Letters

Enough is enough

The ‘Theses on Keir Starmer’s Labour Party’ carried by the Weekly Worker are flawed (January 7). Produced by the CPGB’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Labour Party Marxists, they are largely a reasonable summary of recent past political events in the Labour Party, as they affect the left, particularly the Labour left. The theses are prompted by and are a contribution to the Labour Left Alliance conference on January 30. The LLA is a federated association of mainly local and a few national political groups, but has no individual membership.

Unfortunately, while most of the theses present well-grounded criticism of what has happened in the Labour Party under Corbyn and subsequently, there is a growing air of ‘could have, should have’ as they unfold. Most of the theses dwell on what ought to have been done by the left (not the fake, ‘official’ left). This is all well and good, since Marxists need to learn from their own and others’ mistakes. But that terrain of struggle in the Labour Party is gone.

Thesis 14 is certainly problematic. It elides “confused former supporters of Jeremy Corbyn” into “the left” inside the Labour Party, and then compounds its error by failing to include in its a-c categories of leavers those Marxists and other left members who fully intend to continue in politics, just not Labour Party politics. For one thing, the left inside the Labour Party was never completely Corbynista. And, for another, although left members have put up with a lot over the years, this is the first time an avowed racist has become leader: Starmer’s open admission that he supports Zionism - a racist ideology - as well as the continued affiliation to the Labour Party of the Zionist, racist Jewish Labour Movement, is far too reactionary for many.

Most importantly, the concluding theses are contradictory, since they want their cake and eat it. Correctly, thesis 24 suggests that “building a mass Marxist party” is key at the present time. Such a party certainly might then try to transform the Labour Party, whether or not it or its members are permitted to work within Labour. Fine. But, since it does not yet exist, the preceding three theses are otiose.

The current position of Marxists and other real lefts within the Labour Party is dire. Edicts from the rightwing leadership and bureaucracy prevent real discussion, which is anyway hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Prohibition of worthwhile topics for discussion and decision are now in place. And the trade union bureaucracy seems quite content, as part of the fake left at best, to go along with the ‘electability’ degradation of socialist thought within the Labour Party. Most left Labour discussion seems never to rise beyond what union posts might be grabbed through various shenanigans (aka ‘organising activists’). Between Labour Party head office bans on discussion and the reluctance of union bureaucracies to stir things up, there is no room for party members to be other than spear-carriers - far from being actors in decision-making. Anecdotal evidence suggests that MPs and other front men and women (such as councillors) are all the bureaucracy considers relevant these days: it now has the power to sustain this stance indefinitely. A USA Democratic Party or Indian Congress Party model of zero membership is a possible outcome.

The space for Marxists and the left generally to work within the Labour Party is disappearingly small - what with continuing repression of the witch-hunt and the base surrender of the fake left under the flag of abject unity with the triumphalist right. As someone who joined the Labour Party when John McDonnell stood for the leadership, who has been a Constituency Labour Party secretary, and who is currently a branch secretary, I have to say that enough is enough. The game is not worth the candle.

Sadly, the LPM Theses muddy the waters and provide insufficient argument that staying in the Labour Party currently has any bearing on a realistic and worthwhile outcome for the energy that might be expended by Marxists and other socialists on the exercise.

Jim Moody
email

Vlast from past

Lars T Lih’s approach is summed up in his thesis in his article, ‘The Bolsheviks in 1917’ (December 17): “The heart of the message can be stated in one sentence: an exclusive worker-peasant vlast based on the soviets is the only way to effectively defend the revolution and carry out its goals.” He repeats this in his ‘Consistent Bolshevik message’ (January 7).

Everything is wrong with this. The word vlast is used to confuse. Does it mean state power and, if so, what class is to rule in this state? If the state is worker-peasant, it is a bourgeois state (or a petty-bourgeois state - the same thing), which was already achieved in the February revolution. A democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry is a bourgeois state - you cannot have a two-class state. If it is the dictatorship of the proletariat in alliance with the peasantry, it is a workers’ state, and a socialist revolution is needed for that. Ah, but we must complete the bourgeois revolution before we can have a socialist revolution, Lars T objects, with Kamenev.

