Trans-exclusionary radical feminist

A trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF; alternatively trans-exclusionary reactionary feminist, also trans women exclusionary feminist or TWEF) is a member of a movement within feminism, in which the vast majority of members never actually advocate for women's rights but instead, obsessively promote transphobia, especially transmisogyny, often through conspiracy theories and denialism,TERFs specifically act against transwomen, women assigned male at birth, by, e.g., targeting their employers and doctors.A Review of Transmisogyny Embodied: Cathy Brennan' by Lucian Clark (October 31 2023) GenderTerror. in addition to hostility to the third wave of feminism, while falsely claiming this is all for the benefit of cisgender women.
 
The more biologically essentialist currents assert that the only real women™ are those born with a vagina and XX chromosomes and that anyone born with such an arrangement is always a woman.Sex is far more complicated than "boys have a penis and XY chromosomes, girls have a vagina and XX chromosomes." TERFs notably completely fail to acknowledge XY women with people who are born intersex, genderqueer people, or people with various non-XX, non-XY chromosomes (e.g., etc.) Approximately 0% of chromosome obsessives have actually had their own karyotype tested. Even then, sex is determined by more than just genitals and chromosomes. When transphobes are reminded of the existence of intersex people, they often simply deny intersex is an issue, forcing them to choose a gender from the binary. This alone, not to mention that there are proven biological reasons for why people have gender dysphoria, show it is highly ironic that TERFs (and transphobes in general) claim that transgender people (and their allies) are biology deniers. Transphobes, like all bigots, don't give a shit about science unless they feel as though they can use it to support their views.Also, any cis woman who enjoys doing feminine things or supports trans rights is less of a woman. Those currents which are more oriented towards theories of social development tend to couch their opposition to trans individuals in the notion that a life lived as someone who socially codes as a woman is intrinsic to the definition of 'womanhood,' and thus that male-to-female trans individuals are 'interlopers' who cannot know nor represent the feminine experience. While the lifetime of experiences many women have accumulated in being treated as women are undoubtedly important, how and why this should translate into opposition for trans rights is unclear at best, and quite often stoked by blatant appeals to transphobia and transmisogyny. Regardless of explanative framework, TERFs/TWEFs in general often push their views in the name of destroying the gender binary, but in reality, seek strict enforcement of a gender binary that is directly predicated on gender essentialism and bio-essentialism.
As causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group meets the definition of genocide established by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, at least some policies advocated by TERFs could be considered genocidal.The recognizes five acts as genocide, including "causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group," "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part," and "forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." Laws limiting or denying access to gender-affirming care are a source of physical and mental harm to trans people. They contribute to an increased risk of suicide in an already vulnerable population, and forced detransition is cruel, de-humanizing, and may carry medical risks. Some jurisdictions (including Texas under Abbott and Florida under DeSantis) have enacted measures allowing CPS to remove trans kids from supportive homes. This has historical antecedents in Canada's residential school system and Australia's . Some argue that the Genocide Convention's definition of genocide only applies to the targeted destruction of "national, ethnic, racial or religious" groups. It also doesn't enshrine disability as a protected class despite genocide having indisputably occurred on that basis. tl;dr: something doesn't have to involve state-sanctioned mass murder to be considered genocide. They act as if they are the "next wave of feminists", ironically enough, despite them being one of the most regressive currents within feminism; they tend to frequently boast about their status, often using dogwhistles, some of which are rather peculiar.
The term TERF was likely invented by Hoyden About TownHoyden About Town writer Viv Smythe (a.k.a., TigTog) in 2008. TERFs very rarely use the term to describe themselves, and many of them claim that TERF is a misogynistic slur. TERFs insist on being referred to by the euphemism "gender critical", and many may claim they aren't transphobic, but instead "trans critical".Trans criticism is not transphobia. Women of the Patriarchy. January 29, 2013 (archived on May 11 2024). This is not new behavior; white supremacists claim that anti-racist is a code word for anti-white and often insist on being called "race realists", and tankies will often try to rebrand Stalin apologetics as "anti-revisionism." Feminism-appropriating reactionary transphobe (FART) is sometimes used as a sardonic synonym, especially in response to the insistence on euphemism.The Telegraph: Scottish civil servants warned of ‘farts’ in the workplace
In the United States, feminists in sub-branches of feminist thought known to house individual TERFs, including second-wave feminists and political lesbians, have spoken out against this transphobia and transmisogyny within their ranks, further demonstrating the distance between TERFs and mainstream feminism. This is less the case in countries like the UK, where TERFs are a part of mainstream feminism.
Their doxing, (archive) trolling, (archive) picketing, and generally abusive behavior have led some to compare them to the Westboro Baptist Church. In fact, the TERF movement is overtly anti-feminist.See our article on antifeminism. TERFs have increasingly aligned themselves with the far-right in their anti-trans bigotry and opposition to trans rights, and they have adopted far-right terminology such as the "gender ideology" conspiracy theory; conversely, the far-right is borrowing TERF terminology points to further their own transphobia. Some TERFS like J.K. Rowling are so obsessed with transgender people and ranting about how much they hate them, to the point where even Elon Musk told her to put a sock in it.J.K. Rowling Is So Transphobic Even Elon Musk Wants Her to Shut Up by Amanda Yen on 5 May 2024
==Demographics==
Young people – millennials and younger – are unlikely to support TERF ideology. For example, in 2020 Ipsos found that 56% of Generation Z in the United Kingdom supported increased trans rights, as opposed to only 20% of the baby boomer generation.New poll exposes the fault lines in the battle for trans rights This is significant given that the U.K. public's attitudes towards transgender rights have been on a negative trend in recent years.Smith, Matthew. Where does the British public stand on transgender rights in 2022? YouGov. July 20, 2022. Support for trans rights is greater in some other countries.Global Attitudes Toward Transgender People. Ipsos. January 29, 2018. Support tends to be lower with older people.
