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.

Mines was not correct but close. Knew it was a twitter exc

Nice Lang

Well, you know, given the parliamentary committee on hate crime thinks it's prosecutable, perhaps Pride might like to get its attendees in order, eh?

Great work Lang. Thanks for all that research.

I don't really care if someone calls me a Terf. Abusive people always invent names to try to put others down and try to dehumanise them. I don't care what TRAs think about me, because their tactics are often abusive, so they are not people whose opinion I care for. If not terf, they'll make up some other word.

I now report anyone who uses that acronym, given the UK government acknowledgement that it is a dehumanising slur against women [female of any age] in the UK.

The fact that such a poster resides outside of the UK is an irrelevance.

Where's Early gone?

Early to bed....

If I say I want a trans person to be excluded from the women only shower facilities, the only thing I can be accused of is trying to keep the women only shower free from male bodied people. If I'm called a terf for trying to do that, I can report it as a hate crime.

Thanks for that lang

I was looking for an official parliamentary statement that terf was a slur against woman

I think you’ve accidentally slightly misquoted the first one though:

Several of the submissions also included screenshots of social media posts (predominantly Twitter) that contained threats and encouragements of violence towards ‘TERFs’. It can easily be argued that this constitutes hate speech under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which people have been successfully prosecuted for. However, under the legislation as it currently stands, it would be difficult to successfully report this as hate speech as it is not completely clear if the abuse refers to lesbians (sexuality is a category of hate crime) or women (sex is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 but not a hate crime category under the Criminal Justice Act 2003).

I think it’s important to highlight this as I think it’s appalling that misogyny isn’t yet treated as a hate crime. I think one police force (Nottingham?) are trialing it already which is a positive step.

I think one police force (Nottingham?) are trialing it already which is a positive step.

Nottingham Police Force's answer to Domestic violence was to swap sharp knives for blunt ones.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-48609164

So I wouldn't put much store in their treatment of misogyny as a hate crime if they actually put more women in danger as a result of engaging in their approach.

Early to rise..... 🌞

I do realise that this sort of critical thinking is going to be lost on the unthinking TWAW believers

Jesus wept I don't even feel that strongly on this issue either way but one thing I do know is you guys are bloody patronising 😂😂😂

sackrifice that is ridiculous!

Here’s an article on the misogyny pilot - www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-nottinghamshire-44740362

bare the joys of young kids! 7am is a lie in

Nottingham did trial it, there was a lot of stuff in the papers at the time saying whistling at women is a criminal offence yada yada

Because of course the idea of acting in any of the shit women and girls get our and about every day is aludicrous idea, also we're always over reacting when nice men are just trying to be friendly and haven't we got a sense of humour? And so on.

In the event a lot of the stuff in the trial period was criminal including iirc rape and attempted abduction. Women said they felt more confident reporting stuff as they felt they would be taken seriously. So things like indecent exposure where lots of women and girls aren't sure if it's illegal, don't want to make a fuss etc.

It was in the papers and a few reruns of women want men arrested for whistling at them. Then it all went quiet, don't know if was quietly dropped.

At the time, at the start a few other forces said that were running about following. They went quiet too.

Fundamentally the laws around crime against women girls (cunty) are in theory only, in practice society feels that women and girls have this kind of as their lot in life and why should men be punished for behaving as crimes naturally to them. Victim blaming also of course, we ask for it just by existing.

Of course once sex is gone as a descriptor of anything and there's is no word tip drive cunty people add a group, all this goes away. There won't be any stats etc to when flag this as a problem, measure it etc. You have a whole class of society that has no name. A really massive one that has been subject to oppression for all of time and all over the world (as far as we know). That's handy, isn't it.

Something struck me yesterday, when I was reading the thread about Leeds Pride. Someone I’m close to who’s a lesbian has said to me that though she is generally gender critical, she’s a bit torn about the GC lesbian protests at Pride as she sees it rather as looking for trouble.

