Fight transphobia, sexism, racism and ALL oppression
By Workers Strike Back. Published June 30, 2023
Trans and queer people are currently facing the most widespread and concerted attacks in decades, since the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ‘90s.
The right wing has introduced more than 500 anti-trans bills in state legislatures around the country–from bathroom bans to bans on gender-affirming care.
The Democrats, meanwhile, have refused to fight back. In Kentucky, Republicans passed one of the most draconian anti-trans bills in the country in March, which includes not only a school bathroom ban and a ban on gender-affirming care, but also a total ban on teaching about gender identity in schools, including in high schools.
Democrats didn’t call a single protest or rally. And when peaceful protesters against the bill were arrested in the State Capitol for “criminal trespassing”, Democratic Governor Andy Beshear refused to pardon them.
The workers’ movement cannot ignore these attacks, like the Democrats have done. We need to fight oppression head on.
Workers represent the vast majority of U.S. society. On the other hand, “Chief Executives”–the top bosses of capitalist society who take so much of the wealth workers create–represent only 0.2 percent of the population. A fraction of the one percent!
So how do the bosses, a tiny fraction of society, maintain their power?
One of their key tools is the centuries-old, time-tested strategy of “Divide and Conquer”.
The bosses divide working people however they can–by sex, race, sexual orientation, gender, religion, and national origin. They attack one section of the working class and try to turn us against each other.
They do everything possible to divide the working class so that we don’t unite against our real enemy–the billionaires and bosses who are exploiting us.
Like in Kentucky, Democrats nationally have refused to fight back. In fact, Democrats often join in on the attacks. Just two months ago, Joe Biden opened the door to wide-ranging restrictions on trans students participating in school sports, giving in to the scare-mongering of Republicans. Biden also dramatically ramped up deportation of immigrant workers under Trump’s “Title 42” law.
The workers' movement needs an independent approach, which can unite millions of workers against these attempts to divide us, whether the attacks come from the Democrats, the Republicans, or our bosses in the workplace. Workers should draw inspiration from the labor movements of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, which fought forcefully against racism in the workplace and in society, and used these fights to build the labor movement up to its strongest position in US history.
That’s why Demand #3 of Workers Strike Back is “Fight Racism, Sexism, and ALL Oppression”. And that’s why we fought alongside Councilmember Kshama Sawant in Seattle to win the first-in-the-world ban on caste discrimination outside of South Asia earlier this year.
We need to link up the fights for trans rights, against deportations, and against racism and sexism with the growing movement of workers organizing unions and going on strike.
We need to fight for bold demands that meet the needs of oppressed workers, like Medicare for All that includes free gender-affirming care and free abortion on demand. We need real democratic community control of the police, including full power over department policy, hiring, and firing, to fight back against racist police violence. We need an end to deportations and to tax the rich to provide affordable housing for all people, whether native-born or immigrant.
The labor movement has a crucial role to play. The George Floyd rebellion is an important example.
Despite being the biggest protest movement in US history, the George Floyd protests won very few victories. This was in large part because of the two-faced co-optation by the Democratic Party. But if union leaders had called for a wave of strikes around the country demanding community control of the police and a huge shift in funding from bloated police budgets towards community services, the result would have been powerful.
The ruling class understood this too. That’s why, when NBA players threatened to go on strike during the height of the protests, Barack Obama came out of retirement to help put down the strike, out of fear that it would spread.
We urgently need to fight back against the attacks on our transgender siblings and other oppressed people. And when the next mass movement erupts, we need to be more organized to bring the power of the broader working class into the struggle.
Join the fight today! Start a monthly donation of $50, $20, or $10 to Workers Strike Back. Help us build the type of organization necessary to defeat the bosses’ Divide & Conquer strategy and fight for what workers need.
