This session of our Theory Series will introduce attendees to socialist approaches to queer and trans politics. We will identify competing frameworks often used to think and talk about gender and sexual variance today–from biological essentialism to social construction–and offer an historical analysis of the emergence of LGBTQ+ identities and movements. In particular, we will question, despite evidence of same-sex erotic practices and gender diversity across historical periods, why queer identity categories only arose after the development of industrial capitalism. We will consider how the centrality of the heterosexual nuclear family for capitalist reproduction marks queer and trans people for oppression and discipline in the labor market. We will discuss how a more recent “rainbow capitalism” promises queer inclusion, but only as a market demographic for the targeted sale of commodities. Finally, we will discuss the moral panic against gender transition and children’s exposure to queer life that has mobilized the far right in recent years - and how a mass movement of solidarity can fight against fascist gender politics and for a broader socialist vision of gender and sexual freedom.
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