To add further confusion Lars equates the socialist revolution with socialist construction. The making of the socialist revolution was fought for by Trotsky in his 1906 permanent revolution theory, on the premise that it would be the first in a series of socialist revolutions in western Europe in particular. Originally the Bolsheviks hoped that a bourgeois democratic revolution in Russia would spark socialist revolutions in Germany, France and Italy to begin with. But Lenin’s foreword to Bukharin’s book on imperialism and his own Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism (which Mike Macnair rejects, he informed us at Communist University) led to his understanding that working class consciousness was internationalist: a victory for the working class in Russia was a victory for the world working class, and the class, via its vanguard, clearly understood it as such in every country in the world.

Lars observes in ‘Consistent Bolshevik message’: “The idea that Russia itself could embark on successful socialist transformation, even before the beneficent influence of a European revolution began to be felt, was rejected by all socialists of whatever political persuasion. All Marxist observers accepted as an axiom that the peasant majority of Russia - although a mighty force for democratic revolution - was an insuperable obstacle to a socialist transformation of the Russian economy and society. This axiom, it will be remembered, was an essential part of Trotsky’s ‘permanent revolution’, as set forth in his original writings of 1905-07.”

And there it is - the confusion and equation of socialist construction with the socialist revolution. Even Stalin understood that socialism in a single country was impossible in the first edition of his Lenin and Leninism in early 1924, but he altered it to make it say the exact opposite later in 1924 after Lenin died.

Lars stands clearly to the right of the early-1924 Stalin. His two long pieces have no serious orientation to internationalism: they are simply based on a ‘socialism in a single country’ perspective - is it possible or not? No! And he remains so in his attempts to Kautskyise Lenin.

‘Vlast’ is continually confused with soviet power, whilst ignoring which class rules in this soviet power. Ah, but the ‘narod’ (the people) rule, Lars responds, hoping his readers will not spot the cross-class, popular-front, Stalinist use of the term from the 1935 Seventh and last Congress of the Comintern, when Georgi Dimitrov did Stalin’s dirty work in abandoning the class independence of the working class. Lenin used the term, Lars might object - but he never used it in the sense that Stalinist popular frontism used it; he used it as a rallying cry for the revolution.

Gerry Downing
email

Scotland

Whilst having great respect for comrade Jack Conrad’s abilities to go deeply and incisively into a subject, I do wish he had put some of his energies into fleshing out the CPGB position on the federal republic before his epic Scottish history lesson (Weekly Worker December 3-17).

I know there have been historical justifications by Scottish left nationalists that can be readily shot down, but the real tangible roots of the clear majority demand for self-determination now go no further back than the Thatcher government’s imposition of the poll tax on Scotland a year earlier than the rest of the UK. This majority - now overwhelming after the even more outrageously anti-democratic imposition of Brexit on Scotland - demands support from all democrats. Therefore communists should now be propagandising for immediate self-determination, so we can remove the curse of nationalism from these islands and seek to come back together as soon as possible in a federal republic.

I have raised previously the complete lack of substance on what is meant to be a key element of the CPGB Draft programme, but received nothing back apart from a misunderstanding by comrade Peter Manson. His stated presumption that the federal republic would instantly offer equality of nations falls, when you consider the respective size of them. England would surely always dominate on a national level. That is the first test of credibility to the concept that I was unable to answer to left nationalists.

There’s even more need to put flesh on the federal republican bone because of the widely perceived betrayals of federal pledges at indyref, and now again proposed by the appointment by Keir Starmer of Gordon Brown to lead on the national question for Labour. Federalism is the zombie flesh and bones of left British unionism.

My other main unanswered point was with comrade Eddie Ford, who said the federal republic is merely a step towards the desired form of government - democratic centralism. This is the first I’ve heard of DC being proposed as something other than a form of internal party organisation. Am I getting this wrong, I ask again?

The letter from Al Thomas in Weekly Worker January 7 smacks of the rigid dogma that has seen the working class in Scotland give up on the British left, with his complaints of distractions from the real, big, important issues. Yes, of course, it’s a distraction, but the only way of countering it now is by supporting the praxis of Scottish self-determination in order to win the Scottish masses back from nationalism. Anything less is an abnegation of democracy and begs the question - what form does the irresistible demand for Scottish self-determination have to take before communists will support it?

