A note: If you feel like this article is addressing you, then it is. It’s not my problem if you don’t like seeing yourself in the mirror. To those who do know us and stand with us, I send comradely regards.

It’s a question I find myself asking often enough, but it’s been rattling around in my brain with especially violent force in the days since that accursed Supreme Court decision:

What do you know about us?

I ask you sincerely. What do you actually know of or about trans people, trans communities, trans culture? I don’t ask this facetiously. I really want to know- Do you actually, genuinely, know any of us?

And I don’t mean passing acquaintances in your work, neighbourhood, political organisation, etc., nor do I mean the idea of trans people you have from some Twitter posts or newspaper articles.

Do you have any trans friends? Trans relatives? Do you talk with them and listen to them? And I don’t mean talking at them or pretending to listen. Do you know how we speak, how we joke, how we love, how we grieve? Do you know about our far-reaching networks of friends and polycules, of our dumb in-jokes, our vernaculars, our tastes in fashion, our traditions of knowledge-sharing and mutual aid, our often-shrouded history of defiant existence and struggle?

Our history and community brims with wonderful writers, musicians, comedians, game developers, scientists, filmmakers, artisans, actors, programmers, activists, artists- Do you even know a single one of their names?

When the Supreme Court judgement went out, did you speak with any of us and hear our sorrow and disappointment, our fear for the future?

I ask because the news doesn’t show this. At best, they have on a couple people from a charity or the Green Party, if you’re lucky an actual trans person, to offer a quick snippet or quote, and then it’s back to the gender-criticals, the ideologues and the cynical politicians. We are mostly just discussed, never truly spoken with.

And it shows! The discourse about us is conducted in terms of grotesque stereotypes and ridiculous “what-if” situations. I’ve seen the idea of us that gender-critical slopheads in Twitter threads and newspaper columns hold to, an absurd caricature that would be hilarious if it wasn’t influencing policy and assisting the rise of the far right. The trans people that exist in their heads are creepy, slovenly, asocial and predatory- essentially, inhuman creatures beyond empathy. And yet, it’s these imaginary, stereotypical trans people, imaginary trans women specifically, that all the “legitimate concerns” are premised on.

Legitimate concerns. Let’s linger on that term for a moment. I can think about some other “legitimate concerns”:

The “legitimate concerns” of parents about homosexuals “influencing” their children.

The “legitimate concerns” of Israeli settlers about the “dangers” posed by dispossessed Palestinians.

The “legitimate concerns” of racists all over Europe about Syrian, Afghan, Eritrean, Sudanese, Kurdish and other refugees constituting a force of “fighting-age men” ready to undermine their host country.

And do you remember Emmett Till?

The road to his brutal murder, and the lynching of countless others, was paved with the “legitimate concerns” of white people about “threatening”, “lustful” black people, “concerns” that were just the outward justifications for stereotypes, bigotry, and hatred.

It’s all stereotypes, it’s all horseshit! It’s always horseshit! And you know it. We have seen it all before, past and present, as one group of bigots fearmongers about another marginalised group, and it’s no different with trans people. You might hide behind your “legitimate concerns”, but the truth is that you have more in common with the lynch mob and the settler on the West Bank than any real fighter for human justice.

The trans community as it genuinely exists does not deserve to be demonised like this, just as the concrete, genuine human beings underneath abstractions and umbrella terms like “refugee” or “homosexual” do not deserve to be the victims of prejudice as they try to live decent, dignified lives. Neither me nor the man from Syria should have to answer for your ignorance. We just want to live our lives without someone else’s boot on our necks.

Lets face it, whatever legal finery and rhetorical flourishes this offensive against trans people is being draped in, it stems at its core from simple, brutish feelings of disgust. Our enemies are disgusted by us. Or, to put it another way, they pretend that their disgust for us can be hidden by some concocted political or moral ideal. Women with penises give them the ick, and it really does just boil down to that. Never mind that many of us want rid of our dicks at the earliest convenience, and many of us already have vaginas.