==TERFism versus feminism==
===Some quotations===
===Towards binary gender===
Transphobic radfems seem to almost universally reject the concept of cisgender privilege, and even the term "cisgender" itself, as somehow demeaning to "women born women" (another controversial term in LGBTQ+ circles that is usually understood as a transphobic shibboleth). In other words, TERFs go so far as to reject any terminology models (for words such as "woman" or "man") that are not based on biological organs, gametes, or chromosomes. Thus (re)defining their own movement as that "of women to liberate women from oppression, and that female biological reality is a defining aspect of women's experience of oppression.
Unlike run-of-the-mill conservative transphobes, TERFs generally accept a distinction between gender and sex, at least in theory. However, they believe that gender ought to become completely irrelevant and that sex is crucial when it comes to how we classify people. They defend the act of misgendering by claiming that they are simply referring to biological sex, and while theoretically opposed to gender roles, some TERF bloggers speak of the completely different concept of "sex roles". When they don't have any biological evidence for a particular point, they turn to socialization based on sex instead. The fact that GC holds sex as a be-all-and-end-all system just brings them right back to the gender binary and essentialism.
Academic radical feminism is premised upon the idea that gender, as the assignment of bundles of default personality stereotypes to genital shapes, is entirely a social construct that must be destroyed. Presumably, in this sort of post-gender world, everybody would be encouraged to identify nonbinary and present fluid, leaving genitals for the bedroom."3. Imagining a world without gender". The New Backlash (archived on 30 July 2020) Some transgender people maintain, on the other hand, that gender is to some extent intrinsic: even though they were raised as one binary gender, they have always identified as the other,This, in theory, excludes people who identify as being outside the gender binary, e.g., genderqueer, but includes people who identify as being transgender. In practice, they are rarely, if ever, viewed as mutually exclusive, with some genderqueer people saying similar things of their own identities. and further, trans people often, but not always, want bodies to match. As frequently happens when ideology runs up against someone else's lived experiences, ideologues respond by trying to hammer the problem flat until it fits with what they already believe. As such, there has been and continues to be a rich current of anti-trans bigotry underlying TERF ideology on the issue of gender and transgender people in general. The obvious conflict between the notion that "gender is entirely a social construct" and the slogan "women born women" seems to escape them, except perhaps in the context of gynecological health care.
====Conspiracy theories====
TERFs dismiss both what trans people themselves have said about their own identities and the medical consensus on gender dysphoria with a variety of ad hoc claims and conspiracy theories, which they claim to be part of the "trans agenda". When attempting to explain away the existence of trans people, common claims are that:
*Trans men (when remembered to exist) are just butch girls who want male privilege. 
*Trans people who were previously seen as gender non-conforming cisgender people were forced to transition.
*Trans women who don't fully conform to stereotypes of femininity (such as lesbian trans women) are only transitioning to enter women's spaces and then harass or rape cis women.
*Trans women are transitioning because they have a fetish for being viewed as women. 
*The existence of transgender people is a conspiracy to erase the identities of lesbians, perhaps by forcing lesbians to start identifying as trans/non-binary and then replace them with "fake" trans lesbians.
*Or, a conspiracy to silence discussions of women's issues by promoting gender-neutral language.
*Or, a conspiracy by the pharmacists and the makeup industry to make money.
Thus, they slam transgender people in general for "reifying the gender binary". Considering the transgender population is about 1 in 300, accusing the transgender community of reifying nearly any oppressive construct is patently absurd, which is obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of math and group dynamics. To back up their beliefs, as there is no evidence for any of it, they instead rely on ad hominem attacks and memes. For example, in the case of the bathrooms argument: All of this is highly ironic since by doing all this, they are objectifying women's bodies and saying men are not to blame for their actions because of "instincts". Never mind the actual numbers, of course, which show that trans women are one of the groups most likely to be abused and raped,Reports from 1998 to the present on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and HIV-Affected Hate Violence (archive). AVP: The Anti-Violence Project. and perhaps as a result, also more likely to feel empathy for rape victims.
===Against the Third Wave===
TERFs loathe the third wave of feminism. For several reasons, partly their own authoritarianism, partly their own demographic myopia, and partly because they represent a partial embodiment of every stereotype thrown at feminists over the last century and a half, this particular group of radfems have been roundly rejected by nearly every demographic they claim to represent, including, but not limited to, women of color, sex workers, kinksters, virtually all male allies (except a few masochists who spend their time shitting on their gender and downplaying genuine men's issues), and, at long last, almost every feminist who has come after them. This is in part due to their inability or unwillingness to understand intersectionality.
Radical or revolutionary feminism arose in the 70s as an extreme, no-compromise version of feminism that was driven by a discovery of the prevalence of rape and sexual abuse. But it focused on the freedom of young, middle-class, educated women (through events such as "reclaim the night" marches, and practices like "consciousness raising" which involved spending lots of time in closed groups discussing your experiences with similar women) and rejected consideration of other social forces like class or racism. In the 1980s, many of the leading radical feminists moved into the middle-class, getting well-paid jobs as tenured academics, and becoming increasingly divorced from the life struggles of the vast majority of women – Margaretta Jolly gives the example of a recipe for salad Nicoise "best accompanied by a glass of dry champagne" submitted by a British feminist academic to a feminist cookbook while the wives of striking miners were dependent on food donations.Dark Emotions, Jenny Turner, London Review of Books, Vol. 42 No. 18 · 24 September 2020
Margaretta Jolly wrote, "The ongoing appeal of radical feminism is that it addresses primal fears of sexual violence, alongside equally primal pleasures in women's community, desire and love." The result for well-insulated middle-class radical feminists was a deep-rooted mindset closed to the experiences of those different from themselves. Radical feminists seem to deeply resent that the third-wavers have taken moral and intellectual leadership; Turner wonders if there is an element of guilt over the privileges TERF academics now enjoy. Meanwhile, while TERFs enjoy the comfortable lifestyles that feminism gave them, third wavers have taken radical feminism's best ideas — understanding and fighting patriarchal structures and rape culture, the fight for reproductive rights and women's health care — and carried them forward, while leaving the dogmatism and one-size-fits-all theorizing behind, rendering the majority of them irrelevant.
