Background: This piece was written and approved at the Workers’ Voice/ La Voz de l@s Trabajadores 2018 Congress. We have congresses every 2-3 years, and following the Marxist and Leninist/Trotskyist tradition, they are our highest decision making & most democratic body. Our congress documents are written and approved after months of collective and deep discussions and debates and are a good reflection of our organizational politics/program.
 
Like women’s oppression, LGBT oppression has a strong function in maintaining the means of production for a capitalist society by regulating gendered labor and social positions. Both oppressions manifest in similar ways: threatened or actual violence used to maintain order, forced labor, and exclusion from the economy and its most basic amenities (education, healthcare, civic engagement, etc). However, because the existence of LGBT people disrupts the constructs of gender and sexuality that are imposed on women, it cannot be fully addressed under the analysis of women’s oppression alone, though the strategy and practices to address both are similar.
 
Against Gender Nihilism and Lean-In Feminism
To understand how gender oppression functions, we need to establish that like race or any other identity category imposed on the working class by capitalism, gender is a social construct. Gender is the combination of perceived physical characteristics, style, mannerisms, and roles that a person learns and performs. On contemporary capitalist Earth, there are two socially-common genders, man and woman. Volumes are written on what the two mean, and whether there are only those two or a million or zero genders, and how they function. One anti-capitalist gender ideology that’s emerged into the discourse is gender nihilism. The ideology critiques what it perceives to be liberal gender politics, saying that to identify with a gender is to be dominated by and also reproduce the power of gender, and thus its oppression. It rejects gender, and promotes a “radical negativity”, with a “leap into the void” of politics as the only way to liberation from gender oppression [1]. As Marxists, we must take a material approach to the problems of the working class, including those of LGBT people, and reject this ultraleftist approach to gender politics. Unfortunately, denouncing that gender exists will not organize our class to take the power needed to end gender oppression, nor will it empower or support LGBT people in any material sense.
In some parts of the U.S., neoliberal Pride parades are an annual festivity, extremely well funded by foundations, corporations, non-profits, and politicians looking to rainbow-wash their images. They promote an empty “love-trumps-hate” politic. Like lean-in feminism, it suggests that LGBT people just need to accept themselves and shine in order to ascend out of the oppression of living under capitalism. While this might be true for the racist-cis-white men who shouted down undocumented queer activists at last year’s Arizona Pride parade, it’s as useful as a hole in a bucket for everyone else (2). The reality is that LGBT people, especially transgender people, face the highest rates of discrimination, exclusion from basic necessities, and targeted violence. Just as with pink-washing, we must not let this false “diversity politics” ever be confused with gaining power, or with improving the material conditions for struggle by LGBT people. If we are going to shine, it will be with the light reflected from the chains of capitalism we’ve thrown to the ground through mass mobilizations against gender violence, such as those of Dia Sin Inmigrantes and the International Women’s Strike.
We need an analysis of gender that clarifies its relation to capital, and the way that LGBT/queer people reject, disrupt, and are oppressed by gender. It is only with this analysis of power that we can both qualitatively combat gender oppression in our organization, and enact a gender politic that is anti-capitalist in its outcome, not just in its spoken intentions.
 
