Rev Left Radio - Our Transgender Comrades: Dialectical Materialism, Marxist Feminism, and Trans Liberation

Episode Date: February 19, 2022

On this episode of Red Menace, Alyson is joined by Rey and Esperanza to analyze transgender identity, struggle, and liberation through a principled Marxist feminist and dialectical materialist lens. Rey also talks at length about how these issues and struggles manifest within the Philippines, historically and presently.  Support Red Menace and get access to bonus monthly content on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/TheRedMenace

My name is Allison. Thank you for listening. This is a special episode that we are doing kind of of Red Menace and Rev Left. I am normally one of the co-hosts on Red Menace with my co-host Brett O'Shea. But we decided to use our platforms to have a bit of a different episode with a conversation that we think is important. Specifically today, I'm going to be sitting down with two comrades to kind of discuss some of the issues that we see in the socialist movement arising from an incorrect and honestly kind of eclectic line on gender and on the experiences and position of trans people in general and how they should be understood by Marxists. This is something that has kind of come up in conversations that we've had,

but also in terms of conversations that organizations have been having internally and externally, and we think it's important to try to get some clarity on this. So we're going to be using this platform that we have from these podcasts in order to try to have this conversation. So I am joined by Esperanza and Ray, who I'm super excited to have here for us to dive a little bit into this and really just kind of a back-and-forth conversation that's going to try to look at what this incorrect line we want to respond to is, also try to figure out sort of what errors it's making offer a critique of it, and then kind of gesture towards developing a proletarian line and a correct line based on social investigation. So with that said, I'm going to go ahead and

pass it over to our guests real quick so that we can sort of get everyone introduced. So I'll go ahead and go to Esperanza first. Would you like to introduce yourself to sort of start us off? Yeah, thank you so much, Allison. So my name is Esperanza, Fonsei. I'm a union organizer and a filmmaker, and I'm a member of the organization, Affirm. Ray and I had the pleasure of talking in the past about a variety of issues, and so just really excited to be here with you both discussing this extremely important and timely issue right now. Awesome. Yeah, we're so glad to have you here. We really appreciate it and are excited for this conversation. And then, Ray, would you like to introduce yourself as well before we get going?

Yes, of course. Hello, everyone. My name is Ray Valmaris Salinas. I am a national democratic activist from the Philippines, and I am the chairperson of Bahagari, which is the National Democratic Organization of the LGBT here. And we organize members of the LGBT across different sectors. So we're talking about LGBT youth, LGBT persons in the urban poor, and various others' sections here in the Philippines, and it's really important for us to be having this conversation because it's really an issue that is seeping in various movements around the world when it comes to how we handle the question on transgender women and transgender persons in general. So I'm very excited to be here. Awesome. Yeah, thank you so much. We're super honored to have you here and are very excited to get into this. So now that we've kind of got through introductions, I think we're going to go ahead and basically get into our conversation. We're going to try to outline what it is we're responding to first, deal with a little bit of what's going on there before kind of moving more

into a critical section and then a section also working on trying to figure out what the correct line is and how that line can be forwarded within movements that are struggling for progressive causes of liberation. So with that said, Esperanza, I'll hand it over to you to maybe get started on that first section. Absolutely. So, you know, when we had coming together to talk about what we wanted to address in this episode. We knew that we had wanted to address the transphobia and anti-trans ideology that we have seen popping up around the globe. So I think more specifically, what we wanted to discuss was that, you know, within the

socialist left within different countries and our different contexts, there is a sort of anti-trans ideology that has begun to take hold and really sort of. sort of grow, right? And we see it as an eclectic mixture of, you know, the most anti-transrains of radical feminism with Marxism, this sort of hodgepodge mixture. And, you know, there's a couple features that we want to address. So the first is that many who adhere to this line, they are correct in their skepticism towards postmodernism and postmodern positions that have been taken up by some activists around gender identity and, you know, the question of sex and gender. And furthermore, you know, the skepticism towards the way that liberalism has successfully taken up

and perhaps co-opted the language of identity is correct. This is sort of a correct impulse. However, while both of those starting points might be grounded in material and good opposition to both idealism and liberalism, the solution that those who subscribe to this line, the solution that they've adopted is actually based in a very reactionary view on transgender women. It's sort of based in this class collaborationist bourgeois and petty bourgeois feminism. And it's also based in a very glaring lack of social investigation and class analysis as to the actual conditions of trans women in their own countries and around the globe. And I think, you know, we also sort of see this, you know, when, when you sort of see Marxists adopting the position of billionaire, bourgeois feminists, such as J.K. Rowling, and their position on what sex is, what gender is, sort of uncritically, and believing that this is sort of the material analysis. And if there's anything else that

both of you would like to add in terms of what the features of this line are that we're going to be of asking. I'll open it up to that. Totally. So one thing I might add off the top that I think is kind of important to recognize is that this line tends to be reactionary and hostile to trans people on the whole, but there's a particular level of venom oriented towards trans women, right? Which I think is part of the reason that that's worth pointing out. Obviously, you know, it's part of a broader transphobic and anti-trans view. And the arguments that they make against trans women would apply to trans people on the whole. and have been applied, obviously, towards non-transwomen as well.

