Breaking The Thread Pt 1
"So if you're a woman who wants to become a man, why can’t I be black?"
“But emancipation cannot be achieved merely by imagining that there is no such thing as gender. One can imagine oneself to be anything one pleases. But in the end, one is compelled to accept material reality over the mental meanderings of philosophical idealism.”
While not a few former IMT members have attempted to document its dogged insistence that ideas such as queer theory or the statement that “trans women are women” constitute “idealist subjectivism,” difficulties present in the penetrating an dishonest, cynical, and sophistic method. There is no article titled: “Why We Think Trans Women Aren’t Quite Women” available to read on marxist.com. Nor could there be, thanks to the evergreen gentlemen’s agreement between international leadership on how far the more geriatric elements in London are allowed to show their age.
The hundreds of queer and trans members in the IMT yet deserve to know how the sausage is made and cigars rolled. I remember speaking to Fred Weston at the 2018 US Congress. On the podium, he explained that he never expected to be the person heading up a series on gay history, but he was proud of the work that was published. Later, beer in hand, Weston dove into the case of comrade Sawyer in Oshawa, a transmasculine comrade who wrote for the organization under the pseudonym Shea O’Connor. I tried to nudge us backwards to the perimeter of the room. Weston did not understand transitions, queerness, or pronouns, as many older-generation IMT leaders will themselves admit behind closed doors. But the way he told it, Sawyer was a new trans comrade who “had some baggage” but had engaged Weston in a conversation that was fruitful for them both. This comrade was an excellent comrade, a promising one, and, in fact, we should expect to recruit many more trans youth who have so much energy to offer.
This characterized my opinion for years to come. While individuals like Weston and Woods might so often be the old dog that can’t learn new tricks, the tide of revolutionary organizng would speak for itself and they would be eager listeners, in the final analysis.
Years later, Sawyer emerged with their side of the story:
Canadian Congress
At the Fightback congress in 2017 I did an intervention regarding trans rights, oppression under capitalism as well as the rise of Donald Trump. At the social event that night Fred Weston approached me and said “So if you're a woman who wants to become a man, why can’t I be black?” I didn’t respond as one of my friends scruffed me by the hood and took me out for a smoke to ask if I was okay. But this never sat right with me. I was expected to be honored Fred Weston was engaging with me at all and later Alex Grant treated this incident as if what Fred said wasn’t wrong and that I should expect this type of reactionary attitude from the working class.
World Congress 2018
At a Toronto aggregate after the world congress in 2018, when the “Marxism vs Identity Politics” article was “voted” on. I was going to speak against the line “But emancipation cannot be achieved merely by imagining that there is no such thing as gender. One can imagine oneself to be anything one pleases. But in the end, one is compelled to accept material reality over the mental meanderings of philosophical idealism.” Obviously this line is transphobic especially against genderqueer people such as myself. This line was also an “emergency amendment” that was added at the world congress and not discussed at any branch level prior to the congress. There was no opportunity for trans members to give input as to whether or not this was representative of what we thought of this amendment.
At the time I was dating “Incident 1” from James’s letter. For those unfamiliar with this letter, my ex was the trans chaser who sexually harasses trans men and genderqueer members. Him and I were sitting together and he saw my speakers notes and told me not to say anything. At the time he was on the CC of the Canadian section so I listened to him. This was obviously an abuse of power and went hand in hand with how he abused that power to gaslight me when we were dating.