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More than a hundred trans people and supporters came out to New York City Hall on Nov. 14 to protest a hate rally featuring British TERF Kellie-Jay Keen. It was the final stop on her 11-city U.S. speaking tour. At every stop, fighters for trans liberation and equality mobilized to counter Keen and her home-grown far-right allies.

Only about 20 TERF supporters turned out here, many traveling from other cities, like Jenna Hoch of Denver, who attacked a 14-year-old counter-protester with bear mace at an earlier Keen event in Tacoma, Washington. Their numbers also included several paid security guards.

TERF stands for “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist.” This is a deliberately misleading description, as TERFs are neither radical nor feminist. Rather, they adopt the trappings of women’s rights protests to attack transgender, nonbinary and other gender-nonconforming people and advocate for their elimination.

Keen’s real agenda is shown by her cozy relationship with the white supremacist Proud Boys and by the massive outpouring of New York Police Department protection for her supporters.

The TERFs’ hate speech infuriated those who came out to oppose them. Their venom is especially directed at trans women while claiming they want to “save” trans men from being themselves. These statements are deeply painful and dehumanizing for all trans and nonbinary people living under a hostile capitalist system.  

But this rhetoric also fuels the anti-trans panic currently being used to incite right-wing violence against queer people and ram through measures like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s recent order to detransition all trans youth in the state – despite plentiful evidence that this will lead to more suicides and abuse.

WarmUp NY called New York’s counter-protest. Participating groups included New York Antifa, the Young Communist League, Women in Struggle/Mujeres En Lucha, and Socialist Unity Party.

Trans New Yorkers were determined to drown out and disrupt the TERFs’ hate speech. Opposing them was a small army of New York City cops. At least a hundred NYPD officers formed a wall protecting the fascists from the righteous anger of the LGBTQ2S community. They declared the counter-protest an “unlawful assembly” and arrested nine people. 

This reporter witnessed four of these targeted arrests. Police picked out individuals in the crowd, surrounded them, dragged them to the ground, and cuffed them.

Trans people and allies held their ground against the violent police. They kept up loud chants of “TERFS go home,” “Protect trans kids,” “Trans women are women, trans men are men,” and “How do you spell racist? NYPD.” They held banners, signs and flags.

Keen stayed away after cops advised her that they were unable to suppress the counter-protest. Instead, she posted a whiny YouTube video from a nearby Starbucks. The bigots ended the failed hate rally, and their opponents declared victory.

Afterward, many people went to One Police Plaza to conduct jail solidarity for the arrested comrades. They took shifts in the bitter cold until everyone was released.

TERFs and Nazis say get back; trans people say fight back!

SLL photos: Melinda Butterfield

Trans activists, community members, and allies rallied at New York’s Union Square Park Oct. 8 for the National Day of Action to End Violence and Genocide on Transgender People. The event was rescheduled from Oct. 1 because of bad weather.

On a warm, sunny autumn afternoon, people held signs with slogans like “Protect trans kids,” “Trans liberation,” “Trans rights = human rights,” and “Nazis and TERFS say get back, we say fight back!” Passersby stopped to listen to the speakers and ask questions.

Rally organizers Mia and Lenny Zenith read out the names and brief, moving descriptions of the 31 known trans and gender nonconforming people killed so far in 2022 – most of them people of color. They reminded the crowd that many hate crimes and killings of trans people go unacknowledged because of misgendering by police and the media.

Melinda Butterfield of Women In Struggle and the Socialist Unity Party read her “Open letter to LGBTQ+ activists” about the significance of Cuba’s revolutionary Code of Families and its lessons for people fighting for equality in the U.S.

Both presentations spurred lively discussions about anti-trans violence, the attacks on gender-affirming health care, Cuba’s advances for queer people, and the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine. 

Organizers are planning an action to mark Trans Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20.

The National Day of Action was initiated by the Trans Radical Activist Network. Events were held Oct. 1 in about 20 cities, including Los Angeles, Richmond, Virginia, Houston, Seattle, Springfield, Illinois, and San Diego. 

Supporters of the Socialist Unity Party and Workers World Party were among the participants in the New York event.

On Saturday, October 1, we joined dozens in downtown Los Angeles to participate in the National Day of Action to End Violence and Genocide on Transgender People. Our Struggle-La Lucha newspaper, along with a leaflet, “Struggle for trans rights and socialism go hand in hand” by Melinda Butterfield, were well received. We asked Tsukuru Fors why he initiated this urgent protest. 