But one of the things that we see over and over again in this line is sort of a fixation on trans women as the focus of sort of the position that they're pushing. So I do want to be clear that this obviously has a broader anti-trans context, but there's also kind of a misogynist aspect to it as well in the way that it is trans women in particular who tend to get really intensely targeted by this line. Yeah, I think it's also very important for us to point out, while we hear, try to to talk about this reactionary line, right? That this isn't, you know, obviously the theory behind it is very critical, but this also has

repercussions organizationally and politically. You know, the fact that we are isolating and alienating fellow members of the working class who we should be standing in solidarity with as we're reaching our movements. So it has concrete effects on the goals that we're trying to. to achieve and the people that we're trying to organize. Yeah, I think that's a really important thing to emphasize as well. I know one thing that has sort of frustrated me is when these kind of reactionary lines kind of become dominant within parts of the socialist left, it becomes hard to convince working

class trans women that their interests align with the broader socialist movement, right? It obviously, I think, very much does drive these divisions that do you get in the way of organizational work in a really big way. and I really am glad that you brought that up, because I think it's not just that this position is theoretically incorrect, which we'll definitely be getting into, but that it also has very destructive effects on practice that, that, you know, in their own way, I think are based kind of in sort of petty bourgeois impulses rather than in an attempt to build unity for progressive causes. So I am really glad that you brought that up as well. Is there anything else we would like to get into, maybe kind of outlining some of the features of this before we move to criticism? I think just one more thing that I'd like to add that I've seen and that perhaps you have as well is this sort of painting the contradiction between trans women and non-trans women as always antagonistic as if our interests always oppose each other. So gain in rights and safety for transgender people, specifically transgender women, is painted as, you know, being stolen from, you know, non-trans women's rights. And I think that is a really core thing. And we often see people using anomalies of transgender women, perhaps committing violence in order to paint all transgender women as a group and prove this point that aren't.

interests are antagonistic, which I think also has organizational effects as well, as we talked about. Yeah, that's a very good point, I think. You know, it's very much true that you have this focus on individual trans women who committed certain actions, who are then kind of held up as representing all trans women, which, you know, is something that I'm going to emphasize, I think, throughout this episode is just not a very Marxist way of looking at the world, right? That is a starting point, which already begins with a kind of liberal individualism, which is a bit of a problem. But one other thing that I think I might like to mention a little bit in this section up top is also just kind of, again, that it's not wrong to be skeptical and want to push back

against the influence that postmodernism and sort of liberal versions of identity have had within activism. I think a lot of people in the United States, I've had my background in university organizing where you do kind of encounter sort of these predominant post-eastern. modern and subjectivist understandings of identity and of gender that do get in the way of having a materialist analysis. And part of what's so frustrating about this incorrect line is that it's responding to some real problems that do exist, especially with in what people in the US often refer to as like radical liberalism, right? And within those spaces. But it pushes things in a reactionary direction instead of in a materialist direction in response to those kind of liberal

errors, which definitely is one of the reasons that I think this conversation is important, because we can't just, you know, reject the line. We have to understand the conditions that it's responding to. And it is responding to problems that exist within organizational and activist spaces in the U.S., I think. So moving on, I think it's worth wrestling a little bit with some of the theoretical problems that are underpinning this position, because there are some interesting things happening theoretically that are a little strange for people to be engaging in, given that they are supposedly coming from a Marxist or materialist position. So we maybe take a second and wrestle with a couple of these. So one of the interesting things

that you often see driving this line is this desire for kind of a stable and self-coherent idea of what womanhood is. And because this position is often sort of uncritically adopting from certain aspects of radical feminism, there's this argument that womanhood is defined in terms of biology rather than social and economic conditions. And one concern that this raises, I think, is that this is sort of a cross-class notion of womanhood. It's trying to find a category of womanhood that isn't defined by relations to production, property, or class, but is defined by fundamental issues of biology. This is actually something that Marxists have been really explicit about rejecting throughout much of the history of Marxist engagement with feminism.

