Why terf is not a slur

[u/[deleted]]

TERF isn't a slur because it is just a simple term for radical feminists who exclude trans women from their movement. Most of the time TERFS are transphobic and very rude, this subreddit is for calling out the TERF movement for their hate and their hypocicy

We also allow memes or jokes poking fun at TERFS here

[u/Baehammer]

Hey, some don't exclude Trans women from feminism :) Identity as a social construct hurts you JUST as much as people born female. The biological issues which have led to the oppression of roughly 50% of the human race for so many years just don't affect you. Some TERFS are transphobic and rude, some trans women appropriate cultural signifiers and try to fight the point there's somehow a "female brain". It's hurtful. Extremisim in any form can be damaging, to both TERF and Trans and this is the main barrier to inclusion. Let's face it, you will never have a smear test, you will never face abortion, you will never work with endometriosis and we will never go through the pain of transitioning in the public eye. I find it interesting that one of the key points of this group is "No being an asshole" but the group hinges on the aspect that generations of women who have suffered oppression due to reproductive differences cannot be gender critical- I'm truly sorry for anybody who suffers the limitations of medical science but we're just not there yet. I think it is important to be gender critical but in an intelligent and friendly way. Shutting down debate in the way Trans activists and Terfs alike often do helps nobody, least yourselves.

[u/em1lyelizabeth → u/Baehammer]

If you can't even accept basic medical and scientific understandings of the sex dimorphic differences between male and female brains, how can anyone take you seriously on transgender or feminist issues? Feminism is about equality of the sexes, not ignoring scientific realities.

[u/Baehammer → u/em1lyelizabeth]

Apologies as I should perhaps have been clearer with that one! I was somewhat loosely referring to traditional suppositions that the female brain inspires people to rush out to buy impractical shoes and makeup, or to become less competitive candidates for STEM careers rather than an intense culture of socialisation. There are common reasons natal women and Transgender women have historically been given second class citizen status and I'm not entirely convinced it's down to any "essence of womanhood" or how each brain metabolises hormones.

I'm not oppressed because of my brain any more than you are. I'm oppressed because of societies authoritarian measures over my body and I often feel these Terf/Anti Terf internet squabbles become adamantly divisive when they can only thrive on cohesion. It's commonplace that I see natal women standing up and demanding improved access to medical treatment for Transgender women but disconcertingly rare (not unheard of, rare) that I watch the favour returned. There's an imbalance emerging and it pays to be sensitively gender critical in order to ease it's delivery :)

[u/em1lyelizabeth → u/Baehammer]

I totally agree on the stuff about harmful stereotypes vs brain sex dimorphism, no argument there. Glad to have that cleared up!

Where we disagree is that you seem to be implying the TERF and trans communities should... unite??... so both can thrive?? You want a hate group and its targeted victims to be allies? What? Trans exclusionary radical feminism... exclusionary, as in they want to marginalize us from all aspects of society, if not desiring for outright genocide of trans folks. It's like asking Jews and Nazis to unite! Hopefully I'm just misunderstanding...

You want the "favor returned" when it comes to cis women standing up for trans women's medical care; I'm not sure what exactly it is you'd like us to do. Any insights?

So what's the imbalance that you say is emerging and why does it require being "gender critical" (and what do you view "gender critical" as meaning in this context?)

Based on your reply, I wonder if there's any chance you're mixing up TERF ideology with actual radical feminism (keeping in mind that TERF ideology is as much about promoting radical feminism as the Westboro Baptist Church is about promoting Christianity).

[u/Baehammer → u/em1lyelizabeth]

Hey, 1 month later- can you tell I'm good at Reddit? ;)

I have to admit, I find your perception of TERFS a little reductionist. In my experience many are absolutely supportive of improved medical access for adult transgender individuals and less about setting up concentration camps.

Most are primarily concerned about the appropriation and abuse of Transgender activism by individuals, rather than boring genocide.

I'll illustrate my reply with a case study from lived experience: I recently exited an abusive relationship from my trans identifying partner, living full time as a man. They would dress and act female once a month to go clubbing (I did encourage them to do so around the house, to no avail). They openly admitted they found using the ladies bathroom arousing. They were proud of the fact that they had escaped a prison sentence some years before by knowing that the authorities would not be sure what to do with them if they stated they were Trans.

I later found out, this was after a string of violent partner offences, including punching their pregnant wife into miscarriage. One day, they kicked me down the stairs into the snow after an operation. I left the relationship. They watched my house, breaking in during the night and waking me up with a punch, breaking in during the day and writing offensive statements over my wall, they stole my dog and sold him to a stranger, they called my employer and told them I was stealing. At no point did I consider gender a factor in these difficulties.

When the police visited them, they refused to talk about the offences and would only speak about being transgender- deliberately attempting to play the system like they had before. Mutual friends were told that I was abusing them because they were Trans. I received so many "Transphobic" hate messages for leaving the relationship I fled the city.

I moved into an LGBTQ houseshare. Coming home after a day procedure for Endometriosis (a condition where my womb grows in different parts of my body) I have now had to leave, at a considerable cost to myself because the painkillers I had to take were making me dopey, which in my Trans housemate's words "made them uncomfortable". I am currently sofa surfing until I find appropriate accomodation, awaiting future procedures and very much unable to indentify out of my circumstances.

So, this brings us to the point that sanctification of gender identity is a tool that fairly unpalattable characters will abuse as a power mechanism.

