Organise against the Tories’ war on trans people!

Tories need no introduction; they’re vile, self centred creatures more akin to vampires than people, sucking the life out of ordinary people. Their leadership campaign saw trans rights used as a litmus test to prove how backward their leaders were.

During his leadership campaign, Rishi Sunak ran on the promise of a “manifesto for Women’s rights”, which sounds nice on paper but really amounts to a transphobic dog whistle. This was illustrated by appointment of Kemi Badenoch, an openly antitrans MP to the position of Equalities minister and a party wide writing off of institutionalised misogyny as ‘Woke Culture.’

The trans community found a rare spark of hope in the face of institutionalised hatred when the Scottish Parliament voted to amend the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), allowing trans people over 16 to self ID as their gender identity without the need to go through the outdated Gender Identity Clinics (GIC’s) across the UK. For context: previously, if a trans person wanted to medically and officially change their gender, they must be referred to their local GIC through their GP. Then, assuming their GP doesn’t flat out refuse to do so (which is a common occurrence due to institutionalised transphobia, love that for us), they’ll be added to the waiting list for a first appointment, with waiting times ranging from 4 years to 18 years. In fact, the GIC NHS website has openly stated in their statistics that in May 2022, they had only just begun offering first appointments to those added to their waitlists in January 2018! The current service is failing trans people. But let's say you waited your 4-18 years without killing yourself (tragically another common occurrence), and you finally have your first appointment. Well now you have years of counselling appointments to go through in which you, a trans person, must prove to a cisgender Doctor that you’re "trans enough".

For example, if I, a trans woman, were to attend my assessment at the GIC dressed how I normally dress (charitably referred to as ‘Alternative’), I would be rejected. It wouldn’t matter that I know that I’m a woman, or that I’m trans, or that I’ve been on HRT for over three years; my gender presentation does not fit with an outdated and sexist perspective on womanhood.

All this to say that the decision passed by the Scottish government is a win, albeit a story of a Met police officer admitting to serial raping and abusing women over the span of two decades and being allowed to continue to work on ‘restricted duties’ despite standing accused of rape is indicative of why we cannot rely on such forces to tackle the issue of GV, never mind solve it.

Yes, we need extensive reform to the judicial system, the police; yes we need adequate funding for housing, public and emergency services. We also need to challenge attitudes, starting with proper sex and relationship education, which is consent based, LGBTQ+ inclusive, and free from religious influence. But we need more than that if we are to eradicate GV. We need mass struggle against sexism, misogyny and the capitalist system as a whole which breeds and perpetuates sexism, misogyny and violence. That these struggles are interlinked is also shown by the fact that a fight for housing, decent living standards including an end to precarious working and decent pay involve taking on the same sections of society who directly benefit from division, exploitation and oppression.

History shows us that the most important drivers of social change are strong and active social movements. Being active in and building campaigns will not only challenge backward attitudes, push back on the rise of misogynists and right wing forces, but will also literally save lives.

By M. Clanahan

minimal one for us. But now, Sunak's government has for the first time used legal powers to block this change, serving as a blatant attack on not only trans people, but also attack on democratic right of Scottish people. Even Labour leader Keir Starmer, leader of the ‘opposition’ in Labour has also said that he’d veto the bill, and stating that “16 is too young to know these things”.

But I suppose 16 is plenty old enough to join the Army, eh, Mr Starmer? Too young to live as we are but plenty old enough to die. And we will die, as we have been dying for decades: Failed by governments, a medical establishement, services and often those around us. Hug your trans friends, goodness knows they need it but also get involved in building a movement to bring the about the necessary change we urgently need in attitudes, in service provision and in our lives generally that free all of us from exploitation and oppression.

Collins Dictionary has decided that the word of the year for 2022 is ‘permacrisis,’ because it “sums up just how truly awful 2022 has been for so many people.” This word is a paradox. A crisis usually means a painful but brief moment of tension. But in the age of permacrisis, writes MANUS LENIHAN, we get all the pain and tension with no progress, no recovery, no resolution.

WE FACE a range of overlapping crises, each one feeding back into the others, such as the cost of living, climate change, war, and pandemics.