Going back to Kolentai, we can see a very scathing critique of this sort of class. collaborationist feminism that wants a sort of sex class of woman, which might transcend economic class. So this is something that's been pushed back against for a long time, and yet we see kind of cropping up here. And this class collaborationism is really visible, right, with the way that turfs, you know, will kind of treat bourgeois women like JK Rowling, with many self-identified Marxists kind of adopting this sort of class collaborationist perspective and defending bourgeois women and aligning with bourgeois women. over this reactionary stance on trans issue.

And the analysis also argues that sex is the primary contradiction and that women make up a sex class, which already we should be seen as diverging from the Marxist understanding of the core contradictions of society. This position is unable to account for how patriarchy has changed throughout time and the primacy of capitalism in maintaining patriarchy in semi-feudal countries and maintaining patriarchal ideology in advanced capitalist countries. And it really obscures who the real enemy is, right?

To make men into the enemy and all women into our allies is to obscure the issue of class in the first place. And it allows them to lump trans women together into the supposed oppressor class of men. So that's one of the theoretical problems that I think isn't at play here. Another potential one that we can dive into, and then we'll kind of open things up after we get a little bit of this summarized, is that the line tends to blur the meaning of material and materialism, conflating material. reality or materialism, with just like the physicality of bodies, rather than with material conditions, which in the Marxist understanding obviously refer to conditions of production, productive forces, and environmental conditions in which these forces play out. And so there's

kind of a redefining of what material means, so that the body is talked about as material reality, rather than the economic and social conditions that Marxists refer to as material conditions of society. Additionally, their materialism is unable to account for change, right? especially change in sex and gender. They repeat the idea often that you cannot change your sex, which is a way of not really wrestling with the realities of physical changes that occur when trans people transition. This line is also very cut off from the actual economic realities that have defined trans people's lives globally and trans women's lives in particular. There's a real lack of social investigation and a refusal to thoroughly investigate the class positions that many trans women find themselves in, which often have to do with lump in proletarianization and economic marginalization

that would make trans women potential allies to the socialist movement just like any workers. This lack of investigation has also led to a kind of individualist analysis that argues that trans people's individual actions somehow reinforce patriarchal norms, which takes the impetus off of the structural reality of bourgeois ideology and reactionary capitalist forces and puts it on individuals in a really liberal way. And this has led to a broader failure to investigate, again, the class position of trans women and the way that movements globally have related to trans women and trans people generally, which is something that we really want to get into today.

So these are just kind of some starting thoughts on some of what's going on in terms of the theoretical errors that underlined this line. But I want to go ahead and open up the conversation to both of you for us to dive into this a little bit more. Yeah, those are really amazing critiques that you forwarded there. I think it's actually very important for us to reiterate some of the key points. And I think one of the most pressing things when you open up the conversation about transgender women is how we define womanhood, right? And it always boils down to biology. Actually, my background is on molecular biology, and I studied hormones and draconology and sexual development in humans. And there really is no such thing as a singular biological determinant for womanhood.

Can you say it's like the presence of a vagina? Sorry, if we have some viewers here or listeners here who are quite sensitive to that. But it's not even that because we have transgender comrades, right? Is it the presence of or the capacity to give birth, even cisgender women? You know, a lot of cisgender women simply do not want to or are incapable of burying children, right? Is it the presence of an XX chromosome? There actually have been scientific studies on how there were women who gave birth, lived their whole lives, raised a family. but it turns out that they're androgen insensitive.

So even if they have an X, Y chromosome, a set of chromosomes, they develop female characteristics and even gave birth. So I just want to put it out there that even on the level of biology, it just does not make sense for us to tie the definition of womanhood to that. And that brings us back to the Marxist, analysis of women, which is that womanhood is defined by social and economic conditions, instead of simply biology. And that brings us to the next critical part of it, which is what's happening in anti-transrains by

people who proclaim themselves to be Marxists is they're really distorting the definition of materialism. And they're losing sight of the dialectical aspect of how we need to forward materialism, which is that all things are related and that things can change over the course of history, right? And that includes how we view and perceive womanhood. And again, another very important part to what was said earlier and what we discussed today as the lack of Sika, right, the lack of social investigation and class analysis. To view transgender women as the enemy without considering that the vast majority of us

are also your fellow workers, are also your fellow exploited peoples, are people who have more in common with you than the ones on top who are enforcing and shaping our exploitation as a whole, right? And so it goes back to the problem of this line, which is that it does have concrete organizational and political consequences. It is destructive to our movements to be alienating and isolating sections of the masses, which include transgender people, right? So those are two things that I think are really critical in our criticism of this reactionary

line. Absolutely. And I really would like to emphasize the point that, you know, there are a lot of people who sort of act as experts in, you know, Marxism and dialectical materialism. And, you know, they're out here teaching people, you know, their definition of materialism. And yet to folks who actually understand what dialectical materialism is, it is sort of unrecognizable to that. And so for that reason, I think it is really important that we sort of ground this discussion in, you know, our materialism is a dialectical materialism, right? And not this sort of mechanical, like, fixed materialism that's based in these sort of, you know, forever unchanging biological categories.