“It was initiated in response to the federal bill that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives on August 19. The bill not only calls for a federal ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth but also seeks to ban federally funded gender-affirming care for all ages. It also bars universities and colleges from offering instructions on gender-affirming care while prohibiting foreign doctors who perform gender-affirming care from obtaining visas to the United States. 

“MTG’s bill wages war on transgender and other gender non-conforming people’s right to exist. As a community, we felt the bill warranted a response; we needed to tell our lawmakers loud and clear that transgender, other gender non-conforming people, and their allies do not stand for such an egregious violation of human rights. 

“As the lead organizer of the nationwide action, I hoped the action would accomplish two things. The first is for transgender and gender non-conforming siblings to feel the presence of the community which encompasses transgender, gender non-conforming siblings, and our cisgender allies so we are empowered to fight these attacks on our rights and personhood. The second is to bring communities together to demonstrate the intersectionality of our fight, while putting the unique issues that transgender and gender non-conforming people face front and center. This fight is not only for the rights of transgender and other gender non-conforming people but also for the rights of all peoples. Namely, we stood in solidarity with the movement for reproductive rights and labor rights. In Grand Park, DTLA, on Oct. 1, 2022, people of color, white folks, gay and straight, trans and cis people came together to collectively declare a war on our common enemy: the racist, capitalist, imperialist and patriarchal world order that oppresses us all. It was the day that made me feel assured that we are building a movement of the people; we are working to see the day when we will achieve liberation for all.”

In September, Serena Brennerman, a 16-year-old white trans woman, was found drowned in Salem, Oregon. Serena’s death was ruled a suicide by the police. But her friends and community don’t believe it. She was physically harassed by bigots in her school for a long time. Some of this violence was even captured on video. Whether Serena was murdered or took her own life, she was a victim of the trans panic being pushed by the rich and powerful and embraced by violent neo-Nazis and TERFs.

There’s no ambiguity about the murders of Semaj Billingslea, a Black trans man, who was shot to death in Jacksonville, Florida, on Sept. 21, or Mya Allen, a Black trans woman, who was murdered on Aug. 29 in Milwaukee. Nearly three dozen trans people have been killed so far this year, most of them people of color, and that’s only counting those who were correctly gendered and identified.

There’s a war against trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people in this country. It’s not new. But it has escalated to unprecedented heights in the last year and is spilling over into the whole LGBTQ2S community and those who support us. 

Doctors and children’s hospitals are threatened with bombings. Neo-Nazis shut down drag events, often aided by local cops. Parents are threatened with prosecution for supporting their trans kids. We are increasingly threatened and accosted on the street, in stores, on public transportation, with slurs and threats.

What are the supposed friends of the LGBTQ+ community in Washington doing to stop this? Not a damn thing. They tell us to vote for them, the way they told women to vote for them before standing aside and letting abortion rights be stripped away. Meanwhile, alleged progressives like Hillary Clinton and the New York Times are spouting TERF rhetoric and dismissing trans rights. 

The Biden administration and Congress have made it crystal clear that their priority is funding wars for empire on the other side of the world, not protecting the rights of people here.

It’s painful to watch. But we are not powerless.

On Sept. 25 something incredibly important happened just 90 miles from U.S. shores. After three years of democratic discussion and education at all levels of society, the people of socialist Cuba voted by a two-thirds margin for a new Code of Families. It enshrines in law the rights of queers, trans people and women in marriage and adoption. It changes the fundamental relationship between parents and children to one based on responsibilities and rights. It elevates chosen families to the same status as blood families. It embraces the rights that are being stripped away from us or that we never had at all.

In the U.S. media this was reduced to a vote for gay marriage. The Washington Post, Fox News, CNN and the rest don’t want people in this country to know what Cuba’s Code of Families is, or how it was achieved. They especially don’t want the trans and LGBTQ+ community to know, because people here might realize that we need to fight for what Cuba has: free health care, including gender-affirming care, free education, including comprehensive sex education, the right to housing and work and dignity for all.

There’s an old liberal saying from the 1960s that those who make reform impossible make revolution inevitable. Today’s liberals don’t mention that much, because it’s a damning indictment of their own inaction and complacency. 

