Issues of sex and gender in the West have not only been the preoccupation of the women’s movement. For example, in the 1960s, the civil rights movement for gay and lesbian equality in the United States brought many people into opposition against state violence, as well as religious superstitions about the “sinful” nature of gay relationships. This culminated in the Stonewall riots in 1969, when protests broke out in response to a police raid on a gay bar in New York, leading to annual demonstrations and “Pride” marches in commemoration. In Britain, the 1980’s also saw communist-led organisations such as Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, founded by former YCL General Secretary Mark Ashton.
More recently, advances in education and activism, as well as atheism, liberalism, and other factors have all contributed to a marked shift in the ruling class’s approach towards these issues in Britain. Rather than opposing non-traditional families as a threat to capitalism, the ruling class has increasingly incorporated them into it. This transformation can be seen nowhere more clearly than in the Conservative Party, which both introduced the Section 28 ban on the “promotion of homosexuality” in 1988, and legalised same-sex marriage in 2014. Before the 2024 election, the Tories also boasted the highest proportion of openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual MPs, as well as the first MP to identify as transgender.
As for Pride, this is now a highly profitable celebration of capitalist consumerism, individualism, and liberalism. Pride is often sponsored by banks and corporations that make large amounts of money by marketing commodities and events to the “pink pound”. It also helps to whitewash the crimes of ruling-class political parties and state institutions which participate in the festivities in order to present a progressive image, marching alongside activist groups to foster class collaboration between them. In other words, Pride is now a movement with no political demands beyond the diversification of the ruling class and the merciless commodification of our sexualities and identities. As Marxists, we understand that all political movements have an underlying class basis and ideology. Today, Pride is fundamentally a liberal political movement, not “co-opted” but organised, led, and promoted by the bourgeoisie.
One liberal conception of progress, known as Whig history, argues that history is defined by a long march from an ignorant and barbaric past to an enlightened and civilised present, deliberately obscuring the central role of class in the development of history to instead centre the roles of individuals. As capitalism has squeezed the working class for profit, liberals have therefore promoted performative positions on sexuality and identity as the ultimate signifiers of progress.
This has been a deliberate ploy to cover up for the fact that progress in all other areas has reversed, with public services falling into ruin and a collapse in living standards as an inevitable consequence of capitalist exploitation. Liberal charities like Stonewall have wilfully collaborated in whitewashing the crimes of capitalism, such as through their Diversity Champions scheme which has granted the title of “Proud Employer” to institutions such as Goldman Sachs, the military, and MI5 in exchange for performative acts of inclusivity, like hanging the latest rainbow flag or using gender-neutral language in staff support materials.
US-backed gay rights organisations have also been used to promote imperialism abroad. For example, Israel is often portrayed as a beacon of liberal democracy against a “barbaric” Arab wasteland, with Israel’s stance towards gay people used to whitewash the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. Other outposts of US imperialism, such as Taiwan and Ukraine, have also been portrayed as “gay friendly” in order to promote US hegemony in Europe and Asia. Imperialism is an attack on all workers, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, so any attempt to whitewash US war crimes must be exposed in order to unite the international working class in militant, anti-imperialist resistance.
Much like black nationalism and bourgeois feminism, the ruling class has also promoted class collaboration between workers and capitalists by encouraging organising as minorities on the basis of sexuality or identity group, rather than as an overwhelming majority based on class. Opposed to class politics, identity politics argues that the fundamental contradiction between people is not class, the bedrock of capitalist society, but an ever-increasing number of identity categories. Rather than building class structures and class organisations, identity politics therefore channels activists into building identity-based structures and organisations instead which utterly fail to unite workers against the power of capital.
At the same time as working-class communities have been destroyed, identity politics has also promoted the ghettoization of workers into individual, isolated identity cliques, even going so far as to argue that integrating with your fellow workers is a bad thing altogether: pitting black people against white people, gay people against straight people, and women against men. By concealing class conflict and obscuring the fact that our fundamental needs and interests are all served by uniting together as a class, identity politics therefore plays a highly divisive role in the labour movement.
Intersectionality Theory argues that we should place various different identity categories on the same level as class and understand oppression based on how these identities intersect and interact. Based in Standpoint Theory, supporters of intersectionality often argue that the only decisive voice in issues of oppression and discrimination should be those who face these issues themselves, as nobody else has the experience to understand them. This is not only nonsensical, since individual identity groups include vast spectrums of contradictory political opinion, but often inadvertently leads to moralising against those who belong to certain identity categories over others (such as straight, white men), and is therefore a particularly divisive form of identity politics which must be opposed by all Marxists seeking class unity. Marxism-Leninism is not “intersectional”, it is the revolutionary outlook of the working class which explains all other forms of oppression and discrimination through a class lens. Correct application of Marxism-Leninism is the only way to understand oppression fully, and “lived experience” cannot replace this.