is. Yeah, I think that's a really important addition. I mean, it is just true, right, that there is this redefinition of materialism and what material means that kind of happens here, which is so frustrating because so much of the work within Marxism and even just thinking to foundational texts by Ingalls, for example, does so much work unpacking what dialectics means in the context of materialism and why that is distinct from sort of a crass materialism. I think that can be really frustrating. One other thing that I kind of want to talk about a little bit that we got into in our notes is sort of the eclecticism that underpins this position too, because one of the things that's really interesting to me is that we find this position often upheld by people

who consider themselves opposed to ideological eclecticism in a lot of instances, and who really do recognize the necessity of having a clear political line grounded in Marxism. But at the same time, so much of the theory and philosophy that we see imported in this line is anti-Marxist. I think it's just worth saying that these sort of more reactionary strains of radical feminism that are being imported here do really diverge from Marxism on core questions. And really a lot of radical feminism as a movement that emerged from the women's liberation movement defined itself oppositionally to Marxism in terms of a disagreement about what fundamental contradictions are. And so it can be frustrating to see people who I think do a good job of understanding that Marxism represents a

scientific outlook rather than sort of an eclectic collection of ideas, really import these anti-Marxist ideals without really thinking about the class position they come from in the class perspective that they reinforce. So that's one of the other things that I think can be very difficult about this and is worth wrestling with. I think I've said most of what I want to say on this. And I'm really excited to get into our next section. So Ray, would you like to lead us into talking about sort of the development of the proletarian line with an emphasis. this on the National Democratic Movement? Yeah, of course.

Obviously, now that we forwarded our critique on how this anti-trans line that quotes itself with Marxism, even when really it's radical feminist eclecticism going on, now that we've thoroughly critiqued that, the responsibility then falls on us to develop the correct and proletarian line on the transgender question. And in fact, when it comes to people of diverse sexual organizations, gender identities, and expressions at large, right? A lot of frustration by many Marxists is that plenty of the great socialist thinkers in the past who have raged revolutions that have succeeded, they have talked extensively about the role of women in changing society. they have discussed how exactly we can change things for the better when it comes to genuine equality between men and women, right?

But they never actually explicitly talked about, for example, gay people, let alone transgender people, right? But actually, we already have the weapons and the tools that are necessary to also develop our own line. our own proletarian line based on historical and dialectical materialism. So I'd like to talk about the experiences on this by the National Democratic Movement here in the Philippines. As many of our listeners might know, the Philippines currently houses the longest ongoing communist revolution in the world that is currently being led by the Communist Party of the Philippines. The Philippines in a semi-colonial and semi-fudal country. What does that mean? We have large sections of our country that are still pretty much following a feudal social system, right?

And then we have a sham independence. The Philippines has actually colonized by Spain several. centuries ago for over 300 years back in the 16th century, and then followed by the US and then briefly Japan. And then in the 21st century, or in the 20th century, we were given sham independence by the U.S. So we are independent by name. The Philippines is independent by name, but our economy, our politics, and our military, and even our culture are strongly. greatly controlled by the U.S., right? So the Philippines is currently a neo-colony of the United States.

But before, you know, the Philippines existed as the Philippines, you know, the archipelago here was actually home to numerous tribes, kingdoms, and sultanates. And you can say that in some, you know, in the pre-colonial era, several centuries ago, there were actually three prevailing social systems here. So there's a primitive communal, semi-slavery, and feudal social systems. So fast forward to today, you know, we're currently seeing an ongoing communist revolution. It is actually a democratic revolution of a new type, given that the Philippines is a semi-colonial and semi-fudal country. The revolution being waged is a national democratic revolution, because,

the current issues of the people, you know, you can actually concretely say that people here do not see socialism as the immediate concern of the masses. Not because like currently the people are facing the basic ills of bureaucrat, capitalism, feudalism, and imperialism. So those three basic ills need to be destroyed first before we move on, although there is no gap in between before you move on to socialist construction. So it is a national democratic revolution with a socialist perspective. And the national democratic movement has, you could say it has two key aspects to it. Obviously, there are the actual revolutionaries in the countryside, waging a protracted people's war.

