Our friends in Full Stop Affinity, a youth liberation anarchist environmentalist affinity group of trans people that organises under the Green Anti-capitalist Front and the Youth Liberation Front, have sent us their final statement previous to their disbandment as a group. This will be followed in the next few days with a post compiling reports from all their actions during their time of activity. It’s sad to see this group come to an end, but we know that wherever they go next, they’ll continue to be a pain in the ass for the state, capitalism, transphobes and the established left.
From all of us involved in Full Stop Affinity we would like to thank groups that have continuously supported us. We’re sad to disband but recognise it is the best thing to do. This project has outlived it’s usefulness. All our actions will be up on the Green Anti-Capitalist Front website. All our social medias will be taken down in a week. In this final statement we would like to note some thing this project has made us notice.
“The Left” in London is disastrous.
The London leftist scene has repeatedly treated us like shit. We were not welcomed, only attacked. We called out many groups in the U.K. leftist scene for their shitty behaviour only for us to be attacked and ignored because of it. The left has made it clear that they do not care for us.
We quickly recognised that our politics are quite different from the other groups in the U.K. left. We have stated many times throughout this project that we are not a revolutionary group. We do not care about the revolution. The world around us will be dead before we reach our thirties. Revolution will never happen and we will never win. We fight because we know it is the right thing to do. Our politics may not be every anarchists cup of tea and we respected that. We did not expect for people we’d consider to be comrades, mostly anarcho-communists, to side with red fascists simply because they disagree with an action.
In the last year we have been one of the most active groups in the U.K. anarchist scene but we have received no support from our own. Our local Anarchist Federation has hardly acknowledged our existence. While we are critical of federations anyway we still hoped to have a relationship with our local anarcho-communists.
We made it very clear we were neither anarcho-communists or anarcho-syndicalist and we have wondered if maybe this was the reason our local ancoms chose to ignore us. We would like to thank Anarchist Federation Bristol for the support they have given us. Your insurrectionary element shined through. Your support and kindness has been very much appreciated.
A group of young trans people, mostly still in school, have managed to do more in the last year than our local AFed, yet has received almost no support from anarcho-communists in the scene. Ancoms have repeatedly ignored us and our achievements just because we do not do it in the name of communism. We would like to remind our ancom comrades that they have more in common with us, green anarchists, then they will ever have with a tankie.
Unsurprisingly we have also had lots of issues with tankie groups. After we posted an action where windows of a bus stop had been smashed we received a fuck tonne of abuse online. Several members of the Young Communist League attacked us online labelling us as “counter revolutionary”. We aren’t surprised they care more about a broken window then multiple reports of sexual harassment and sexual assault from within the group.
As a group composed entirely of trans people, being attacked by red fascists isn’t new to us and attacking trans people isn’t new from YCL – in fact they have multiple transphobes within their ranks and have previously denied trans people from joining. When informing the trans person as to why they couldn’t join Young Communist League said “This is due to implicit threats of violence you have made against against ‘TERF’s on social media, and articles you have written denouncing Women’s Place UK as a hate group”. This statement from them not only denies a trans persons right to self defence against a group of people that want them dead but also defends a transphobic hate group.
The action we previously mentioned caused quite a split in the left – with some people becoming distraught at the idea of property damage happening to privately owned anti-homeless architecture and others minding their business and not policing others. Many of our comrades defended us, like PNW YFL and GAM, but many stayed silent or joined in with the onslaught of hate we received.
We noticed Kirklees Antifascists had liked some angry tweets aimed at us in relation to the action previously mentioned, labelling us as middle class. We were fairly surprised by this, unsure of why an antifascist group would support the hate being aimed at us, until we realised this group is closely associated with the Anarchist Communist Group (ACG) – a group that split from Anarchist Federation so they could continue to defend a TERF, Helen Steel. We have very openly criticised the ACG – any active account that follows us is well aware they’re transphobic, so why do Kirklees Antifascists continue to work with them?
We directly told Kirklees Antifacists over twitter that ACG split from AFed to defend a TERF. They asked for evidence so we linked them ACGs own statement about the event – in which they stand by their decision to defend Helen, who supported handing out transphobic leaflets about the Gender Recognition Act. In Response to us Kirklees linked us an ACG statement about trans rights. We dismissed the ACG statement as their words are meaningless and their actions say otherwise. Kirklees Antifascists said they would discuss their relationship with the ACG as a group as soon as possible. This was over a month ago. We hope your ties with the ACG are cut.
Kirklees Antifascists also quite openly have a relationship with many Football Lads & Lasses Against Fascism (FLAF) groups. We have called out FLAF multiple times, along with other groups, for transphobia. Their graphic designer, Proletarian Memetics Laboratories, is an open TERF and retweets known hate groups like Womens Place U.K. and Fairplay For Women. When we quote tweeted that we could beat everyone in LGB Alliance in a fight, Proletarian Memetics Laboratories replied to us “What next for you incel edgelords? Knock down ginger at the local womens institute meeting”. Firstly, it’s a little weird to be calling a group of children incels. Why are you thinking about our sex lives? Attacking a group of young trans people for making a joke about a group of people that want them dead is not surprising behaviour from a tankie. Some FLAF groups are also still closely associated with London Antifascists (LAF), more specifically Tottenham Football Lads & Lasses Against Fascism. Openly working with transphobes and being friendly with abusers isn’t a good look. It’s not surprising that many groups that pride themselves on working for “working class liberation” don’t actually actually care when it comes down to working class trans people.
It was very clear from the response to the bus stop action that our local scene was not a safe space for us. We’ve accepted this and moved on.
As an entirely trans group we tried to find safety in queer spaces. We were invited into a queer social with other groups. We went in expecting to meet new comrades but instead experienced transphobia. Our comrades’ pronouns were ignored and disregarded simply because people did not want to educate themselves. Since this happened we have spoken to the groups involved and have worked through this problem but the harm it caused to our comrade cannot be undone. Spaces in the U.K. left, whether that’s the political mainstream or even identified queer spaces, are still not spaces where radical trans people can exist.
We received a lot of attention for our day of action from anarchist scenes around the the world. Due to this, fascists heard we had called a DOA and attacked us online. We received hundreds of tweets from fascists. We had our twitter account temporarily banned and had multiple tweets and instagram posts taken down. After fascist Andy Ngo called us out, we were constantly attacked for weeks. As a relatively small group, and with this being our biggest action, we had no idea of how to deal with these attacks. We received no support from our network.
As well as being attacked by fascists online, we were also attacked by American anarchists. We were copjacketed for calling our action on March 6th. We found this slightly entertaining, although mostly frustrating, but we ignored it. The bus stop action also caused for us to be further copjacketed, this time by mostly British Marxist-Leninists and anarcho-communists. While again entertaining this really irritated us as people we would consider to be comrades had once again abandoned us and sided with the enemy. Copjacketing is a very harmful thing in leftist scenes. We encourage people to be more cautious about it.
Project Full Stop Affinity taught us very quickly that the left hate us, and we hate the left.
Thanking our comrades
We would like to thank all our comrades for the help and support they have given us throughout this project.
All our actions will be published on the Green Anti-Capitalist Front website. We will also include more information about how we organised.
There’s always more to come.
– Full Stop Affinity