What does it mean to be a trans anarchist at this point in the 21st century? What does it mean to be a white working class English trans person living in relative security in London at this point of the global climate catastrophe, where wars rage across continents, where the police force of the rogue superpower USA kills black children with impunity whilst another rogue state armed by that superpower kills Palestinian children with impunity?

How can I survey this death spiral of capitalism, colonialism and tyranny, then dare to say “and trans rights”? Yet I must. For even with genocide in Palestine and Congo, the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya and the Uyghurs, the continuing erasure of indigenous peoples, we must speak of trans, nonbinary and intersex people. Because our histories, diverse and complex, echo through history before European colonisation, the rise of capital or the State, and the stifling rise of cis-hetero-patriarchy. Our history is a stump on the road of so-called progress where binaries of sex, race, and gender are brought into sharp relief.

As an anarchist, as a nonbinary intersex, pansexual fem, my siblings and I across millennia are evidence that the forced imposition of discrete categories of sex/gender and “otherness” is there to repress free existence and limit our emotional, intellectual and social selves. In our lived experience, as we refuse glib classifications of male/female, man/woman, masculine/feminine – our acts of resistance are integral parts of the kindling of revolutions.

Anarchy itself is not unchanging. “Truths” are not set in stone; anarchy evolves — not just more cis white European men but other voices, other lives. All the iterations of anarchy from women (trans and cis), the global majority, the colonised world, in non-European languages, and yes, from trans, nonbinary and intersex people. We walk our truths in all cultures and communities, yet we are weaponised to police the lives of all. The repression of our existence is used as a tool to beat out the borders of gender and sexuality, masculinity and femininity. Yet over and again, people, politicians, religious leaders, doctors, and the “gender criticals” reserve their most brutal State sanctioned abuse for our children. In the so-called UK, trans, nonbinary, gender-diverse and intersex children are being targeted in schools, the healthcare system, the media, social services, the family and the political class.

Our beautiful, fragile, fabulous children are venturing out into the world, realising who they are and naming it in ways people my age cannot imagine having the courage to do. And in response, they are being victimised and abused on a structural level.

In the UK, our teens and children are to be denied any trans-supportive healthcare; they are only to be allowed puberty blockers if they agree to be part of State sponsored research projects. The secretary of state for education has proposed a policy to instruct schools to deadname and misgender children, to inform their potentially hostile parents, and to deny them lifesaving information. The war waged on us is not merely a “culture war” – it is visceral, damaging and cruel. And the worst part is that we know this gender fascism is not genuinely to protect any children. We and our children are simply collateral damage, weapons of mass distraction.

Yet we persist.

The global solidarity shown to Palestinians, from the South African government’s interventions to the blockading of weapons manufacturers, from mass marches to individual boycotts, from the disillusionment in Keir Starmer and Joe Biden’s voter base to damaged corporate profits. This is what resistance looks like. And in this climate, acts of solidarity can be very small indeed — just asking about and getting my pronouns right is an act of resistance and solidarity.

I’m an older anarchist who has seen the flow and ebb of populist left parties and watched helplessly as millions throw themselves into the futile abyss of democratic socialism. But I take courage and strength from the refusal of communities, cultures and individuals who keep choosing freedom and the sheer audacity of trusting each other’s love.

In the face of a genocide happening before our eyes, it is hard to remember that nothing lasts forever. How everything can change on the spin of a ninepence. But every day, a child realises that they can live as something other than the sex they were assigned at birth. And in these moments, brand new worlds are born.

~ Kell w Farshéa
Kell (they) is are a poet, writer and historian. They have been an anarchist and activist for more than four decades.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of Freedom Journal.