Cuba made a revolution to get out from under the thumb of the U.S. empire. Washington has been punishing Cuba ever since. Cuba has been subject to a 60-year economic blockade on trade, medicine, food and more. Trump tightened the blockade and Biden has kept his hateful measures in place despite the pandemic and climate collapse.

One of the most hateful and destructive policies of the U.S. empire is using the rights of trans people, LGBTQ+ people and women as an excuse to attack other countries around the world in its wars for profit. It’s so obvious right now, as our own limited rights are being viciously stripped away. 

We need to rely on ourselves, not corporate-sponsored politicians, to fight for our rights. We need to build alliances with other people here and around the world who are fighting for their rights and against the U.S. empire. Trans people who are on the front line of so much abuse and bigotry can play a leading role in building a revolutionary movement here. Just look at how trans and other queer workers at Starbucks and Amazon have become an incredible force for organizing unions.

Bigots say get back, we say fight back! Protect trans kids! Unblock Cuba!

Based on remarks at the Socialist Unity Party national plenum on Aug. 13.

On Aug. 12, the state of Florida announced new guidelines to end all gender-affirming care for trans adults and children who receive Medicaid. This will result in the forcible detransition of thousands of the most vulnerable, especially Black, Brown and Indigenous people. It will result in more deaths among a community that suffers astronomical rates of suicide when denied gender-affirming care. 

It also means that private insurance companies are likely to begin denying gender-affirming care since the state rules give them a perfect excuse to do so. And that’s clearly what’s intended.

Gov. Rick DeSantis couldn’t get a trans ban through the state legislature, so this was enacted by the Department of Health through the recommendation of a hand-picked group of anti-trans doctors. This follows the example of Texas, where earlier this year Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton unilaterally enacted criminal investigations of parents, teachers and health care workers who support trans children on charges of “child abuse.” 

While there are ongoing legal cases in these and other states, the political coup d’etat by the U.S. Supreme Court in June makes clear that these kinds of abuses of power will ultimately be legally upheld, as will anti-trans legislation – unless the working class intervenes to turn the situation around.

The combined attacks at the state and national level have unleashed an unprecedented wave of trans panic across the U.S. this year. The most serious escalation came during Pride month, when there were daily attacks aimed at trans people and the LGBTQ2S community generally, some spontaneous but many organized by the fascist right, often with police support. 

Hundreds of incidents have been recorded in both so-called “blue” and “red” states, from coast to coast, north and south, but there has been almost no media coverage beyond the local level.

The demonization of trans people is merely the first wave of a fascist-inspired, ruling-class-supported campaign that will next target the broader queer community, women, and all workers and oppressed people. The ultra-right Supreme Court majority has already outlined its plans to eliminate constitutional protections for same-sex marriage, contraception, and protection from so-called “sodomy” laws that are still on the books in many states. 

Divide and rule from above

The speed with which the attack on trans people has escalated this year is truly frightening. From state bills in several Republican-ruled states, which often went down in defeat; to governor-imposed mandates; to fascist violence on the streets and in other public spaces; to the same anti-trans arguments and lies flooding the columns and airwaves of so-called liberal media outlets like the New York Times and megacorporations like Netflix and Starbucks; to the complete silence and inaction of the federal government – it’s clear a large and growing section of the ruling class has enthusiastically embraced this particular course of divide and rule.

Another front in this war is the monkeypox virus. The CDC, after completely abandoning public health for COVID-19, has falsely portrayed monkeypox as a sexually transmitted disease, centered among gay men and trans feminine people, couched in stigmatizing language, while severely limiting the availability of vaccines. Already there have been incidents of violence and threats tied to this, which are sure to grow if the virus spreads more widely.

To resist this onslaught from above, the unity of the women’s movement, the broad LGBTQ2S movement, and the trans community is of the utmost urgency. Why is it important for us as communists to be front and center in this struggle? Because a revolutionary, class and socialist understanding of these issues is needed to build and protect that unity.

A major effort is underway to divide the women’s movement, the broad queer movement, and socialists from trans people. Two forms this takes are TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists) and so-called “patriotic socialists” (patsocs).

TERFS claim trans women are “men” invading women’s spaces. Some even claim trans women are to blame for the loss of abortion rights for supposedly diluting the definition of “woman.” They claim trans men are vulnerable lesbians who have been tricked into transitioning. Their arguments are then taken up and given weight by the centrist and liberal media and right-wing politicians on behalf of the ruling class. 