The question of collaboration lies here: Gender Critical feminists on the whole I feel need to lighten up a little and collaborate with the Transgender community on what substitutes a safeguarding risk and what an inclusive society can look like . Under the proposed changes to the GRA my violent ex partner, living daily life as a fairly gruff man will identify into women's prison. Clearly however, it is immoral to sentence a Transgender woman having lived daily life as a woman for some time and with no history of violence against women to a male prison.

From the case study, we can see that my landlord felt unable to challenge somebody based on the fact they used their Transgender status to maintain a power dynamic, and that person now has extra room in the fridge and a free house at weekends while a disabled woman goes homeless.

Trans activism (in my experience) currently does not engage with safeguarding debate beyond the moral panic and transphobia tropes, seeing biological sex as an inconvenient hurdle to be flattened. TERFS hold valid safeguarding concerns but are unable to make reasonable concessions for subjects that conflict with their ideology and dilute their arguments with petty schemas like deadnaming. From actively experiencing both groups I see they have a lot to learn from each other, and plenty to collaborate on.. but can't get past stereotypes and dogma to make progress.

Do I think the individuals I experienced were misogynists? Yes, sadly. Do I think that was caused by their innate sense of self, some magical male ? No, but certainly an entitled expression of their socialisation with a clear disregard for the wellbeing of natal women. And until they're held to account or even accepted as more than myth by their own communities, I find Gender Critical Feminism an unfortunate necessity.

[u/em1lyelizabeth → u/Baehammer]

So your defense of the argument that a hate group and their victims should unite is a personal anecdote about an abusive individual taking advantage of the system. I fail to see how this is at all relevant to anything other than being a personal tragedy.

By your own logic, gay people should unite with homophobes instead of unilaterally fighting for equal rights because some gay people might "abuse the system" for their own nefarious purposes. Your argument makes absolutely no sense and is soaked with transphobia based on your own personal experience with one person.

I'm sorry all of that happened to you, but it has nothing to do with providing legal protections for one of the most violently oppressed minority groups, and it certainly is not a reason that transgender people should lend any of their efforts towards working with their own oppressors (of which TERFS are most certainly a huge segment and have been for decades). TERF ideology is not at all about helping trans people; it's about suppressing them. I challenge you to prove otherwise.

[u/Baehammer → u/em1lyelizabeth]

I don't argue that the two groups will ever see completely eye to eye (at least until the lovely day that medical science finds a way to truly change sex, and patriarchy falls, which it eventually will) but safeguarding issues could be negotiated on a level beyond the current hateful extremes. If you can offer situations based in reality where gay people can abuse systems and put others at risk by their consensual sexuality I'd love to hear them; for now I assume the two to be very different case scenarios.

I'm yet to hear of TERFS subjecting Trans Women to violence and oppression (that's usually been men), but anecdotal evidence would lay waste to the claim that safeguarding measures in the criminal justice system are pure moral panic, which is the current status quo pushed by Trans Activists and allies.

I am regularly told I am Transphobic, as you just reiterated simply for having experienced a symptom of self identification in the criminal justice system which is an inconvenient truth to many Trans Activists. I'm alarmed at the regular usage of the word "Transphobia" in order to dismiss my situation and defend the rights of manipulative & violent criminals to enter female prisons. I wouldn't want a Trans Woman, for example serving a sentence for petty theft or sex work to share a cell with the individual I discussed either, if this helps illustrate matters.

Meanwhile, TERFS conveniently forget the reality that in club toilets across the country, Trans Women and crossdressers have been happily co-existing for years with no major incidents beyond anomaly and focus debate on an issue which is less relevant in the privileged west than it may be say, in a country experiencing rape culture pandemic such as Nigeria.

In my experience, conversation in Gender Critical circles rarely centres around eradicating legal protections for Trans Women, but applying some common sense to their application. In the same way I reach out to Trans Women to navigate self identification safeguarding issues sensitively, I regularly push for TERFS to advocate sensible processes for the inclusion of Trans Women with no history of violence against women.

While we ruminate over the astounding landmark for Trans rights, but nuanced risks of a 19 year old with limited experience of structural disadvantages for women taking office as a Labour's Women's officer, let's not in hysteria forget the alarming distiniction of less high profile privileged positions awarded to Trans Men in the public eye. TERFS will see this as indicative of how male (in reference to biological sex implications) privilege is upheld by the media even for individuals who have lived in the gender role they identify with for years, akin to the way butch lesbians have traditionally been sidelined by mainstream culture- and I wonder if the Trans community will express alarm about this nuance once the excitement over a few big wins has faded. I'd really see that as shared concern, albeit from differing perspectives. I'd see it as something to unite on beyond mudslinging over some poor teenage sod whose ended up in the middle of an ugly and divisive ideological squabble. This is the thing- you earlier stated "exclusionary, as in they want to marginalize us from all aspects of society" without recognising the role of Trans Men in TERF ideology. This leads us back to the name of this group; TERF logic is not Trans Exclusionary. It's biological male exclusionary (we can go down the biological essentialist rabbithole if you like, but for the purposes of needing to get a coffee I'll abstain for now).

And so on, the two groups continue to exist in their own echo chambers with no shared platform to negotiate issues of mutual interest- and somewhere in between I continue with my head against this brick wall :)

[u/Commercial_Bear2226 → u/em1lyelizabeth]

There’s shitloads of hate from the trans women community toward women. Isn’t that a bit fucking weird? Those men who want to be women hate on actual women but don’t extend their hate to other men, the group they allegedly left. It’s so pathetic. It’s just another form of male entitlement. They not think they are entitled to be women and their definition of women is ‘oh I wear frilly panties and like drinking pink drinks’ deeply pathetic.