I asked a question on the thread, but it was moving so fast, nobody replied, but I’ll ask it again here? Am I correct in thinking that long before GC lesbians began to protest at Pride, that it was common for transactivists to have “No TERFs” and so on, on their banners.

Because if TERF is shorthand in that community for GC lesbian, then it’s just another way that transactivists have infiltrated and are using a supposedly inoffensive term in a way that is, in fact, utterly appalling.

And they are allowed to do it in plain sight, and nobody, but nobody objects. But when lesbians object using plain language, they are the awful ones.

As for the original question, I’d rather TERF came to be seen for what it really is. At one point, I wondered about the idea of reclaiming it, but the way it’s used is too devious.

Behaving as comes naturally

Spelling awful on holiday tablet hope it makes some sense!

The stuff with the baseball bats was years ago

Interesting point yes you're right they didn't 'start it'

I don’t think terf was/is shorthand for GC lesbian at all as a lot of GC woman are not lesbians, of course some are but it’s not exclusive to lesbians.

Lesbians may have different/more personal reasons to be GC than straight woman, but ultimately Being GC is seen as fighting for all woman/girls including but not limited to lesbians.

I was looking for an official parliamentary statement that terf was a slur against woman

You think parliament goes about making portentous statements? Don't be ridiculous. You really are reaching there.

Two parliamentary committees have taken evidence and concluded that TERF is a slur against women. That's how parliament works. Debates in the chambers; reports and recommendations made by committees after evidence sessions.

I think you’ve accidentally slightly misquoted the first one though

No. I haven't. You wanted evidence of Jacky's assertion and I gave it to you. The conclusion of that report is that TERF is an equivalent slur to that currently covered by hate crime guidelines and only can't currently be prosecuted because the guidelines don't include one of EqA's protected characteristics - but should. Parliament's conclusion: not mine.

Note that committees are cross party endeavours, so their conclusions have more weight vis a vis political (parliamentary) consensus than quotes from speakers in debates in either House. Just in case you were unaware.

Warlywalker i have seen lesbians (who are only interested in cunty women) started as being the definition of terf, on the net, a fair bit.

You may not agree, doesn't mean there aren't people who think that way, and plenty of them.

It's fairly well known that lesbians who are homosexual have been described as genital fetishists and so forth, i think.

The ‘no terfs’ signs are usually because the trans community tend to see ‘terfs’ as the biggest threat to their ‘rights’

Which is partly true because ‘terfs’ appear to be the only ones questioning self-ID and the full acceptance of TW in woman’s spaces/sports/shortlists and some TW see this as their ‘right’

What do they call the men that are ‘terfy’ like glinner?

Nottingham still lists misognyny as a hate crime, we come just above goths.

I would suggest, imagine that of the hate categories, women and girls get the most shit? Day in, day out starting about 13 peaking till alot 25 then slowing down gradually until we hit about 40 when it vecomes rarer.

The frequency is of course why it was never included in the first place, and because people have trouble seeing it as a crime. Still if goths are in, we get to be as well. Yay?

www.nottinghamshire.police.uk/hatecrime

They don't really, earlywalker.

Men who say eg they're straight and they don't want a partner with a dick, or that womens sports should be for women, get very little pushback.

You sound like my dad insisting that it is okay to call people paki's because it is a descriptive term as they come from pakistan...…

Women who say no to dickm get stuff like this

www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/comments/6iafrq/trans_dykes_with_baseball_bats_at_womens_march/

(First thing on Google, 2 years so)

There's a lot of stuff about baseball bats and rapping women to death and stuff as well. Terf is Dehumanusing, allowing violent men an outlet for their fantasies around vaw. This is a problem, when you invent a category of women it's ok to really this way about. And yes it often means lesbian.

Now you could say they're a few nutcases ( but once nutcase can do a lot of real life harm). Fact is I've never seen a woman talk about trans people with anything like that level of hate. Women are saying, we don't want you in womens prisons. The response is, you deserve to be murdered.

And on it goes.