“Patriotic socialists” claim that trans rights, queer rights and reproductive rights are a “distraction” from the class struggle. They said much the same two years ago about the Black Lives Matter movement. Their arguments can confuse young people who are interested in the class struggle but don’t yet have a Leninist understanding of special oppressions and the working class.

We have a special role to play in combating these reactionary forces that seek to divide and disarm the movement. We have not only the lessons taught by Lenin and Engels, but Dorothy Ballan and Bob McCubbin, and also Leslie Feinberg, who dispelled many of these anti-trans myths in the 1996 book “Transgender Warriors,” which was recently reissued for its 25th anniversary.

It is not just because some of our party members and many members of our working class are threatened, although that is certainly true. It is because the struggle against trans, queer and women’s oppression, like the struggle against national oppression, is central to the class struggle for socialism. Without upholding these struggles and incorporating them into everything we do, the communist movement will not be successful. 

Thirty-one members of the white supremacist Patriot Front from across the U.S. were detained after preparing an assault on a Pride festival in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, June 12.

On the July 4 weekend in Camden, Ohio, Noah Ruiz, a trans man, was beaten by four men after being forced to use a women’s restroom at a campsite. The victim was arrested by the police and spent the night in jail. It took legal action by Ruiz to force the cops to arrest one of his attackers on July 18; the other three have not been charged.

In Pensacola, Florida, July 18, Alisabeth Lancaster, a candidate for the Santa Rosa County School Board declared that doctors who provide gender-affirming care to trans youth “should be hanging from the nearest tree,” to applause from the audience. The video of Lancaster’s lynching threat went viral on social media. 

Lancaster was echoing Florida’s state government, headed by notorious homophobe Ron DeSantis, which is preparing to ban gender-affirming care for minors and detransition adult Medicaid recipients while laying the groundwork for a complete ban on trans health care. Activists around the state are organizing to intervene at a hearing on the proposed ban Aug. 5.

During Pride month in Baltimore, four houses burned and three people were hospitalized after bigots set fire to a rainbow flag on a resident’s porch. In Boston, the construction site of an LGBTQ2S-friendly affordable housing project was vandalized with hate speech and threats on the weekend of July 9. 

In Texas, where the governor has ordered child protective services to investigate parents and health-care providers for “abuse” if they support trans children, families are uprooting their lives and fleeing to other states. That includes Kai Shappley, an 11-year-old trans girl who in 2021 testified about the importance of gender-affirming care at the state capitol in Austin.

From the San Francisco Bay area to Chicago, drag queen story hours and drag shows have been threatened and attacked by Proud Boys and other neo-nazis, often aided and abetted by local cops. Increasingly, communities are organizing to resist these attacks, as they did in Houston July 10, where defenders shouted down the bigots.

(Drag performers and trans people are not the same, though the ultra-right conflates the two groups and smears both with false claims of being “groomers” and “pedophiles.”)

These are just a few examples of what are now daily attacks on queer communities from coast to coast, especially targeting and scapegoating trans people. 

SCOTUS, gov’t, cops & nazis 

These vicious assaults – some spontaneous, but often planned and organized – cannot be separated from the nationwide political attack on trans rights and abortion rights.

From the dozens of state legislatures that have enacted or plan to enact restrictions on trans lives and women’s lives, to the highest court in the land, the right to control one’s body and identity is being systematically stripped away. 

After its Dobbs decision overturning the right to abortion, the Supreme Court majority has signaled it will next come after constitutional protections for same-sex marriage, contraception and protection from so-called “sodomy” laws. 

With its spate of reactionary decisions in June, the Supreme Court carried out a coup d’etat, establishing itself as the de facto government in service to the growing fascist-oriented wing of the ruling class and the Republican political establishment. 

The elected government headed by Democrat Joe Biden and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress have signaled their unwillingness to oppose the coup in any meaningful way.

The anti-trans panic cannot be separated from the bourgeois liberal establishment, either, where numerous figures from Hillary Clinton on down have expressed their disdain and disinterest in defending trans people. 

Media outlets from the New York Times and Washington Post to The Atlantic magazine have joined the pile-on with “fake news” articles and op-eds attacking gender-affirming care, trans people’s participation in sports and more, taking up the same arguments spouted by the far-right.