For sex workers, the reason for rejecting that form of feminism is, in large part, because although all sex workers around the world can be said to be exploited (especially in developing countries and anywhere with a strong culture of machismo) and some are indeed held in the industry forcibly against their will (as opposed to economically, in the same vein as minimum wage workers), they nevertheless find the conflation of sex work and slavery to be insulting both to themselves and historical victims of slavery, not to mention counterproductive for helping actual victims of sex slavery (who often, upon freeing themselves, resort to sex work in absence of other opportunities). Sex educators generally agree and in addition feel that such attitudes deny the agency of people to seek their own pleasure, hiding an underlying puritanism behind concepts like false consciousness.
==TERFs and wingnuts==
TERF ideology is increasingly aligned with the far-right and other conspiracist and hateful ideas, including antisemitism. While the original generation of TERFs stemmed from a radical woman-only movement, which was at least an earnest attempt to fight for women's rights on multiple issues, these people have been increasingly displaced from their own label by a new set of far-right transphobes with no more than the nominal connection to feminism. Philosopher Christa Peterson notes that anti-trans ideology has "solidified over time" into embracing other and more explicit conspiracy theories and that "today, this rhetoric provides an entry point into far-right politics."Antisemitism Meets Transphobia
===Similarities to wingnuts===
The behavior, rhetoric, and tactics of TERFs are often eerily similar to that of wingnut homophobes. When Sheila Jeffreys noticed RadFem2012 was canceled and labeled a hate group, she said:
The bolded part is eerily similar to what the radical right has said about homosexuality. Specifically, it resembles the following quote about such by neo-Nazi Paul Fromm in its framing of gender identity as choice instead of something a person is, as well as its massive persecution complex; additionally, the language downplays the bigotry, insinuating that people's existences can be merely "criticized":
TERFs have advocated reparative therapy for transgender people. For example, Janice Raymond, in her paper Technology on the Social and Ethical Aspects of Transsexual Surgery, stated:
This is exactly the same rhetoric used by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), an anti-LGBT group dedicated to lobbying for reparative therapy.
===Racism===
TERF communities have been accused of perpetuating white feminism to outright racism. The first and second waves of feminism were dominated by white, cis, middle-to-upper class women. Mainstream feminism has thus historically centered the political interests of this demographic. Many working-class women and women of colour argue mainstream feminism does not understand, represent, or address their unique circumstances (such as the racialised aspects of misogyny). This divide has seemingly grown wider in the UK as it has narrowed elsewhere.The New York Times: How British Feminism Became Anti-TransVice: Inside the Great British TERF War Lola Olufemi has observed that the "most vocal and prominent TERFs in the UK" are generally "middle class white women."The Quietus: Liberate Society, Abolish Transmisogyny: Lola Olufemi's Feminism, Interrupted Sophie Lewis attributes this to UK TERFs having not received the "pummeling" that third-wave intersectional feminists have given "their American counterparts."
Arguments for "sex-based rights" (particularly bathroom bills) have been likened to older defences of racial segregation and racist fear-mongering over white women's safety. In an article in the journal Social Review, Pearce et al. maintain that the "cultural positioning of trans women as dangerous" is dependent on "gendered conceptualisations of (cis, implicitly white) women as necessarily fragile," resulting in "racialised and especially Black women and non-binary people" being regarded as "dangerously masculine." Alyosxa Tudor has situated this phenomenon within a wider reactionary tendency for "externalising sexual violence and ascribing it to the 'pervert other'," a group inclusive of "trans women, gender-nonconforming people, migrant men, Muslim men, Black men, etc." Angela Davis and bell hooks, two black third-wave feminists, famously called out Susan Brownmiller's treatment of Emmett Till's lynching in her book Against Our Will as bordering on tacit approval, as she suggested Till's wolf-whistling was tantamount to the greatest possible humiliation.This was claimed to have been due to Brownmiller's subliminal racism. TERFs have also been accused of perpetuating Islamophobia by hyperfocusing on gender-based violence and oppression in Islamic communities.The Iranian woman's movement is the only feminist issue that J.K. Rowling tweets about with any regularity in her non-stop stream of transphobia. The overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022 – perhaps the biggest blow to women's rights in the West in fifty years – drew only a tepid comment attacking the trans-rights movement after four days of people questioning her silence. 
Most TERFs will position themselves as very concerned with protecting young AFAB people from risking or attaining permanent infertility, as they claim teenagers are too young to fully understand the decision to be childless. Some are more or less explicitly racist and antifeminist about it, pushing a focus on protecting perceived young (white) girls' reproductive capacity above all else to creepy extremes. Abigail Shrier's transphobic book "Irreversible" prominently features this threat. Some, such as Alix Aharon, push the "white genocide"-adjacent conspiracy theory that only white youth are being pushed to transition.
Finally, TERFs' incessant use of euphemisms to conceal their transphobia is comparable to the alt-right's heavy use of fascist dog whistles.Compare: TrollGC post and post linked from comment.
