Is the phrase TERF really all that bad (or inaccurate)?

[pressureofaname]

This is something I’ve been thinking about recently and I wondered what views others had.

Obviously TERF is intended as, and is used as, a slur. But if you break it down and apply some critical thinking it seems to me actually helpful to use TERF as the way into an interesting discussion with people who aren’t (yet) gender critical as follows:

The big question is what feminists want to exclude transpeople from. Take the example of a transwoman who retains male genitalia, presents as male, and just woke up this morning and decided they were a woman. Would I exclude that person from a tube train? A dinner party? My place of employment? Absolutely not.

Would I exclude them from the female changing room in Topshop? Probably, yes.

Then you need to think about what “trans” means. Is there a distinction in the Topshop changing room example between people who have lived as trans for years and have a GRC and people who present as male and self-id’d that morning? Potentially so.

So yes, I am trans exclusionary in some circumstances, but by no means in all.

I do realise that this sort of critical thinking is going to be lost on the unthinking TWAW believers, but I think it might be worth a go with those who are not yet a lost cause, and it certainly makes me feel less offended about the term TERF.

Doesn’t bother me tbh. A stupid term invented by stupid people for stupid reasons. They think it’s some kind of incantation or spell -utter it and we’ll all disappear in a puff of smoke.
You may as well call me rhubarb. It would be no more absurd.

Im not particularly bothered except that it is meant as a misogynist slur.

It is also inaccurate IMO. Feminism to me is about all females however they present. Also to me it excludes all males however they present.

I think it is used as the same slur that the word feminist often is. Many people use feminist as a dirty word. They are nuts.

It is annoying because it should be 'MERF' - men exclusionary radical feminists. Which is annoying again because it is a tautology and radical feminists exclude men anyway, so radical feminist should do. Or have 'gender critical' to describe men and women who don't believe the gender nonsense but aren't radical feminists.

It should be FFCNMIF (female faling to center natal males in feminism) but that doesn't roll off the tongue unfortunately...

I so agree with MERF!

UK Parliament [via its Women & Equalities Committee] has deemed the acronym "TERF" to be a slur against women in the UK.

This was established when Women & Equalities Committee received representations from senior Twitter personnel earlier this year.

That grin was for "FFCNMIF"

At first I thought ok well it’s fine

But then I saw it being used as an attack by men. If they put the word women in there instead of terf then they would get pulled for it

Kill a terf. Kill a woman
Burn a terf. Burn a woman
And so it goes on.
It gave some men permission to show their hate without showing what they really hated was uppity women
Or even any woman

'terfs' don't exclude trans men, so it's inaccurate.

And shows up that the only trans people that terf-hunters care about are the ones who have, or used to have, dicks.

Which tells you everything you need to know, really

I think it’s both bad and inaccurate.

Inaccurate Because i think I class as a terf whilst I am not sure I am a rad fem, and actually I don’t want transpeople to be excluded from any aspect of life. Which is not the same as saying I think sex based rights should be based on gender identity.

And bad becuase it focuses on the exclusionary , implying that feminists treat transpeople with negative discrimination, and negative discrimination is widely ( accuraelyj regarded as negative , 8mplying feminsits are bad.

It is annoying because it should be 'MERF' - men exclusionary radical feminists

I like this so much

It's a slur. And it's bollocks. Because there must be plenty who object to trans ideology who don't necessarily think of themselves as feminists (radical or otherwise) and a significant number are male. Seems an increasing number of men are picking up on the issues:

twitter.com/jackappleby/status/1159155143000170496?s=19

The big question is what feminists want to exclude transpeople from.

This premise is utterly false in UK.

The facts of the matter are that no human can ever change their natural sex. In UK, the terms "transwoman" and "transman" have no legal reference in any statute. The only term that is referenced in UK law is "transsexual".

The UK Gender Recognition Act 2004 acknowledges that the issue of a Gender Recognition Certificate creates a Legal Fiction [thereby acknowledging that a man is always a man and that a woman is always a woman].

Women Overlooking Males At Nativity... acronym WOMAN...

I cannot fathom why any woman would have made that OP? It seems very awry to me. Perhaps the OP is not a UK citizen and therefore not subject to UK law?

In which legal jurisdiction do you live OP, please?

The big question is what feminists want to exclude transpeople from

Nothing - they want to exclude biological males and many trans people are not biological males.

So perhaps 'MERF'.

But many gender critical feminists aren't radical feminists, so eventually you end up with 'MEF' - Male excluding feminists - and then you just end up with a term that does exclude men, but only really in line with the existing equalities act legislation that allows pubs to exclude under 21s.

'Terf' makes as much sense as any other part of trans ideology.

It's not descriptive enough. I'm an extreme version of that term. Lots of people are much more moderate and reasonable than me. They still get called by the same name. Agree though that it's usually just an insulting way of saying 'woman'.

Loads of people who aren't feminists think eg men shouldn't be in womens prisons.

The term terf is just the new witch. Burn her etc

It’s just a slur.

The guys that use it know it. They can’t use the word woman. As that would be well outrageous. But use the word terf. They can say what they want abou5 women without being called out for it.
Dehumanising word.
The degenartes people who did an exhibit at was it a gallery in New York. ?

Baseballs bats with fuck a terf on the bats.
And blood on T-shirt’s saying kill a terf

Imagine that same gallery showing exhibits where the word was women instead of the word terf

I object to the term because

a) It is used as an equivalent of cunt, bitch, witch, whore in most contexts and

b) When used in the correct context it is inaccurate. I am not 'trans' exclusionary, I am happy to share spaces with XX trans identifying people. I am man exclusionary irrespective of whether men believe in madey-uppy 'gender identities' or not, and I don't particularly choose the label feminist, radical or otherwise, either though I'm not fussed if others use it for me.

It seems that within 45 minutes of the OP making that post, the person has become absent. So, maybe that OP in this instance is disingenous?

In which legal jurisdiction do you live, OP?

[Nothing more is needed in reply other than country of origin, so that we can know with what legal system we are dealing. That is, this is not an attempt at doxxing.]

So yeah OP. it’s a sexist slur

And ... maybe we can all disregard this thread as vexatious.