Last week, the UK Supreme Court carried out a ruling on the legal definition of a woman. This was picked up and amplified by the establishment media and politicians to continue whipping up their reactionary, divisive culture war.
As we explained in our article last Thursday, this manufactured hysteria around trans people is used by the ruling class to distract from the various issues people face in their daily lives: bills going up; councils going bankrupt; wages and conditions coming under attack; the NHS falling apart; and so on.
This latest egregious episode in the culture war has provoked widespread anger and revulsion, amongst young people in particular.
Up to 30,000 people gathered for a demonstration in London, spilling out from Parliament Square.
In over a dozen other cities and towns, hundreds turned out. Our comrades report that these are some of the biggest demos they’ve seen since the height of the Palestine movement.
Accumulated rage
These protests were a concentrated expression for a lot of accumulated rage against the establishment and their system.
“Fuck Keir Starmer! Fuck Wes Streeting!” was one common chant in Leeds, while our comrades’ speech calling for class unity and socialist policies got huge cheers in Sheffield.
However, despite the radical mood and burning anger, comrades report a lack of a clear perspective as to how to take this struggle forward – with different solutions put forward by various groups and activists.
RCP members attending these protests put forward a class programme to defend our democratic rights and freedoms. We can’t rely on capitalist courts to protect the exploited and oppressed. We can only rely on our own strength, and the power of mass struggle.
And while we stand for full legal equality as a basic democratic right, we understand that the suffering faced by trans people, migrants, women, and other oppressed groups cannot be solved without a struggle for social equality.
Therefore, we call for taking political power out of the hands of the oppressive capitalist class, and putting it into the hands of ordinary people. We call for nationalising the banks and monopolies so that we can deliver high-quality healthcare and housing for all.
In a word, we call for revolution – against the billionaire class, the hypocritical ‘Labour’ politicians, the anti-‘woke’ demagogues like Badenoch and Farage, and all those who sow disunity in the ranks of our class.
- It’s all of us against all of them!
- For a united class struggle against capitalism and oppression!
- Fight their culture war with class war!
Leeds
Fern O’Hare
After the UK Supreme Court’s ruling last week, a trans liberation rally was held in Leeds city centre on Saturday
Five RCP members from different Leeds branches mobilised to intervene after a fairly last-minute announcement.
The conversations comrades had at this rally revealed a mood of immense hatred, not only of the Supreme Court’s ruling, but the system that benefits from these vicious, divisive attacks.
The day’s loudest chants were “Fuck Keir Starmer! Fuck Wes Streeting”! And comrades were able to connect with people most effectively on the basis of this hatred of Labour.
There was a series of speeches from various left-wing and activist groups that correctly pointed out the issues facing trans people and the working class in general.
While the speeches were very radical, few put forward viable methods for fighting back besides “building community spaces” and mutual aid.
One of our comrades managed to get on the speakers list and delivered a speech that gave a class-based voice to the anger of those gathered. The greatest reaction came after they said:
“As our health services crumble, as recession and economic uncertainty wrack the capitalist system, who is it that is made to pay?
“Not only are we all shouldered with the financial burden created by the parasites at the top, but our very identities are used as scapegoats.
“This system is rotting. Our rulers, facing death’s door as a class, are clinging on tooth and nail to any ledge they find purchase. This is not a sign of strength, but a sign of panicked and desperate weakness!”
Many protestors found us after the rally had finished to tell us how much they enjoyed the clarity of the speech.
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The comrade who delivered it later received a message saying: “Really good speech! I had a friend of mine with me who has never been to a protest and it really clicked with him.”
Our comrades’ experience at the rally has confirmed two things.
One: Labour’s culture-war attacks are radicalising plenty of new people who may not have been even politically active before now.
Two: the ideas of the RCP are finding an echo among these layers. Many young people are open to becoming organised revolutionary communists.
On the back of this intervention, we sold five copies of The Communist, a handful of different pamphlets, and had three people express an interest in joining the party.
Sheffield
Nathan Blatcher
On 19 April, the Sheffield Communists attended a demonstration in defence of trans rights.
With short notice, the protest attracted a crowd of 400 people, the largest seen in Sheffield for months.
There was palpable anger at the Supreme Court’s ruling, and fear of the violence that this latest attack on trans people will whip up.
Like all forms of oppression, it must be combated with a mass show of force of the united working class.
When a small group of anti-trans ‘feminists’ tried to disrupt the protest, they were booed away, tails between their legs.
The speeches shared examples of the many forms of discrimination and abuse trans people face in their daily lives. However, when it came to political perspectives and aims, the speeches were mainly limited to talking about pride and acceptance.
RCP member Lexi gave a speech which was incredibly well received. She called out the dead end that the liberals are driving the movement into. They speak of “legal equality” when it is real equality that we must fight for.
She explained that the culture war is being used as a distraction from the misery created by Starmer’s austerity programme.
The crowd cheered when she called for an NHS fully nationalised under workers’ control! Only this can provide high-quality healthcare for all health issues – including gender-affirming care.
A huge cheer also erupted when she said that the big landlords and developers must be expropriated to put an end to the scourge of homelessness, which one in four young trans people faces.