Not that genitals are necessarily the ultimate definers of my or any trans woman’s womanhood, by the way. Are your genitals the be-all-and-end-all of your womanhood? Or does some man think so? Excuse me- Hasn’t the feminist movement been fighting for centuries to destroy a patriarchal tyranny upheld by biological essentialism? And anyhow: My genitals are only of significance to me and my partners- The rest of you can fuck off and stop being so bloody nosey!

And yet we have to face the consequences for everyone else’s creepy obsession with our genitals- And the transphobes call us perverts? The nerve!

On the subject of patriarchal domination, let me take this opportunity to point out my own speck of blood on the banner. I’ve been assaulted by a man on public transport, and I’ve been sexually assaulted by a man on the street. Do I have to certify my suffering, my oppression by the patriarchy to you, to gain some kind of solidarity and sisterhood?

Let’s stop bullshitting. If a man wants to rape a woman, he doesn’t go to the ridiculous contrivance of transitioning to be a woman first- What kind of cartoony secret-disguise nonsense do you think rapists operate by? A rapist breaks whatever boundaries he wants- If he wants to force his way into a women’s toilet and sexually assault women, he’ll try it. If you bothered to know any of us, you’d know that trans women are victims of this too. We are also assaulted, raped and murdered by men, whether in public or in private. The patriarchy aims to control, exploit and mutilate all women, cis or trans.

And yet, you consider me and my trans siblings the threat to women’s safety, the obstacle to feminist gains? Fuck off and get a grip. Have a good think and realise who your real enemy is. Trust me, he wants me dead too.

The answer to rape culture and patriarchy is not the toilet gestapo. The answer is a united feminist movement that protects and uplifts all targets of the patriarchy, no matter whether they are cis or trans. Feminist comrades in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil understand this far better than us, and it’s no surprise that their feminist movements are bold, powerful and truly inclusive, while ours here is tiny, weak and demoralised.

I’m tired and hurt, and the quiet burning rage I feel at the collapse I’m seeing around me is so palpable, and has made my hands shake with such fury, that it has been hard to set my thoughts out in greater detail or length. I am going to end here for now, but first:

I must say specifically, to all the useful idiots, fairweather friends, grifters, cynics, opportunists and cowards of the left who skipped out on trans liberation, ignored our struggle, or bought into the culture war offensive against us: I despise you, and if you even bother to read and digest the thoughts of a single trans person about the destruction you’ve assisted by ignorant omission or conscious activity, then I hope you feel sick to your gut with shame for the rest of your life. I hope the guilt chases you forever. You are serving as the “left” wing of a movement for segregation and social murder and I will never consider you a comrade of mine. Ever.

I don’t care how you feel about what I’ve just said. I care about the trans people who will be harassed, beaten, sexually assaulted and killed in public places, who will face discrimination in workplaces, who will feel like they need to go back into the closet to live. Many trans people, despairing of everything, will take their lives in the years to come, and we both know this- don’t you dare be a shitebag and deny it. It is a deeply horrible thing to acknowledge that there are sisters of mine, dear cherished friends, who may not live to see all of this bullshit repealed and sorted. We trans people will do our best to help each other get through this and avoid as much of that as possible. It’s going to be a long and painful road, but we will endure it, just as we always do, no matter the circumstances. Do not forget- Once, many decades ago, using bonfires, camps and mass graves, Hitler’s men tried to wipe us from the face of the Earth.

And yet, they failed. Trans people will never disappear.

But will the bulk of the left be much help to us in defeating this next round of repression and social murder? After witnessing the way the last few years have played out, I can only laugh at that notion. And the laughter is hollow and bitter.

You have failed not just trans people, but all of us. And when the far right goes after abortion or gay rights next, I honestly doubt you’ll understand the connection between all of these assaults on civil rights, and the role the anti-trans offensive has played in galvanising them all.

After all, what the fuck do you know about us?