Part of the meaning of ‘permacrisis’ is that the problems are so deep-rooted we can’t even understand them, let alone try to solve them. This part is not true. Obviously, we’re not going to get anywhere without the knowledge of healthcare workers or climate scientists, for example. In that sense, the problems are indeed complicated. But the biggest obstacles to fixing ‘permacrisis’ are political, not technical. They are due to the system, due to things we can change, but only if we are willing to challenge the rule of the powerful and wealthy.

So let’s start the year by breaking down permacrisis into its main aspects, the better to understand and the better to fight back.

1. Climate

There are various ways to try and deal with ‘permacrisis’ in 2023. For example, it is tempting just to ignore politics and look after your own interests as best you can. The biggest problem with that attitude is that we can’t ignore the environ- ment, because we live in it. At least, we still do at the time of writing.

Summer 2022 was one of wild heat waves and fires. China saw widespread devastation but even in less hard-hit countries like England, firefighters reported they had never seen anything like it. Then winter saw large parts of the US unexpectedly freeze over, and just a few weeks later hundreds of weather stations across Europe announced that it was the warmest January on record (19 degrees in Poland!). Meanwhile in India temperatures have plummeted.

This is the worst example of permacrisis. In a sane world, it would have been prevented decades ago. But the CEOs, billionaires, and world leaders kept on burning those fossil fuels, and they continued to design cities around the car and the plane, all because it was more profitable than making the transition to cleaner energy and public transport. There were significant changes after millions of school students walked out on climate strikes in 2018 and 2019. If it were up to workers and consumers, massive progress could have been made. But it’s not up to us. The real power is in the hands of businesses and the wealthy. It is cheaper to look after their own PR through greenwashing than to actually change things.

Will big banks, industries, and agribusinesses make a transition to sustainable energy in 2023? Unfortunately, not a hope. Will establishment politicians force them to? The most ambitious thing you can expect from the Irish Green Party is that they will find some new way to penalise rural people for driving. But we need truly ambitious and pro-worker measures such as free and expanded public transport, or public ownership of the energy industry.

2. Economics

Another way to try and cope with the stress of ‘permacrisis’ is to fixate on some narcissistic rich guy and have faith that he will solve all our problems with some clever invention. But it’s not easy to keep up that blind faith after 2022. Twitter, Tesla, and Meta suffered disasters. NFTs and cryptocurrencies – digital fool’s gold – collapsed.

2022 was the year inflation spiralled out of control, driven by war, supply chain issues, falling productivity, and profiteering. As we paid double at the fuel pump, Shell’s net income rose from $12.8 billion in 2021 to $30.1 billion in 2022. Similarly BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Total, etc. Not content with destroying the planet, they are squeezing the last cents out of us.

It’s broadly accepted that we will see a global recession this year. In fact, the ruling class in the United States is flirting with recession so as to drive down wages. Various public figures have said that “there’s going to need to be increases in unemployment to contain inflation”, and described the rise in unemployment as “really terrific”, “the right direction of travel re jobs”, and “the best reason for hope”.

Why are they taking ghoulish delight in the misery of millions? Because the Covid profits surge has run out of steam, and there is a need for some new source of profit. So now big business owners are using inflation as an excuse to drive down wages.

What might a recession in 2023 mean for us? Whenever a recession comes, our jobs, pay, services and benefits are all sacrificed to ‘restore profitability,’ i.e. to maintain the rich in the manner to which they are accustomed. That’s what happened in Ireland after 2007-8, and what have we got to show for it today? Mass homelessness – 11,542 are now in emergency accommodation – and another recession around the corner.

To sum up, permacrisis in the economic sphere is not all that complicated. The messiahs of the tech sector mostly turned out to be frauds and idiots. Instead of saving the world with clever inventions, the rich are drinking toasts to unemployment and turning housing into a cash cow, which is why kids have to live in hotel rooms. It’s the simplest way to maintain profits.

3. War

Another way some people try to cope with permacrisis is by saying ‘we need to look after our own first.’ But to do that you need to exclude and attack most of the human race, including people who are in the same boat as you (or worse) when it comes to jobs, housing, services, etc. And the super-rich members of ‘your own’ remain in charge, and they only ‘look after’ themselves. So all we can ever achieve through ‘looking after our