Tam Dean Burn
Glasgow

Democracy sham

On December 30 the UK faced a dire emergency. Next day it would crash out of the single market and customs union, leaving Northern Ireland in the single market for goods, with an EU customs border with the rest of the UK. The only question in doubt was whether there would be the safety net of a trade deal to prevent a crash. So, with no time to work out what was really going on, the Commons and Lords were reconvened to rubber-stamp the deal and Her Majesty summoned to give the royal assent.

The ‘Brexit revolution’ (2016-20) exposed many of the realities of the UK constitution through a series of crises. On the very last day another crisis confronted MPs. Parliament did not have time to properly scrutinise the deal. It made a mockery of the idea of ‘sovereignty coming back from the EU to parliament and the people’. Democratic scrutiny and accountability was a sick joke and a national humiliation.

This was a reminder of another infamous bloody mess, when the Commons was allowed to vote on the Iraq war - with British tanks already on the Iraq border, with their engines revving up. The issue was no longer about war or economic damage, but the patriotic duty of MPs to support the crown in its hour of need. The three pillars of the British constitution are thus ‘crisis’, ‘emergency’ and ‘rubber stamp’. Starmer duly delivered his MPs to back a rotten Tory deal and overturn the policy in the 2019 Labour manifesto, which promised the people a democratic right to ratify.

The sovereignty of parliament is a fiction, because sovereignty is vested in the crown-in-parliament. The lion’s share of power is in the hands of ministers of the crown, especially in the ‘crisis’ and ‘emergency’ that faced MPs on December 30. Labour’s Clive Lewis expressed the frustration of many MPs. He said this situation “has shone a light on the deep democratic deficits in our arcane political system”, with “power concentrated in the hands of a few, an over-centralised government evading scrutiny to act in favour of vested interests and impose decisions from the top down”.

Brexit highlighted the divergence between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, which had grown out of 30 years of republican struggle by the IRA and Sinn Féin embodied in the Good Friday agreement (1998). The EU withdrawal agreement reminded the Democratic Unionists of the new reality and forced them to vote against it - and against the trade deal, on constitutional, not economic, grounds. At the same time it exposed Scotland’s constitutional subordination to England, because, unlike with Northern Ireland or Gibraltar, there was nothing to recognise Scotland’s vote to remain.

The Brexit debacle has been a constitutional revelation for people who have been kept ignorant of the secrets of power. It has exposed a surprised public to the sham or pretence of democracy masquerading behind the ancient façade of the Palace of Westminster. At the 11th hour neither parliament nor people had any control or indeed real knowledge of what the crown was imposing. ‘Taking back control’ was simply restoring the central power of the crown and exposing more fully the democratic deficit.

The process of leaving the EU was a stress test for UK ‘democracy’. Now at the end of the road it is useful to review the whole process. Final ratification on December 30 was the last step in a three-stage process. The first stage started in parliament and led to the 2016 referendum. We have noted many times the exclusion of millions of resident citizens, because it was inconvenient to the Tories to allow them to vote. The 2016 votes triggered the second stage of negotiation, which comprised of two parts: the withdrawal agreement and the trade deal. The whole process is completed by the third stage of ratification by parliament and the agreement of the people in a referendum. What began with a people’s vote, and then handed negotiating rights to the crown, must be completed with a people’s vote.

Anything resembling a democratic process ended in a parliamentary farce. Caroline Lucas MP in her Commons speech said: “I believe it was right to campaign for a confirmatory referendum on the terms of any departure.” But she omitted to say that, along with the Liberal Democrats, Blair, Watson and Starmer, they all conspired to split the working class and facilitate Corbyn’s defeat with the divisive slogan of a second referendum. Johnson won, Starmer replaced Corbyn, a second referendum went up in smoke, and Starmer and his MPs voted for a Tory hard Brexit.

In 2016 the Tories opportunistically handed sovereignty over the decision to leave the EU from the state to the people. Republicanism snuck into the constitution for one moment only. The EU referendum adopted the principle of popular sovereignty, which many liberal Tories and Labour regretted. But they kept the real power to negotiate in the hands of the crown, the political arm of the City of London, and the ratification to a subservient and supine parliament, which would always do as it was told - especially in a crisis manufactured by the government.

