Reverse Racism and TERF as a slur. Help me explain false equiv

Many people who are considered terfs, aren't radical, or feminist. 82% of the population who don't think transwomen are women would be terfs.

If they were all radical feminists, we could just pack up and go home.

And yes, comparing it to racism is making women the oppressors. Trying to keep convicted rapists out of female prisons, and men away from women's sport is not an indication that women have all the power.

Ask her to actually describe women's power in all this. Get down to the nitty gritty. Because maintaining sex segregation is not an indication that women have power. It's indication that they are vulnerable.

I ferl so sad for her, losing her boy.

And yes. Terrible. Little wonder you are finding the conversation difficult. I might be tempted not to have it.

I’d missed the bit about her son - my sympathies that is terrible to come to terms with.

I would query what actual damage t*s have done - they haven’t they just don’t agree that women’s spaces should be opened up.

I think a big part of the problem is the claim that transgender people lose out in a power imbalance with others and so deserve to have additional privileges. The root of this claim are the suicide statistics and average lifespan. I think every time these statistics are said they need to be challenged as it knocks the central plank of their argument. However there will be instances where transgender people are discriminated against and these need to be challenged and most people on here would agree that needs to be addressed although they differ in how that should be achieved. It is the positioning of transgender people as being the most oppressed and so everyone else should just automatically shut up and budge up.

Also tell her that terf is not accurate - trans people are included but males are not. So as it's inaccurate, it's definitely a slur and abusive.

She's got the groups mixed up over who is in power. In her terrible and racist appropriative analogy, she compares trans people to black people and women to white people. In fact we are largely talking about male-bodied trans people, who can be more properly compared to the white cohort in her racist analogy, while women are the oppressed people, more properly compared to the black cohort in her terrible and racist analogy.

Or just tell her it's racist to appropriate the fight against racism. Tell you you'll give her the benefit of the doubt this time but ask her not to do it again.

I ferl so sad for her, losing her boy.

On racism, one ought to think of it as if, for example, an analogy

Say, white and black people have separate water fountains - white people had the privilege and power under segregation and apartheid to enforce this

Say, there was one water fountain for every five white people, one water fountain for every 200 black people

'Trans rights activism/extremism' is not the black person trying to use the white person's water fountain (the comparison with Black Lives Matter)

It's the white person with privilege and many more water fountains to chose from, deciding to use the black person's water fountain while 200 less powerful and subjugated black people wait in line. The appropriation of discrimination against black people by transactivists is disgusting and racist. They do it because they can't make their own case, same reason they appropriate intersex conditions, infertility, menopausal women, etc. Because they don't have their own case.

I agree with all this analysis. But I find it helpful to think of the word “TERF” as equivalent to “heretic” or “blasphemer”

It’s intended to be shouted and it’s intended to silence.

But saying someone is a "TERF" in and of itself is not a slur or hate speech - because it just means that person is (ascribes to the beliefs of being) a transgender exclusionary radical feminist.

I think this is a huge part of it. I'd say the vast majority of people called terfs do not ascribe to the beliefs that 'terf' implies.
Stuff like not wanting trans people exist. I have never seen a gender critical or radical feminist say this. I've seen the accusation thrown constantly though.
It's all about othering, and accusing ordinary people of being monsters so that their own positions can be justified.
I came across the attached screenshot a few days ago. Replace 'terf' with any other group and anyone else would immediately recognise it as hate speech.

It's very rarely used in a neutral way, and is almost always accompanied by disdain (at minimum) and often violent rhetoric. It's incredibly 'othering'.
It's usually aimed at women by people born male, and often for nothing other than her disagreeing or saying something they didn't like. It's definitely not reserved for transphobia, but rather any woman who says something the user doesn't like.
Very few of the people its aimed at consider themselves terfs and most find it insulting.
Once that label is slapped on, it then 'justifies' the gendered abuse that tends to accompany it.
It pretty much meets every definition of a slur.

You could link to this website to show how the word makes it easy to dehumanise women and how it is used in the same way as other sexist and racist slurs:

terfisaslur.com/

The slur 'TERF' is used against people who already have less social power, who already face discrimination: women, often lesbians, often older, poor, disabled, voiceless, etc.

The people using the slur 'TERF' are often male (some who identify as women), straight (some who identify as 'queer'/LGBT), often wealthy and connected.

The slur 'TERF' is a way of (men) punching down at the oppressed (women) whilst claiming to be punching upwards against so -called 'cis'.

This tactic has been deliberately deployed by the dominant group (antifeminist males) to reverse and thwart changes to the status quo which enable women's equality, by attacking the very group who fight to bring those changes (radical feminists).