March 31 is Trans Day of Visibility
"We aspire to a world made in the image of everyday people"
Statement from BCGEU's Executive Vice-President and Chair of the 2SLGBTQIA+ Committee Tristen Wybou
Quality, universal healthcare; secure, affordable housing; respectful workplaces; jobs that pay the bills (without breaking our backs and spirits). What do all of these goals have in common?
They're central to the transgender rights movement!
This answer might surprise some of you because no doubt, as a working person and a unionist, you likely see your own values reflected in these aspirations even if you don't personally identify with gender diversity.
That's because the labour movement's fights and the 2SLGBTQIA+ community's fights are fundamentally linked. They have always been intertwined and continue to strengthen each other. In fact, facing some of the highest barriers to dignified working and living conditions, queer people have often been forced to speak on these shared issues the loudest, for the benefit of all.
We transformed our marginalization into a megaphone, and when the powers-that-be failed to listen, we turned to each other, making a kiln of our community's own fire to forge creative solutions that decision-makers could never devise. Just look at the transgender changemakers who radicalized the streets of 1970s New York with S.T.A.R - the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. Their community was facing a housing crisis, and in the absence of state support, they found a grassroots solution and acquired a dilapidated building, creating their own shared housing.
Unions were born out of a collective fight and spirit as well. Forced displacement (literal and figurative) is abhorrent - it also ignites tenacity. Unsurprisingly, the battles we've fought from the margins have often led to the most meaningful wins.
But what happens when the state, its pundits, and employers try to erase a people from the page entirely?
This is the threat Transgender people currently face. While fighting for their very right to exist, trans workers - exhausted and rightfully fearful - are forced to make difficult and brave choices about their visibility on the frontlines of the many causes they support, as well as within their daily lives. The BCGEU insists that everyone deserves liberation from the struggle for survival so that no one is robbed of opportunities to participate equally in activism (including unionism), pursuing passions, building community and finding fulfillment in jobs. We aspire to a world made in the image of everyday people – one where all can thrive. To get here, trans rights must be centered in our union's fights, and trans members must be protected so they can safely amplify their voices.
We stand against any government incentivized by corporate interests to wield trans issues as a wedge issue. Such tactics are just a cover for dividing workers and weakening our power so that it's harder for us to win better wages, respect in the workplace, health & safety resources, funding for affordable public services and more.
The disturbing attempts to divide us often go together with broader anti-worker agendas, austerity budgets, increased privatization of healthcare, profit-over-people models, and more. Attacks on our most underserved communities are a part of a war on every working person and their neighbours. For instance, in the United States Donald Trump's crusade against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts are drawing the ire and concern of scientists who say this will impact the entire country's health.
BCGEU members know that the workplace remains a potent terrain of struggle on which to win justice. We cannot win if we curry favour to the class that seeks to divide us. They want us punching at each other to distract from the real cause of our struggles, which should be our shared target. When the working class remains united - where we build community through compassion and a righteous indignation with one another that sparks the desire to fight for all our rights, needs and vitality - we will not be defeated.
UWU/MoveUP
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