Corporate social media giants like Twitter, Reddit and Facebook have facilitated the trans panic, often protecting those who use slurs like “groomer” and incite violent attacks on trans people while censoring or even deplatforming trans people who stand up to them.

A deeply insidious effort to divide the women’s movement and the broader LGBTQ2S community from trans people is underway. It attempts to cast blame on trans people for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, claiming their existence somehow undermined the definition of “woman,” rather than uniting to fight the real culprits – the politicians in Washington and the state houses and the capitalists behind them.

Against this sabotage, it’s urgent for all groups fighting for abortion rights to follow the example of the Louisiana Abortion Rights Action Committee and others calling for a national week of civil disobedience in September. Their calls and statement are inclusive of all people who need abortion rights and bodily autonomy, and include trans people among their organizers and spokespeople.

What’s at stake for workers? Everything!

What’s really behind these escalating attacks on trans lives – and what’s at stake for the working class?

Publicly out, self-identified transgender, non-binary and gender-nonconforming people make up only about 1% of the U.S. population. Yet the community has been transformed into a monstrous bogeyman by the ultra-right, and increasingly by “mainstream” centrists and liberals as well.

It’s true that today more people, especially younger people, identify as trans or nonbinary than they did 10 or 20 years ago. That’s because hard-fought struggles have increased trans visibility, and more people now recognize and embrace their true selves. Much the same happened throughout the 1970s, 1980s and beyond with gay, lesbian and bisexual people.

And like that earlier breakthrough in queer visibility, those who seek to divide and conquer the working class have seized on this positive development to spread reactionary hate based on fear. 

The attacks on gender-affirming care for trans youth are especially horrifying to anyone who understands the dangers for those denied the right to transition and live as themselves. Earlier this year, a study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that gender-affirming care reduced suicide attempts by up to 73%. 

But the anti-trans bigots attempting to stir up a panic about “corruption” of children don’t care about their lives, any more than anti-abortion bigots care about the well-being of children that result from forced births.

Just as gay men were scapegoated and denied care during the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s, today trans people are being spoken of as an “infection” that must be repressed, denied health care and kept away from children and youth who might see themselves reflected in trans lives. 

And just like in the 1980s, when the Reagan administration used witch-hunts against “welfare mothers” and AIDS victims to distract from its union busting, Cold War nuclear buildup and vicious austerity measures, today the U.S. ruling class has settled on trans people as a scapegoat for the crisis of its system: the stripping away of people’s basic rights, skyrocketing inflation, abandonment of public health, proxy wars that threaten to ignite World War III and global environmental catastrophe.

Trans people have also been targeted for the militant role many have played in other struggles against the system. Trans people were front and center during the mass uprising for Black Lives in 2020. Trans people are also key to many of the ongoing union organizing efforts peeling away the thin “progressive” veneer of megacorporations like Starbucks and Amazon.

Today, there is enormous fear within the trans community. People are preparing for the possibility that all gender-affirming care will be banned in the near future nationwide and that trans people will risk arrest for living publicly. Some are trying to find the means to flee the country, while others have declared they will stay and fight. Most are simply trying to survive day by day and live their lives under the darkening skies.

If you know a trans person, reach out to them and offer your solidarity. If you hear coworkers or family members spouting anti-trans rhetoric, stand up to them. Make sure that your union, your community organization, your movement is welcoming to trans people and takes a strong position in their defense.

History shows that the scapegoating of oppressed groups always snowballs from one to the next. The rights of the broad LGBTQ2S community are next on the chopping block. Reproductive rights and Black people’s voting rights have already been deeply wounded, and more attacks are in the offing. 

Trans people may be the current targets on the front line of capitalism’s war on workers. But if we don’t unite and fight back now, you can be certain that others – including you, dear reader – will not be far behind.

On Pride Sunday, June 26, many thousands flooded the streets of lower Manhattan for the 4th annual Queer Liberation March. The theme of this year’s march was “For Trans and BIPOC Freedom, Reproductive Justice and Bodily Autonomy.” Coming just two days after the reactionary Supreme Court ruling overturning the right to abortion, the marchers were angry and determined to smash the mounting attacks on queer peoples’ and all peoples’ rights.

Contingents celebrated the legacy of the Stonewall Rebellion against police repression that launched the modern lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer and two-spirit movement; remembered the lives of trans women of color stolen by violence; and demanded liberation for Palestine. 

