The land of Autonomy

man with an enlarged scrotum sitting by the river

miniature from the livre des merveilles, an anthology of travel literature and texts on the orient. manuscript produced in france, early 15th c.

Governments in the Global North have continued their escalation of fascism and authoritarianism. The Labour Party and its allies have made unprecedented attacks on trans people’s basic rights and liberties. Trans murders and suicides are on the rise. And yet, the broader leftist response has been to write petitions, publish press releases, or organise peaceful marches with police permission. They continue to attempt to debate or reason with the fascists that are making our lives hell when they’re not busy outright assassinating us. As with all respectability politics, IT IS NOT WORKING. We have seen how the media establishment will move mountains to ignore trans voices while worshipping cisgender ‘experts’, how they will tout blatant misinformation like the Cass Review as infallible fact. They cannot be reasoned with, because their violent campaign against trans people does not stem from honest misunderstanding. It is a coordinated moral panic in order to distract from our government’s blatant corruption and the economic, social, and political crises they are responsible for. No matter how many marches we go on, no matter how many debates we engage in, no matter how politely we ask, they simply continue to ignore us, because these things do not pose a threat to them. BASH BACK is something that they cannot ignore. When 100,000+ people marched through London at last year’s Trans Pride — one of the biggest in history — barely any news outlets, or politicians, batted an eyelid. Just days later, we took action against Wes Streeting’s London office, and it was all over the mainstream press, forcing Streeting himself to come out of hiding to make a statement on it. Years of petitions, letters, protests and speeches have done nothing to sway the EHRC’s heinous guidance, to even register on their radar, but we took action, and now we’ve forced them to acknowledge us and to run into hiding. Reason has failed, and so will they.

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Direct action is hard. We don’t want to make other trans people uncomfortable, we don’t want to make them scared, and we don’t want to do that to our community. We still get people saying “this is hurting our community, it’s making us more of a target”. We want to say: we don’t want to have to do this BUT there’s a reason why we must do the work we do. Unfortunately, all the other roads are blocked. It’s hard to get through, but we can get through. Direct action can be a way of getting through. The disappointing thing is we have, time and time again, people — whether they be activists, or journalists, or propagandists, or media personalitie — who are so determined to repeat this “love is love” line. So, if we think about marriage — that was successful right? But, more generally, the reason we’ve had so many pushbacks on queer and gay rights, and trans rights in particular, is because “love is ;ove” is not actually that useful. You can only appeal to people’s better nature if they have a better nature in the first place, and we recognise that people in government or in business, people with huge power within capital or the state, nationally and internationally, have zero interest in discussion. Why would we appeal to their conscience? It’s not enough. We’re at risk of a Reform government: there is no appealing to their conscience. As Kwame Ture said, there can a kind of political tactic that assumes that, “if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart”. But in order for that work, he says, “your opponent has to have a conscience.” If there’s no conscience to appeal to, we have to fight.

The clearest image of Venus ever taken !

Droodles by Roger Price (from his 1953 book). Droodles (a blend of “doodle”, “drawing”, “riddle”) are simple drawings with a witty, often absurd, caption. The first one, as some of you may know, was used by Frank Zappa for his 1982 album, Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch. (Zappa, a fan of Price's work, lived just a few miles from the artist and personally sought permission to use the image.)

34.  The plan to abolish the distinction between town and country requires decentralisation of the habitat (the right to be nomadic, the right to build one’s house on available sites), the destruction of nuisance, pollutant industries and the creation within towns of areas of tilth and stockraising. (e.g. in the Champs Elysees).

35.  The launching of the revolt will be the signal to all to withold their talents from obligatory labour. That tiny spark of passion which enabled us to bear the harsh alienation of the trade we plied for the sake of mere subsistence, will forge newer and free vocations for us. So that anyone with a love of teaching will give his lessons in the streets: anyone enamoured with cooking will have access to “communal” kitchens everywhere, each one competing with the other in the quality of his cooking. Thus will every creative disposition give rise to free artisanship and a proliferation of artefacts.

36.  Each individual will have the right to make known his criticisms and demands, his opinions and creations, desires, analyses, fantasies and problems… so that the widest possible variety can spark off the best chances of encounters, agreements and harmonisation. Printing presses, telex facilities, offset facilities, radios and televisions taken over by the assemblies will be placed at the disposal of every individual to this very end.