but there are also the legal democratic forces that operate in the cities. So, Bahagari, which is an organization I am part of, is part of the legal national democratic movement. So this is something that we've grappled with for decades in the movement. You know, how do we carve out the position of not just transgender women, actually, but, you know, the LGBT people. at large. How do we carve our position in this situation where we're waging a national democratic revolution? And the key, again, as I've been saying, is to use the key tools of historical and dialectical materialism, right, to guide our analysis of the situation. Historically, back in the 15th century and even way back when we've had the three prevailing social systems

that I mentioned, Spain conquered the Philippines and converted the entire country into a feudal state. You know, they called it the Philippines after Prince Philip. You know, they converted the entire archipelago that is actually home to hundreds of indigenous groups into a single political unit. In the time period of Spain conquering the Philippines for over 300 years, there were actually 200 revolts that were raised by the different native and indigenous groups here,

notably, including the revolts that were led by the Babailan Tamblot. So the Babailan, it has regional equivalents, such as Catalonan and As of, You could think of them very roughly as the priestesses of the different tribes here in the Philippines. Before the Philippines was an actual political unit, the prevailing religion across the archipelago was a different set of animistic religions, right? And in this era of Philippine history, you know, we had the Babailan who were acting as the priestesses for the tribes.

And purely in modern Western articulation, they were actually either cisgender women or transgender women who were fully allowed to fulfill the feminine spiritual role in society. So we have historical accounts, for example, of Babailans being, again, in modern-day Western articulation, transgender women who took on male spouses, for example, and they were fully respected and venerated in their society. In fact, they acted as not just the spiritual, but also the political leaders of their tribes. So, again, going back to the story of Babailantamblotte and the numerous other babalans who rose up against Spanish rule, it is actually transgender women in that era of history who were the first to rise up in armed struggle against the Spanish colonizers. It is of note, though, that this was exclusive to the most communal societies in the pre-colonial era here in the Philippines.

the areas that were subjugated by Spain, and over the decades, as I've mentioned, converted to feudalism, also instilled a feudal culture. You know, that means the degradation and ownership of women and the complete erasure of people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, or what we now call LGBTIQ plus persons. You can think of it from the perspective of Spain. their ideology that they were touting at the time was that they were trying to spread religion. They were trying to spread Christianity to these, quote-unquote, undomesticated natives. That's how they referred to us. They used religion as a justification for conquering the archipelago. And in that light, if you're trying to use religion as a pretext,

the most natural step is to target the religious leaders who happen to be the Babailan, the women who were both cisgender and transgender. So this was also the period when the Babilan, including the very notion of women like them existing, was demonized. You know, they were part of the religious doctrine being spread. in the Philippines was that they were witches, they were demons, et cetera. The word for gay in the Philippines is actually bakla, or in another language here, it's Bayot. But the original definition of the word is actually coward.

And this was something that was propagated by Spain in that era, because the Babailan were the first people that they executed. there were accounts of them being chopped up and fed to crocodiles, just to show people that their animistic religion should be supplanted by Christianity. So the Babailen were the first people to flee to the mountains, and as I mentioned, the ones who waged arm struggles. So for that, the Spanish called them cowards, and eventually that evolved to the modern-day definition of homosexuals, here in the Philippines.

So that is one historical aspect to it, how transgender women were actually leaders in armed resistance against colonialism here in the Philippines, even in the time when it wasn't even a Philippines yet. In the 1960s, you know, fast forward several centuries later, this was the time when the LGBT movement in the U.S. was still actually in its infancy. This was around the time when it was still about to lead up to the Stonewall riots

and other militant forms of resistance by the LGBT in the U.S. Even then, when that kind of discourse has not yet reached a country such as the Philippines yet, you know, there were the Tetturai people who are a major indigenous group in in the now. Of note, they're also one of the groups that were at least penetrated by colonial rule. They were one of the groups that were not as easily conquered by Spain during the colonial era. Among the Tadurai, they actually practiced a system where whenever a child was born, they would be referred to as Mentefouale. You know how in our societies right now, when a child is born, the doctor's going to look at the child's genitals, right, and say, it's a boy or it's a

girl. But among the teudurai, they referred to a child, to a newborn child as mentifuwali. In their language, that means one who becomes. And when that child came of age, you know, throughout their childhood, they have never had any ascribe gender-based social role. When that child came of age, they could really choose to be either Mentefuwali libo. which means one who became a woman who fulfills the feminine spiritual roles of their group or the nantefulula gay, that means one who became a man. And they fulfill the traditionally masculine roles in their society. This happens regardless of their genitalia.

