WW editor in Taiwan
'Sex, gender, sexuality & socialism'
By Minnie Bruce Pratt
Taipei, Taiwan
Transgender lesbian author and activist Leslie
Feinberg recently spoke in Taiwan on the interconnections
between issues of gender, sex, sexuality and socialism.
Feinberg is also a managing editor of Workers World
newspaper.
The Center for the Study of Sexualities of the National
Central University organized a series of events featuring
Feinberg. They ran from Dec. 11 to Dec. 14 at the university in
the town of Jungli and in the capital, Taipei.
Feinberg's appearance coincided with the center's
publication of "Trans," the first Chinese-language anthology on
transgender. Two chapters from her non-fiction Marxist analysis
of the roots of gender and sex oppression, "Transgender
Warriors" (Beacon), were part of the anthology.
Feinberg's novel "Stone Butch Blues"--a ground-breaking look
at working-class lesbian, gay, bi and trans oppression--is
known by many on the island because it was serialized three
years ago in Chinese in a leading Taiwanese daily newspaper.
Subsequently, it was published as a book, was required as
summer reading for all high school students, and was selected
as one of the 25 books of the year in Taiwan.
Feinberg wrote a special preface for the Taiwanese edition
of "Stone Butch Blues" for Chinese readers, with comments on
how the McCarthy-era anti-communist witch hunts, which stepped
up attacks on gay and trans people, were linked in part to U.S.
ruling class rage at the successful revolution in China.
Breaking the taboo
In Jungli Feinberg keynoted the fifth inte rnational
conference on the Politics of Gender/Sexuality: The Age of
Transgender. Her talk was titled: "Sex and Gender Oppression:
Finding the Path to Liberation."
Conference organizers had hoped for 150 participants.
Instead, the auditorium was packed with almost double that
number of students, faculty, activists from anti-war, labor,
feminist and other struggles, and members of the lesbian, gay,
bisexual and trans communities. Many had traveled on two
standing-room-only buses from Taipei, an hour north.
Participants also came from mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan,
New Zealand and Australia.
Feinberg opened her speech urging strong support for center
director Dr. Jose phine Ho, who is currently under attack by
right-wing forces in Taiwan for her consistent support and
educational efforts around issues of gender and sexuality. (To
sign a petition in support of Dr. Ho, go to http://www.gsrat.org/eng/eindex.html.)
She then described how the momentous revolution of Chinese
workers and peasants had impacted on the United States in the
1950s. She showed how the anti-communist, anti-worker witch
hunts of the Cold War period were linked to anti-gay and
anti-trans persecution.
Feinberg explained how she later based her research about
the origins of sex and gender oppression, including transgender
issues, on the analysis of women's oppression begun by Karl
Marx's closest collaborator, Frederick Engels, and on the
Marxist analysis of lesbian and gay oppression developed by Bob
McCubbin, a leader in Workers World Party.
She discussed how diversity of sex, gender and sexuality was
part of the earliest communal societies, but that oppression
became institutionally codified with the division of society
into classes.
Feinberg's thesis is that liberation from oppression based
on sex, gender and sexuality can come through transformation of
the economic basis of society. Her work reinforces the
historical materialist position that different forms of
economic organ ization have produced very different social
relations; therefore, prejudices and oppression are not
intrinsic to human nature.
She pointed out that oppression based on sex, gender and
sexuality, which has been built into the structures of class
societies for centuries, continues today in divisiveness
perpetuated by capitalism. Fein berg linked this to other forms
of oppression generated by the capitalist drive for profit.
She also focused on the racist U.S. war drive in the Middle
East, emphasizing that U.S. imperialism is attacking and
threatening those nations that since World War II have tried to
break free of imperialist rule--the reason Iran and Syria are
now in the cross-hairs of U.S. military threats.
She called for support for the revolutions in China, North
Korea and Cuba. She stressed, "It is no secret that U.S.
finance capital is hungry to re-enslave one-fifth of the
world's population--the Chinese people."
'Socialism--the word we're not even supposed to
whisper'
Feinberg then said to the audience, "I'm talking about
supporting socialism--a word I know I'm not supposed to even
whisper here. So let's talk about it loudly. We have to take
our destinies into our own hands."
She urged everyone to stand up against red-baiting, even
those who are not socialists, "because if you don't, every time
you ask for a nickel raise or new books for your school, you'll
be accused of being a communist and be pushed back."
Feinberg pointed out that the argument that "socialism isn't
perfect and therefore doesn't work" is actually the message
that Wall Street wants people to believe. Imperialism has
militarily surrounded, financially penetrated and economically
undermined every country attempting to build socialism.
Nevertheless, revolutions in these formerly poor countries have
done what the richest capitalist countries have not done: fed,
clothed, housed and provided free education and health care for
their populations.