===Collaborations with the far-right===
TERFs and far-right transphobes often collaborate and treat each other as allies, even though little often unites them outside of their views on trans rights. In fact, in online spaces, the two are often indistinguishable. Notable instances include Cathy Brennan's collaboration with the right-wing Pacific Justice Institute to harass a trans woman via death threats, and generally acting as their mouthpiece, Janice Raymond working with conservative leader Jesse Helms to deny health coverage to trans people,Parke, Cole (11 August 2016). "The Christian Right’s Love Affair with Anti-Trans Feminists". Political Research. and Sheila Jeffreys stating that she aligned with the "radical right" on the issue of transgender legislation:
Julia Beck, a self-proclaimed "lesbian radical-feminist" became a darling to right-wing media (even appearing on Tucker Carlson's show!) in 2018 after she was invited to speak out against trans protections in the Equality Act.
Many anti-feminists, including Milo Yiannopoulos, have praised TERFs, with Milo going as far as calling Julie Bindel, who has called for putting men into reeducation camps, as being his favorite feminist alongside faux-feminist Christina Hoff Sommers. Prominent TERF Posie Parker did an 80-minute video with French-Canadian white nationalist Jean-François Gariépy in 2019.Gender-critical feminist Posie Parker in video with white nationalist YouTuber – and a lot of Mumsnet users are fine with it, Pink News, Oct 15, 2019 She was also ejected from the TERF organization 'A Woman's Place' due to her views on Muslims, which were deemed racist.Changes to Cornwall meeting. Woman's Place UK.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has tracked an explicit plan by far-right groups and activists such as Meg KilgannonOn The Ingraham Angle to use feminist rhetoric to undermine the LGBT movement. She states "If we separate the T from the alphabet soup we’ll have more success.”Christian Right Tips to Separate the LGB and T Kilgannon also suggested specific tactics to "divide and conquer":
There is an argument that TERFism is in itself a far-right position as it attempts to enforce colonialist policies that banned different sexual orientations and genders; indeed Irish feminists rejected a planned TERF event explicitly due to their experiences with colonialism.You're Not Welcome Here It is telling that after receiving this criticism, supposed feminist Venice Allan / Dr Radfem (who was evicted from a Christmas party for stalking a trans teenager and suspended from the Labour party for transphobia)Glass, Jess. Anti-trans activist suspended from Labour Party after posting transphobic memes. PinkNews, January 23, 2018. dismissed the pro-choice campaigners by saying that abortion was only there to "make sex easier for men".DrRadfem on Twitter (screenshot).
Cartoonist Barry M Deutsch ably lampooned the similarities between the two groups.Easy Mistake to Make
===Similarities to and links with the far-right===
Although many in and outside of the TERF movement try to portray it as a benign, feminist, wholesome movement that constitutes a ‘difference of opinion’, there are many TERFs with frightening and extreme points of view.
Janice Raymond said that “the problem of transsexualism would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence”.Facts About the Transsexual Empire She justifies this Naziesque quote on her website by saying that she doesn’t want to eradicate transgender people - she just wants to prevent them from transitioning, something many trans people say is akin to a death sentence.
Bev Jo von Dohre has stated that she wishes all trans people were dead.Woman Enough
Posie Parker, a.k.a. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, (who popularised the dog whistle slogan Adult Human Female) was ejected from a TERF group due to her racism,Changes to Cornwall Meeting. Woman's Place UK. has appeared on a neo-Nazi YouTube channel,Parsons, Vic. Gender-critical feminist Posie Parker in video with white nationalist YouTuber – and a lot of Mumsnet users are fine with it. PinkNews, October 15, 2019. flew to America to harass a human rights activist,Fitzsimons, Tim. Prominent transgender advocate harassed by anti-trans feminists, video shows. NBC News, February 2, 2019. and has posed for a selfie with an Islamophobic Holocaust denier.Hans Lysglimt Johansen on Twitter (screenshot).
===TERF homophobia===
The small minority of TERFs who are willing to call out other TERFs for collaborating with the far-right usually face extreme backlashes, such as Julie Bindel and (former TERF) Amy Dyess (both working-class butch lesbians) who have criticized other TERFs for collaborating with homophobic hate groups like the Heritage Foundation. TERFs have decried the rainbow flag and rainbow lanyards as ‘symbols of oppression of women’ that ‘make them nervous’. Despite their much-vaunted support for gender non-conforming men, several TERFs in the now-defunct ‘gender critical’ subreddit were ‘uncomfortable’ with Jonathon Van Ness, who previously identified as a GNC male and now identifies as non-binary.
Founder of anti-trans group Transgender Trend (a group that targets children) Stephanie Davies-Arai has also expressed 'concerns' about Drag Queen Story Time, alongside groups like One Million Moms and Warriors for Christ. The group has also sent harmful information packs to schools (with content that has been likened to 'ex-gay' literature)Transgender Trend Follow in the Footsteps of other Anti LBTQ Orgs and has released an anti-trans book aimed at children.Griffiths, Sian and Joani Walsh. Children's author pens antidote to books peddling 'wrong body' myth. The Times, December 1, 2019.
Posie Parker is against gay men engaging in surrogacy, pride parades, and children being taught LGBT tolerance.Desmond, Beth. Examining Posie Parker’s views on gay people. Medium, March 25, 2019.
Baroness Nicholson described same-sex marriage as a threat against women and children.Baroness Nicholson . Twitter, June 24, 2020.
TERFs can be quick to whip up homophobic and biphobic rhetoric against queer men, especially if said men are public allies to trans people.
TERFs are also known to attempt to present themselves as allies of gay and bi people, but their tune quickly changes when actual gay and bi people object to being used as props for attacking the trans community. They way that TERFs talk over the gay/bi people they claim to be supporting is very similar to the way that anti-vaxxers talk over autistic people.
===Alignment with the anti-gender movement===
Since the mid-2010s TERFs are increasingly aligned with the broader anti-gender movement, which otherwise consists of far-right politicians and ultra-conservative Catholics in countries like Poland. TERFs have widely adopted "anti-gender" terminology from the far right, including the conspiracy theory of the "gender ideology".