The question of a ratification referendum was thus an important difference between the Johnson Tories and Corbyn Labour at the 2019 general election. The Labour manifesto promised a referendum on any deal they made with the EU. This had to apply to the withdrawal agreement and any trade deal. It was a manifesto commitment Labour should have stood by, continuing to argue for it with reference to good trade union practice. Labour should have opposed any deal that did not pass this democratic test. In the end only one Labour MP voted against it, along with the smaller parties demanding constitutional change. That is surely what is now coming down the track.

Steve Freeman
London

EU court

I would like to draw attention to what I consider to be two very important and long articles by Perry Anderson: ‘The European coup’ (London Review of Books Vol 42, No24, December 17); and ‘Ever closer union’ (Vol 43, No1 January 7). They did not change my position, but certainly deepened my understanding of the problem.

I had at one point more than 30 years ago taught, though not at a high level, a course about the European Union, thought I had understood the outlines and saw quite a lot wrong with the institution. I was aware from my old lesson notes that the commission was a large bureaucratic body, that the parliament was weak and could not really initiate anything, while the Council of Ministers was the dominant body - with all the prime ministers or presidents of the various countries getting together and quietly fixing the line of EU policy.

However, what I had not realised was the importance of the court, which was basically the only body that could check all the other institutions by saying that X could not be done because it was not in the treaty. It is always unanimous, no votes are published nor the varying views of the judges, and in that it is quite unlike the US Supreme Court. Since it gave no reasons, it could and did change its mind without saying why and, as each case was different, even if very slightly, it never had to be explained. In respect of the publication of votes and differing opinions the Council of Ministers was similar.

Perry Anderson gives a book list of 20-plus hefty tomes in three different languages to check on all his statements, but I will leave it to others to show that he is wrong on facts. But he does seem to have done his homework.

The first judges in the court in the 50s were an exceedingly fruity lot, including ex-members of the Nazi Party, ex-members of the Italian fascist party, and ex-very Vichyite Frenchmen. All the first judges have long ago gone elsewhere to suffer the sort of imaginative torments that Dante thought large numbers of popes and senior clerics should be undergoing in the afterlife. This was, of course, at a time when the capitalist class was terrified of a Russian invasion and the imposition of Bolshevik principles on the innocents of western Europe. The modern lot of judges tend to neoliberalism, but are similar, in that they attempt to steer all EU policies in a rightwing way. Though there are no written opinions, it appears from asides in other publications that a belief in a federal Europe is often expressed. I have no more objection in principle to a European bourgeois federal state than any other bourgeois state, but would prefer a rather more democratic type than the present EU.

In all that, the Tory right seems to be correct about a secret federal agenda and a very undemocratic constitution.

I still think that the answer was not to leave the EU, but to change it from within, but I can see that this is hardly possible constitutionally and would be very, very difficult. I think this could only happen if millions in all the EU countries appeared on the streets showing sentiments of very great hostility and anger to the controlling EU bodies - as it happens, this is something that might look rather like a revolution. This may be unlikely, but then so would a revolution led by the CPGB and other far leftists in a brave, ‘independent’ Britain that had ‘taken back control’. Still there are tens, if not hundreds of millions, in Europe who are totally fed up with their world - and who can tell what would happen in a world where US presidents seek to make an illegal coup against the constitution of the USA, which is normally given the status of a secular bible?

Ted Crawford
London

Fascism?

There has been much chatter on the left about whether or not Trump is a fascist and whether or not the Capitol invasion force are fascists - including during the first session of the Winter Communist University on January 8.

As others have pointed out, the US bourgeoisie have no need of a fascist force, at least not yet. The huge difference in the Weimar republic was that the bourgeoisie faced a mass communist party as well as a mass social democratic party. The parties were greatly divided and the social democrat leadership was on the side of the bourgeoisie anyway, but the parties were there and on the face of it were a danger to the ruling class.

But what about the US? There is neither a mass communist nor a mass socialist party. On the other hand, Trump has no doubt seen himself as a great charismatic leader who deserves to rule - indefinitely. He seems to share other character traits with Hitler. Neither could be lauded for their work ethic: Hitler enjoyed the Berghof in the Bavarian Alps, while Trump prefers Mar-a-Lago in Florida, each taking a well-earned break from the adulation of their followers.

Another thing they seem to share is a total indifference to anybody else. Each is, or was, the centre of the universe and others are only there to applaud - or to fail to do so at their peril. Trump may have lost a good deal of his adulation; he said he was going to join his people in the walk to the Capitol - but he just went home. And then he implied that he was giving up on stopping ‘the steal’ by supporting an “orderly transition of power” to Biden. Good grief! What a wimp!