And I think the reflection here is that it's true that we need to struggle against the anti-trans. line, the anti-trans reactionary line that is sleeping in modern Marxist movements, but we also need to take a step back and see and historicize how even the word transgender developed and how in other societies, even in primitive communal societies, there are equivalence of them. And specifically, in the advent of class societies, people such as the babailan, the trans, transgender women who were formerly, formerly venerated in society, were suddenly seen as abominations in the same way that women in general were subjugated to a domestic and reproductive role in the advent of class society. So that actually gives us a glimpse of what we stand to win, you know, upon the victory of the international movement against the capitalist world. order, right? What we stand to win, and what kind of culture we stand to have when we end class society, which is a culture that genuinely respects and values people regardless of their gender. Now, in the movement here in the Philippines for national democracy, given that, there have actually been numerous strides that have been made, both in the

legal democratic struggle as well as in the underground revolutionary struggle. The organization that I am a part of, Bahaghari, it is actually the legal democratic movement's historic expression of years of social investigation, discourse, and line struggle to carve the face of the LGBT in the national democratic movement and in the international movement against imperialism. Our discussion today is more geared towards critiquing the anti-trans reactionary line, right? But I think many of our listeners are also familiar that during the early beginnings of the LGBT movement, even in the U.S., there also came about the conversation about the gay question, right?

whether being gay was somehow this bourgeois decadent thing, right? And we've thoroughly critiqued that in the past decade as something that is actually on Marxist. And the correct politarian line is to make these people, regardless of their gender, be part of the struggle, be part and be one with the masks in their struggle for liberation. Here in the Philippines, there were actually different organizations before, Bahagari that was still based on analysis that was

not yet as sharp as the one that we have now so for example in the Philippines again the word for gay is bacla but actually that is also the word that people use

for transgender because as much as we're having conversations right now about transgender women their role in the struggle. It is pretty much invisible in the Philippines. Apart from the petty bourgeois and up spaces, that's where we can have conversations regarding transgender people. When you go to the communities, to the factories, to the countryside, people don't know what the word transgender is. And locally, people conflate it with the word bakla. So when you say bakla, it's either

a gay man or a transgender woman. That's also one of the things we're trying to struggle with at the moment, how we're going to approach that. But really my point here is that there were other attempts. For example, a separate organization for gay men and a separate one for lesbian women. We have had pro-gay that stands for a progressive organization of gays in the Philippines, lesbon or lesbians for national democracy.

and various other attempts that whizzled out until we recognize that, okay, even if this group is a group of gay men, even if this group as a group of lesbian women, they're being exploited by the same heteropatriarchal culture. And so there is a need to birth an organization that will lead the charge, you know, in what we could say, the cultural revolution. And that's how Bahadari was born. Bahagari has a key role here in the Philippines and the Cultural Revolution by opposing, as what we are doing now, right, the liberal, decadent post-modernist views on gender, but also the reactionary radical feminist-borne distortion of materialism

that is in stark abandonment of dialectical materialism, right? And similarly, I think other militant, LGBT, and women's organizations worldwide must also take charge in propagating the proletarian line and advancing the cultural revolution across the globe. When it comes to the underground movement, the underground revolutionary organization

of the LGBT, of course, informed by comprehensive social investigation and class analysis of the situation here in the Philippines, is expected and could possibly be the next official member organization of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. And on the side of the Communist Party of the Philippines, actually the CPP is the first modern government to ratify marriage equality.

That's a whole decade before the Netherlands. This would also make the CPP the first communist party waging an ongoing revolution to truly recognize respect and value party members' gender identity. And as far as I can see, the application of the CPP struggle to uphold equality across all genders to enjoin the large sections of the masses, whether they are members of the LGBT-Qas community, whether they are gay, bisexual, transgender, to be part of the national democratic program, advancing the scientific understanding of gender and sexuality and building solidarity for all comrades. I think it's a model that can be applied to other movements as well across the world.