Originally published by Heckle a Publication of the Republican Socialist Platform 13th May 2025

Amongst the most overused terms in politics and journalism, ‘crisis’ must be a strong contender for the top spot. A quick glance at today’s news headlines reveals – amongst others – a nightlife crisis, a tariff crisis, a cholera crisis, a housing crisis, and – heaven forbid – an injury crisis at a leading football club! More specifically, for the Marxist left, the notion of ‘the capitalist crisis’ has played an important role in our collective political imaginary. How many times have we heard something to the effect that “as the crisis deepens”, the working class will shed its illusions and in due course will rally to the socialist cause? Stale Holgersen recent book, Against the Crisis, takes issue with both the conceptual confusion surrounding the concept of crisis and, more importantly, at the notion that capitalist crises should be conceived as opportunities for the left.

In relation to the first point, Holgersen proposes a working definition of crisis which comprises three essential elements, as he writes, “Crises are events that 1) come relatively quickly, 2) are embedded in underlying structures and processes, and 3) have negative effects on people or nature” (p.5) Thus, as a consequence, he is sceptical about the concept of a ‘permacrisis’ (the Financial Times’ word of the year 2022). As to the second, he stresses the role that crises play in sustaining the system and the political difficulties that they pose for the left:

“While crises can – in theory – help us to reveal and expose capitalism’s weaknesses and problems, they are also – in the actual political economy – central to the reproduction of capitalism. Crises are a good starting point for criticising capitalism, but they also make it harder to actually overthrow the system”; (p.10) moreover,

“If opportunities – as defined in textbooks – are occasions or situations that make it possible to do something you want or have to do, and if opportunities – as conventionally understood – entail moments of excitement, optimism and hopefulness, and chances for advancement, then we must refrain from referring to crises as opportunities for the working class, the environmental movement or the political left” (p.16).

 ‘Make the Rich Pay for the Crisis!’ may be an attractive slogan but, as Holgersen points out, it is rarely the case that they ever actually do.

Against the Crisis focusses on the nature of the recurrent economic crises under capitalism and on the overarching issue of the ecological crisis. One of the main strengths of the book is how it analyses the specifics of each of these, their similarities and differences, and the complex relationship between them. Holgersen takes issue with the (reassuring?) view that the ecological crisis, in itself, poses a threat to the continued existence of capitalism. Paraphrasing Lenin he wryly observes, “[It] is more likely … that the last capitalist will sell a jug of gasoline to his last customer in a world on fire; or that the last capitalist will order workers to use the latest technology to produce even more survival kits” (p.106).

In attempting to understand these economic and ecological crises, Holgersen applies an approach which combines both empirical data and structural analysis by way of a series ‘abstractions’. Thus crises, Holgersen argues, need to be understood simultaneously (1) at the ‘surface level’ (e.g. a financial crisis), which is in turn related to (2) the concrete organisation of nature/capitalism (e.g. ‘neo-liberalism’), rooted in (3) the crisis tendencies of the system (e.g. the increase in the ‘organic composition of capital’) which are finally associated with (4) the profit-driven nature of the system and (5) ultimately, with the underlying contradiction between use-value and exchange value which characterises the capitalist system as a whole. It is at these, more fundamental levels of abstraction, that both the economic and the ecological crises – despite their specificities and important differences – can be conceptualised as different manifestations of the same systemic imperatives and contradictions.

Holgersen applies this overall framework to a number of specific issues associated with crises under capitalism. Above all, he underlines the essential class dimensions of such crises. Far from us all being in the ‘same boat’, crises are caused by one class but typically paid for by another. More broadly he writes,

“[t}hat class struggle intensifies during crises of capitalism may sound like a dream to the left, who might be more than happy to welcome some extra class struggle. But most of this is nothing to cheer about. This is class struggle from above, subtly and quietly, often with murderous efficiency” (p.142).

Against the Crisis also includes a very useful discussion of the relationship between racism, fascism and capitalist crises. For Holgersen racism is a permanent feature of such crises, a predictable response “within a capitalism built for centuries on colonialism and imperialism”, but “[w]here racism is the rule, fascism is the exception; if racism is the eternal answer to crisis, fascism is the exceptional solution” (p.187) and “[f]ascism is a solution when it seems that the crises will not be able to reproduce capitalism. In other words, fascism becomes a possibility when the basic hypothesis of this book is challenged. Fascism is the shock therapy when capitalism really needs to change in order to survive” (p.194).