There has been much media coverage of the break-in to the Capitol and the appearance of the crowd apparently having no idea of what to do next. I’m sure that a lot of the insurgents will be pondering on that too. Things will have to ramp up a bit before they have another spree in Washington, but the right in the US has a long history of breaking up meetings, attacking demonstrators, wrecking printing presses and lynching their perceived opponents - mostly, but not entirely, black ones. They also have a long history, and an obvious present, of having the sympathy and support of the police.

They are not going away and the upcoming pathetic performance of Joe Biden, in any field we care to mention, will encourage them further. Apart from anything else, the US ruling class may well see that the working class needs a strong, organised and disciplined party, even if the majority of the working class hasn’t got there yet. A spare bunch of fascists may come in very handy some time.

All of this indicates the urgent need for a strong popular militia organised by a strong, mass working class party. The latter is something that our speaker at Winter CU and his comrades are busy with now.

Jim Nelson
email

Keep writing

I can assure Jim Nelson (Letters, January 7) that respect (or lack of it) for individuals wasn’t at the root of what I was criticising him for (December 17). I think I’d be quite pleased if someone jokily accused me of producing a “miasma of phosphorescent nothingness”, although it does suggest to me in retrospect that I’m a bit too much of an HP Lovecraft fan-boy.

I am tired of the leftwing narrative that suggests the Tories are merely stupid, racist and incompetent, because clustered beneath that tale is often the implied demand for any old government to replace them; and a whole heap of ‘remainer’ tropes, where supporting the EU (or Scots nationalism, or whatever) is a surrogate for political class struggle. I saw Jim’s letters as part of this collective failure of imagination, not an individual failure on his part. And the worst thing the comrade could do is to stop writing.

I’m a bit indifferent to the Kick inside monograph, because I only really write to please myself, not to get an audience, and reading old stuff is mildly embarrassing. But I do appreciate Jim’s recommendation and his nice comment.

Lawrence Parker
London

A strong China

There are two visions of a brave new world going forward, as we face the Covid 19 pandemic. One is a unipolar world with a new capitalist globalist world order; and the other is a multipolar world based on mutual cooperation and respect. One speaks of domination and control and the other of respect and mutual assistance. The great military superpower, the United States of America, speaks to the former and China, the great economic power, speaks to the latter.

So the eternal struggle of competing narratives, competing ideologies, competing strengths and weaknesses continues as much today as it ever has from when people first banded together, for mutual aid and self-defence, in tribes, then regions, countries, continents, international collectives and coalitions. The choice is very stark, yet unspoken, as mainstream media in the west continue to blame Russia for electing Trump and China for the Covid-19 pandemic in a never-ending propaganda war, where the interests of globalist corporations are promoted by compromised western political leaders and the narrative from the other side remains unheard and silenced, given no equivocation.

We live in a world where America, Nato and the former imperialist powers of Britain, France and increasingly Germany continue to interfere in the internal political developments of former colonies, from Afghanistan through Libya, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria and Palestine; where the old forms of gunboat diplomacy continue, as negotiations are held under the threat of sanctions, regime change movements, military incursions and boots on the ground. The west seeks to control other nations for the benefit of its business class and the military-industrial complex.

The profits made from dropping multi-million-dollar bunker-busting munitions on Iraq are not invested in rebuilding Iraq after regime change wars nor on the displaced, wounded or grieving, but on more weapons of mass destruction. More expensive munitions designed not only to kill more efficiently, but to create more profit when they launch the next ‘Operation Freedom’ on some impoverished third-world country.

The west continues to use the 15th-century ideology of divide and conquer, invade and occupy, to continue to build its wealth on the backs of the poor. It is an ideology of theft through violence, using superior military might to destroy not an enemy, not a dictator, not fascism - all of which they have supported in the past and continue to support today - but as a means to an end.

In total and complete contrast we have China - a country that is investing heavily in infrastructure throughout west Asia and Africa. Its Belt and Road initiative is the greatest possible achievement of man since the building of the Great Wall of China: a building scheme envisioned to take decades - spanning continents, increasing global commerce and bringing tens of millions out of poverty and into growing economies.

