"What is a TERF? Unpacking Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism"

I came across this article recently. Much more interesting reading IMO

https://www.heritage.org/gender/commentary/transgender-ideology-riddled-contradictions-here-are-the-big-ones

Did he really say "gender essentialist TERFs"?

Oh dear.

How to show the world you've written an article about what a group of people believe without having made even a cursory effort to find out what they believe.

TERFs aren't "gender essentialist". We don't think people's gender must match their sex assigned at birth and everyone who doesn't fit that mould is an aberration. We think gender is a load of complete rubbish.

That's why the tweet by the queen of the TERFs, JK Rowling, which was the start of so much trouble, literally began "wear what you want".

Nail varnish does not maketh the woman.

While “gender essentialist” TERFs claim that people are born either male or female and that people cannot change their biological sex, this contradicts the American Medical Association (AMA)’s 2018 statement opposing any “efforts to deny an individual’s right to determine their stated gender identity.”

Well it can only be said that TERFs are obviously correct, and the AMA is wrong.

Or more exactly, the AMA is getting involved in an ideology that doesn't really claim you can change biological sex but just wants gender identity to supercede it.

That's not a scientific medical issue. Maybe it's "medical" in that these guys think it's best practice to treat transgender people in that sort of way, but it's not like it's a scientific question that they are the specialists on, and gender identity really does supercede biological sex.

So the AMA aren't legitimate experts and this is an appeal to authority fallacy.

They say slurs must 1) disrespect a particular group 2) based on an intrinsic, inborn property (like gender or race) 3) in order to lower them within a power structure. Since transphobic politics aren’t inborn, Davis and McCready argue that TERF isn’t really a slur.

Not sure about that. If you call someone a thief when they're not, that's a slur on their character. So actually points 1 and 2 don't apply. It's like TRAs can't stop redefining things to match their needs.

They wouldn't know critical thinking if it bit them on the bottom.

Same here (except 60 this year). Excellent post.

I don’t blame you!

I was happy last night as I noticed that a great friend of mine followed the same GC account as me on Twitter. Texted her and yep she feels the same way as me - and we’re both scared to ‘come out’ IRL because of work (I mean how fucked up is it that in the 21C we’re not allowed to say that biological sex matters when women have been discriminated against for millennia because of our biological sex - not the way we identify). But it’s great to have a real person I know and trust feel the same way about the issue.

We’re not transphobic at all. Between us we know a fair few TW through work and our social circles and the TW we know are nothing like the TRAs.

In the old days of the Suffragettes they checked women’s post. I guess that in this age they’ll check our posts!

And then today I read that a child was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a TW because the girl thought the TW was a female and felt safe 😭.

Thank you Daniel, for explaining how GC women think. You don’t appear to have actually asked any of us, but I’m sure that you know best.

I'm ashamed to admit I can't even face the article. There's only so much fuckwittery anyone can stand in one day, and I've reached my limit.

Thanks - will take a look.

I’m pretty new to this and (if you’ve watched Highlander - showing my age now 😂) I’m going through The Quickening.

@ArabeIIaScott the word chicanery in that ‘article’ was something else! 😂

And the ‘critical thinking’ line when TRA’s regularly hold up signs saying ‘we are not a debate’ or ‘TWAW’ was just hilarious.

I’ve only recently woken up and seen the logical conclusion of the ‘TWAW’ mantra (for which I’m sorry).

Twit

There is a really good podcast on the culture wars and where the term TERF came from. Its on bbc sounds, episode 4 I think.

I hear you @ZeldaFighter.

Completely agree.

To my mind, disability rights and gay rights were looking for equal rights to others in society.

But trans rights seems to be about eroding someone else’s rights - women’s sex-based rights. And because of the patriarchy the attitude of our male overlords seems to be ‘suck it up buttercups’.

We've just turned into terrible people for incomprehensible reasons.

I am 50 next year. I have voted Labour in every general election since I could in 1992. I support gay rights, am profoundly anti-racist, support disability rights and was in favour of marriage equality.

Does anyone ever wonder why, after nearly half a century of being a progressive Liberal, I've decided to become a Nazi and a terf? Does anyone ever wonder why hundreds, thousands? of progressive women have stopped supporting "trans rights"? Do they ever wonder what made us change our minds?

Just to add the linguist McReady who suggests it isn’t a slur is a TW.

Terf isn’t a slur because to be a slur it must be based on some sort of ‘inborn property’ like gender? But I thought gender was socially constructed?

Is it, aye?

Fucking twonks.

The last paragraph 😂

”Because of this, it’s important to educate people about the flaws in TERF ideology and to encourage critical thinking…”

Don't hold back, Alison, you can speak your mind here. 😁

I've started spelling terf in lower case. If we are going to own the word let's make it a word not an abbreviation.
A terf is anyone who believes in the sex based rights of women and girls.
Suffragists got called suffragettes as a slur and they totally owned it.

This^ And that's me! Biologically there are males and females. Nowhere in that statement does it say that we can't treat other people with respect. However that does not mean biological males, who believe they are psychological females, have the right to all female spaces. **

TERFs are females that believe in the existence of biological sex.

Really fucking simple you grievance harvesting gender wibbler.

Christ, I lost the will to live after two paragraphs. oh me too. I'll wear my TERF badge proudly.