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.

What are you talkibg about?

I asked if you were black.

You said yes, I would still have been surprised if you were approaching groups of men about the language they used talking to each other on the street.

You then clarified it was men you know. So we got there in the end.

I said fair enough? So what's the problem.

what would you have said if they had said they were white? would you explained to them that they had no right to say that. Also what if they did challenge men that they didn't know but in a non confruntional way. When I was a youth work we used to do this around a number of issues with young men to make them think about there language or there views, not becuse they were wrong but because maybe they had never considered how that might effect how people see them.

But yes, I also agree with the sentiment that TERF isn’t accurate because a lot of GC people are not feminists.

If anything, the word TERF gives haters a blanket term for anyone who doesn’t agree with them and it becomes acceptable to ‘hate’ this group, and it also gives genuinely transphobic people a ‘feminist’ label to hide behind.

If you have concerns for woman’s spaces - ‘TERF!’
If you’re a religious activist that thinks god made man and woman and don’t accept a man should be able to wear a dress - ‘TERF’
Very different things.

Fraggling you don’t know many strong black woman if you don’t think there’s many who would approach young men randomly and tell them to watch their mouths if they heard them using the N word

White is default in uk pretty much everywhere tbh

Very small % of uk people are black.

I found the idea that a woman would appriach a group of men in the street to address their language a bit odd.

If the men are black and the woman is not its even more weird.

People don't really do that sort of thing.

You've said it's men you know not random ones, so why didn't you say that in the first place?

White is default in uk pretty much everywhere tbh

you clearly don't live in the parts of the UK this is not ture for don't you.

I don't think there's many women who would approach a group of men in the street because they didn't like their language, no.

Groups of white men / youths ime can be very suddenly very violent.

Very few women full stop will do that, at least where I live. Because the risk isn't worth it.

Risk it over bullying or a fight sure, I'd step in with my eyes open.

Fraggling

I worked for two years where that was my job to go and talk to young people on the street. often there would just be to two of us white middle age woman. conversation, challenge and education do not need to be confrontational in nature.

Oh cut the end off my sentence.

Of course there are areas where white is minority, but at a population level not many.

That's besides the point though, surely. I feel like you're trying to catch me out over something to side track the thread.

Fraggling if you keep digging you might just reach the core of the earth!

Fraggling

it's ok to say I was expecting you to say yesx I made a mistake as I am used to the default being white. it is easy assume such things on a place like here I do it all the time assuming peoole are probably Stright.

Bespin are you seriously suggesting that women in the uk should approach groups of men and pull them up on their language?

They'll just get told to fuck off, and possibly worse.

Why is it the job of women to police men's behaviour?

Yet again.

Fraggling

I'm suggesting that there are indeed youth workers who do that on a nightly basis and of course they build up relationships with the young people and trust, and assess the situation they are in but they do soft challenge the language and assumptions of young men, usually around they're views on woman if I'm honest in a clever and often humours manner to make a point and to educate. This can be done and is by verious groups of people in iner City locations in the UK.

Or is it only women on here who should be encouraged to approach groups of men and talk to them about their behaviour.

That's one way to get a terf punched I suppose!

Fraggling

also female special constables often do this again it is about knowing the area you are in and not about just expecting you can arrive there and tell people what to think. Again challenge does not have to be confrontational.

Bespin youth workers exist.

I'm not sure what they have to do with this plan that women in general should approach groups of men who are using language they find offensive, and try to get them to stop it.

You added the ‘in the street’ bit not me.

You hear ‘young black men talking to each other’ and assume I’m seeing this as a vulnerable white woman in the street, because to you that is the only place you’d see black men conversing.

I’m not trying to catch you out, clearly just different lives.

Ive always enjoyed the phrase ‘never assume because it only makes an ass out of you and me’

Fraggling

no one is saying that woman should what we are saying is that it is very much part of some woman's jobs to actually do this on a regular basis.

now would you like to stop digging and we can all move on.

This conversation is a massive distraction.

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

Turns out it was only people they knew. So the approaching strangers / youth work stuff is beside the point.

Fraggling

As early pointed out you assumed that it would be gangs on the streets that they would approach, becuse that is the prevailing context we see young black men in, in the media and society as a whole.
they were not thinking in that context as they explained.
I also showed you that there are poeple who do that for a job and do challenge such language in various ways and views and attitudes even on the streets, and that challenge does not equal confrontation.

you appear to be unble to except it and move on.

if you don't think woman can do those roles in society then again check your own views on woman as you may have internalised sociatal norms.

You are the one that caused the distraction fraggling

Don’t assume, demand I tell you what race I am, accuse me of not answering a question (before I’ve even posted), then use ‘the default in the UK is white’ as your excuse and then accuse us of distracting anything.

I think bespin had a good point.

I have called out many men I know, I’ve not heard anyone say it on the street. If I did, I would as I said in my post in 9.41.

Setting the default of young black men talking to ‘dangerous youths in the street’ is not something that shouldn’t be called out.

Bespin the idea of a gang of men on the street conjures up for me a group of drunk white men outside the pub, which are a dangerous sort of group to get entangled with.

You don't get black men hanging around in the same sort of way as a group in my part of London. It's majority white, as you correctly identified. And the sort of white men who live there can be quite rough. Maybe I can get called racist against white people now as well :)

No if you read my posts, I said that approaching any group of men in the street was a risky thing to do. I specified white men as being prone to violence.

'I don't think there's many women who would approach a group of men in the street because they didn't like their language, no.

Groups of white men / youths ime can be very suddenly very violent.

Very few women full stop will do that, at least where I live. Because the risk isn't worth it.

Risk it over bullying or a fight sure, I'd step in with my eyes open.'

In my experience lots of white men do become very aggressive very quickly often over quite trivial things. They don't like it when women don't kowtow to them , a lot of them.