Statement from Plaid Gomiwnyddol Cymru / the Communist Party of Wales & The Welsh Underground Network

The UK Supreme Court’s ruling of April 16th is a disgraceful assault by the British state upon the dignity, humanity, and rights of trans women by denial of legal recognition and protection. This is not the pursuit of justice, it is a calculated escalation of state violence, a ruling soaked in reaction, and an affront to any claim that the British legal system is a neutral arbiter. It is an act of patriarchal authoritarianism, executed under the pretence of safeguarding cis women, while in truth it exposes how little the capitalist state cares for any of us.

This ruling did not come from impartial legal reasoning, it was produced in a courtroom where trans voices were deliberately silenced. Where a trans judge was denied the right to speak. Where three of the four intervenors were known anti-trans ideologues. This was not a fair hearing; it was a show trial designed to deliver a foregone conclusion. It is the clearest evidence that the British state does not seek truth or equality, it seeks control. It seeks to divide and discipline the working class, to impose its biological essentialism not in the name of science (The idea that being a man or a woman is reducible to biology is false. Human biology isn’t fixed and unchanging) but to entrench class domination. 

Let us be absolutely clear: this ruling will not protect women. It will harm them, especially those who are already most at risk. Trans women, who face epidemic levels of violence, poverty, medical neglect and housing insecurity, will suffer more under this reactionary ruling. This emboldens every landlord, boss, cop, and bureaucrat who seeks to discriminate and exclude. It will not stop with trans women, it will further marginalise intersex people, non-binary people, and any woman who does not conform to the norms imposed by bourgeois gender. There is no feminism without trans inclusivity.

The ruling is a gift to the growing far-right and to the so-called “gender critical” movement that cloaks its hatred in the language of feminism while allying itself with conservative think tanks, fascist politicians and transphobic pundits. These forces do not care about liberation. They care about borders, prisons, families as property, and gender as discipline. This is not feminism, it is fascism. It is not a bulwark against male violence, it is its willing accomplice.

We reject the lie that this is a “victory” for women. It is a defeat for all who believe in liberation. Real women’s liberation does not come from the exclusion of the Trans community, but from unity in intersectional struggle, cis, trans, intersex, all workers, all oppressed people, united against the capitalist state that seeks to divide us. The bourgeois courts will never deliver freedom. They exist to preserve property, police borders, protect patriarchs, fascists and crush decent. This ruling is part of the same imperialist machine that funds and arms genocide in Palestine, brutalises migrants, sex workers, and disabled people while desecrating the planet for profit.

As communists, we affirm that gender is a product of class society, shaped by the needs of capital to enforce roles, divide labour, and extract value. Trans liberation is inseparable from the struggle to overthrow capitalism. The British ruling class depends on the idea that binary gender and sex are fixed, natural, unchangeable. They depend on our division to weaken our resistance. And they fear, more than anything, our solidarity.

We call on to all trade unions, feminist, LGBTQ+, anti-racist, disability justice, abolitionist, socialist and environmental movements all those who stand in solidarity with the oppressed: you must defend your trans comrades. We say to every organisation: you must expel the reactionaries in your ranks and stand for liberation, not bigotry, trans rights are not an add-on to the class struggle they are its frontline.

To the shame of the socialist movement, we have allowed “socialists” to join our ranks who do not care for the working class, who are obsessed with our transgender comrades, who seek to warp us into being oppressors, not liberators.

These “comrades” are easily spotted, often existing solely on the internet and in internal party meetings, never seen on pickets or in the community.

Again, we say look at America, the anti-trans movement there has led to oppression against all women.

Will our “comrades” hang their heads in shame as Britain takes the same path? Or will they continue to pathetically parrot anti-Marxist and transphobic lines?

We will not be divided.

We will not be silent.

We will not be legislated out of existence.

To every LGBT+ comrade, know you are not alone. The revolution will be built by all of us, or it will serve none of us. This is not the time for quiet outrage or legal appeals. This is the time for mass mobilisation, for direct action, for solidarity that does not waver. The British state has made their position clear. Now we must make ours. 

We call on all those who stand in unwavering solidarity with the Trans community to march on Saturday 19th in Swansea at 1pm in Castle Square, and on Monday 21st April, 1pm, at the Nye Bevan Statue in Cardiff.

The fight goes beyond marches, beyond demonstrations, the fight for trans people must be an active one we are all engaged in – not an opportunity to sell a paper and say “we marched”.

1. We must target and disrupt the transphobic groups and networks, and pressure all to expel them from their ranks.
2. Direct in-person pressure on businesses and public spaces that join in on ‘moral panic’.
3. Active on-the-street campaigns against politicians and the figures within the state who take anti-trans positions.
4. Create and maintain strong pro-trans internal positions within trade unions, political networks, community organisations and others – and purge those who cannot align.

There will be no revolution, no liberation, unless we commit to the liberation of the working class who are trans. Likewise, the liberation of trans people will not come without the liberation of the working class as a whole – any reduction or dismissal of this will doom us to continued oppression under the bourgious state.

Statement written by trans and cis gender comrades – together in their fight for liberation.