National Call to Defend Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming People

In an announcement two weeks ago, Donald Trump revealed a plan that he would enact if he were to be re-elected to President. This plan includes the banning of gender-affirming care for transgender youth, distorting it as “child abuse,” “mutilation,” “insanity,” and promised to “end programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.” Trump revealed that his plan includes suing doctors for providing gender-affirming healthcare, suing teachers for implying the existence of transgender or gender-nonconforming people under the charge of sex discrimination, and a return to enforcing Trump’s interpretation of Title IX, which means schools will be compelled to engage in anti-trans practices.

The American Party of Labor condemns this scheme by Trump, condemns Trumpite neo-fascism, urges the progressive and revolutionary forces in the United States to unite and defeat this resurgence of reaction, and stands in defense of the rights of trans and gender-nonconforming people.

In recent years, the reactionary forces within the United States have been building up their power to attack many marginalized communities. One of the many communities being harshly targeted by this dangerous growth of neo-fascism are the transgender and gender-nonconforming communities. These attacks are growing in number and scope evidenced by the 390 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills introduced in 2021, and 315 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills introduced in 2022.  At the end of 2022, Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia, and more had already pre-filed bills for the 2023 legislative sessions that will attempt to restrict and ban gender-affirming healthcare. Shockingly, in the first two months of 2023, 340 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills have already been introduced in state legislatures across the country, 25 more than in the entirety of 2022.

There have also been several successful attempts at banning or limiting resources for the transgender and gender-nonconforming communities. Arkansas explicitly allows private insurance companies the right to refuse to pay for gender-affirming healthcare, nine states explicitly exclude gender-affirming care through state Medicaid, and fifteen states exclude gender-affirming care from state employee health benefits. Utah became the first US state in 2023 to outright ban gender-affirming care for trans and gender-nonconforming youth.

These legal attacks from the government are fueled by and reinforce rhetoric leading to literal attacks on transgender and gender-nonconforming people. In 2018, 16.5% of hate crimes were motivated by anti-LGBTQIA+ bias. The Human Rights Campaign declared that 2021 was the most fatal year for transgender or gender-nonconforming people with 57 fatalities, up from 44 in 2020. UCLA’s School of Law found that LGBTQIA+ people are four times more likely to be a victim of a violent crime than non-LGBTQIA+ people. In the first two months of 2023 alone, at least four trans or gender-nonconforming people have already had their lives taken by hate.

The American Party of Labor sees these efforts by reactionary and growing fascist forces within the US as posing an ongoing and direct danger to the health and livelihood of the transgender and gender-nonconforming communities as well as others in the LGBTQIA+ community.

An attack on any segment of the working class is an attack that will negatively affect the proletarian class struggle. This growing danger to sections of the working class cannot be allowed to continue. Without the health, safety, and lives of LGBTQIA+ comrades, the struggles of the multi-ethnic and multi-national American working class, women, immigrants, the disabled, and youth will be deprived of numbers, experiences, and resources, and the overall struggle for a better world would be greatly robbed of unique experiences and lives.

The American Party of Labor, in light of these attacks, urgently calls upon the progressive and revolutionary forces to organize in defense of the transgender and gender-nonconforming peoples, to build alliances, support systems, and community organizations that will be able to push back against the growing threat to the very lives of these communities.

Trans Lives Matter!

Gender Non-Conforming Lives Matter!

LGBTQIA+ Lives Matter!