These actions lay the basis for reducing social tensions,
she said, but left-wing elements must deepen the revolutionary
pro cess, including addressing issues of sex, gender and
sexuality. "Unweaving the strands of prejudice from the
tapestry of social relations is painstaking work," she
explained, "and this is made more difficult when a country
trying to build socialism is surrounded by the cannons of
imperialism.
"But revolutionaries don't sweep problems under the rug. We
study the problems--not to help imperialism tear down socialism
but to build socialism even stronger," she concluded.
According to local activists, such a public discussion of
socialism and defense of the mainland Chinese revolution has
been virtually taboo since the Feb. 28, 1947, massacre of up to
30,000 people by the U.S.-supported dictator Chiang Kai-shek,
which crushed an uprising by communists and other progressives
in Taiwan.
One student commented that, in his entire life in Taiwan, he
had never before heard anyone defend socialism.
Feinberg later spoke on a panel about sex and gender
diversity together with Dr. Junko Mitsuhashi, a Japanese
transgender activist from the Institute of Social Sciences of
Chuo University.
Feinberg also met with a range of people during her visit,
including taking tea with the president of National Central
University, Dr. Chuang Shen Liu; addressing a class of English
majors; and reading at Jing Jing Bookstore. Taipei's only LGBT
bookstore, it was recently raided by police, who confiscated
over 500 gay journals.
At Eslite bookstore, the most famous mainstream bookstore in
Taiwan, Fein berg spoke to a standing-room-only crowd of almost
200. Many shoppers passing the event at the indoor courtyard
stopped to listen. Feinberg stressed that repression sparks
resistance, pointing out that the liberation movements in the
1960s and 1970s in the U.S. rose in part as a response to
repressive 1950s anti-communist witch hunts.
During the long question-and-answer period, Feinberg
responded to one query by emphasizing the importance of the
ties between women's liberation and transgender liberation. "We
need all sexes, genders and sexualities--we need everyone--to
make these movements strong."
Movements supporting each other
The solidarity that Feinberg referred to was in evidence at
a twilight party given in her honor at the TG Butterfly Garden
in Taipei. One of the many eloquent performances was a dramatic
skit with original music that highlighted social problems
confronting transgender people in Tai wan, such as sex
classification on documents and access to bathrooms.
Performers and attendees included local transgender
activists, staff from AIDS organizations and the Gay and
Lesbian and Bisexual Hotline, and members of a local lesbian
writers' group. Also present were representatives from the
independent labor movement organizations, the Information
Center for Labor Education, the Solidarity Front of Women
Workers, and the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters
(COSWAS).
Hosting the event was GSRAT (Gender/ Sexuality Rights
Alliance, Taiwan), which has organized in support of COSWAS,
participated in demonstrations in Taiwan against the U.S. war
in Iraq, protested anti-gay policies at Taiwanese military
installations, organized self-defense response to police raids
on gay bars, and regularly done educational work on the
situation of gays and lesbians in Taiwan, including
participation in a local Lesbian Girls' Camp.
As part of the evening's performances, Feinberg narrated the
events of the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion in New York City that
set in motion the modern LGBT mass movement. She related the
fighting presence there of lesbian, gay and transgender people,
sex workers, homeless people and draft resisters, emphasizing
the leadership of young African Americans and Latinas. She
concluded that it was their unity that enabled these oppressed
people to make history.
The following day Feinberg met with COSWAS sex workers and
other labor activists at a former government-licensed brothel,
now converted to an organizing and re-training center. When
government licensing was abolished by the current ruling party
of Taiwan, the women organized more than 300 militant
demonstrations to protest this re-criminalization of their live
li hood. These women, who had worked in this brothel for most
of their lives, are now part of the independent labor movement
of Taiwan, which defended them on the frontlines at the
protests and supports them with organizing staff.
All the mainstream daily newspapers of Taiwan gave prominent
coverage to Feinberg's appearances.
The China Times Sunday book review ran a front-page profile
of Feinberg's literary and activist work. The Taipei Times
devoted an entire page to Feinberg's visit, featuring it above
the masthead on the front page.
"I was heartened by the many conversations I had with
workers, activists, students and faculty during my visit,"
Feinberg said at the end of the trip. "My visit coincided with
stepped-up political attacks on China and an announcement of an
'independence from China' referendum by President Chen
Shui-bian.
"I came here as a revolutionary from the United States--the
imperialist power that has kept China divided and is the
greatest enemy of workers and oppressed peoples of the world. I
spoke out as a communist. And in response, many individuals
thanked me for doing so, said my support for China and for
socialism as a whole strengthened them, and called me
comrade."
Pratt participated as a panelist in the conference
and spoke at Eslite Bookstore. The introduction to her
creative non-fiction work on gender boundary crossing,
"S/HE," appears in "TRANS," the first Chinese-language
anthology on transgender.
Reprinted from the Jan. 8, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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