Ebook: Transgender Marxism

Transgender Marxism is the first volume of its kind, offering a provocative and groundbreaking synthesis of transgender studies and Marxist theory. Reflecting on the relations between gender and labor, it shows how these linked phenomena structure antagonisms in particular social and historical situations. While no one is spared gendered conditioning, the contributors argue that transgender people nonetheless face particular pressures, oppressions and state persecution. The collection makes a particular contribution to Marxist feminism and social reproduction theory, through both personal and analytic examinations of the social activity demanded of trans people around the world. Exploring trans lives and movements through a Marxist lens, the book also assesses the particular experience of surviving as trans in light of the totality of gendered experience under capitalism. Twinning Marxism with other schools of thought - including psychoanalysis, phenomenology and Butlerian performativity - Transgender Marxism ultimately offers an insight into transgender experience, and an exciting renewal of Marxist theory itself.

"A terrific collection of essays - I couldn't put it down"

"Stunning ... trans becomes in these pages the vibrant event of a historical materialism from below, intimate and urgent"

"Powerful ... with stunning sophistication and insights, Transgender Marxism challenges capitalism's social foundations in gendered patterns of property, work, and entitlement to develop new forms of sociality beyond the family and its dyadic sexual division"

"Brilliant, thoughtfully researched, and compelling. An immense contribution to the trans liberation struggle and to trans studies scholarship"

"Is there a transgender Marxism? This pioneering collection shows that the answer is there are many - inspired by psychoanalysis, union organizing, queer communities, Black struggles and more. Material realities matter, tremendously, in trans lives; and trans experiences can change our thinking about both capitalism and liberation"

Jules Joanne Gleeson is a historian with a focus on gender and intellectual history. Jules has published pieces on queer, transgender and intersex issues in a range of publications including Novara Media, VICE and the Hypocrite Reader.

Elle O’Rourke is a political economist and gender theorist currently researching critical theories of financialisation. She is co-founder of New Socialist (UK), a magazine of left thought and commentary, where she serves as economics co-editor.