Amy Dyess article, “TERF Is Hate Speech and It’s Time to Condemn It”

[R0wantrees]

(extract)
"For the most part, mainstream media and so-called LGBT organizations have chosen to ignore a specific demographic of the Me Too movement. “TERF” is a slur used to sexually harass, threaten, and silence lesbians. Instead of standing up for female homosexuals, “LGBT” orgs and media are persecuting lesbians and disguising it as social justice. The gaslighting is next level, but the majority of the world is starting to wake up to this injustice. Time’s Up!

TERF was initially used as an acronym that meant Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, but the term has always been used to muzzle women from discussing our rights. For the past year and half, TERF has been widely used as homophobic hate speech aimed at all lesbians. That’s right… ALL lesbians.

You don’t have to be a radical feminist to be labeled a TERF. A lesbian can make it clear she believes trans people deserve human rights and respect, but she’s still a “TERF” because her sexual orientation has an innate boundary. That boundary is same-sex attraction for other adult human females. Lesbians are the only sexual orientation that excludes penis, and that makes us the most dangerous adversary to the patriarchy.

Extremists don’t believe women, chiefly lesbians, deserve boundaries. That’s what this issue is all about. They disguise their misogyny and homophobia as social justice in order to gain support from people who are misinformed. So-called “progressives” are openly oppressing and condemning the homosexual community, primarily the lesbian community.

The Economist has banned the use of “TERF” in articles and comments because the slur “may have started as a descriptive term but is now used to try to silence a vast swathe of opinions on trans issues, and sometimes to incite violence against women.” Unfortunately, too many journalists and sites have decided to do the opposite. Even editors are doubling down on their misogyny and homophobia." (continues with many examples)

concludes, "I hereby call upon all media, including social media platforms, to follow The Economist’s example and ban the slur TERF. It’s time to move on to civil debate about trans rights and women’s rights. TERF is hate speech and it’s time to condemn it."

medium.com/@amydyess83/terf-is-hate-speech-and-its-time-to-condemn-it-6efc897ce407

Twitter link twitter.com/AmyDyess/status/1055526583786627072

WoLF stands for women's liberation front. It's an American organisation.

Thank prawn

Solidarity between heterosexual woman and lesbians is absolutely the silver lining to this whole disgrace.

MN threads following the Pride London protest by 'Get the L Out' lesbians:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3301033-Get-the-L-Out-Statement-by-the-lesbian-protesters-at-Pride-London

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3299646-Lesbians-protest-at-London-Pride-getthelout

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3300768-Lesbians-react-to-London-Pride

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3300454-To-feel-sad-that-I-cant-support-LGBT-anymore

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3301209-Any-lesbians-feeling-a-tad-battered-and-deflated

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3300978-julia-long-is-a-legend

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3300457-To-feel-sad-that-I-can-no-longer-support-LGBT

Solidarity between heterosexual woman and lesbians is absolutely the silver lining to this whole disgrace.

Absolutely. I feel a strong sisterhood towards women regardless of our orientation. And meeting so many other feminists face to face has been wonderful. I come back from meetings totally buzzing. I'm off to one next week.

Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor in chief at the Economist, was on question time the other day when they were discussing the GRA. She was absolutely clued up about the whole ideology, particularly the dangers to children and of enforcing stereotypes. Compared to every man on the panel who had no understanding whatsoever. Her stance on this clearly shines through and allows the Economist to support some good journalism. I’m glad they will not tolerate a slur like this and are clearly taking a lead here.

They've finally begun to realise that the word is used so indiscriminately against anyone that it's completely lost its power

I think half of them don’t know what the acronym stands for. I’ve seen people describe Rob Liddle as a ‘terf’.

Rod.

I loved this article. Also I think the Spectator has had all the glory while the Economist has ploughed its own uncompromising, investigative path on this. I think the Economist deserves its own thread with all those links to the articles. I had no idea they had banned terf. The BBC could learn a LOT.

Yes, the Economist is showing integrity that’s very sorely lacking in much of the other mainstream media.

Lesbians are attracted to women - as in 'not someone with a penis'. Sex and gender have become far to muddled. So many women appear to be trodden over to allow males to do what they like.

As an aside I few nothing but support from 'genuine' trans people but persecution of anyone who doesn't agree with the agenda (pun intended) needs to stop

Solidarity between heterosexual woman and lesbians is absolutely the silver lining to this whole disgrace.
Absolutely agree Sarah that this whole shitshow has really highlighted this.

Thank you for the links reminder R0wan. There were also some important threads this summer about the Manchester Pride this year at which someone compering from the stage of the event said the (..completely non violent and non illegal of course..) Get the L out protestors at London Pride ‘should have been dragged off by their saggy old tits’ (an example of men openly calling for violence and silencing against ‘TERFs’) in a most horrible ageist and misogynistic way. but most of those discussion threads got pulled by MNHQ. There was a lot of solidarity there too and useful resources on those pulled threads including links to video where these comments had been recorded.

I did not know all this good news about The Economist and its clued-up female Ed in Chief. Good on her.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3354308-MNHQ-threadpulling-the-Manchester-Pride-thread
Just to add to R0wan’s excellent list above on this thread.

Interesting about the Economist, although I knew they ran a series of twelve articles on various viewpoints on the debate. It was a set of articles I felt able to send to colleagues to say, this is what the issues are.

It does surprise me a bit though that BBC, Guardian and other news outlets appear not to be aware that the feminist chat pulls so much of the traffic here on Mumsnet. If they were professionals, they would start to be more actually woke instead of agree-with-everything-that-TWAs-say-woke, because we are simply are larger group of consumers. By being less willing to listen to women they reveal themselves as incompetent. But of course here in Britain the old boys network does rule and it is clear that some of the TWAs are members of that network despite their claims to be women and therefore not "boys",

ChattyLion Thank you, that thread explains my unsuccessful search for another thread following the Pride London protest which I had remembered but couldn't find.

Interesting about the Economist, although I knew they ran a series of twelve articles on various viewpoints on the debate. It was a set of articles I felt able to send to colleagues to say, this is what the issues are.

The Economist wrote at the time:

'This online event is part of The Economist’s Open Future project, which aims to remake the case for liberalism today. One of the liberal values we seek to uphold is open debate.'

thread with link to the series:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3295999-The-Economist-Series-of-invited-essays-on-Transgender-Identities-seeks-to-uphold-the-liberal-value-of-open-debate

collation of online comments which confirm Amy Dyess' conclusion:
twitter.com/xxposinglesphob/status/1050160719218528256