===Support for the Taliban===
Some TERFs defend the feminist credentials of the Taliban, on the grounds that the Taliban "knows exactly what a woman is."https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/04/08/taliban-knows-exactly-woman/
==Sex worker-exclusionary radical feminism==
Sex worker-exclusionary radical feminism (also known as SWERF or "sex-negative feminism") is yet another offshoot of feminism, one that opposes women's participation in pornography and prostitution. The term was coined to match that of TERF, as their memberships overlap and both assault oppressed communities.Their ideology also overlaps as both subgroups follow a prescriptive, normative approach to feminism; i.e., telling women what to do — TERFs with their gender, and SWERFs with their sexuality.
SWERFs criticize the objectification and exploitation of women within pornography and the sex industry, as well as the violence and abuse that sex workers frequently suffer.Swerf And Terf Is Not A New Subway Sandwich. anntagonist.wordpress.com, 31 December 2013. If this was all they did, that wouldn't be a problem. This is also a position held by other feminists, not exclusive to SWERFs.
In practice, however, unlike other feminists, SWERFs typically go completely overboard and dump on sex workers who chose their profession freely, even in places where it is completely legal and safe, claiming that the sex workers are nothing more than deluded victims (and co-perpetrators) of human trafficking. Much like white supremacists might insist that adoption agencies helping children from the third world find parents in the west are nothing more than deluded extinctionists. This dogmatic hostility to voluntary sex work is known as whorephobia.
SWERFism has been co-opted by religious groups to give their anti-pornography crusade a patina of respectability. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation uses a lot of pseudo-feminist language, but is in fact a rebranded Morality in Media and is still largely run by conservative religious types. Some of the problems they rail against are real, but the message is muddled because they consider literally any sex work to be exploitative, with no nuance whatsoever.https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/08/conservative-christians-anti-porn-tactics-paying-off.html Some research written by radical feminist academics on prostitution in the 2000s was also funded and promoted by the George W. Bush administration, including papers by Donna Hughes and Melissa Farley.Emily Bazelon (May 5, 2016). "Should Prostitution Be a Crime?". The New York Times Magazine. (Archived).Melissa Gira Grant (August 13, 2018). "Beyond Strange Bedfellows". Political Research Associates.
==TERFs and misandry==
There is a heavy undercurrent of man-hating to TERFism as a whole, basically viewing all men as dangerous rapists while (cis) women are by nature deemed "safe" sisters. This is most likely the expression of the gender-binary essentialist framework that's built into TERF ideology. Their criticisms of men go above and beyond what is necessary (or even acceptable). They regularly engage in hasty generalizations of male behavior that oftentimes eerily resemble the crass misogyny of the manosphere, albeit in reverse. For instance, after Tara Wolf's assaultJK Rowling apologises after accidentally tweeting ‘f**k up some TERFs’ while responding to a 9-year-old’s drawing, Josh Milton, PinkNews 29 May 2020 on Maria MacLachlan in Hyde Park, MacLachlan and her supporters repeatedly and intentionally misgendered Wolf to paint her as a stereotypical male thug and portray her actions as male violence.
==TERF as a slur==
Many TERFs spuriously claim that "TERF" is a slur indeed, the website terfisaslur.com is aimed at claiming solely that.Terf is a slur FeministWiki argues that the term TERF is "usually understood to be an anti-feminist, sexist and misogynist slur"Feminist Wiki. an assertion rejected by many feminists and women. As Tassia Agatowski says "It’s like suggesting that ‘homophobe’ or ‘racist’ are both slurs when they’re clear, dictionary-definition words to describe someone’s discriminatory views."Agatowski, Tassia. TERF is not a Misogynistic Slur]. Medium, December 13, 2019.
In Feminist Current, Meghan Murphy wrote that "'TERF' isn’t just a slur, it’s hate speech. The term 'TERF' is not just used to smear and deride, but to incite violence." Similarly, in New Statesman, Sarah Ditum suggested that the TERF label encouraged pro-trans feminists to "think it is OK more than OK, laudable to hit a 60-year-old woman if she thinks the wrong thing, because thinking the wrong thing is understood to be an act of aggression in itself." The 60-year-old woman in question was Maria Maclachlan. At Speakers' Corner, Hyde Park, while she was waiting and filming to hear about the venue for a meeting to discuss proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act, she was struck by a trans activist who tried knocking off her camera, and it eventually escalated to a fight involving three activists including Tara Wolf, where Maclachlan held Tara Wolf's girlfriend while being struck on the back and the shoulder and eventually hitting the ground.Coulter, M. (April 13, 2018). Transgender activist Tara Wolf fined £150 for assaulting 'exclusionary' radical feminist in Hyde Park. Evening Standard. Retrieved August 14, 2018. Tara Wolf was convicted later in court and was ordered to pay a £150 fine, a £30 surcharge, and £250 toward costs, though the court also refused to compensate for Maclachlan because according to the judge, Maclachlan was continuing filming despite being told to stop and that she inappropriately tweeted a close-up of Tara Wolf with the caption "Hiya, got any hair restorer while I'm in hiding? Love Tara."
TERF is a label intended to describe someone as an anti-trans feminist (rather than a full reactionary). It is particularly ironic that TERFs who dedicate their efforts to proving that trans women aren't women react so harshly to being mislabeled themselves. Moreover, some TERFs are seen labeling themselves as "AFAB transwomen", in an apparent attempt to create confusion.
Marina Watanabe, the biracial, bisexual senior social media editor for feminist publication Bitch Media,Marina Watanbe's Profile wrote an excellent primer on what constitutes a slur, pointing out that it necessarily involves power dynamics. As there is no dominant ideology or social system that privileges trans people, suggesting that 'TERF' is being used as a mechanism to silence cis people - the powerful majority - is nonsensical.
