Any thoughts on Bash Back (the UK trans group). Are they hitting the right targets? Will it work?
Sharing a tumblr ask I had the other day
Below is my response to the anonymous Tumblr ask “Any thoughts on Bash Back (the UK trans group). Are they hitting the right targets? Will it work?” For those unaware, Bash Back is a UK direct action group fighting for trans liberation, and have recently claimed responsibility for the vandalism of Wes Streeting’s office, the Sodexo offices, and the TERF Filia conference. Their website is https://www.transbashback.com/faq.html. Let me know in the comments if you like me sharing these ask & answer posts when I have asks that I think fit this substack, and send me any questions you may have if you’d like to hear my thoughts about something.
Thoughts:
I’m on record as saying I love TKDB, the direct action group who have been doing occupations and things like climbing the front of govt buildings, doing banner drops etc. They’re great kids doing important work and standing up for their freedom where even embarrassingly few trans adults have managed to get anything done, and I think they’ve done an admirable job of pulling the community together, everybody is behind them. I’m bringing up TKDB not to allege that Bash Back are a secret TKDB offshoot anonymised for more spiky action - although this is a fairly common move in the direct action movement - I’m bringing them up because I think they represent the direct action front of the fight for trans liberation in the UK. At least they have done until Bash Back appeared.
The directions that the trans population in the UK needs to organise in are stronger community, legal reform, direct action and community democracy. I list community democracy separately from stronger community because while they are related one is about organising assemblies and building a parallel democratic structure for the trans community and the other is all about cultural changes - understanding white queers’ racism, building harm reduction structures, ending community conflict blowups, prioritising the most at risk in material terms etc.
The legal reform front is an uphill battle that is unlikely to yield much of a result unless we get a change in government radically to the left. The community cultural change and the democratic organising are so important BECAUSE we are likely to be living under anti-trans fascism for the foreseeable future. The direct action front is important because drawing attention to the violence of the system by turning that violence into conflict could build our support in wider society. An example from Bash Back: vandalising Sodexo facilities with graffiti saying they killed a trans prisoner and have blood on their hands. In order to respond in any way, Sodexo must draw attention to the claim. An example from TKDB: vandalising the NHS England building with “Release the trans youth suicide report”. This action doubtless informed many people who had never even considered that such a report existed that it was being withheld.
An escalation by the direct action front of the trans liberation movement was inevitable with our rights being stripped away, our demands ignored, our lives inspected and sexually studied by the media, our children murdered by the state. Bash Back has escalated so far only in that they smash windows, a tactic already deployed by groups like Extinction Rebellion and that they are anonymous and avoiding arrest. The first of those two shouldn’t be understated. Streeting probably shit himself when he saw his office all smashed up. The second however relies on tighter opsec, which if correctly maintained could allow for bigger future escalation, and that’s the really striking possibility.
To put my thoughts on Bash Back in three words: I’m staying tuned.
Are they hitting the right targets?
Yes.
Attacking Streeting’s office directly highlights the violence that he is doing to our community and to our kids. He is a vile man and his name shouldn’t be brought up without accompanying mention that his puberty blocker ban has led to the deaths of trans children in service of an ideological project that is failing before everyone’s eyes. He is responsible for the deaths of children, he knew he would be when he extended the ban and he chose to because he thought it would make Labour stronger and instead it’s just about the most unpopular government in living memory in the UK.
The action against Sodexo highlights the incredible violence that is brought against trans prisoners in the UK, the implicit torture wielded against any trans person in prison that makes the law fundamentally unequal in this country. Trans people are routinely denied hormones in prison, mocked, abused, isolated, harassed and given doctors who are aggressively transphobic when they seek help, and trans women especially are subjected to horrendous violence and sometimes daily rape being put in men’s prisons. This is the kind of thing that liberal progressives would be outraged and radicalised by but the UK media is determined to ignore our mistreatment by society in favour of how “demanding” and “entitled” our protests are, so drawing attention to it through action is a good move imo.
The filia conference: I don’t know what kind of new forms of sexual harassment against children or ways to disavow abortion under “feminist” justifications a terf think tank like filia are developing, but I know they’re evil, and the public deserves to know that trans people hate them. TERFs are a little tricky because they’re so expert at playing victim. Like their institutional capture and in particular media allies gives them so much narrative control. Graham Linehan sent a bunch of intense and threatening stuff to a child online and even talked about her genitals and the TERFs have done such a successful job of controlling the story that it’s barely talked about. So with something like an astroturfed “feminist” group founded in 2015 specifically to go after our rights, I’d be concerned about giving them fuel, but if an action against the TERF movement is done right it could really help to expose them as the child genital obsessed creepy fascist losers they are.
However, if I were a crime-doer, which I’m not and I wouldn’t recommend to anyone else either, I would probably be seeking to shut a conference like that down rather that just vandalise it, because in direct action the next escalation is sabotage and disruption, actually stopping the machines that kill us directly. I am reminded of the American anarchists who stopped a zionist fundraiser from happening by getting access to the blueprints and finding a pumping station they could sabotage which caused a sewerage backup cancelling the event. They filled the zionists’ venue with shit.
Will it work?
No.
Not on its own anyway. We have to have cultural changes in the trans community paired with organised democracy through transgender people’s assemblies in order to build real political power. We need to have a voice as a community, not through activists, leaders or influencers but through direct democracy, and for that to work we need assemblies, and for that to really work the community has to have cultural changes.
If we had an organised trans democracy we would be able to voice demands to the unions and political parties directly, give or withhold endorsement, organise mass rallies more effectively and take action to solve our own problems in community better. This is what direct action can really mean, like DIY HRT is direct action that a lot of people mistake for mutual aid. While mutual aid is involved in the sharing of hormones, DIY is itself a form of direct action. As Graeber put it, protest is asking the government to build you a well, direct action is building the well and seeing if anybody tries to stop you.