On "The Trans Agenda"

Guys, seriously. Seriously. Guys. Come on.

I have no idea how many times I have been canceled. It’s been for such a wide array of things. But fairly often, I have been canceled for one of the following reasons:

• “being transphobic”

• “not being transphobic”

For anyone close to me, this is probably a fairly funny set of reasons. Firstly, my role (and sometimes presentation) of gender/sexuality is non-standard. For lack of a better term – and I really wish there was a different term – I’m “nb” with ideological problems with sex/gender, including the “nb” stuff (don’t worry about what you call me, it’s all fine, I exist in multiple roles and frankly so do most people).

I am also a Marxist-Leninist, making me a baffling weirdo to a couple of currents: firstly, people with a (genuine) criticism/question on gender as a bourgeois ideology. The thing is, I agree with them, but probably not how they think. There is also a current of people calling themselves MLs who simply spout reactionary shit to sound unique.

We’ll get into both later, though (what a tease).

Birth Control

Recently, I was attacked for “openly embracing transgenderism on several occasions” because that makes me “Malthusian.”

For someone who claims to be against the Malthusian agenda, Peter Coffin has openly embraced transgenderism on several occasions. The sterilization and mutilation of children and adults is part of this population control agenda. Why does he choose to ignore this key aspect of it?

-a big ol’ hater

So, this comes from the second group of “MLs” I mentioned earlier. This is an attempt to nullify my extensive work excavating the Malthusian agenda in modern liberalism/leftism. Why? Well, my documentary and its pamphlet adaption are among the most accessible (and enjoyable) current heuristic critiques on the topic. People are more likely to come across it than content that either they or people they like make – so I must be discredited, because I didn't create the exact product they want others to consume (we'll address this competitive consumption paradigm later).

In their eyes, the easiest way to do that is to “expose me as a hypocrite,” and the easiest way to do that is to link something I have put out into the world with Malthusianism.

To begin to address this, I must bring up birth control. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, promoted birth control as a vehicle to reduce the population. Sanger began as a socialist intending to rescue women from dangerous self-performed abortions. But upon living in Great Britain, joining the Neo-Malthusian League, and partnering up with her one-time nemisis, John D. Rockefeller, she dropped socialism and promoted “compassion for poverty” via limiting their breeding on the basis that the poor (and neuroatypical people, immigrants, etc.) were unfit. Don’t believe me? Even Wikipedia admits it (and Planned Parenthood had to finally disown her over it in 2020 amid pressure).

In Margaret Sanger, we can see both the “good” version of birth control and the “bad” one (and I use quotes because these are relative, colloquial terms). The “good” version is necessary in a socioeconomic system that prevents people's genuine autonomy over their bodies, either through law (as in Sanger’s time) or coercive economic situations. Women were dying because they were aborting children they could not afford to have in all manner of unsterile and crude means — the “good” version sought to address that. The “bad” version is an attempt to purge the “unfit” from the earth (Malthusianism).

Unfortunately, the “bad” version is the one Sanger promoted. To this day, mainstream bodily autonomy advocates do not speak on the necessity for forms of birth control (including abortion) in a state where a small minority of “haves” rules over the vast majority of “have nots,” instead remaining exclusively in the territory of “rights” and idealism.

“Rights”

In the United States of America, we are supposed to be (here come more scare-quotes for relative, colloquial terminology!) “free.” However, the way I mentioned “rights” was without much reverence; the ruling class has the power to grant or restrict this “freedom” as they see fit. Oh, sure, we complain. But the main justification for capitalism is that it brought us more “rights” and “freedoms” than feudalism – which it absolutely did do and (when people make enough noise) sometimes continues to. However, capitalism maintains a ruling class (the bourgeoisie), and although it may be a little more complicated for them to mess with people’s “rights” than in feudalism, ultimately, what is stopping them are laws that other members of the ruling class (and their cronies in the US state) have written.

In fact, “bodily autonomy” itself isn’t possible when one’s moves are limited based in economic coercion, so until that is resolved, ultimately, it is like all other idealist “rights”: guaranteed (by the ruling class) until it isn’t (because of the ruling class’s eventual necessity of clamping down when imperial-stage capitalism is in crisis).

