To my trans and cis and other friends, I hope you take a moment to read this.

I don't usually do this, but I wrote (with help from my comrades) a statement for the org I'm in on the latest attacks on trans youth in the U.S. Since many of you are trans people here or at least allies to trans people (if you're reading this, you're probably at least sympathetic), I thought I would share this here, as it contains information about how you can fight back.

What does this have to do with cinema? Well, below it are some recs on good films about trans people, fighting for your rights, solidarity, or other relevant topics.

Want to help trans youth? Here's a way that doesn't just feed back into the capitalist system:

Make a flyer explaining why everyone should be for trans rights. Print a few hundred copies. Go out to bus stops, retail parking lots, and other places where working class people are. Hand them out, talk to people. Be patient, be direct, be clear. Don't get bogged down in the right words. Don't act superior or defensive. (Don't take shit, either, though. It's a fine line.)

Not sure what to say? See the below statement for some ideas.

This is not the overthrow of capitalism, but it's the start. We have to build, and that means starting with the workers. That's me, you, and everyone who doesn't own a corporation, but specifically we need to reach the people who aren't politically activated already.

Just keep doing this. For now. Start building. Start talking to people and get more people involved. If you are in an organization that is not reaching out to workers, start fighting to get them to do so. Political orgs, unions, other groups of workers, whatever you are in, make it happen.

Because if we don't do this groundwork, we'll be under fascist bootheels before you know it, and we'll have nothing to fight back with. Here's the full statement:

Imagine if your child was taken away from you because you got them life-saving medical care.

Imagine if loving and supporting your child was considered child abuse.

This is what the state of Texas has decreed.

Last month Governor Abbott and Texas Attorney General Paxton sent "guidance" to state agencies to consider all forms of gender-affirming healthcare "child abuse". Last week, state agencies began the process to removing trans children from their parents' care, threatening parents, and suspending them from their jobs.

Recent studies have shown that receiving trans-related healthcare reduces suicide rates among trans youth by a staggering 73%. Access to trans healthcare is a matter of life and death, and the alleged regrets cited by detractors have been proven to be extremely rare. The state of Texas is trying to drive trans children to suicide and destroy families. Already, members of hate-groups are boasting online about turning trans youth and their families in.

The U.S. has a long history of stealing children from their parents as an act of violence against the oppressed. Whether it is separating migrant families or among the enslaved or indigenous people, the theft of children has been a common practice. In recent years, many of these children have been disappeared into underfunded and often abusive foster care systems. Trans children will fare no better.

Anti-Trans Bills Across the Country Written by Billionaire-Funded Hate Groups

Texas is not alone. This is the latest in a long series of attacks on trans children started years ago. This year alone, over 150 bills have been submitted to state legislatures that target trans youth participation in sports, use of public bathrooms, trans healthcare access, updating IDs and birth certificates, and teaching LGBTQ topics in schools. In response to this, Biden paid lip service to trans children in the State of the Union while doing absolutely nothing to help, going so far as to label the Texas attacks as “government overreach”—therefore tacitly endorsing the sentiment while only mildly rebuking the methods.

In Utah, a proposed law would set up a commission to study all student athletes—trans or not—and their bodies. This is an escalation of the policies attempted in other states where children's genitals would be investigated by adults in order to let them play sports. The Utah legislature wants to let people ogle whole bodies. Meanwhile, Florida has passed an updated version of the "Don't Say Gay" laws of previous decades, removing all references to queer and trans people from their schools. In Mississippi, a similar law is bundled with banning the teaching of the history of racism in the United States.

It is not a coincidence that so many laws have identical language across dozens of states, nor that these attacks are happening alongside anti-abortion measures and racist bans on Black and Indigenous history. These laws have been written by right-wing hate-groups masquerading as “think tanks” and “foundations” funded by the likes of the Koch and Walton families and other capitalists. In Florida, the “Don’t Say Gay” law’s backers were all well paid by the allegedly queer-friendly Disney corporation. They want to maximize profits by restricting the rights of women so that they can continue to pay less to all workers. Women have been in the forefront of recent unionizing. They are for a policy that will put women back to exclusively unpaid work in the kitchen and nurseries.

There is no place for trans or queer people in that world view, and so they seek to drive trans and gender non-conforming people back into hiding. And by wrapping it up in the language of religion, and fear and ignorance, they divide workers instead of the rich elites who are behind this.

These laws are part of the ongoing anti-science agenda of the rich. They seek to keep the working class ignorant in order to better control and exploit us. The “science” they cite to attack trans people flies in the face of the biological, historical facts of gender, which does not conform to the simple categories the capitalists want to force us into. The lies they spread about science, such as their anti-vaxx campaigns and anti-abortion legislation (which often requires doctors to lie about dangers of abortion) serve to make the public distrust science and healthcare, keeping us sick, uninformed, and misled.

Students Walk Out in Florida!
Only a Movement in the Streets Can Beat Back Attacks on LGBT People

Trans people and other workers have engaged in protests in Utah and Texas in response to these attacks, and 500 high school students from across Florida walked out in protest of the “Don’t Say Gay” laws. Student organizer Jack Petocz was suspended indefinitely by his high school for leading the protest. We must stand in solidarity with Jack and all who have stood up to the attacks and follow their example.

