It is essential that Australian unions join global efforts to build material and political solidarity with Ukrainian workers. This is not just in keeping with our movement’s long history of struggle and solidarity with international struggles against imperialist oppression, but so we can maximise our ability to put pressure on the Australian government and its imperialist allies against their efforts to transform Ukraine into a neoliberal ‘paradise’.

But simply stating an event is inclusive does not automatically make it so. The phrase ‘pussy power’ promotes the idea that having a vagina is synonymous with being a woman. This is problematic on two levels: it excludes those women who do not have a vagina from the category of women; it also erases the gender identity of trans men and non-binary people who have vaginas by insisting that they are women. This is cis-sexism. Apart from the important reality that associating vaginas with womanhood can trigger dysphoria for some trans people, trans women, like other trans people, face the constant negation of their gender identities.