By now, in the middle of a new tory leadership contest, Theresa May’s brief time as prime minister seems like a long time ago. Within the world of conservative party politics, May had a reputation for a more traditional brand of conservativism - a ‘one nation conservative’, appealing to a tradition going back to Queen Victoria’s favourite prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, emphasising the obligations of different social classes to one another, to pursue the national good. Rhetorically, at least, this was taken as a significant departure from post-Thatcher neoliberalism, especially at the start of her premiership. For example, see this panel of guardian writers nearly wetting themselves with excitement at the possibility of getting to say something nice about a tory party conference speech; link. Giles Fraser goes as far as to say;
genuine Conservatives such as May are so much better for the poor than slick liberals such as David Cameron … in this post-Brexit world, left/right doesn’t apply so much. The battle lines are now between a deracinated free-market individualism and a social communitarianism that believes in mutual responsibility. So two cheers for Theresa May.
There is, of course, a double meaning to the idea of ‘social conservatism’. If one accepts the opposition Fraser suggests, between a deracinated free-market individualism and a social communitarianism, conventional wisdom may suggest that there is more room for trans people, for example, in individualism, that in a society bound together by traditional relations of responsibility. This, perhaps, might be the case whether you support the embrace of trans people by neoliberal institutions, or denounce this as assimilation. Compared to the more controversial suggestions of a trans individualism, social conservatism might be assumed to be simply hostile
Perhaps then, it might surprise some people to know of May’s record as repeatedly defending trans rights. In 2017, speaking at a PinkNews award ceremony for her colleague, Justine Greening MP, May said “being trans is not an illness” and committed to “streamlining and demedicalising” legal transition. She reaffirmed these comments in 2018, drawing a link between the “bureaucratic and intrusive” demands of the Gender Recognition Act and the harassment and violence that trans people experience in day to day life.[1] And May did not only promote these positions as prime minister. More recently, in the midst of a leadership election in her own party where candidates are vying with one another to prove who is the most antagonistic to trans people, she has bemoaned that the debate on trans issues has become “more divisive, not less”, expressed concern that the UK might “slide back” on trans rights, and insisted that the government must consider placing a ban on trans conversion therapy.[2]
So significant is May’s record on this that she even earns pride of place in Nat Raha’s short, definitive essay on trans liberalism from 2015: link.
In 2011, Juliet Jacques received an invitation to the launch of Diversity Role Models in the Houses of Parliament, a charity that aimed to tackle homo/bi/transphobic bullying in schools. In her memoir Trans, Jacques recalls: “I wish we’d had that at Oakwood, I thought – but could I go to an event fronted by the Conservative home secretary?” This scene captures the contradiction of pursuing trans rights from neoliberal states. In the end, Jacques pragmatically decides to attend, with the intention of avoiding the guest speaker – Theresa May MP.
We must not forget that our current historical moment, dubbed ‘the transgender tipping point’ in the struggle for trans rights and social recognition, is also that of the consolidation of the Thatcherite dream. While rights such as hate crime and employment protections, health care, legal gender recognition (albeit limited to binary genders in the UK), alongside positive media representation, may have a positive impact on trans lives, trans activists have focused on these issues in an age of gendered austerity, racist state violence and border policies. What are the implications of pursuing trans rights under these bitter, disenfranchising conditions?
Raha successfully identifies what Fraser is unable to - that the specific contours of contemporary liberal/communitarian divisions are basically Thatcherite in essence. This is sometimes obscure even in the popular memory of Thatcher herself - on the one hand, she was a key architect of the corporate age, a symbol of an entrepreneurial modernity against the fiction of ‘society’; on the other, an aggressive nationalist whose defence of British interests and Christian values, as expressed in the war against Argentina and policies such as Section 28, exceed the most fervent conservative fever dreams.
Thatcher came to power in the midst of the crisis of the postwar consensus; successive governments, both Labour and Tory, had attempted to carry World War era social policies such as state management of industry and social provision, into the postwar period, as a way of maintaining popular support. At the same time, the country could not economically sustain these programmes, following the destruction of the war and successive defeats and concessions to nationalist movements across the Empire. This manifested itself in the economic crises of the 1970s. Thatcher promised a departure from this, and both the Tory party and the electorate chose the only alternative available to them. However, as bourgeois historian Martin Pugh points out, her economic policies were never popular; she consistently won elections with around 42% of the vote.[3] It was her posturing on nationalism and values that won her a solid base among the Right, allied with her economic base in the finance sector. Thatcherite liberal/communitarianism, then, appears at first glance to be simply opportunistic, with social conservatism providing a convenient cover for the full flow of market forces.
Perhaps. But it may be just as easy to dismiss Thatcher’s rhetoric as to be taken in by it. After all, it was never only rhetorical. I have already noted Section 28 and the war against Argentina; to this we could add the mainstay of Thatcherite neoliberal policy, as Raha summarises, “gendered austerity, racist state violence and border policies” all introduced or intensified as part of her radical transformation of the country and economy. National-conservative values justified the violent state-led social upheaval that made ‘the free market’ possible, both at home and abroad. I have written before of how the practices of ‘community’ can just as easily embody full-throated class warfare as a consumptive or entrepreneurial ‘individualism’.[link] This is not to say there is no difference between Thatcher and what came before; simply to say that sometimes, we just need to take neoliberalism’s spokespeople at their word.
This is, of course, a double sided coin. It would be easy to take May’s support of trans people - as well as other forms of neoliberal representation and rights - as a form of hypocrisy. How can these people claim to support trans rights when they have the politics they do / the profits they do / the death count they do? After all, May did not deliver on her promises as prime minister, and her rhetoric is timid now. Even on conversion therapy, she is clear that she only wants it to be “considered”, not even insisting on its place in the current bills moving through parliament. But I don’t think she is a hypocrite. She seems deeply sincere in her dismay at how ‘divisive’ these issues have become, and the fact that she is willing to say so in the national press makes her bolder than most of her colleagues. The problem may not be that people are not sincere enough about their support for ‘trans rights’. Rather, ‘trans rights’ defines gender politics in such formalistic and narrows ways that it is perfectly compatible with projects of open war against the popular classes. From the perspective of ‘rights’ the kinds of violence that form the liberal-communitarian continuum are totally invisible, simply constituting the political as such.
I suspect that May must have some personal investment here to keep sticking her neck out like this, a trans friend or child or even lover. So, to follow a thought to its necessary conclusion, we need to account for the fact that there are trans people who are fully comfortable with projects of open war against the popular classes.
Meanwhile, the vying of Tory candidates for position as transphobe-in-chief demonstrates clearly that the social forces of contemporary neoliberalism are no longer willing to tolerate trans people in their trenches. Current conditions thus force ‘trans communities’ into crisis, forcing an alignment with class war against the british state. Whether this alignment is merely temporary, the interlude before another compromise for visibility, representation, or rights, or a prelude to a different kind of revolution, a social transition in which we might let a hundred sexes bloom, will depend upon the strategies, tactics, and practices of the real movement as it forms itself in and against the present.
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[3] Martin Pugh, Britain Since 1789: A Concise History (Macmillan Press: Houndmills and London, 1999), p. 241
The phrase ‘let a hundred sexes bloom’ is from Laboria Cuboniks, the collective authors of the Xenofeminist Manifesto, riffing off Mao’s line ‘let a hundred flowers bloom’, from the Hundred Flowers Campaign opening up criticism of the Communist Party. It’s been a while since i read any of the Xenofeminism material so idk what i make of it these days.
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