Tassia Agatowski tore the idea to pieces in a Medium article, pointing out:TERF is not a Miosgynist Slur
Moreover, no term is a slur while there is no non-offensive term to denote the same referent. In Value and Implicature, Stephen Finlay notes several slurs in comparison to their non-offensive counterparts and concludes that the reason the slurs are pejorative is that they have non-offensive counterparts.
This raises the question: If 'TERF' is a slur, what other term denotes the same referent without being a slur? Is it, as suggested above, "gender critical"? It is quite uncontroversial to say that, for example, Judith Butler is critical of gender, and yet is definitely not a TERF. Even more trivial is it to show that terms like 'feminist' or simply 'woman' include people who are not TERFs, and therefore do not denote the same referent (despite TERF attempts to claim to speak for those groups).
It is a requirement of any serious objection to a slur that an alternative term is proposed (at least in cases where the slur does denote the referent; using, for example, 'gay' as a slur is different because it's only a slur when directed at people who are not, in fact, gay, and therefore there is no need for an alternative term). Thus far, TERFs have failed to satisfy this requirement.
==TERF lingo, symbols, and culture==
TERFs have many euphemisms for transgender people. For a while, they used "MTT" and "FTT" (Male/Female to Trans) as substitutes for "MTF" and "FTM" respectively. They have referred to trans women as "SCAMs" (surgically and chemically altered males) and compared them to Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs. Nowadays, TERFs use "TIM" and "TIF" (Trans-identified male/female). They claim to prefer the terms because they mock the trans identity and emphasize that being trans isn't real; some also like them because they sound like nicknames for Timothy and Tiffany. 
On the surface, sentences like "Men shouldn't be in women-only spaces" and "Men shouldn't appropriate lesbianism" sound progressive and reasonable, but TERFs use "men" as a dog-whistle for trans women. When TERFs are upset at a trans woman, they may accuse her of "hating women" or "hating feminists", as if TERFs speak for all cis women or feminists. In short, TERFs tend to view trans women as invasive men and use feminist language as an excuse to be transphobic. They even call trans activists "TRAs", a subtle comparison to MRAs.
The latest TERF attack is on the rainbow flag, which they are attempting to frame as a hate symbol against women.Rainbow flags
TERFs also like to call cis women who support trans women "handmaidens".TERFS. Peak Trans. Quote: "...liberal feminist aka handmaiden". Should you reply by pointing out that Margaret Atwood has specifically said that she is not a TERF,Allardice, Lisa. Margaret Atwood: ‘I am not a prophet. Science fiction is really about now’. The Guardian, January 20, 2018. And indeed, The Handmaid's Tale contains the implication that anti-porn feminists, the ideological fellows of modern TERFs, had a hand in helping the Religious Right to set up the oppressive Republic of Gilead. they will say they were referring to the Bible and not The Handmaid's Tale. This has nevertheless led to discussions in TERF circles about whether Atwood herself is a "handmaiden".Is Margaret Atwood a Handmaiden? Reddit. On top of this, it's glaringly obvious when you think about it for more than 2 seconds that the way they use "handmaiden" is as a slur to silence women who don't agree with their viewpoints, exactly what they accuse the word "TERF" of being.https://archive.ph/TvyuI This is the old propaganda tactic of accusing your opponents of that which you are guilty of.
Of course, some TERFs might "tone down" their transphobia with "compromises", which trans YouTuber Riley Dennis has referred to as "Terfism 2.0".Riley Dennis. What is a TERF? | Riley J. Dennis. YouTube, February 18, 2018. For example, instead of saying "trans women are men", they might say "trans women are trans women", "trans women are women, but they're male", or "trans women are men, but I'll respect your name and pronouns if I like you". The same goes for saying that someone is a "biological man" or "biological woman" as a workaround way to misgender someone.
They also like to claim they are being censored, bullied, or silenced, often in national newspapers, when in fact people have heard what they want to say and simply disagree.The rise of TERFs Explained
===Terms for themselves===
The latest neologism that TERFs insist on being called is gender critical, another word for anti-trans activism, ominously similar to how white supremacists insist on being called race realists.
Sometimes, TERFs refer to the catchphrase "adult human females" as the definition of a woman, to somehow imply that trans women are not women. It's a curious choice of phrase since many women object to being referred to as "females", a term that is more than reminiscent of the manosphere's misogynistic jargon.
A variant is referring to men/women as "structured to produce the small/large gamete." This is little more than a fancy way to reduce people to their gonads. The unintended implication is that cis women who've undergone oophorectomies (ovary removal) are no longer women or somehow less women than before. It also insinuates that cis women exist to make babies, which is, to put it mildly, a viewpoint antithetical to most feminists.
TERFs have also referred to themselves as 'gender free', a Mumsnet originating 'joke' based on a heterosexual cisgender woman pretending to be 'genderfree' to win an LGBT award at her workplace.Gender Critical Subreddit Explains the Gender Free Meme Heterosexual women appropriating minority awards is apparently a tremendous wheeze to TERFs, one of whom said she was 'laughing her socks off'.Pretending to Identify as Non Binary to Appropriate an LGBT Award
TERFs use the phrase #peaktrans to refer to experiences that 'made' them transphobic. In essence, it's their term for things that make them think trans people/rights have 'gone too far'.The Thought Process Behind 'Peak Trans' Some TERFs have taken such rhetoric to its inevitable endpoint: "reducing or keeping down the number of people who transition."PinkNews: 'Gender critical' author Helen Joyce says she wants to ‘reduce’ number of trans people: 'Chilling'
===TERF library controversy===
TERF groups, usually including Meghan Murphy have been booking rooms at libraries, taking advantage of free speech laws after being refused rooms at other venues. There has been justified criticism for this 'reason', as, for example, Toronto Public Library allows for denying a booking to a group “promoting discrimination, contempt or hatred for any group or person on the basis of […] sex, gender identity, gender expression”.Thew Library Reserves the right to Deny or Cancel a Booking Their deliberate choice not to invoke this clause implies strongly that TPL tacitly approves of transphobia.
