A Response To Trade Union Betrayal Of Women Workers

“If facts hurt your feelings, you need new feelings, not new facts” – Ricky Gervais

Ever since the Supreme Court ruling in April, we’ve seen a steady stream of incoherent liberal cope. A recent example comes from The Herald, in an article, titled “Trade Union Action on the Supreme Court Ruling Not Off the Table,” reporting on Unspun Live podcast remarks by Roz Foyer, General Secretary of the STUC. Foyer claims the Court didn’t “get it right” on the legal definition of women under the 2010 Equality Act. She insists “nothing is off the table” in terms of STUC action, yet admits affiliates are still figuring out what, if anything can be done. This is pure bluster, mere empty posturing. Foyer knows any action would be symbolic at best, with no realistic chance of overturning the ruling. Industrial action is a fantasy, there’s minimal grassroots appetite for liberal identity politics, which is largely imposed from above to create divisions in the working class. Realistically, the STUC’s options are limited to statements, campaigns, lobbying, or backing legal challenges, none of which stand a chance, especially in a political climate where the ruling class seem to be signalling a possible u-turn on identity politics that they had previously relentlessly pushed, both in the Supreme Court ruling, and the ascendance of the anti woke Reform, now the political party most aligned with the current agenda of British imperialism. Though I must add at this point that it wasn’t Nigel Farage or anyone at government level that brought this change it was years of (largely) female led campaigns that forced the supreme court ruling. These women battled away for years whilst being slandered and denigrated by the left and the trade union leadership. That Farage is smart enough to capitalise on this issue only condemns the folly of the left even more.

It was very revealing that Foyer refused to condemn comments made by Green MSP Maggie Chapman, who claimed at a trans rights rally that there was “bigotry, prejudice and hatred coming from the Supreme Court” following the landmark judgment. The STUC general secretary said, “I don’t condemn the words of Maggie Chapman but I don’t necessarily think I would utter those words. That’s all I would have to say on that.” Foyer is refusing to condemn the disgusting misogyny of Chapman and the Scottish Greens, and their total complicity in the malevolent absurdity of the uber idealism that masquerades as trans ideology. Foyer talks of representing all union members, but this reeks of hypocrisy.

Where was the STUC when Sandie Peggie faced disciplinary action? Peggie also got no support from her own union, the RCN. Peggie brought an employment tribunal against NHS Fife after being suspended for objecting to sharing a changing room with Dr Beth Upton, a trans woman and biological male. Sandie Peggie, in a legal first, is suing her union, the RCN, for refusing to give her support and legal assistance in the dispute with her employers, this after being a member for 30 years.

Scottish MSP Murdo Fraser responded that it was “beyond belief that this dedicated nurse who has given 30 years of service to the NHS is now potentially facing the sack.” “This sorry saga exposes the stark reality of the Sturgeon era extremist trans agenda where those who speak out in defence of women and girls’ rights to access single sex facilities are the ones who are wrongly punished”.

I rarely concur with Conservative politicians, but on this issue, the right of imperialism is clearly more in touch with working class sentiment, and with common sense, than the liberal ‘left’.

A recent article that we published contained a paragraph on the case of the Darlington Nurses, who were engaged in a dispute concerning Rose Henderson a trans woman and biological male using the nurses changing room. The nurses’ complaints were dismissed by management as being transphobic and they were told they needed “re-educating”. The nurses’ trade union, Unison, disgracefully refused to support them and took the side of Rose Henderson. Since then extra and frankly shocking information has come to my attention. One of the nurses, Karen Danson, had been a victim of sexual abuse as a child; she had kept this private outside of family circles, but has now made her experience public, her revelations appear to have left both their NHS employers and that contemptible, misogynistic trade union, Unison, unmoved in their support for Rose. I had assumed that Rose Henderson was the typical trans woman, a male presenting as a woman wearing female attire. The truth is that Rose identified as a woman but presented as a man, he is heterosexual has a female partner with whom he was trying to start a family! This is clear evidence that the law as it stood prior to the Supreme Court judgement regarding self identity can be seen as a pervert’s charter, and raises the question; how many trans “women” are heterosexual, emboldened transvestites (sex mimics)? And how many are homosexual men who as a result of coming to terms with their sexuality have developed a bizarre pathology known as gender dysphoria? I am not belittling what is clearly a very serious mental health issue, there are men suffering with this condition who believe that only by being surgically reduced to a eunuch, with the “compensation” of an added bonus ‘hole’, can their condition be resolved. I find this incomprehensible, disturbing, and deserving of compassion, but not at the expense of women’s sex based rights. Here it is necessary to refute the hysterical labelling of anyone siding with the Supreme Court ruling as ‘hateful transphobes’. We do not hate trans people, our problem is with trans ideology, if a man wants to dress as a woman, and use a woman’s name then that is a life style choice, that is his right and we have no issue with that, and further, he should not face discrimination for making that choice. What we are opposed to is the equating of sex and gender identity, the claim that trans women are actual women, to point out the bleedin’ obvious that they are not, is not transphobia, it is simply a biological fact. I cannot recall any other civil rights movement that in order to attain their agenda has demanded that others surrender their rights; this is precisely what radical trans activism is demanding. Trans ideology is overtly and shamelessly misogynistic in its conflating of self identity with material reality and in demanding entrance for biological males into spaces legally reserved for biological women. To take part in the debate on the trans issue solely within the parameters of liberal culture wars logically leads to the pointless absurdity of an either/or division of every participant in to either a misogynist or a transphobe! It is, in the words of Shakespeare, “Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.

A resolution is possible only by stepping outside of the liberal paradigm. This requires us to ditch liberal hyper individualism, refute the nonsense of curated self identity, recognise the philosophical fallacies inherent in idealism, and to adopt a materialist analysis of the issue. The idealism of, I think I am X, therefore, I am X, is rooted in postmodern subjectivity, and only believable if you are smoking something very potent and probably illegal. Self identity deflects debate away from the material conditions and questioning the contradictions found in the material relations of power in the capitalist/imperialist system, a mystification that diverts attention from an understanding of what is necessary for workers emancipation, socialism. Trade unions were forged in struggle to advance the material interests of workers, better pay, safer conditions, and job security. To represent all members equally, the Darlington nurses and Sandie Peggie cases show that this is no longer the case for women members. As evidenced by the statements by Roz Foyer, General Secretary of the STUC shows that it is not confined to a few isolated unions, and exposes a political alignment that is increasingly detached from working class realities. The recent Supreme Court ruling was a welcome return of sanity and will hopefully herald the beginning of the end for this gender identity madness. Trade unions should be part of a determined effort to raise the class consciousness of workers in Britain; instead they tail and promote liberal causes. Their only remaining selling point to workers is the ‘insurance policy’ of representation should a member face disciplinary action in the workplace. The examples above show that even this can be a sham promise. Trade unions as they currently operate are no longer fit for purpose; the only rational solution is radical change, as the need for communist led trade unions grows exponentially with every passing day.

“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.”- Karl Marx