We are aware of the publication of an article titled ‘Notes on British Transphobia’ on the website of Anti Capitalist Resistance. This is yet another missed opportunity for serious left analysis of the debate on sex and gender in the UK. This is our response.

We are a group of women from the left. We continue to be astonished by the woeful lack of accuracy and misrepresentation perpetrated by our detractors. We are embarrassed by organisations claiming some form of Marxist affiliation that advertise their misunderstanding of historical materialism. They disavow their own intellectual tradition from Engels.

We are dismayed that this tradition now appears to care or understand so little about women and our oppression. It is tragic to see these groups so carelessly alienating themselves from the resurgent women’s liberation movement.

We do not have time to wade through this twaddle and produce yet another rebuttal.

We regret that journalism of this quality passes for intellectual discourse within large parts of the Left but we hereby place our contempt on record.

We look forward to the day when our detractors engage with our arguments instead of just making stuff up.

There are two inaccuracies however, that can be quickly addressed:

Posie Parker did not found WPUK and has never been part of the group.
Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility points not so much to self-deception but to the iniquity of patriarchal inheritance and the necessity of marriage for impoverished (middle class) women.

We will continue with our campaign which seeks to improve the daily lives of women and ensure our voices are heard and honestly represented.

There is clearly still a lot of work to do.

9th January 2021

We believe that it is important to share a range of viewpoints on women’s rights and advancement from different perspectives. WPUK does not necessarily agree or endorse all the views that we share.