*Vancouver Public Library held a talk by TERF Meghan Murphy. This talk was widely protested by the local LGBT community and led to VPL being banned from future Pride events.VPS Statement on VPLs entry in the 2019 Pride Parade
*Toronto Public Library, proclaiming that they were fully in support of LGBT rights and inclusiveness, supported a talk by TERF Meghan Murphy saying that it was acceptable to them under free speech laws,City Librarian Statement on Upcoming Third-Party Room Rental Event. Toronto Public Library, October 15, 2019. despite that they also stated they would prevent talks that would ‘promote discrimination’ - apparently, Toronto Public Library believes discrimination against trans people does not count. They emphasized that they’d already hosted a neo-Nazi group because apparently, two wrongs make a right.Hosting Neo Nazis Justifies Hosting TERFs Despite TPL’s performative speeches about free speech and apparent grassroots support, FOI requests have revealed that Bowles agreed to host Murphy in less than ten minutes, and used her connections to obtain a supportive article from Ryerson (now Toronto Metropolitan University)’s Centre for Free Expression.FOI requests Because nothing says free speech like a government official using her connections to promote prejudice against a minority.
*Seattle Public Library held a talk in February 2020 by WOLF, a TERF anti-LGBT organization with links to evangelical Christians. So far, Seattle Library has also invoked the ‘free speech’ defense.Controversial groups like these can test our limits as democratic centers of free speech Meghan Murphy has come under fire from other TERFs for collaborating with WOLF. Julie Bindel also criticized Posie Parker for taking WOLF's money. She was roundly criticized by her 'gender critical' followers for labeling Parker a bad feminist, even though Parker is associating with a group that sponsors anti-abortion groups.
==United Kingdom==
TERFs are a minority in American feminist discourse, concentrated primarily among older second-wave feminists who came of age amidst the women's liberation movement of the 1970s and '80s. In the US, the anti-transgender movement, like the anti-gay movement, is mostly driven by religious conservatives and often comes bundled with anti-feminism; younger third-wave feminists take a more intersectional approach that, among other things, embraces transgender rights and a looser conceptual understanding of gender.
It is a very different story, however, in the United Kingdom.Burns, Katelyn. "J.K. Rowling’s transphobia is a product of British culture." Vox, 19 December 2019 (recovered 19 December 2019). TERFs hold a mainstream position within the British feminist movement and serve as the main face of British anti-trans activism as opposed to religious conservatives, to the point that there has been friction between American and British feminists over the issue. In 2018, Sam Levin, Mona Chalabi, and Sabrina Siddiqui, three American journalists writing for The Guardian, publicly disavowed an anti-trans editorial published in the paper,Sam Levin, Mona Chalabi and Sabrina Siddiqui. "Why we take issue with the Guardian’s stance on trans rights in the UK." The Guardian, 2 November 2018 (recovered 17 October 2019). citing its similarity to the rhetoric of American religious conservatives and the Trump administration. In the other direction, Posie Parker and Julia Long, two anti-trans British feminists, traveled in 2019 to Washington to ambush Sarah McBride, a trans woman and the national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, live-streaming footage of themselves hurling anti-trans invective at McBride. They said that they came to Washington because they saw the United States as the global heartland for transgender rights activism and "political correctness" in general, and wanted to challenge it on its "home turf".
The prominence of trans-exclusionary radical feminism in the UK results from a variety of historical reasons. To start, while the cultural feminist tendencies that bred transphobia were born in the US in the '70s, they attained a far more commanding position in the UK; lesbian separatists were heavily involved in the anti-nuclear movement in the '80s, seeing the nuclear standoff of the era as a symbol of the patriarchy's worst excesses. Furthermore, without an organized Religious Right in Britain hostile to both feminism and transgender rights, the intersectional alliances between activists in both movements and others never emerged the way they did in the US. As such, post-Thatcher Britain saw relatively few of the broad, popular left-wing social movements that characterized the American left at the time. The movements against racism, police brutality, environmental degradation, and sexual harassment and assault were largely American-led affairs within the Anglosphere, to the point where some Brits came to see such movements as fundamentally rooted in American concerns that were of less relevance beyond American shores. The blind spots of the British skeptical movement in the '90s and 2000s, and the positions many figures therefrom would later attain in British media, also played an unfortunate role. Pushback against postmodernism and alternative medicine often took the form of fetishization of the "hard" sciences to the point of biological determinism, and a dismissal of the humanities and social sciences as corrupted by nonsense pushed by people with an axe to grind and rooted mainly in ideology. This made queer theory a target of ridicule, seen as postmodern junk undermining a "biological" understanding of gender. Finally, the parenting forum Mumsnet played a major role during the '00s and '10s. Mumsnet is a major online social space for young mothers in the UK, a demographic that is often quite feminist-leaning but also receptive to "think of the children" arguments, and they proved to be an easy market for rhetoric couched in feminist language calling trans people and rights a threat to their kids.Miller, Edie. "Why is British media so transphobic?" The Outline, 5 November 2018 (recovered 17 October 2019).
===Forstater case===
JK Rowling revealed herself to be a TERF after multiple indirect "slip-ups" in the year beforehand,Usually by liking tweets, most of which were eventually unliked after backlash. by defending Maya Forstater after the latter lost an employment tribunal against the European subsidiary of Washington-DC based think-tank Center for Global Development (CGD). The Forstater case has become somewhat of a rallying point for TERFs in the UK, with the claim by TERFs, and repeated verbatim by Rowling, being that the tax expert Forstater had been forced out of a job for saying that ‘sex was real’. However a reading of the legal documents that Forstater herself posted online,Forstater Case which were ably broken down by Dr. Pimenta,Dr Pimenta’s analysis reveals that she was a contractor, and her employer simply declined to rehire her, based on her anti-trans comments made on the company/charity Slack channel, and the fact that her Twitter comments, made publicly under her own name, had made full-time staff uncomfortable.