One of the primary reasons the ruling class makes concessions is that tightly controlling people is counterproductive, as it can lead to them doing the opposite of what is intended. The French Revolution, the very event in which the capitalists came into power, demonstrates what can happen when rigid limitations on behavior fester over generations.

Which brings us back to “The Trans Agenda”

I’m, like, super sterile, you guys!

The reader can probably see where I’m going with this, but let’s check in on that cancelation again:

“Gender affirming care” is objectively a mass sterilization program, you can dress it up in whatever ideology you like but that’s what it is. If you are as anti-Malthusian as you say you should be able to see this.

-another big ol’ hater

I don’t believe trans people make up a significant enough portion of society to function as population control, and further, I know several trans parents. I also know many non-trans non-parents.

It must be said that there is a legitimate distinction between the bourgeois ideology of “LGBTQIA+” and non-standard roles and presentations of sexuality and gender.

That is to say, non-standard roles and presentations of sexuality and gender (which I will hence refer to as “sexual and gender minorities” or “SGM”) are just things that humans do. The idea that humanity is always going to do the same two things based on what’s between their legs is absurd. Technically speaking, “humans are animals,” but in terms of will, intelligence, and creativity, we are above them in every way.

While non-standard roles and presentations of sexuality and gender aren’t automatically bourgeois ideology, the “LGBTQIA+,” is. This co-option and redirection of SGM is a means to subsume people’s divergent preferences and proclivities into the liberal capitalist/idealist “rights” paradigm, making it a “sacred” means of protecting the ruling class.

This is to say, the MLs with genuine criticism/questions about it are correct. However, it goes beyond being “bad” simply because it is ideology. “LGBTQIA+” is coercive to the very people it has ingratiated itself as “liberatory” to – a “Woke Ouroboros,” to use the term I coined for my book of the same name.

This bourgeois ideology standardizes lifestyle through representation, creating new rules for both SGM and everyone else. It creates “acceptable” examples of SGM and negates the validity of all other versions of it. This is where my personal problems with “non-binary” ideology begin, as it is the closest word to describe how I view my gender and sexuality. However, an ideologically standardized “non-binary” culture and appearance has emerged. “Non-binary” is not existing on a spectrum between different roles and presentations. It’s a third gender.

Further, within circles that have accepted bourgeois LGBTQIA+ ideology, I am “stealing feminism” or “faking transness” for viewing myself and my relationships with others that way. This is partly why I rarely address issues of sexuality and gender; I am not welcome among “my folx.” (lol)

The primary paradigm we are supposed to interact with basically everything in the United States coerces people to remain in a consumer/advocacy position for their lifestyle market rather than pursue dialectic class struggle against those in power. Rather than analyze who our real enemies are (capital, primarily finance capital), the focus is turned on “cis” people, who are all secretly backward (or secretly trans). The trans consumer then becomes the same as the Marvel Fan (or whatever; it doesn’t have to be Marvel), displaying all their merch on shelves around their dwelling, often turning it into a cluttered, chaotic place more akin to a 9-year-old’s fantasy than a home.

Time is wasted arguing on social media about how to be addressed, how much one knows, how much better someone is than someone else, etc. To me, it looks the same as watching people argue about whether Star Wars or Star Trek is better. Ultimately, who gives a flying fuck?

If one displays some degree of non-standard presentation, this is the culture – the people – they’re supposed to “fit in” with (others who have already accepted the ideology and built an identity around it) – where they “belong.” Because “the normies don’t get it, and they never will.”

It’s true, too. But not because people are all biologically predisposed to bigotry. It’s that the liberal consumer paradigm isn’t intended to “normalize” anything. It is intended to separate people, make them feel unique and superior, and agitate everyone else.

This applies to entertainment, choice of home cleaning brands, “environmentalism,” politics, and anything else you can think of. The idea this somehow doesn’t apply to SGM – that ideology (which we currently call “LGBTQIA+”) doesn’t subsume it into this paradigm – is naive and ridiculous. The Pride Flag is a perfect example; what is/was meant to be a universal symbol (the rainbow, representing the full spectrum of visible light and thus all walks of human life) is continually scribbled upon with new colors and shapes. New tension is continually created in the name of “inclusivity,” denoting new lines that separate the group further from everyone else and plants the seeds for internal conflict (well… more of it).