Thank you so much for that very, very in-depth historical outlook and also the outlook on the current movement that exists right now. I think it's really important that we have these conversations that take this history into account and take present organizing into account, again, to remind us that this isn't just an abstract theoretical question, right? These are questions that have really intense relevance for on the ground struggle. And I think it's really fantastic to get some of your sort of thoughts on this, because often I think in the United States, you know, especially where a lot of our listenership is, we have struggled to kind of understand these issues in a concrete way, right? Some of that has to do with the way that the communist movement and socialist movements in the United States have sort of related themselves towards. LGBT issues, which we can maybe get into a little bit more. But I think it's very important for us to just remember that these are concrete questions of practice and struggle as well. And we can look to movements like the National Democratic Movement in order to see on the ground how these issues are being handled, how line struggle is being engaged in, not just sort of as an abstract theoretical

question. The other thing that really strikes me is that the issue of the history of how gender has functioned in the Philippines, I think is also relevant to those of our listeners in the United States and North America, which obviously also has a colonial context in which colonial imposition of gender and of capitalism as well, you know, were used to destroy and genocide cultures that had differing systems of gender. Often people try to centralize that a little bit in a way that I think is problematic, but this is something that we need to wrestle with. This is the way that capitalist and settler domination in North America had a very similar function. So I think thinking through that history is also very important for helping us be able to

orient to these struggles and understand how in a question, like the question of LGBT people or trans people, these broader issues of colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism are already caught up in such a way that it's really important that we struggle for the correct line on this. Yeah, I think that is an extremely important point. And additionally, you know, here we were also colonized by the Spanish and so I think that you know learning the history of Spanish colonization in the Philippines is also really relevant to you know what we see perhaps in our side of the world I know that you know certain numbers might say that pre-colonization there were over 150 different indigenous groups

who recognize gender diverse or variant people and had roles for them here on Turtle Island. This was also true in the illegally occupied Hawaii, as well as in Oaxaca, where, you know, we see mushees who have had a place within that culture for many, many, many generations. And I think also, you know, something to point out is that this colonial gender ideology, has never really been able to account for reality, which is the sort of natural variation that we see in nature. And so, you know, one sort of case that's often cited over here is the case of Thomasine Hall, who was an intersex person that was an indentured servant living on a plantation.

And when they found out that this person was intersex, they literally put them on trial. inspected their body, and ultimately the plantation owner had ordered them to wear, you know, garments of both sexes. And so, you know, this colonial gender ideology really isn't even able to sort of deal with reality as it is. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And one other thing that I want to maybe talk about for a little bit if we're going to consider the question in the context of North America as well is one thing that Ray hinted at, which is that Within progressive movements here in North America, we have seen the key role that LGBT people played as well. It's difficult, right, because the language that we have to describe today might not be the language that people would have used.

But thinking back to Stonewall as a moment, which wasn't just an expression of LGBT struggle, but also the struggle against policing and the struggle against the colonial role that police in the United States play, we can see the potential that is there. And another moment from history that I think we could think about in the context of North America would also be the Compton Cafeteria Riot, which took place in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, where we saw people who, again, using contemporary language, we would probably refer to as trans women, rising up to fight back against police harassment as well. And I think turning to these actual moments in the history of struggle in the United States really are important for reminding us that, you know, when we're talking about trans women or LGBT people, we're not talking about, you know, some abstract identity. We are talking about people who have been

involved in these struggles and movements which already exist and which can be investigated. We can see the contradictions that were at play in the Stonewall riots or the Compton Cafeteria riots and try to look at how those contradictions emerge in the lives of working LGBT and trans people today. And that is a really important thing that in many ways I think the left in North America has failed to do. And that's where I think I really appreciate this emphasis. on Sika that you're putting forth, Ray, because it's not enough to treat this in the abstract. We have to actually think about the class analysis at play, and we have to go to actual communities of LGBT people and trans people and trans women in particular, and investigate the contradictions

that their lives are enmeshed in and understand how that can play out into sort of this broader struggle. So I really appreciate that orientation, because I think it is a really important corrective to a lot of what goes wrong in the reactionary line. Yeah, it really is, and that's a really important point. It goes back to the thing that we talked about at the beginning of the discussion, right? It is correct for people to criticize the way that postmodernism has really co-opted the struggles of the LGBT and transgender women in particular, for example. But it's also important to remember through social investigation and class analysis

that transgender women are not the enemy. In fact, and LGBT people are not the enemy, right? Sorry about the motorcycles outside. But if you go back to the historic examples of Stonewall and even way back here in the Philippines when transgender women were leading anti-colonial revolts, armed revolts against colonizers, the key reflection here really is that,

that much like many of us who are exploited, and in fact, it's not just that transgender people and LGBT people are like us exploited, many of us also experience the worst and most exacerbated forms of violence in society. For example, as you mentioned earlier, how Stonewall was not just about self-expression, was not just about being able to show the world who we are, even though it is a part of it, it was also a struggle against police brutality. It was also a struggle against state fascism because transgender people and members of the LGBTQ community are people who face worsened forms of these violence that we are facing. So more than anything, instead of viewing transgender women and the LGBT people as enemies,

you know, instead of hyper-fixating on sawing division and trying to exclude people, we need to focus on building solidarity. And I think that is one thing that I'm really grateful for to have learned in the National Democratic Movement, getting people of different walks of life, Whether it's LGBT people, indigenous people, and, of course, the basic foundation of workers and peasants here in the Philippines, we are being united towards a common goal of the people's liberation. And I think that is how we need to take our movements towards, that is the outlook that we need to take for our movements across the globe. Yeah, I think that is a fantastic perspective.

