Renouncing the heresy of Terfism

[Driechdrizzle]

This seems to be a new trend in the TRA sphere. Claim to have been taken in by evil TERFs (it's a cult!) for less than principled reasons, then see the light and publicly renounce TERFs and their wicked ways. This one's from New Zealand:

www.metromag.co.nz/society/society-society/terf-trans-activism-cis-gender-critical

What felt “right” or persuasive about what you read?

"I’m struggling to remember the exact thing, but it was something about male and female being clear biological realities and the concept of a man who felt he was in the wrong body was a logical impossibility (I now understand that’s a metaphor which approximates the way people feel).

"The other terrible thing to admit is that there’s something exciting and stimulating about being at the centre of a big drama on Twitter. I said the other day that TERFs were cult-like and I think that’s true. It’s the ‘us against the world’ mentality."

One little addition from the article's author, which is something else they're trying to get written into history -

However the acronym [TERF] was used for a long time by those who agreed with the political philosophy to self-identify.

A great big lie. TERF was invented by useless libfems Hoyden About Town who couldn't stand that radical feminists had better politics than them and weren't afraid to stand up to men. For those sins radical feminists had an insult invented especially for them. An insult that men now use to threaten women with violence. Not much ever changes.

I've seen this too: people claiming they were gender critical or 'terfs' until they saw the error of their ways and repented.
Whenever this does happen the repenter seems to spout the same old tropes and straw men about the gender critical stance, so either they're a bit dim and confused about what gender critical actually is (self-identifying as gender critical as it were) or they're not being entirely honest.

I am a member of a cult that doesn't believe humans can change sex

I want that on a t-shirt.

"it's been carefully planned for years."

The we're still here thread is useful to illustrate this.

So we've appropriated 'heresy' now

It's quite sad. No semantic comprehension, not even the social awareness that picking up any big word that sounds important and throwing it around makes you look a complete twit when you don't really understand what you're saying. Not to mention the failure to compute that when you constantly borrow words from the big kids, it makes it look like your own words and arguments don't stand up and even you don't believe it.

I have a few times thought casually of throwing a random word around a lot here for a week or two and seeing how long it takes before that word gets used in a TRA article.

Many TERFs now reject this label and prefer to use the term “gender critical feminists”. It has been alleged the term TERF is a slur, and abusive. However the acronym was used for a long time by those who agreed with the political philosophy to self-identify. Although it is often used by critics of the movement, often in highly critical or even aggressive contexts, Metro does not agree it is a slur, and is a more accurate description of the groups’ politics than Gender Critical feminism.

Evidence that anyone ever called themselves a terf?

Also, why isn't gender critical an accurate description?

It's almost like the Metro has been badly advised.

Aye, alright then!

TRAs consistently lie on twitter and try to troll GC feminists. They admit as much.

This one isn't a particularly good one.

Bear with me on this: this may not seem immediately relevant.

I was involved in a dispute with a former business partner some years ago. I had evidence that showed they had defrauded and embezzled from the company: bank accounts, evidence of payments into their account with authorisation, telephone recordings from the bank confirming this, the lot. I also had signed statements and photographic evidence that they had not been at the places they were supposed to have been, working, when they said they were, and had not done what they were supposed to have done. These were submitted to their solicitor.

A week or two later they responded via their lawyer making the exact same accusations against me, even though they had no evidence to support their claims. My solicitor said this happens frequently: when they don't have a leg to stand on people will try to turn things around by mirroring what they're accused of.

The fact that this is all the TRAs can come up with – mirroring and pointing back and making dubious claims – actually makes me feel quite reassured, because this is how liars and charlatans work. It's not as if they're coming up with any rational reasoning that answers any of the science-based questions GC people are asking. They'e just making statements for which I doubt they have no persuasive evidence.

We went to court, by the way, and I won. Evidence, evidence, evidence.

Sorry should be;

They're just making statements for which I doubt they have –no– persuasive evidence.

Hope that strikethru works!

It didn't. Should read 'no persuasive evidence'. I'll be leaving now...

Sounds very much like Maoist public "self-criticism" in the Cultural Revolution.

Classic DARVO isn't it?

For a country that has so many women in power nz is a horrendous place to be a woman.

It's not even a straw man argument: it's a blazing Wicker Man, with our arguments supposedly immured inside like a conscience they're trying to kill.

Projections like: The most recent reminder of the truth - that hard-won ground can be lost... er, yes, dear, that's what we're afraid of.

Or The TERFs have been good at portraying themselves as a marginalised, silenced minority - ...followed soon after by It took me a while to learn that just because someone is a minority, they are not necessarily the underdog. Really, you don't say.