America

I am a communist, which means people probably think I don’t believe in individual freedoms, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. As a personal ideal, freedom is very important to me. But ideals are personal beliefs at most; I believe everyone should be free to make their own choices. However, as a Marxist-Leninist, it is not a question of “gaining and retaining freedom,” as the current paradigm suggests. To petition the ruling class to allow something – to create legal “rights” – is about asking permission. And when they give that permission, ideology is created and provided that justifies their continued rule and works to keep everyone else fighting with each other. We can see two versions of that in every bigotry with a woke counterpart with similar material outcomes of segregation and essentialism. Both sides of the coin are aesthetically different but mechanically perpetuate the status quo.

Ultimately, gender is ideology. Traditional gender is ideology. Neopronouns are ideology. These are consumer lifestyle markets with their own little fandoms and whales (see my 2018 book, Custom Reality and You). All of them are competitively consuming for the right to signal their superiority in a meaningless race they’ve been lied to about for decades.

True, legitimate “freedom” is a lack of coercion. We do not live in that situation.

Those of us who hold the ideal of “freedom” in high regard (which I want to remind that I do) are playing at something we do not have. But I do want to propose something: whether it is the ideal of “freedom,” the pursuit of a situation without coercion, or both, any attempt to live it now requires us to stop concerning ourselves with the personal choices of everyone who doesn’t rule over us.

The conversation surrounding “The Trans Agenda” can be polarizing and is inherently liberal/metaphysical, focusing single issue through a highly specific ideological paradigm. The ideology with the stated intent to “free” trans people is a cage. The ideology of hating trans people is also a cage. Both are intended to divert SGM (and everyone else) people away from what is materially real, to create hypersensitivity in both groups, and to police the behavior of all in favor of the ruling class.

Non-standard presentations and roles are not “materialism.” In its “best” form, it is personal. This is an idealist statement I am happy to make: we should be allowed to be the kind of person we are or want to be, assuming it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Is there a way for SGM to hurt someone else? Yes, absolutely – but not inherently. That takes ideology.

Conclusion

In terms of outlining specific personal beliefs, as a parent (again, in an SGM), I don’t think children should make functionally permanent medical decisions until they are an adult and have more life experience building their capacity for critical reasoning (for which I will be labeled “transphobic”). Also, I find it ridiculous that the existence of trans people is automatically a mass sterilization program (for which I will be attacked as “a liberal” lol). I don’t care how many Gen Z people identify as “queer.” I just don’t. Firstly, many SGM people have kids (in fact, it seems to make certain sets of people very angry when trans men get pregnant), and many more non-SGM people do not. Secondly, how is it my fucking business?

There is a fine line between promoting tolerance and acceptance of SGM individuals and pushing an agenda to establish a lifestyle market for trans people. Generally, I believe the bourgeois state and capital are doing the latter rather than the former, and I do not trust these entities to “promote tolerance.”

They will always promote a version of it that protects their class interests at all costs. For instance, my book contains a chapter on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, which not only create standards minority groups are held to, but also segregate people along lines of identity while often creating a cycle where certain minority groups are seen as “bourgeois-affiliated” and their members behave in a way that is influenced by bourgeois ideology, which is then perpetuated through the media and repeats.

The phrase “The Trans Agenda” makes it sound like trans people, specifically, are in control. At worst, in the ideological subsumption of SGM, they are pawns of the bourgeoisie, just as a whole lot of the population without class consciousness are pawns. It’s not intent; it’s that they’ve been lied to. However, they are also not the majority of SGM individuals. Many, many more are just trying to get by. Statistically, they’re much more likely to live below the poverty line and are thus not the ruling class. Further, when the ones that have been subsumed become inconvenient, the ruling class will drop them faster than a bad habit at New Year's.

I believe that individuals should be free to make choices and express themselves as they see fit, without interference from the bourgeois state or capital. For that to truly happen, we must transition to a higher mode of production where these entities no longer rule.

To do that, we must stop endlessly fighting with each other over personal shit. Is that possible when said personal shit is subsumed into an ideology? It has been in movements past, but whether or not it is today depends on the ability to accept more ambiguity and understand that human behavior isn’t class stuggle.