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.

Jeez early. It’s a slur. You know it. We know it. It’s not rocket science ffs

I think everyone should be able to use all words or terms. And people should be free to take offence or not as they please. I think free speech should extend right up to incitement to violence. I've not changed my position.

Do I think TERF is a misogynist slur? Yes. Do I think it should be banned? No.

I'm asking you for whose perception of vitriol would count in your world because the discussion between us had been on the topic of what was, or was not, viewed as hate speech by authorities in the UK - and, as we all know, that is recorded on the perception of the victim. You've been in favour of that several times hereabouts. So I wanted to know, in your view, who was going to decide whether a particular use of TERF was "vitriolic" or not.

I'm assuming you're consistent in this and think it would be in the perception of the woman who was called TERF, right? Not for you or me to judge: only the woman. Right?

(Right up to incitement to violence - at which point it should be criminal. Obvs.)

I encourage people to read
www.fairplayforwomen.com/single-sex

It's very straightforward.

I think free speech should extend right up to incitement to violence.

Atleast we agree on something there lang, although I doubt you’ll be called a woman hater for it.

I'm assuming you're consistent in this and think it would be in the perception of the woman who was called TERF, right

Yes, correct. I came off the topic of ‘hate speech’ because misogyny isn’t classed as a hate crime so ultimately it is down to the individuals ‘bruised feelings’ how much so, depends on what they personally see as the intent. Any incitement of violence is different as this is a crime.

I really think you should reclaim your word back, just as queer was reclaimed. words only have power if we give it too them. if you feel that terf is a slur then take away its power and own the word. the word is yours to start will you came up with it.

In terms of its accuracy, the vast majority of people now described as "Terfs" couldn't be described as "radical feminists".

I think that is my main problem with the term - if most people targeted with 'terf' are not radical feminists and some aren't even feminists, 'feminist' is simply being used as a lazy insult.

It reminds me of the way people used to dismiss anybody who stood up for women's rights as a 'man hating feminist', or the way that right wing Americans dismiss any attempt to provide universal health care as 'socialism'. People who use language in this way have no interest in discussing feminism or socialism, they just want to shut down debate.

It's bullying and dismissive and is a refusal to engage with somebody else's concerns.

just as queer was reclaimed

I think we have reached the point where queer has not so much been reclaimed as colonised by heterosexuals.

I think we have reached the point where queer has not so much been reclaimed as colonised by heterosexuals.

I concur. Queer, in current usage, is basically homosexual erasure.

I really think you should reclaim your word back, just as queer was reclaimed. words only have power if we give it too them.

Likewise, I assume you also think trans people should claim back TIM?

no becuse Tim was a word that was imposed on us not created by us. I remember in the 90s people trying to reclaiming the word tranny which again was a word imposed on us. I think Debbie is trying to claim Tim back, and people have the right to identify how they want to I remeber being very proud to be MtF back in the 90s to I would not use that now as language and understanding move on. I didn't like it though when younger people had a problem with it I will be honest becuse it was my word for myself.

the use of words is often generational and the main points or conflict are around older generations continuing to use the words they defined themselves with. when the younger generation have a issue with them.

'So actually it’s a good parallel and I’m wondering why I find paki so much worse than TERF.'

Because only a handful of people have been physically attacked because of it!?
Because you can't see that a woman has gc views unless she is wearing a placard or something
Because most of society aren't anti-gc women
Gc women don't get refused service in shops, shouted at on the street, children aren't bullied at school because their mum looks gc...

So not quite the same.

Of course women are shouted at on the street generally and the children of eg lesbians might be bullied at school but those are separate issues.

The question was asked that's my answer.

'And when I hear young black (mainly men) calling each other the N word, I always call them out on it,'

Are you black?

I mean, you're walking down the street and you some black men conversing and one refers to another using that word, you see it as your place to interject?

Are you black?

is an interesting question, I could ask a similar question on here re Are you gay?

Because a lot of people that arnt seem to have no problem telling us what it is or is not to be gay or queer or a lesbian.

so is the point you are making people that are not part of that community should not tell poeple what words to use?

This claim that women invented the word terf as a label for themselves sounds pretty iffy to me.

I've been around for a long time on here and on lots of groups around the place that are invitation radfem only, trans has been a growing hot topic for years. I have never seen it used by a member of any of those groups to describe themselves. Expect maybe in anger after it had been applied to them, or sarcastically. Maybe some women have used it as individuals but it was never a thing, like, there was never a time it was all, hey terfy women let's all be terfs together woohoo type thing. To identify each other and be used as a call to a group.

I've never seen a group focusing on women's rights and how they will be threatened by changes to the law as called anything to do with the word terf.

There just wasnt.

And it still doesnt get round the fact that most gc people are not feminists, certainly not radical feminists. Many are men.

And also the fact that most of the time it's seen its accompanied by threats.

The pics of baseball bats with barbed wire round to rape terfs with. As an example. I don't see stuff like that on gc side. Nothing at all like that. It can be argued that that's a line loony, but. The language attached to the word terf is an incitement, usually. Calling someone a terf means attack. To call yourself a terf you might as well call yourself cunt or bitch. That's what it means.

Yes fraggling I’m black, and I’m referring to men I know

This claim that women invented the word terf as a label for themselves sounds pretty iffy to me.

it might do but it's true and well documented on the Internet. hopefully other GC will clarify that it is indeed true, as I said the first uses of the word were people being proud to be terfs.

You haven't answered the question. Are you black?

I personally wouldn't walk up to a group of men and correct them in what they were saying. Very few women would. The likelihood of it not ending well for the woman would be high.

I like to think I'd step in if a group of men were attacking someone or bullying someone, I am quite rash! I'd expect that not to end well for me either. I wouldn't take that risk over a conversation amongst themselves.

Oh you're referring to men to know!

Well that's totally different and not actually what you said at all.

Fair enough.

Fraggling

oops posting before someone replys is often a bad thing as it catches you out.

You say women should not interfere with trans stuff essentially as we have no skin in the game. Unless the woman is a lesbian.

That s interesting.

It's inaccuate because

a) it blames the intrinsic biological exclusion of male people from the category of 'woman' on women.

And

b) it positions the knowledge and dissemination of basic biology as being something 'radical' i.e extremist. If we passively accept this we'll be accepting that we're also 'radical' round-earthers or 'radical' murder-objectors next.

and

c) it originates from a belief structure where self-identity trumps everything else, and yet it entirely ignores and silences how the women upon whom that derogatory and innacurate label is bestowed may themselves identify.

Fraggling

Were just going to pretend you didn't just do that arnt we lol.

interesting, but not surprising, that white is yet again the default here.