I also realised that the TERF community here is small, butthe UK one is large and plugged in, so they came charging in like the cavalry. In the UK, TERFdom is centred on academics, especially feminists and philosophers, so it also taps into those arguments about free speech and deplatforming in universities. Here, it’s off campus, which is also interesting. It’s more intellectually marginal. I can see how this might feel like an uncomfortable echo of colonial relationships, but what can we do? The UK has a bigger population than that of NZ, so public life and culture are going to be active. Population density and degree of urbanisation probably count for a lot, too.

I didn’t like the tenor of the argument, the way that TERFs seemed to hound and victimise critics; or the single mindedness of their world view, the obsessiveness of it. I started to doubt the alarmist claims about men in women’s changing rooms and prisons, and started to see them promote conspiracy theories about pedophiles. Hm. hound/ victimise/ single-mindedness/ obsessiveness. Alarmist claims about "literal violence" (misgendering is such a bitch, compared to DieInAFireTERF).

A friend of mine said if you want to assess the quality of a new (as it was to me) argument or belief, see who else it attracts. Besides the legit feminists, [gosh, thanks] there were men’s rights activists, Jordan Peterson fans, free speech nuts, Quillette readers Could it be simply that a lot of people find your claims, ideas and behaviour problematic?

The stories these supposedly left-wing activists were sharing were coming from the Spectator and the Daily Mail. Oh, so you didn't dare go after The Times. Also, if the Guardian would cover the gender critical point of view a bit better, that would be great, thanks.

cruel/ lack of compassion/ transphobic If you're looking for a transphobe, you need to meet a man, man, not a gender critical feminist. Men get away with saying all sorts of shit women don't.

If someone is reading this and wants to confront someone in their life who is currently down the TERF rabbit hole, how would you suggest approaching them, based on your experience?

If someone’s deep in the TERF rabbit hole, I don’t know. Threaten her job or doxx her children. That might do it.

Astroturf is simulated grassroots activity. It's just too unbelievably apt that this person is an astro-terf.

This "I used to be GC but now I'm a TRA" trope is a fake narrative.

There's nothing trans ideology won't appropriate, whether it's the plight of black oppression, intersex people, feminism, gay rights, this is a new low.
TRAs have observed the "peak trans" trans trajectory that most ordinary people follow, and they're trying to create their own illusion of an equivalent.

Hahaha at astro-terf!

Even their use of the phrase "Rabbit hole" is appropriated.

Everyone knows Alice in Wonderland fell down the rabbit hole into a strange unusual world where rabbits talk and human biological reality no longer existed. This is how we describe trans ideology.
How dare they take that for themselves too!

A friend of mine said if you want to assess the quality of a new (as it was to me) argument or belief, see who else it attracts. Besides the legit feminists, [gosh, thanks] there were men’s rights activists, Jordan Peterson fans, free speech nuts, Quillette readers

In this case the reason our argument are attracting agreement from such a wide range of people is because "people can't change sex, especially not by putting on a wig or a dress, and giving drugs with severe side effects to children is unethical" is at such a "water is wet" level of obviousness that it is in fact obvious to anyone who stops to think about it. Which the author decided not to do because it was too scary.

The sky is blue, sometimes grey, and dark at night Jordan Peterson agrees with me. That must be because we're all right wingers. Or something.

Funny how Jordon Peterson, Quillette readers, and MRAs never become freedom fighting feminists when those differing viewpoints coincide. If the propagandists looked carefully they'd notice the right actually taking up and using feminist (women-centred) arguments on other issues too.

I'm sure Peterson also agrees with me that jumping off the top of tall buildings without a parachute or bungee cord in place is a terrible idea as humans do not have wings. I still think he's an arsehole and I'm sure he wouldn't like me much either, we just share a common desire not to go splat on the ground from 50 floors up or to watch anyone else do so.

I wish it was possible to go from GC to TRA. I'd genuinely like to be convinced to make the switch. I'd have a much easier life

Yeah no kidding. Comes with 99% less death threats and attempts to get you sacked!

Some women have been instructed to either publicly recant the anti-trans heresy of Feminism and women's rights advocacy or be fired. Some have done so.
Are those the women the article is referring to?

The public recanting (that being anti woman is a jolly good thing and they're right behind it) is absolutely not a transformation of thinking or winning hearts and minds, it's an announcement of coercion and fearful 'please stop attacking me'. Obedience isn't agreement.

As demonstrated by Martina, the recanter, once they realise that no amount of self flagellation will ever be sufficient and that you can try to be woke as hard as you can and they will still get you if you're caught breathing wrong, many recanters later say fuck it.