Capitalism and Gender
Among many tools in the master’s box, capitalism uses gender and sexuality to regulate who does what labor and how much they earn, or don’t earn. Domestic labor is subsidized under a capitalist economy because women are forced to work double and for free (or at least without fair compensation of any kind), and nearly everywhere the market value of a woman’s labor is significantly lower than a man’s. In most parts of the world, women are partially or completely excluded from the labor market by their gender, whether it is through law, discrimination, restricted access to education, or simply working full-time domestic servitude. Even in the so-called first world, the majority of the ruling class (the business owners, executives, politicians, etc) are all cis-men, women are systematically excluded from positions of power. In order to survive, most working class women of the world must be bound to a man through a domestic relation, and in exchange for domestic labor (in addition to her job outside of the home), she is able to live. LGBT relations disrupt the heteronormative relationship and domestic labor structure, and for this reason have been considered sinful, perverse, and diseased behavior for the majority of U.S. history. People who are suspected to be gay can easily lose their jobs, and face criminal charges. For most trans people in the world, getting a job in any sector that requires interfacing with other people is not possible in the first place, apart from prostitution, by far the most dangerous and precarious labor a person can undertake, where trans women of color are overly represented.
Under capitalism, the sexuality of a woman has always been heavily restricted and policed. This is so that her sexuality remains utilitous to the reproduction of the labor force, to domestic labor, and to the service of men’s sexuality. To live as a lesbian is to become useless to the role of the woman in the view of masculinity, since she would not be doing the labor of domestic servitude or providing sexual recourse for a man. Similarly, men’s sexuality is shaped around the exploitation and domination of femininity, as his masculinity (and thus, his power) is shaped around the most effective domination and control of the world around him. LGBT relationships and queer people break the most fundamental rules governing the society of domestic labor and romantic partnerships under capitalism, and challenge the social norms of domination and submission present in heteronormativity.
Similar to how gender is expressed through desire, it is expressed through performance; clothing, mannerisms, social roles, and labor positionality. While the State typically tries to regulate gender expressed through desire via laws regulating sex acts and partnerships (sodomy and marriage bills), it regulates the performance of gender by enforcing a paradox of visibility (invisibility/hypervisibility).
 
The Paradox of Trans Visibility
Gender is deeply impressioned through media and culture, and its disruption is seen not only as an affront to white American conservative values, but to the sexuality and gender of individuals (mostly men), who see it as their duty to “straighten out” LGBT people through sexualized violence. Transgender people, or queer people perceived to be trans, face the sharpest forms of discrimination and the highest rates of violence through a paradox of visibility. On the one hand, queer/trans people face hypervisibility; their gender is constantly called into question with varying degrees of aggression, and a person requires access to specific healthcare and bureaucracy for their gender to be legally validated. Whether it is being “clocked” on the street and murdered, being criminalized for using a public restroom, or being forced to undergo psychotherapy to access medical technology, a trans person’s gender becomes the most visible aspect of their personhood because it is the one that directly challenges the social and labor role ascribed by capitalism. As a result, trans people experience extremely high discrimination and almost total exclusion from the labor market because of the “hypervisibility” of their genders, and experience extreme rates of homelessness, criminalization and incarceration, and assault by law enforcement. Less than half the states in the US consider LGBT a protected identity category, and only a quarter have banned trans-exclusionary healthcare, which is to say preventing transgender people from accessing biomedical technology that would allow them to become less “visibly” trans, or to “follow the laws” that discriminate against trans people in the first place. For example, if a person needs their legal documents changed to reflect a gender change, they must access medical technology through healthcare. Using a sex-specific bathroom when the bathroom doesn’t match the legal documents is a policed action, and sometimes illegal.
Most states do not report on hate crimes against LGBT people. Assaults go both unclassified, unreported, and are often perpetuated by law enforcement [3]. While gender nihilists are critiquing trans people for supposedly perpetuating the power of the gender construct, trans people are struggling to survive in a world that simultaneously necessitates their ability to “pass” for their gender in order to live safely and access society, and puts tremendous barriers in place against allowing people to access the medical technology and bureaucracy that allows them to “pass”. Many trans people seek out gender affirming medical technology like hormones or surgeries, but are completely unable to access it due to a lack of health coverage. On the other hand, any trans person who wants to be legally recognized as their gender must undergo extensive medical treatment and psychopathology, regardless of their desire to physically change. “Gender dysphoria” is the new “gay” for the American Psychological Association, and describes the discomfort people experience from being discriminated against for being transgender. Imagine that! A disease that is actually defined by people reacting badly to mistreatment and discrimination.
 
