Is using TRA rude and dismissive (a bit like how the word T**F) is used?

As a side point, I stopped using the term t*rf a while back, for the same reasons it has been suggested here that TRA is an unhelpful term - it just deepens the divisive nature of the debate and the sense of ‘us and them’

It would be good if some people who share these ideas that we are trying to describe would chip in, here! Please do, nobody will bite you. How would you describe your aims, beliefs, and tenets?

Long before the current toxic debate about trans rights kicked off I would have just seen my support of trans rights as part of my being a feminist (having always strongly considered myself a feminist since my teens). I know this is an unusual understanding of feminism (at least to those on this thread) but since I learned about queer theory in my early 20s I always saw feminism as being not only about advancing women’s rights in formal terms (that battle being pretty much won in this country) but about challenging the gender binary and gender norms, and recognising how damaging they are to everyone, not just women. So I always saw respecting and supporting trans people as part of feminism, just like respecting and supporting anyone else who is gender non-confirming, regardless of how they identify.

To me the take-away is that you can use jargon if you're having an in-group discussion but if the discussion is in front of the public, it is best to use terminology they can grasp. As soon as they hit jargon, you will alienate part of your audience unless they're motivated to self-educate.

TRA is in no way comparable to "Terf". As a term it simply doesn't come anywhere near the level of vitriol.

I tend to use it when I actually mean activists, though usually I spell it out. I do that with a lot of acronyms though, it's sort of a rebellion from my army days.

In other contexts I may not, sometimes I might say "people who believe in gender ideology" for example. Which is cumbersome but I try to be cognisant of not lumping people together without justification so there isn't always a simple descriptor..

I don't really use TRA because, like others have said, it sounds like I am against those campaigning for trans rights. I sometimes use trans activists.

However, comparing the use of TRA with TERF is bullshit because the death/rape/physical violence threats are not there with people who use TRA.

The latest I have seen for GC feminists is 'gender crits' or 'Terven' which is nice....

But I do think it's important to recognise that there are as many divisions in thinking for those who are not GC as there are in the feminist movement.

There is still some value in recognising the TRA / MRA crossover - e.g. Diana Thomas who writes about transitioning for the Telegraph published a book in the 90s which was an MRA book called 'In Defence Of Men" and Thomas's views have regrettably changed far less than their hair style. It would be daft to deny that there is an MRA strand - those who think that women gained all the rights we needed 50 years ago and anything further is just seeking special treatment, and men should have access to the same scholarships / book prizes / sports teams / political shortlists as women. Those are the people I would describe as TRAs but I think they are a minority amongst trans activists.

Then there are the genderists, who believe that we all have an innate gender, contained within the mortal flesh of each human being. For this group, there's a religious adherence to this philosophy. To say TWANW is heresy. The part of a person who is a woman is their innate unseeable (except to Layla Moran) essence and to say it is the flesh casing is - quite literally - to deny their existence. These people are in my view dangerous cultists and I don't engage with them.

Then the largest group are almost gender critical - they would call themselves feminists, they see gender as oppression when enforced on the unwilling, but as capable of being edifying and fun - and vitally important - when the individual chooses their own and expresses it in their own way. They don't truly, at a biological level, believe that TWAW, but at the same time they don't truly, at an instinctive level, believe that women and men can do anything, wear anything, and be anything they like, so woman as a social category which reconciles these two things they half-believe makes sense to them. They don't think that self-ID is likely to cause 'real' problems, glossing over the harm that has already been caused as exaggerated, or as outliers, or even as acceptable in pursuit of a wider good. This is the group who are most likely to understand - or even come to endorse - a gender critical perspective and calling them TRAs will only entrench them. They agree with TRAs that TWAW but disagree with them on pretty much everything else. Similar to how calling us right-wing conservatives because we agree with conservatives that sex exists isn't persuasive to us, it just convinces us that whoever says it is plumb ignorant of our perspective.

Proponents of queer theory or gender identity ideologues (or ideologists) for me seems more accurate to what I am usually criticising. I am critical of queer theory and gender identity ideology not necessarily those individuals who believe in them.

I like genderist

For me, genderism reminds me of sexism, so I feel it compounds the confusion between sex and gender.

It could also look like the person using the term 'genderist' believes in gender as a concept and is suggesting that other people shouldn't discriminate on the basis of gender.

IMO genderist is far too confusing a term to be useful when discussing these issues.

insinuating that trans activists are basically men's rights activists rebranded

Er...

I have often been called a TRA and I found it offensive but perhaps it was because I wasn't one.

I think if a person proudly owns their trans activism I can't see why they would mind.

I've used the term "gender ideologists" for years rather than TRA simply because most people don't know what TRA stands for or think it's short for "trans people" which obviously it isn't.

I think there are circumstances where the term might be helpful shorthand, but I also think that strawmanning stuff about gendered souls or regarding TRAs as a homogeneous group with a firm set of shared beliefs are no more helpful than when TRAs do it about feminists.

I had a post deleted for referring (not rudely) to certain posters as 'TRA posters' and MN said it wasn't conducive to a civil debate. So a less inflammatory term is needed. And I absolutely don't want to suggest I'm against trans rights in general because I'm not, and certainly believe they deserve to live from discrimination in terms of housing, employment etc.

I like genderist. I generally refer to them as non-GC which seems accurate.

Mmmm, I’ve wondered the same thing. I should say ‘transactivists’ rather than ‘trans rights activists’, because those I oppose are not campaigning for their rights — they already have full human rights in this country. They are campaigning for extra privileges that would remove women’s rights.

I’ve slipped into the habit of using TRA, just because it’s recognisable shorthand and TA isn’t. But I’ve seen some better options on this thread., eg ‘genderist’. Or WART for the sort of people who call us TERFs

Oops strike two!!

It would be good if some people who share these ideas that we are trying to describe would chip in, here! Please do, nobody will bite you. How would you describe your aims, beliefs, and tenets?

A quick Google suggests 'genderism' is used to mean a variety of rather disparate things.

I think that the central position of the movement is this:

Everyone had an innate gendered soul. This soul may show up in gendered behaviour and the desire to transition medically, or it may have no symptoms at all apart from the desire to be called a certain pronoun. But the recognition of these souls and treating people in line with them is the number one priority for society, and not believing in their existence makes someone an evil person.

I'm inclined to agree, OP. More explicit and specific terms are generally more comprehensible. I'm not 100% sure 'genderist' would be universally understood though.