Supporters of the Socialist Unity Party carried a banner that read “Stonewall still means fight back!” and signs that said “Abolish the Supreme Court” and “Nazis and TERFs say get back, we say fight back!” Activists who distributed hundreds of copies of Struggle-La Lucha newspaper reported an enthusiastic response from the mostly young marchers.

The QLM was established in 2019 on the 50th anniversary of Stonewall as an alternative to the traditional New York City Pride Parade: “No cops, no corporations, no bullshit.”

Thousands of people gathered in the multinational immigrant neighborhood of Jackson Heights in Queens, New York, for the 25th Queens Pride Parade June 5. For the past two years the event was held virtually because of the pandemic. 

Significantly, coming during the nationwide “trans panic” aimed at dividing the working class, solidarity with trans, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people was very visible at the march. This included a contingent carrying a massive Trans Pride flag. Parade organizers also handed out small trans flags along with rainbow flags to the crowd. 

Supporters of the Socialist Unity Party and Struggle-La Lucha marched with the NY-NJ Cuba Si Coalition contingent. The response from those lining the streets was overwhelmingly positive, with many chanting “Viva Cuba!” or running up to take photos with the coalition’s banner. 

Activists distributed leaflets for the monthly Cuba solidarity caravan calling for the end of the U.S. blockade. On June 25, New York’s caravan will be held in Jackson Heights for the first time. For info visit US-CubaNormalization.org. 

Following is a special announcement from the co-editor of Struggle-La Lucha, formerly known as Greg Butterfield.

Happy Pride Month! I have some personal news to share with Struggle-La Lucha readers.

I’m proud to say that I am coming out as a trans woman. My name is Melinda. My pronouns are she/her/hers.

There’s a particular quote from revolutionary leader V.I. Lenin that has always appealed to me. According to Romanian poet Valeriu Marcu, he said this during a conversation at a cafe in Zurich, Switzerland, shortly before the Russian Revolution began. 

Perhaps it’s apocryphal or embellished, but it has the flavor of something Lenin might have said: “I don’t know how radical you are, or how radical I am. I am certainly not radical enough. One can never be radical enough; that is, one must always try to be as radical as reality itself.”

I have always tried to hold myself to that standard politically. But personally it was another matter. Until last year, I hid the “radical reality” of who I am even from myself. But now I’m finally ready to share it with the world.

Several things converged last year that forced me to seriously reckon with my gender after a lifetime of denial. That denial was rooted in an abused adolescent’s attempt to survive in a time and place where there were no words for what I was, and no chance of being accepted. I did such a thorough job of burying the real me that by the time I went to New York in my late teens and was befriended by trans revolutionary Leslie Feinberg, I had no clue that I was trans myself.

What I realized in 2021, after several months of intense introspection and learning, was that I needed to acknowledge my truth – first to myself, and then to the world.

A trans sister and comrade recently told me, “You picked a hell of a time to come out.” It’s true. The situation for trans, non-binary and gender-nonconforming people in the U.S. today is grim and increasingly dangerous. But for me, the hardest part has been resisting the urge to shout it from the rooftops during this awful “trans panic” and ongoing legislative attack on trans kids and youth.  

I hope that by speaking about this, it might help others like me to see that they are not too old to embrace their own “radical reality,” whatever that may be. More than ever, the world and especially the youth who are under attack need us to raise our voices and organize, organize, organize.

It’s always been my conviction that the best way to grow solidarity is to show solidarity, and I believe that is true for LGBTQ2S people in the U.S. Our existence has been exploited by U.S. imperialism as a bludgeon against other countries, while the rulers here fight tooth and nail to deny us every hard-won right. 

The truth is, our struggles need each other. We are all part of the same historic, diverse, multifaceted global struggle of the working class against capitalism and imperialism. I’m committed to doing whatever I can to help unite our class in the fight to elevate us all.

I’m very proud to be part of the Socialist Unity Party and Struggle-La Lucha, a communist organization and publication in the tradition of Sam Marcy, Dorothy Ballan and Leslie Feinberg, which has always been in the vanguard of trans liberation and LGBTQ2S solidarity. 

My name, pronouns and appearance may change, but my commitment to the revolutionary victory of the workers and oppressed will not.

Thank you for reading. 

Solidarity forever,
Melinda Butterfield

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