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.

Is that a compost bin in the background or something more interesting?
We have had fuck all success with compost so if it is, interested to hear how you're getting on.

I know what you mean Bernard, I always want to hear at least a quick argument about why you disagree with someone, a single word just demeans the person using it.

The next big thing in porn...

I think women who look like girls, or girls who are actually girls, will remain popular tbh

Which is a real shame

The idea that men go through phases/ fashion in what they want to watch is interesting. Most mainstream het porn revolves around young women being demeaned. It is differemt in flavour to eg mainstream gay porn. The subjugation element is not at the fore.

I'm not sure what trans porn is all about. Is this a genre different to cissy % forced feminusation stuff? I suppose i just need top ask dh he'll definitely know and not look comfused at all :D

I had to live as a woman

If you are gender critical you believe that, apart from living with the unavoidable consequences of being born with a male or female body, it is impossible to live as a man or a woman. You can only live as yourself.

I can understand that you might find this point of view difficult, but I hope that you can understand that give or take 50 years and a few miles of geography any woman contributing to this board would be forced into a very restricted life regardless of their gender identity. This is also an emotive topic for us.

As for the threat, Trans women are on extra high doses of estrogen as well as anti testosterone medication, they are hardly a sexual predator in the making.

Women are frightened of men. Currently there is no requirement to take any level of hormones or to have undergone any level of surgery to identify as trans.

There's always been underlying (overlying) homophobia in this movement.

Do we need a new word for heterophobia as well?
I mean yes lots of men have repressed their sexualities over the years % are bi etc etc

But the idea that straight men will be clamouring for women with dicks to watch seems like a denial of heterosexuality.

It's really interesting.

Are men who have an exclusive preferencec for people with cunts (aka women) terfs?

Trans jury says yes, lie back and take the ladycock you bigot.

Try the gardening topic Fraggling. Highly recommend to anyone who finds FWR upsetting or stressful, though it can get heated on topics such as herbicides and lily pollen.

Are men who have an exclusive preferencec for people with cunts (aka women) terfs?

Vagina fetishists, I assume - which oddly seems to be the only fetish considered taboo nowadays.

I’m sorry to hear what happened to you pandemos

It takes a lot to share your experience of rape with others, so I’m also sorry you didn’t receive any support on that here.

Actually it’s the ‘radical feminist’ part of the phrase that’s ridiculous. Rad fems are a very small group of women, it has a specific definition.

Agree with that too hero

As an alternative point to those mentioned - Some of the conservative Christian Right in the USA for example have some how managed to tag on to the ‘feminist’ train with their GC views and by lumping everyone in as ‘terfs’ it seems a deliberate attempt to throw genuine bigots and feminists in together.

Many people would understand at least partly the disposition from a feminist perspective but because genuine transphobes and feminists are all being thrown in together as if they are of the same reasoning, it weakens this stance to outsiders.

Calling right wing Christians 'terms' shows clearly it's just a slur devoid of meaning.

Exactly Early. I’ve struggled with some of the arguments comparing being GC with homophobia, questioning my responses and reading up on why i might actually be wrong. But I still come back to sex being the axis of women’s oppression, and the dreadful tyranny of gender roles on the lives of women and men.
I’m always questioning myself and my privilege.

Fraggling I believe you are right - TF was never coined by women for themselves.

When TW demanded access to all women’s spaces, there was a split among radical feminists.

One group said - sorry, we want to keep our refuges for women, who are fleeing from male violence and need a female space. Why not build your own, like we did in the 70s? We’ll help you lobby for funding.

TRAs were very angry. They lobbied hard to get access, and mostly succeeded.

The second group of feminists said - it’s a bit exclusionary not to embrace TWAW, isn’t it? What harm could it do? Let’s support TW being in women’s shelters, prisons and wards.

This group labelled the first one T*RFs. It had a negative connotation - wanting any space just for women is mean.

I think it's very telling that, although it's claimed that gender critical feminists are funded and organised by right wing evangelical christians, the catch all insult of choice for TRAs attacks feminists, not right wing evangelical christians.

We have had fuck all success with compost so if it is, interested to hear how you're getting on.

Well, now you are talking.

The smaller the pieces are chopped, the more it is turned, the more insect activity and the closest you get to 50/50 browns and greens, the quicker you will get compost.

I think it's very telling that, although it's claimed that gender critical feminists are funded and organised by right wing evangelical christians, the catch all insult of choice for TRAs attacks feminists, not right wing evangelical christians.

Exactly so .. and this is how we know that those anti-women activists are telling yet another fiction.

It is also how we know that this is driven by misogyny.

If the anti-women activists really believed that "right-wing Christians" were funding women's activity they would target that source.

They don't .. they are pathetic and blatant cowards, each and every one of them.

Maybe so jacky To be fair though things like Posie and Julia in the USA didnt help. I think it was also found out that WolF received £15k from ADF.

Where there’s a mutual fight it is all too easy to align with those who have fundamentally different views to better try and achieve you’re goal.

Ultimately it’s Up to individuals who they continue to align with but it does give food for thought as to what’s going to be more beneficial in the long run.

I think some of the TRAs do know that but they actively choose to target feminists instead.

To say all TRA’s are pathetic and blatant cowards, each and every one of them is also an interesting statement... you are essentially saying that everyone who fights for trans rights is ‘pathetic’ and a ‘coward’ do you see the irony at all?

The prominent TRAs describe themselves as fighting for their rights but in fact they're almost exclusively males who are trying to remove women's sex based rights, our spaces, our opportunities and our sports.

They already have human rights like everyone else. They want extra. They want power. They are anti woman activists and their displays of male dominance reveal the misogyny at the root of the movement.

Maybe so jacky To be fair though things like Posie and Julia in the USA didn't help.

Exactly what did Posie and Julia do in the USA, EarlyWalker?

Agree prawn a lot of the prominent ones are clearly anti-woman. I just don’t think it’s fair to say ‘all’ as lots of trans activists, not unlike woman activists, see that although they have ‘rights’ there is still stigma, difficulty in employment, discrimination etc. And are fighting against important issues that everyone can get behind.

I don’t think blanket statements should be made on all as ‘TRA’s’ is also becoming an insult and ‘dirty word’.

Jacky they were doing many things in the USA. But they publicly aligned with far right Christian platforms and people. (If you’re actually asking, they also harassed a lone transgender person in her place of work on film, which I think also set things back a bit. But that’s just my opinion)

i don’t believe I used the word all

Well no, you said each and every one of them is there a difference?

You quoted a comment talking about TRAs and said ‘those anti- woman activists’ and then said ‘each and every one of them’ I don’t know what you’re trying to say.

It makes you look worse trying to ‘gaslight’ just FYI.