While America tries to supplement its wealth through bombings and starvation, China is building alliances and trade deals - policies designed to increase China’s economic growth through mutual cooperation. Trade, not wars, would be the byword for continued Chinese growth - not at the expense of other nations but in tandem with them.

Death, destruction, occupation, displacement and a massive human refugee crisis arise from one policy of militarism, while homes, education, health, jobs and longer life expectations arise from a policy of mutual cooperation.

Economic growth for many of the western economies is expected to stagnate or grow by a few percentage points, as their capitalist systems of administration fail not only to safeguard their populations from the Covid-19 pandemic, but also their economies. China, however, is expected to post nearly 10% growth figures in 2021. Having fully enforced a lockdown to curb the pandemic to protect the people and the economy, it is ready to reap the benefits. Thankfully we have a workable, successful antidote to western capitalist imperialism in a China that has brought tens of millions out of poverty in its own country in the last 40 years.

The west in stark contrast has been steadily going in the other direction, with an epidemic of homelessness, a food poverty crisis, an increase in numbers of the working poor, a decrease in life expectancy and a continued governmental inhuman thirst for war and violence. The pro-capitalist austerity policies pursued by the west may yet see a revolution in the very heart of the capitalist empires and the in the belly of the beast: America.

Don’t be like the west. Be like China!

Fra Hughes
Belfast

Solidarity

Paul Demarty is a remarkable man. He can walk through a herd of elephants without mentioning any of them. I refer to his article, ‘Getting out of the culture wars’, on the high court ruling on the Bell vs Tavistock institute case, in which he grudgingly accepts it was ill-judged (December 10). The trouble is that Paul does not seem to appreciate the consequences and the underpinning politics, but rather engages in rarefied debate that seeks to distance the “Marxist left” from “liberal identity politics” and particularly those “intersectionalite types”.

Paul seems to be unaware that the solicitor representing Bell, Paul Conrathe, has brought numerous cases seeking to restrict abortion access, including seeking an injunction against Stephen Hone’s ex-partner to prevent her from having an abortion. Also, Conrathe was involved in challenges to equality of the age of consent for gay and bisexual men, and actions to prevent the BBC broadcasting Jerry Springer - the opera. Evidently Paul Conrathe has an agenda.

This ruling will not only make it difficult for trans teenagers to gain access to ‘puberty blockers’, but may undermine the Gillick competence, which, I am sure people will recall, accepts that a minor (below the age of 16) is able to consent to their own medical treatment, without the need for parental permission or knowledge. This competence is important in enabling young people, particularly cis girls, gaining access to contraceptives. However, if a minor or even a young adult of 16 or 17 is deemed unlikely to appreciate the consequences of ‘puberty blockers’, as the high court has speculated, then aren’t teenagers under 16 also unlikely to appreciate the consequences of taking the contraceptive pill, which are equally powerful?

Paul Demarty goes along with some of the ill-thought-out and just factually erroneous arguments in the high court ruling. It’s simply not true that ‘puberty blockers’ are “permanent and to a large extent poorly understood”. ‘Puberty blockers’ have been used to support teenagers considering transitioning for decades, so hardly experimental. Nor are they permanent. If a teenager stops taking them, their puberty will onset within a matter of months. Indeed, this is the point. ‘Puberty blockers’ buy time to give teenagers time to think things through.

Paul not only bypasses these concerns, but seeks to evade the day-to-day issues trans people face, like: Have they the right to choose where they toilet? Who are they allowed to play sport with? Which ward would they use in a hospital? And so on. He ‘gets out’ of this by evoking, along with young Ollie Douglas (Letters, January 17), the “abolition of gender”. Beyond accepting gender non-conforming behaviour, quite what this means and how it is to be brought about is by no means clear. Worryingly, in both Paul’s and Ollie’s contributions, the trans experience is still seen as problematic, respectively a “misery” or a “mental” illness.

Also, the abolition of gender, like the abolition of class, cannot be done by mere whim. It is not an elephant that will go away if you ignore it. They are power relationships that need to be fought. Working class solidarity is important in usurping class, so I would suggest that solidarity with trans people and accepting that trans women are women and trans men are men is a part of struggle for a progressive abolition of gender. It is precisely because this trans experience challenges biological essentialism, which is central to the western binary model of gender, that it helps erode its power.

Richard Farnos
South London