Why trans people need solidarity from the workers movement; some thoughts on International Women’s…

Why trans people need solidarity from the workers movement; some thoughts on International Women’s Day

Today is International Women’s Day, a long standing tradition of celebrating working class women’s struggles against patriarchy and capitalism. I was invited to contribute to Wirral TUC’s IWD event in Birkenhead in my capacity as a volunteer for Trans Safety Network. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do this thanks to an unexpected visit by the novel coronavirus. Instead of attending in person I’ve sent the talk I planned to give as a statement and I figured I might as well post it here too.

Hello everyone. My name is Sarah and I’m here from Trans Safety Network. We’re an organisation that monitors and raises awareness of harm against trans people. I want to thank Wirral TUC for inviting us to take part in this event, speaking as a feminist and a trade unionist it’s vital that we build solidarity.

I think a lot of the time trade unionists who aren’t trans can be a little unclear on what relevance trans struggles have to them, so what I wanted to talk about was trans rights as a workplace issue. A lot of the time we struggle to even get a foot in the door; a survey by Crosslands Employment Solicitors found that 1 in 3 employees openly said that they’d be “less likely” to hire a trans person, which probably explains why trans people face much higher rates of unemployment. Even when we are able to to get a job, discrimination and bullying in the workplace are rife, a survey for the trans charity Sparkle in 2021 found that one third of trans people had experienced this and a 2018 survey for Stonewall found that one in eight trans people had experienced violence at work.

A couple of years ago, TSN ran a campaign online calling on trans people to talk about their experiences of working while trans:

• From one of our volunteers, Meryl, who used to work as a teacher “I had students throwing things at me every time I crossed the car park and blocking the corridors to trap me…Students shouted slurs and threats from large crowds so I couldn’t see who said it.” The head at this school went on to describe Meryl as “difficult” and he was eventually forced to leave teaching to preserve his own mental health.
• Gregor, a nonbinary person, said “I was getting threats against my life and the polis just told me to resign since I obviously couldn’t hack it”
• Arthur Weber “Worked for a railway company for 4 years. They outsourced my contract shortly after I came out as trans to an agency. The agency demanded to know “how far along” I was in my transition and said I wouldn’t get my contract back if I didn’t give them details.”

Now on paper, it is illegal for employers to discriminate against trans people for being trans, gender reassignment is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act, but if you have any experience organising at work, you know that that means nothing without solidarity and organisation to hold bosses to account. It’s in trans people’s interests to get involved and fight for worker’s rights because they’re our rights too, if you’re on a zero hours contract and your boss can get rid of you for any reason then your right not to be discriminated against means nothing.

Trans people need the workers’ movement to stand with us against discrimination. We need colleagues to stick up for us, we need reps who’ll challenge our bosses when they try to discriminate against us. And we’ve seen some pretty amazing solidarity on this front; Unison have put out some great model anti-discrimination policies that we can push for employers to adopt and many of the people posting on the #WorkingWhileTrans hashtag talked about how reps and colleagues stood behind them and supported them.

Activists working towards trans liberation stand with working class women, trans or not. We are stronger together and we have more in common with each other than the bosses and politicians who seek to divide us.