We cannot afford to count on millionaires running the courts or Congress to do the right thing. This is an act of terror against trans people and those that support us. The message is clear: trans people are to be excluded from public life and driven back into the closet (or to suicide) and anyone who supports us will be arrested or worse. The only answer to these attacks is solidarity with trans people and their parents. While the numerous lawsuits against these attacks are appreciated, they are doomed to be repeated next year without a movement backing them up. Trans people cannot defeat these attacks alone. We must build solidarity with cisgender (non-trans) people by going directly to workers. We must continue what many have already begun in Texas, Florida, and Utah and protest in the streets and disrupt capitalists’ profits.

Many who have rightfully expressed outrage at these attacks have wrongfully targeted cisgender people as the cause of the attacks, ignoring that every single one of these laws will hurt cisgender people as well as transgender people. While it is trans children who will be driven to suicide and trans adults who are forced to work for pennies, it is often cisgender parents who will see their children taken from them and cisgender adults who do not fit the narrow capitalist labels of “man” and “woman” who will face harassment in public bathrooms as well. When trans and non-trans workers are under attack by the government, it is not time to fight amongst ourselves, but to unite against the wealthy parasites who are responsible for them.

Corporate Media Spreads Lies About Trans People

In recent months, hatred of trans people has been promoted by mainstream media and personalities, including JK Rowling and Dave Chappelle. Both have been rewarded for their bigotry with lucrative contracts or major movie releases that will continue to make them millions. Disgustingly, they wrap their bigotry and violence by sickeningly calling their transphobia "feminism" in order to pit trans women against non-trans women. They use their platforms to fear-monger and imply that trans people, especially trans women, are sexual predators or pedophiles, just as they did with gay people in the past. Women’s rights (including trans women) and LGBTQ rights are two wings of the same bird, and we fight the same bigotry and gender violence together.

Meanwhile, last year was the deadliest year on record for trans people in the U.S., with 56 murdered that we know of, and recent studies have shown that trans women make 60 cents on the dollar to what the average worker makes. It is not trans people who are the predators, but the politicians and their corporate sponsors who use trans people to buy votes and divide people.

Though trans people have existed as long as human beings have, the repression of trans people has led to the misunderstanding that being transgender is a new phenomenon. Trans people have always been here and always will be. In the last century, however, medical treatments for trans people have made great advances, allowing for medical transition for those who want it. However, the rich have made it inaccessible for most trans people, denying insurance coverage for hormones or surgeries and making excessive requirements that no other forms of healthcare have. They would have you believe that trans children are regularly having major surgeries, but the truth is, trans adults can barely access them. Most trans youth are put on medication that simply delays certain parts of puberty so that they can make a decision about their bodies once they are adults—exactly the opposite of the non-reversible procedures being talked about by corporate media.

We Must Unite Workers of All Genders

Meanwhile, U.S. bombs are killing workers in Yemen, Somalia, and Ukraine. The rich have murdered millions by refusing to do anything to fight COVID. And it is not a coincidence that the far-right movement is gaining strength as the left-wing movement in this country waits passively for corporate lackeys like Biden, Pelosi, or Sanders to do anything at all to help workers. Instead of spending $770 billion on war, the U.S. should be funding healthcare for all, and we must unite to demand all trans healthcare be covered for youth and adults. We must not put faith in Democrats to stand up to these attacks or to fight the fascists. Every attack on trans people is an attack on workers as a whole. The capitalists want to tell us who and what we are, controlling everything from our healthcare and jobs to our IDs and even the clothes we wear.

The Struggle of LGBTQ People Brought Broad Acceptance and Support

We Need to Go Back to the Streets, Not Back to the Past

There is no doubt that the powerful movement led by militant LGBTQ people changed society. There has been immense acceptance, support and appreciation in society as a whole, the likes of which a mere 50 years ago was a distant dream. This struggle in fact released hundreds of millions from sexual repression. It is proof that it is the movement, the struggle, the fight that changes society and laws.

Transphobia Comes from the Top Down, Just like Misogyny, and White Supremacy

Capitalists Are Desperate Attempt to Maximize Profit, Divide the Working Class by Increased Repression

We can again mobilize and go to all students and workers to build a militant movement that will make the capitalists too afraid to try these same tactics again. Cisgender workers must stand with trans workers, and trans workers must not cower in fear or refuse to speak to those who have not yet seen past the anti-trans lies spread by corporate media. Trans workers cannot wait until it is “safe” to come out and speak to other workers. And when we (trans or cis) go to the workers, we must be direct and clear in our message about solidarity with trans people.

The capitalists have indoctrinated many in the working class with bigoted ideas—and they then turn around denounce them as “deplorables” for not using the right language. We cannot be like our oppressors and hide behind insistence on specific words and phrases for the sake of our own comfort or correctness, but be prepared and patient, clear and firm in our explanations. We must combat hate speech or intentional disrespect, but to reject reaching out to workers instead of combatting ignorance is to allow our oppressors to win. We owe it to ourselves to do this work.