And I'm so thankful that you were able to come on and share some of those experiences as well, right? Because I think it's really important for listeners to think about these struggles that are going on globally and be able to connect with them. I think that is incredibly important. And I'm so happy that we've had the opportunity to learn from those struggles and those experiences here. Do either of you have any other thoughts that you would like to kind of get in before we wrap up? I think just, you know, a couple of things that Ray have said that really sparked a few things. I wanted to bring up. The first is that I think that, you know, trans women in particular are often wrongly painted as this sort of creation of postmodernism and then we're sort of grouped in with

like imperialism, right? Almost like, you know, we are importing this sort of a trans ideology around the world. And I think that, you know, there definitely are critiques to be had. of, you know, certain NGOs, et cetera. But I think we really need to reframe the discussion to say that actually anti-trans violence is a feature of the U.S. Empire. It's a feature of U.S. imperialism when we look, for example, at, you know, Joseph Thamberton, who is the U.S. Marine, that murdered Jennifer Lauda.

And it's also, you know, a feature of the sort of capitalist. settler state here on Turtle Island, where, you know, trans workers are unemployed at twice the rate of the general population, more than four in ten trans people are currently unemployed, and we're also four times as likely to make an income of under $10,000. And so this is not random. It's literally state violence, and that is a feature of our current empire. And so I think those that would consider themselves against imperialism, against U.S. imperialism in particular, you also have to be against anti-trans violence. Yeah, I really appreciate that perspective. And I think that is important to insist, right? There is this kind of idea that the cultural export of U.S. imperialism is sort of socially progressive liberalism. But that's really to ignore the brutality of U.S. imperialism that comes up in these cases that does export that.

violence, which really exists. And I really think this is one of those cases where, again, I'm going to keep coming back to this. We need to move beyond abstraction to think about the actual conditions that many trans women live in and how those conditions are expressions of capitalist and imperialist exploitation. And there's so much to be gained from that, right? If we can build that kind of solidarity, that can only strengthen our movements. And it can only build a stronger and broader force to fight against capitalist imperialism. And one of the most harmful things about the reactionary line is that the divisions it creates not only are incorrect, but they weaken our ability to build solidarity and to build a united force against these, you know, exploitative global

forces. So I think it is really important that we note that imperialism does export anti-trans violence. And if we want to oppose imperialism, that can't look like reaffirming that sort of violence on an ideological level. We have to be opposed to it. And that means solidarity with trans people in that struggle. Anything else that we want to cover? I guess maybe I want to end with saying that given our development of a proletarian line, our criticism, both of postmodern philosophical decisions that has really twisted what liberation means for women, including transgender women and the LGBTQ plus community,

as well as our criticism of reactionary backward views on transgender women that actually reinforce the existing violence against our fellow working peoples. I think it's important to affirm that the place of transgender women, the place of all LGBTQ-plus persons is in the struggle. And trans women are not our enemies. In fact, trans women have a huge potential to be our comrades and our sisters in the struggle. Yeah, I think that is an exceptional note to end on. So with that said, really, I just want to thank both of you so much for coming on to this episode and letting us have this conversation.

I think it's really important to engage in struggle against this reactionary line. And it's been really fantastic to have both of you here for that process. So really thank you so much. It means a lot to me that we were able to have this conversation. conversation, and I hope that it will mean a lot to listeners as well, and to organizations who can use the conversations that we're having here to facilitate struggles internally around these issues. So I'm very, very appreciative to both of you for being here. Additionally, thank you to Rev Left Radio for letting us use the platform to do this. That obviously is also very appreciated

to be able to get this episode out and get this discussion kind of put out on such a large platform, so that means a lot to us as well. And with that said, I'm going to go ahead and have us just wrap things up. But I think that there's a lot here that people can wrestle with and start to think about and incorporate with. As always, this will be posted online. And we would love to hear people's thoughts and responses to what we discussed here and, you know, to facilitate the development of this correct line because that is a task that needs to be done. So again, thank you both so much. And thank you to all of our listeners. Have a great night, everybody. Thank you.