of transphobic articles and the welcoming of transphobic people in the movement just ends up being a form of gaslighting of the trans community. Where their experiences of abuse, harassment, and trauma are trivialized and explained away. Given the concern about labelling transphobes for what they are - this questioning of transphobia as a form of violence leads to a situation where the defenders of anti-trans feminists become obsessed with the "violence" of the language directed by trans women towards transphobes. The consequence of arguments defending the place of transphobes in the movement is that these arguments not only enable transphobic discourse and behaviour. It also posits the cause of "problems" in the movement between trans people and transphobes as trans people (and their allies) who object to transphobia. This can not only lead to threats of their exclusion from the movement but also makes claims of support for the trans community conditional at best and only focused on the open and naked transphobia of the right.
Of course, things don’t have to be this way. The last year has seen a number of important demonstrations of support for trans rights from the British Labour Party, sections of the British union movement along with Irish feminists which all provide examples of seriously tackling transphobia.
Since the announcement of the Review of the Gender Recognition Act in July, which followed calls by Jeremy Corbyn, the National Union of Teachers LGBT+ caucus initiated a statement in support of the right of transgender people to self-identify and have that identity legally recognised. The statement was formally adopted by National Union of Teachers at its national conference as a basis for lobbying MPs in support of adopting self-identification. When transphobic feminists and their allies in the right-wing press attacked Lily Madigan’s election as a Constituent Labour Party Women’s Officer, leading party members defended her right to stand and be elected and to participate in the Labour Party's women's leadership program. When, Venice Allan, one of the transphobic feminists who had been targeting Lily, and a regular transphobic troll on social media, turned up to a Labour Women’s Network with the intention of harassing Lily, she was asked to stop, then asked to leave and was excluded from the event. The leading party members including Jeremy Corbyn and Stella Creasy have spoken out to defend the rights of trans women and confirmed the reality that trans women are women. This has included a National Executive Committee statement, in the face of a threatened legal challenge, that confirmed the Party’s view that trans women have a right to stand for and be included on All Women Shortlists. These lists are aimed at improving the representation of women in parliament. The party has also reportedly initiated disciplinary action against members who have engaged in transphobic online harassment and vilification - with at least one member suspended pending investigation of their harassment of trans women.
In January, British anti-trans feminists announced a "We Need to Talk Tour" of Ireland to promote opposition to the Gender Recognition Act in Britain - in response Irish feminists issued a statement, 11 organisations and 1168 individuals, making it clear that the tour is unwanted colonialist intrusion by the anti-trans feminists. The statement says in part:
"Trans women and men in Ireland have the legal right to self-declare their gender. Trans people and particularly trans women are an inextricable part of our feminist community. The needs of trans people are part of our campaigns. There is no difference between ‘feminists’ spreading transphobic and transmisogynist ideas or spreading racism or homophobia. We want no part of it, and we don’t want it here. So yes, we do need to talk.
"We can see from your social media posts about your tour and its contents, that your opposition to the GRA is based on the idea that feminist organising and women’s rights will somehow be harmed through trans inclusivity and organising with our trans sisters. We know this is not true. We, the signatories of this letter, organise hand in hand with our trans sisters. Together, cis and trans, we are Irish feminism. Trans women are our sisters; their struggles are ours, our struggles theirs. They were our sisters before any state-issued certification said so and will always be no matter what any legislation says, either now or in the future".
The actions by trans allies in the unions, the British Labour Party, and within Irish feminism demonstrates clearly ways in which it is possible for left organisations can stand with the trans community, particularly trans women, but it means not just criticising the transphobia of the right, but taking a clear stand against transphobia from within feminism and the broader left.
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