Holgersen applies a variety of theoretical frameworks to help illuminate the nature of capitalist crises, drawing on both the Trotskyist tradition, especially the work of Ernest Mandel and Daniel Bensaid, and on the ‘left eurocommunism’ of Nicos Poulantzas, and specifically, on the latter’s concept of the ‘relative autonomy’ of the capitalist state. This represents a potentially innovative fusion of traditions that have traditionally between somewhat remote and indeed hostile to each other; the resumption of a dialogue that briefly took place in the late 1970’s and was subsequently lost to history, not least by the virtual disappearance of the ‘left eurocommunism’ perspective by the early 1980’s[i].

However, whilst Holgersen’s book is theoretically rich and stimulating, in a refreshing contrast with much current leftwing theorising, it also focusses on the practical responses which capitalist crises demand of the left. Paralleling the analytical abstractions that he employs to understand the nature of crises; he distinguishes between three ‘levels’ around which the left should formulate such a response. In particular, he distinguishes between (1) crisis management (2) crisis policy and (3) crisis critique and argues convincingly that then left needs all of the above. In fact, it is the weakness of the left at the level of crisis management/policy, in contrast to its relative sophistication at the level of crisis critique, which leaves us vulnerable to collapsing into essentially ‘Keynesian’ solutions to when the crisis actually hits. Holgersen rightly stresses the urgent need for the left to develop its own distinctive and credible crisis policies and proposes several possible sources for these; including a renewed programme of ‘transitional demands’, the advocacy of anti-capitalist ‘structural reforms’ and a strategy which operates simultaneously ‘in and against’ the capitalist state. As he notes:

“Crisis and its causes are something we must fight against. Rather than opportunities we look forward to exploring, or moments when the fight for socialism is put on hold, the crises are problems we must solve” (p.19).

Overall, Against the Crisis is a fascinating and rewarding read providing useful material on a host of topics. If I have one reservation about the book it would be that whilst correctly stressing the ‘destructive functionality’ of cyclical crises under capitalism and their essential role in ensuring the reproduction of the system, it is not at all at clear that similar considerations apply to the more long-term ‘organic’ downturns of the system which can and do span numerous cyclical ‘booms’ and ‘bursts’. It is not of course that Holgersen is unaware of the distinction here and in fact discusses it at various points, but perhaps the relationship between these different ‘crises’ (indeed whether the latter is correctly regarded as a ‘crisis’ in the sense that Holgersen defines the term) could have been explored more thoroughly. The ‘functionality’ of capitalism’s cyclical undulations makes much more intuitive sense than those of its ‘long downturns’, especially when the latter – for example in the case of the ‘Great Depression’ of the 1920’s and 30’s – required a cataclysmic world war to finally resolve. In a similar vein, whilst there is no guarantee that any particular crisis will be the ‘final’ crisis of capitalism, it doesn’t follow that we can’t or shouldn’t talk in terms of an overall systemic decline.

Notwithstanding this, Holgersen’s overall thesis is thoughtful, important, and timely. We can’t rely on the crisis of capitalism to deliver the transition to socialism; on the contrary, it is only by finding the political resources to struggle effectively ‘against the crisis’ that we will find our way to a better society. Although crises typically and paradoxically strengthen the system, the ultimate challenge is, as Holgersen concludes, to definitively ‘falsify’ this very thesis.

[i] See ‘L’État et la transition au socialisme. Interview de Nicos Poulantzas par Henri Weber’, Critique communiste (the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire journal), no. 16, June 1977 translated to English as ‘The State and the Transition to Socialism’, in The Poulantzas Reader, ed by James Martin (Verso, 2008) pp. 334-360

Reviewed by Iain Gault, Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World is published by Verso and is available here

There is a Scotonomics You Tube interview with Holgersen which outlines the main themes of the book and which is well worth a look. It can be accessed here

Ståle Holgersen is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Stockholm University, Sweden. He is a member of two research collectives: the Zetkin Collective (ecosocialist group working on political ecologies of the far right) published White Skin, Black Fuel on Verso in 2021 and Fundament (a housing research collective) published Kris i Bostadsfrågan on Daidalos in 2023.