“Down with the bosses and their culture war rhetoric!” she chanted. “Up with the unity of the working class and the end of all oppressions!”
The speech ended with a call-and-response of “Workers of all countries, unite! Workers of all genders, unite! Workers of the world, unite!”
We sold all the copies of The Communist we had. Most people we spoke to had no clear explanation for the bosses’ culture war or how to fight it, and were open to revolutionary communist ideas.
Cardiff
Alex Falconer
The Cardiff RCP intervened in the 1,000+ strong trans rights demo on Monday 21 April. This was the biggest demonstration in the city since the Palestine movement was at its peak.
It’s worth quoting what the organisers wrote to promote the demo:
“Stand with us – not as allies, but as comrades fighting for the total transformation of society together. The time for revolution is now”.
This direct, inflammatory attack on trans people by the state has clearly had a significant impact on consciousness. The demo itself felt less like a trans rights demo and more like an anti-capitalist demo.
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Yes, the placards and slogans were mainly focussed around trans rights, but the content of the speeches were aimed at the entire system. In some cases, they were even revolutionary.
The opening speech received the biggest cheers. The speaker called for the interlinking of struggles into a united one against the state, and correctly pointed out that parliamentary reform wasn’t enough – a socialist revolution was required.
Further speeches explicitly called not for ‘allies’, but for solidarity, and linked the fight to defend trans people to the fight for a free Palestine.
Off the back of this, RCP comrades approached people asking “what do you think about the need for revolution?” and “Do you agree we need to overthrow the state?”
The response we got were things like “of course we need a revolution” and “what can we do now?”. This latter question was particularly common, and revealed the question that was missing from the speeches: the need to build a revolutionary party.
Overall what felt significant was how easy the conversations were. Nobody we spoke to only saw this as a fight for trans rights, or as just an attack on trans people.
It’s clear that a considerable layer is drawing radical conclusions on the back of this latest attack.
Bristol
John Ruston
Bristol comrades attended the trans liberation Protest on College Green in Bristol on Saturday.
Around 200-300 people were in attendance and it was announced that it would be an open mic, which led to dozens of people queuing to make a speech.
The main themes running through the speeches were a hatred for the Labour Party and that the wrong 1 percent was being focused on.
A number of speakers called out the hypocrisy of the political establishment and how they scapegoat trans people under the pretence of protecting women. The biggest cheers though came when Palestine was mentioned and the billionaires were attacked.
An RCP comrade made a speech explaining where these attacks stem from and why they’re happening.
We called out the real role of the culture war, explaining it was nothing more than a smokescreen to distract from the ruling class’ ruthless austerity and attacks, which stem from the logic of their crisis-ridden system.
We called for a single, united mass movement along class lines, as it’s only through overthrowing capitalism that we can begin to build a world free from oppression and exploitation.
Immediately after the speech we were approached by several people who said we expressed what they had been thinking but didn’t know how to say it. They agreed we couldn’t achieve liberation under capitalism and asked how they could get involved in the RCP.
Although there was a real mix of speeches and the focus of the demo was on trans rights, what came through consistently was a deep anger against the establishment, and a desire to fight the entire system.
From the interactions we had, the question for many people wasn’t “do we need a revolution?” but “how do we make one happen?”
Manchester
Will Gedling and Oscar Massey
On Friday, comrades from the Manchester RCP attended the trans rights demo to show solidarity, discuss with the attendees, and put forward a revolutionary programme.
Despite the rain, roughly 400 people turned out. The mood was one of anger directed against Starmer’s government and capitalist society as a whole. People are searching for answers and a way out.
Although the speaker list was wide-ranging across the ‘political spectrum’ (including the Liberal Democrats) a noticeable number of speakers called on people to get organised and defend themselves against these attacks by the courts.
One of the most concrete means of struggle presented by a speaker from Unison, who rightly said that the court can’t do anything without the permission of the working class, and if forced to carry out anything that would harm trans people, workers should refuse and organise a strike if necessary. This speech received the most applause.
This class-based approach got a much better response than speeches by the Lib Dems and others, which argued that this was not a class issue because rich and poor are facing the same attacks.
But who is carrying out these attacks? It isn’t the working class – it’s the courts, the government, and the ruling class.
We support the call for organisation and class-struggle methods to fight back. We need determined, militant leadership to push this forward.
Brighton
Saffron Grove and Ben Anscombe
On Saturday 19 April, a trans rights demonstration was held in Brighton city centre. Around 800 people of all ages and backgrounds were there at its peak, despite the fact that it was organised very last-minute via social media.
This is significantly larger than last week’s trans rights march which drew in about a hundred people, and larger than most of the recent Palestine marches we’ve seen recently. This demonstrates how much the Supreme Court’s attack has inflamed people.
There was loud chanting of “Trans rights are human rights!”, “Trans rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!”. The placards mainly had similar slogans.
The mood on the demonstration reflected the generalised anger at the state of society, and the divide-and-rule tactics of the ruling class. This was summed up by one attendee who said “they’re making us hate each other”.
There was also a notable frustration at the lack of any clear position from the left on what to do next, and how we can “fight back”.
The speeches throughout the demonstration pointed to the rottenness of the British state – from the government to the police to the courts – and how these reactionary moves are distracting us from the fundamental crisis in society.
