Is TERF a slur?
By: Gemma Stone
Tags: Feminism, Transgender, Equality, Words, LGBTQ

It seems at least four times a year this becomes a major talking point and the discussion doesn’t move beyond it. Which is probably exactly what transphobes want because if we’re all stuck arguing about terminology we never get onto actually fixing the issues. We’re just perpetually in the status quo of transphobic and misogynist abuse, largely faced by transgender women.

So lets talk about terminology and not fix any of the issues some more, for about 3–4 minutes while you read this anyway. Then maybe we can get something sorted out instead? Perhaps? Any takers?… no hands going up from the transphobe side… that’s odd.

Is TERF a slur? Yes and no. A slur isn’t just any one kind of thing, there are very few hard and fast rules to the English language because the English language is an absolute state. So there’s not much sense me pulling up one descriptivist definition of the word “slur” comparing how TERF is used to that and then saying it either is or it isn’t. That’s a bad argument only bad people would make because dictionaries simply do not work that way. Sidebar: the ‘appeal to dictionary’ fallacy (as I call it) appears multiple times over within pro-bigotry discourse and is a very effective recruitment tool in part because it arms both the recruiter and recruited with a seemingly solid weapon to beat back the naysayers with. I say seemingly because despite the intimidating shiny metal exterior the weapon is completely hollow but its appearance alone creates unearned confidence in the position of the wielder.

With no objectively measurable definition of slur to use lets instead look at what transphobes mean when they say “TERF is a slur”. Often the argument being made is an attempt to say that they are being slurred for being women, that TERF is an anti-woman slur. Except this falls down extremely quickly under any real analysis. First of all, countless men are referred to as TERFs also though the name originates from radical feminism which was very much a “no boys allowed” kinda deal. I guess this is just an example of how words evolve and develop meanings over time.

Second of all, no one is called a TERF for being a woman and that alone. Otherwise trans women would be calling each other and our cis women friends TERFs too, but we don’t. So there’s clearly some other specific quality that separates one group of people from another here, its worth finding out what that is and luckily for you here’s one I made earlier. It’s transphobia. That’s what separates those being called TERF and those not.

So the other argument a TERF could make here would be that they aren’t transphobic and that calling or referring to them as such was actually the real slur the whole time. Which, okay. That would be a fair argument to make if they were in fact not transphobic. If they can prove that they do not hold prejudices or support the discrimination of transgender people then yes, calling them a TERF for being transphobic might actually be fairly close to being a slur.

However that’s a pretty unlikely outcome isn’t it? Those who are most often found screaming that TERF is a slur are indeed active campaigners supporting the discrimination and exclusion of transgender people because they hold prejudiced beliefs against us. They can kid themselves that viciously opposing reform to things like birth certificate law and lying through their teeth about it affecting spaces and leading to women being raped in those spaces — isn’t transphobic. But they can only really convince other people of this position for so long before the truth comes out. Eventually those people will learn they’ve been lied to and manipulated into transphobic activism, many already have worked this out and a backlash is slowly building.

But what about the “yes and no” Gemma? So far you’ve only done the yes! Yes yes, I’m getting to it. Ironically there is one sure fire way to argue that TERF is a slur, and that’s to say that we are calling them radical feminists — the RF of TERF — when they aren’t. The words “radical feminist” have absolutely been used as a slur for decades, usually applied to any woman who rocks the boat a little too hard for straight white cisgender men. You could absolutely make the case that applying “radical feminist” to a group of “concerned women” constitutes slurring them, but only if they’re willing to concede that they are indeed not actually radical feminists at all.

Of course, most transphobes aren’t feminists of any kind, radical or otherwise. Demographically speaking the UK’s battallion of bigots is largely stocked by socially conservative middle class straight white able bodied cisgender men and women, who think they aren’t bigoted because they’ve never personally said the n-word to a black person’s face before. That’s what they consider to be progressive, left leaning and good when really that’s not even the bare minimum. That’s not to say there aren’t actual dedicated feminists amongst transphobic groups, of course there are. Many are lifelong campaigners for women’s rights and that shouldn’t be ignored. Just that the vast majority of anonymous flower avatar and I❤JK Rowling accounts have never read any feminism, their sole involvement in this is transphobia, feminism for them is just a way of making that sound more legitimate.

They know they aren’t doing a feminism, trans people know they aren’t doing a feminism, but the media is very keen to respect self-identity (unless they dig deep and discover any flimsy old reason to refer to trans people via assigned sex or slip their birth names into pieces just because.) So we have to all play pretend that this is legitimate feminism attacking the rights of a minority group of women for being transgender. We have to pretend it every time for every single different group the same bigoted people and audience support and give vague credibility too. As we’ve done with all sorts of different anti trans groups now, including supposed LGB rights groups, intersex groups and that one time someone made an anti trans account for each of the main political parties which were immediately shut down for blatantly being made by one person to spread inhumane political propaganda.

Whats the purpose of all of this? of saying TERF is a slur? or even the very popular “you call everything transphobic”? Two-fold. First we discredit those phrases and make them toxic to touch. Noone is gonna call anyone a TERF or say things are transphobic if theyre automatically shouted down for slurring or crying bigot. It effectively silences any criticism of anti trans activism by fencing off the words being used to describe it as not okay. You can bet your entire ass that if we started calling them something else they would try to make that toxic and unusable too.

Second? Waste time. Like I said earlier, the conversation they constantly say they’re desperate to have never moves forwards if we’re all still arguing over terminology forever. You can see symptoms of this in the fact that they haven’t got any new arguments in over 20 years of online discourse. Its all the same stuff, the same articles they’ve misrepresented, the same tweets they post to prove trans=bad, the same damn 10 year old Karolinska Institute study. None of it has changed or updated at all. Which suits bigots fine. No progress means they get to keep asking for money to maintain the transphobic status quo! Brilliant!

So what should you do? Should you keep saying TERF, should you not? Should you develop new language for this? I don’t know. Its all valid really. I can’t tell you what to do but I don’t like the idea of giving them ground via conceding TERF and not using it anymore. Equally tough they benefit from it being used given their connections and control within media groups. Like it or not, big name transphobes like Julie Bindel are able to convince their friends that it is a slur, and their friends aren’t just random people.

So I don’t know what you should do, and I can’t tell you how to move forwards here. Though hopefully I have armed you with some knowledge and perspective to help you make your own decision. I’m sure you’ll do fine, probably. Godspeed Spider-Tran.