That said, opposing identity politics does not mean ignoring the specific struggles that different groups of workers may face or the impact which other characteristics may have on the principal oppression of class. Discrimination on race, sex, or identity grounds is its own form of identity politics which must be resisted for people’s safety and wellbeing, but it benefits the capitalist class for workers to be funnelled off into disunited identity struggles against individual forms of discrimination, rather than uniting against the root of all oppression and discrimination: class society.
Another divisive struggle which dominates the contemporary liberal LGBT movement is the struggle for identity validation. Opposed to waging the class war, liberal charities and NGOs have waged culture wars and legal disputes instead, aimed at changing the definition of what a “woman” is or enforcing specific types of language while moralising against others. This has led to greater conflict and opposition, as well as an increase in various forms of discrimination, spurred on by the tribalising effects of social media and a capitalist press that feeds off controversy.
Queer Theory is a branch of post-structuralism supported by bourgeois academics like Judith Butler which, like Intersectionality Theory, emerged among Western intellectuals in elitist academic circles largely detached from the worker’s movement. It argues that by “queering” the lines between categories such as men and women, or gay people and straight people, culturally and linguistically, we can somehow break down the hierarchies between them. The meanings of umbrella terms like “queer” are therefore left deliberately obscure for this purpose.
As Marxists, we reject this worldview as a distraction from the economic and class basis of oppression under capitalism, understanding that moralising over language only serves to divide us, and that objective material differences, such as those of sex, are fundamental to understanding issues such as women’s oppression (as well as various other forms of discrimination). Blurring the lines between different groups philosophically and linguistically only obscures the important differences between them, the roots of their problems, and their different needs and interests.
Establishing the fact that there is no material difference between men and women other than sex was an important victory of the women’s movement against the biological determinists who argued that women’s oppression and femininity were also material, unchangeable aspects of female biology. In truth, women’s oppression is a product of the relationship between sex and class society, and misogyny is perpetrated on the basis of perceived sex. By obscuring the central role of sex in the struggle against both of these forces, and by arguing that womanhood is instead based on social stereotypes or identity, gender identity theorists therefore undermine the struggle for women’s liberation.
While it is a commendable thing to oppose discrimination against minorities, disagreements over identities are not discrimination and should not be treated as such. On the other hand, genuine discrimination can only be eliminated by abandoning identity validation struggles and instead uniting the masses of the people behind unifying economic demands such as housing, healthcare, and employment which benefit everyone regardless of identity.
In a conversation with Clara Zetkin about the reactionary ideas of Sigmund Freud, which were being presented as “radical” and “revolutionary” in leftist circles at the time, Lenin described them as a “superabundance of sex theories… [which] no matter how rebellious and revolutionary [they] may be made to appear, [are] in the final analysis thoroughly bourgeois.” He would certainly say similar things about parallel ideologies today.
Except for where issues around sex intersect with the class struggle, such as with commercial sexual exploitation, Marxists therefore tend to view them as a distraction. However, with unions and political organisations now becoming confused by identity politics and adopting divisive post-structuralist or liberal feminist positions that lose the support of working-class people, and with conflict, disunity, and hate on the rise, it has become necessary for Marxists to respond.
We do so by saying that we must wage class wars, not culture wars, and class struggles, not identity struggles. To balance people’s material needs with the intense ideological conflicts that are raging around sex and identity, our strategy is similar to other ideological conflicts, like religion: to promote tolerance of different beliefs when held personally, while promoting materialist positions and policies at institutional levels to protect the rights and wellbeing of all.
Our job as communists is to lead the fight for communism, not individualism. The working class cannot stand to be divided any longer by bickering over language and identities, but must instead overcome our differences, whatever they may be, and unite together in revolutionary struggle.
Further Reading:
Gender Trouble, J. Butler
Combat Liberalism, Mao Zedong
Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism, K. Stock
Reminiscences of Lenin, C. Zetkin
Discussion Questions:
- Liberalism presents itself as progressive in order to undermine change outside of capitalism. Is Pride therefore a progressive movement? How should communists engage with it?
- What is the difference between identity-based campaigning and class-based campaigning? Why is identity-based campaigning ineffective? Can you give any examples?
- What language has Queer Theory introduced in order to “deconstruct” oppression? What language should we use as Marxists?
- What experience do you have of divisions over sex and identity in the labour movement? What can we do to bring people together?
- What is the difference between “identity validation” struggles and the struggle to meet people’s material needs? Why is one divisive and the other unifying?
- Is opposing gender identity theory (defined in the glossary) discriminatory? Why/why not?
