The Industrial Workers of the World spoke out against yesterdays UK Supreme Court ruling that the legal definition of a woman is defined by biological sex, and that the concept of “biological sex” is binary.
This retrograde reduction to biological essentialism has of course been met with celebrations from so-called “gender critical” and far-right crowds, publicly proclaiming that they’ve won their “battle for common sense”.
In a statement the IWW Equalities Committee emphasises that: “This judgement can only be seen as an attack on the trans and intersex communities, and must be opposed. It will increase the number and severity of attacks on trans and intersex people in the UK, at a time when the human rights of these communities are being consistently undermined and stripped away. It builds on colonial, white supremacist ideas of how sex and gender can be categorised, and emboldens and validates those who seek to erase entire communities from existence.
This tactic of ongoing intimidation and isolation used by the ruling class is a tactic that separates the working class into smaller and smaller categories, to weaken their power and pit them against one another. “Bosses do it with workers on the shop floor, politicians and billionaires do it with the lives of everyone. All for what? So that we don’t strike? So that we don’t dream? So that we stay content with our crumbs?”
“As a revolutionary grassroots union, we believe that our feminism is intersectional. That includes all women, cis, and trans. Trans rights are worker’s rights. Human rights are universal. We fundamentally believe that an injury to one is an injury to all!”
As reaction to this decision reverberates throughout the LGBTQ+ community, the IWW calls allies and trans people to participate together in mutual-aid projects, building connections and relationships, organising workplace unions, distributing advice and materials to help people transition, and building working class power.
Our solidarity must be tangible, more than an Instagram or social media post. Solidarity is a real, living thing, and so we must seek that alive connection with other workers who are also living in the UK – a “United Kingdom” that is crumbling under the weight of the billionaires, the owning classes, and the elites, as they avoid all responsibility for the disasters they have created, and manufacture artificial divisions between workers to keep us from addressing the real inequalities that they profit from.
Although we may feel fear, grief, and anger at this decision, we must not cede ground to hate without a fight. No oppression was ever overcome simply through the benevolence of the oppressor, and we must draw on the movements of resistance throughout history, and in our current moment, to find strength, compassion, and pride. Through our connections and communities, we can continue to build hopeful futures.
In the words of a hero of the IWW: Don’t mourn, organise!
In solidarity, love and rage