Statement on the Retraction of “Liberal Feminism and the Commodification of the Cunt”

The Unity-Struggle-Unity Editorial Board has decided by unanimous vote to retract the piece “Liberal Feminism and the Commodification of the Cunt” by the guest author Cde. Reed, published in the Red Clarion on 14 June 2025. 

Shortly after this piece was published, a member of USU presented criticisms they had received from a reader. The Editorial Board takes all comradely and mass criticism seriously as a matter of basic principle and policy. After careful consideration of this reader’s criticisms, we found them to be well-founded, and that the publication of this piece was in error, to the point that retraction is necessary.

To lay out the criticisms necessitating this retraction clearly:

1. The subtitle — “The Commodification of the Cunt” — already lays out the basis for much of the criticism: the erasure of transmisogyny as one of the fundamental features of patriarchal violence. Here, the implication is a bioessentialist one, indicating or implying that there is something inherent in the possession (or not) of a certain type or types of generative organ(s) — that patriarchal violence is the result of the purchasing of the “biologically feminine” body, rather than the result of the creation of divided labor and the expropriation of gendered labor, regardless of the “medical” (social) sexing of the body in question. Essentially, it downgrades transmisogyny to a subsidiary contradiction, rather than including it as one of the main contradictions.
2. The erasure throughout the text of the misogyny faced by trans women (and the erasure of transphobia except for a token reference as part of a statistic) and the absence of recognition that transmisogyny is a fundamental element of the patriarchal ordering of society.
3. The insufficiency of Reed’s framework for marginalized genders, which permits, through its vagueness, at the best case, an interpretation that divides gender into (cis men/others), which, as an effect, lumps together transgender women with the gender-categories that have structural/social power over and can exercise gendered oppression over their oppressed subjects (namely: cis women and trans men, grouped with trans women); at its worst, it can be read as dividing gender into (amab/afab) and obliterating necessary categorical divisions to overcome gendered oppression.

The errors are that of the Ideological Editors in particular who passed this piece along, as well as the Editorial Board in general for giving it final approval. Responsible members have admitted their errors, presented written self-criticisms, and have been the subject of a self and community criticism meeting among the Pressorg to determine actionable steps to correct these errors.  The Pressorg is still investigating the errors that resulted in this misstep. In the meantime, the Pressorg itself has decided that, while continuing our tactic of occasionally publishing material our membership and Editorial Board may not agree with so long as it pushes discourse further usefully and constructively, that we must be more vigilant when it comes to areas especially concerning the most oppressed and maligned groups.