T-slur implies existence of TIRFs?

Interesting that the Guardian comment article is one of the many with comments disabled.

I've always got on very well with transwomen by accepting them as fully human people who'd been shafted by sexism just like me. Not as women, but as real people whose effeminacy should never have been regarded as problematic.

Which they appear to have interpreted as
"Women have always accepted us as women.
"It was never a problem/nobody ever made a fuss into those nasty TERFs came along."
"I pass."

We were asked to be kind. We were kind. We accepted people as people. What is being asked of us now, under the guise of 'Be Kind', is anything but being kind.

See - the very large individual who used to stalk around the borders of Michfest with a homemade spear, performing what they seemed to think was some form of female centered spiritual practice (by symbolically threatening women, yay logic).

There were a few TRAs a while back attempting to spin things as "radfems always accepted trans women as women just like them up until some evil witches came along and hijacked radical feminism". To be woman centered, which obviously is a terrible thing to be and particularly confusing as a position for a radical feminist to adopt.

The whole goddesses and witches, cultural aspect of the Second Wave has had male individuals attempting to force their way in since pretty much the beginning, so no surprises there. I suppose it was inevitable that they'd claim that they started the whole thing and women stole it at some point.

"Radical feminism" does have a particular political meaning, though. It refers to feminists who believe that there are fundamentally two classes in society, men and women, and that we live in a system of patriarchy in which men are the dominant class. Other issues of status such as ethnicity or the economic class system are subordinate to the patriarchy. Lesbian separatism was a distinct strand of radical feminism in the 70s and 80s, with a lot of radical feminists choosing to live their lives without any men in them at all.

The vast majority of people labelled TERFS today are not only not trans-exclusionary, they're not radical feminists either. Some of them aren't even feminists at all.

I always assumed there was a slightly dog whistle element to the 'radical' and that is where the logic lies.

Yes we all now that radical comes from radix meaning root and that RF is a philosophy centred on changing patriarchal systems from the root up, rather than 'leaning in' but your average person who says things like 'I don't like feminists' or 'feminism has gone too far', without giving any thought to what they're actually saying - or knowing anything about feminism, don't know that.

They hear 'radical feminist' and they think 'extremist feminist' as in man haters who think all baby boys should be killed because they will inevitably grow up into rapists. Like religious radical fundamentalists - but with man hating as their central tenet.

so TERF is translated as Trans exclusionary extremist feminist by quite a large swathe of the population. I'd be willing to bet that half the TRAs throwing the slur around genuinely believe that radical means extreme in a feminist context.

That way the trans exclusionary bit piggy backs onto the fact that laypeople reading the slur are already inclined to think such women are crazed manhaters - and therefore being trans exclusionary MUST come from a similar 'hysterical' and 'illogical' standpoint. Therefore being trans exclusionary must be bad. Therefore trans women in women's spaces must be a good thing.

Hi TyroSaysMeow here's a couple:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERF

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/29/im-credited-with-having-coined-the-acronym-terf-heres-how-it-happened

But yes I agree with what other people have said - a radical feminist believes women's oppression is grounded in their biology. Therefore all radicals feminists are by definition 'terfs' as they don't believe in the magical gender essence.

'Tirfs' are actually liberal feminists, and the person who coined the term didn't understand much about feminist theory.

TIRF and TERF were coined by a liberal feminist, Viv Smythe, to distinguish between feminists who believe in magical gender essences and those who don't. TIRF has never been used, but the ugly-sounding 'terf' was quickly picked up and used as a slur by TRAs.

It’s pure propaganda, isn’t it? The use of “Trans Exclusionary” implies that the default position (not just of rad fems, but of “right thinking people” generally) is to include males in the category of women if they claim to identify as women. They would have you believe that this is how it is, how it always has been, how it always should be. They are othering us, making us out to be the exception to their rule, excluding us from their appropriation of what supposed normality is.

Yes! Exactly this. That was one of my first perceptions of how weird it all was before I understood the issues fully.

Given that radical feminism holds that the root of our oppression is in our biology, and that TRAs generally hold that idea to be transphobic, if there is anyone styling themselves a TIRF, I suspect they'll face the re-education squads in short order.

Comes down to people using labels like pin badges again, without real connection to what the labels actually refer to. Plenty of people call themselves 'feminist' without being aware of it's meaning beyond a nebulous concept of 'equality' and maybe 'choice', and plenty of people think 'radical feminism' means 'being extremely committed to feminism'.
If you combine those two perceptions, I think you have the faulty logic of anyone who might call themselves a RadFem but also be a TRA.

There seems to be significant crossover between those who scream that feminism should not be 'trans exclusionary' and those who also claim femimism is 'for everyone' so feminists should focus on helping men win custody battles and such else they are just man haters and clearly not feminist as everyone agrees feminism is about everyone being equal, which means feminists should obviously fight for things that men want too else they are just nasty misandrists wh only care about women, or simply focus too much on women, which is NOT FEMINISM!

We are METmIRFs.

Nice ring to it that does. Metmirfs

Its surely impossible to be a radfem who doesn;t believe that biological sex makes a differnce in any area of life, or even believes sex does not exist. All RFs, therefor must be 'TE' (though not actually trans exclusionary...most I know have no issue at all with trans people. Its males that radfems do not centre..by virtue of..radical feminism)

I would even argue that libfems cannot really be 'doing' feminism whilst centreing male people and their sexual desires (even though liberal feminism has been bastardized recently to basically be...a group of people who work SOLELY on things that benefit men, and call such things empowering for women, and call that feminism). But certainly not radfems..

Lovely to see you back Tyro 😘

The next lines in her profile declared herself to be anti-terf, anti-swerf and pro fat liberation. 🤨🤨

raises hand

A few months ago, I came across the profile of a woman on a dating app. She called herself a non-exclusionary radical feminist. I really wanted to ask her about it, but at the same time I wasn't sure my brain could have handled the logical inconsistencies.