Epistemological Foundations of Transmarxism

Abstract This article outlines the epistemological foundations of transmarxism through a decolonial Marxist humanism taking up groundwork laid in Transgender Marxism (2021) by Nathaniel Dickson as a starting point. The transmarxist critique of alienated life via the continued subjection of trans people to an arbitrary and finite set of external determinations coincides with hirstorical materialism and a decolonial humanist critique of racial capitalism. While there are many debates around various forms of humanism, this article takes the position that a decolonial Marxist humanism does not have to put forward a problematically sexist, racist, or anthropocentric understanding of the human to say that there is nothing proper to the human other than impropriety. As argued in the latter half of the article, the historical and conceptual relations binding revolutionary Marxist humanism to the theory and praxis of autonomous queer, trans, and feminist struggles found in the work of Sylvia Wynter, Wages Due Lesbians, and the concept of hirstorical materialism are critical to ending colonial capitalist imperialism, fighting fascism, and revealing the limitations of liberal inclusion as a long-term solution to antitrans violence.