Towards Gender Politics that Liberate from Capitalism
If we are seeking to enact a liberatory gender politics, we must not fall into a falsely polarized debate about gender,  a debate of “LGBT people are a disease” versus “LGBT people don’t really need healthcare or rights because gender and rights are social constructs”. Politically, we as Marxists should make a distinction between the LGBT version of lean-in feminism (“Pride” and “Love Trumps Hate”), and the ultraleftist position of gender nihilism. Organizationally, we must address the oppression of LGBT people as we do that of women, of immigrants, and any other oppressed group, considering their particular positionalities to capitalism and the material oppression that accompanies it:

• The problems of LGBT people exist because of the same economic structures that oppress all of our class under capitalism. They are problems of our class, and must be addressed as a class, thus there should be no relegating of LGBT matters to an exclusively LGBT space. However, if LGBT people should want to form a caucus or committee to discuss or solve an organizational problem, this is ok, and they should be able to define who can be on the committee.
• Our first task is to effectively be able to bring LGBT issues to the working class and a socialist program of LGBT liberation. We should prioritize as an organization the mobilization of the working class against gender violence, with gender minorities at the forefront of the mobilizations and movement building whenever possible. The LGBT movement in the United States has been heavily co-opted by corporations and made into nothing more than a neoliberal drinkfest. We must counter this narrative and culture with the formation of a militant, democratic, anti-capitalist LGBT movement.
• We should prioritize the development of queer cadre (especially LGBT youth) around a socialist political program, and attempt to rebuild the LGBT movement in the United States as we are rebuilding the labor and women’s movements.
• Because the problems of LGBT people are the problems of the class, the burden of defense and affirmation is on all comrades, not only LGBT ones.
• Zero tolerance for harassment. No fetishizing, exoticizing, or sexualizing of LGBT comrades or their relationships.
• Repeatedly and systematically ignoring or putting down the suggestions of LGBT people is indistinguishable from sexism.
• Accountability for any members of the organization who display LGBT-phobic behaviors.
• Support LGBT people who seek access to medical technology or State bureaucracy in order to live more fully and freely. If a comrade needs this access to be active in the struggle, this is a political problem, not just a personal one.
• Organizationally, we must take steps to educate every sector of our class on the human naturalness of gender expression, and on gender oppression as an inherent component of capitalism. This means re-educating the most reactionary and conservative elements of the working class, an emotional labor that should not fall exclusively to LGBT comrades but should be guided by their leadership.
• In the development of cadre and election of leadership, considering the unique experiences of LGBT comrades, such that they might have had to work ten times harder than others to get to the same place. Thus, a “half point” should be added to the balance for their working experiences with the party.
• We must have materially supportive measures in place for LGBT comrades who have suffered any kind of assault, be it physical, sexual, or legal. i.e. we should organize bail and defense funds for a comrade who has been jailed for “vagrancy with intent to prostitute”, or for the rehiring of a comrade who has lost their job from LGBT-phobia.
• Just as we advocate that cis-women have full access to healthcare and control over their bodies, so too we must advocate that transgender people have access to healthcare and control over their bodies.

 
The liberation of the working class is liberation from gender oppression. It is only when we have a society where the labor of people is not controlled for the interests of a tiny few that people will be free not only to spend their time as they please, but express their gender as they please. Under socialism, the idea of gender might become highly varied or disappear altogether. In a classless, marketless society, the roles of gender, such as the “breadwinner”, the “caretaker” will disappear, because all people will be involved in the breadmaking and caretaking. In a society where there is no need to structure humans into bloodkin households, where childcare will be universal, the notion that all families will need to be heteronormative nuclear families will be as laughable as needing everyone’s clothes to be the exact same color and style. And speaking of clothes, without capitalism driving consumer society, everyone will be able to wear the clothes and style themselves as they want without the maelstrom of violence and criminalization surrounding gender-nonconformism. Since healthcare will be universal, people will be able to access medical technology as they see fit, without the pressure of needing to pass or the pathologization of wanting to change.
 
Freedom from gender oppression for all!