The employment tribunal was held 13-21 November 2019; Forstater's case and the judgment by Mr. J Tayler solely concerned Forstater's expression of her beliefs, and in particular, if her dismissal involved unlawful discrimination against a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act, and did not consider whether she was employed by CGD or any other reasons for her (alleged) dismissal.Judgment by Mr J Tayler. Maya Forstater vs CGD Europe, Centre for Global Development, Masood Ahmed. Employment Tribunals Case Number: 2200909/2019. Held on 13-21 November 2019 at London Central. Paragraph references below are to this documentWhen do beliefs attract legal protection at work?, Employment Law Watch, Oct 2019 It did not dwell on the handling of complaints by her co-workers who were concerned by the transphobic nature of her tweets (¶29). Hence it was based on analysis of Forstater's written statements, including tweets as well as remarks on the company's Slack chat network and in letters/emails, and Forstater's own submission. Evidence included:
#A series of Tweets from September 2018 about "Pips/Philip Bunce", a senior director at Credit Suisse and listed in a Top 100 Women in Business list, who self-identifies as gender-fluid, in which Forstater objects to Bunce's right of self-identification. (¶25)
#A conversation on Slack in which she said "I think there are also a group of misogynist people, and others who want to undermine protections for women and children that have become entryists to the Trans Rights Activists movement that are not natural allies to women: gamergaters, incels, narcissists, extreme porn advocates. ... (I am not saying all trans people - -I know this sounds like 'moral panic' and I know most people just want a quiet life, but there is a dark side to some of the people making a political career out of arguing that males should be allowed into women's spaces. ...)" (¶27)
#A letter to the MP Anne Main on 30 Sept 2018 objecting to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) saying "Please stand up for the truth that it is not possible for someone who is male to become female. Transwomen are men, and should be respected and protected as men." (¶28)
#From July and August 2019 messages relating to an argument with the non-binary person Gregor Murray over her refusal to use their preferred pronouns. She wrote: "In reality Murray is a man. It is Murray’s right to believe that Murray is not a man, but Murray cannot compel others to believe this. Women and children in particular should not be forced to lie or obfuscate about someone’s sex. I reserve the right to use the pronouns 'he' and 'him' to refer to male people. While I may choose to use alternative pronouns as a courtesy, no one has the right to compel others to make statements they do not believe. I think it is important that people are able to refer to the sex of other people accurately and without hesitation, shame or censure." (¶35) This contradicted earlier tweets and messages in which she said she would use others' preferred pronouns out of politeness.
#In June 2019 on Twitter, she described preferred pronouns as "Rohypnol", designed to "numb" and "confuse" opponents of trans rights. (¶34.2)
#In a tweet from June 2019, she appeared to suggest using company records at Companies House as a way of sidestepping bans on deadnaming. (¶34.3)
The judgment set out to consider whether Forstater's beliefs were protected and whether they should be considered separately from the expression of her beliefs. The judge noted it might be hard to differentiate beliefs from actions, but: "It is important to note that if a person is guilty unlawful harassment of others that conduct is likely to be the reason for any action taken against them, rather than the holding of a philosophical belief. Having protected characteristics, including philosophical beliefs, does not prevent people from having to take care not to harass others. That being said, full regard must also be given to the qualified convention right of freedom of expression." (¶75) The judge also considered some of the more abusive tweets and found that "I do not consider that those specific tweets represent the core of the Claimant's belief." (¶76) The judgment states that it is possible to object to the GRA and to put forth arguments about safe spaces "without insisting on calling trans women men". (¶86) This contradicts the claims of some TERFs that all objection is condemned as hate speech, and shows that Forstater was going beyond the acceptable debate on important public issues.
Nonetheless, while the judge found that certain of Forstater's more extreme statements weren't sincere expressions of her beliefs, even when reduced to their core values her beliefs were not protected. "I conclude from this, and the totality of the evidence, that the Claimant is absolutist in her view of sex and it is a core component of her belief that she will refer to a person by the sex she considered appropriate even if it violates their dignity and/or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. The approach is not worthy of respect in a democratic society." (¶83) And: "I consider that the Claimant's view, in its absolutist nature, is incompatible with human dignity and fundamental rights of others." (¶84)
Forstater became very excited that Posie Parker was supporting her and Rowling.Posie Parker with a message for @jk_rowling. Stand firm (I think she is! 😊) https://youtu.be/jv1gMRa6EJE And for everyone with a voice and a platform: Use it, because there are many who cant. Your speaking up helps others to find a voice. If not now, when? #ThisIsNotADrill, Maya Forstater (@MForstater) on Twitter, 12:37 PM · Dec 23, 2019
Despite her claims to be an ordinary woman with ‘concerns’ about GRA, Forstater was revealed to be running the 2010Equality Twitter account, dedicated to spreading misinformation about the ECHR legislation.Helen (mimmymum) on Twitter. 2:16 PM · Dec 31, 2019 She also has 'media representatives' and has stated that period poverty is "not a real issue" despite being told otherwise by several women who have actually experienced poverty.I'm not all that hopeful. Here are some clues..... "Period poverty" is a made up non-issue in the UK, it is feminist activism for show, to no real end., Maya Forstater (@MForstater) on Twitter, 12:16 PM, Jan 3, 2020 She has also said that the tampon tax is 'not misogynistic', an extremely odd position for a so-called feminist to take, and that "£20 per year is not a material amount to anyone's welfare," which suggests she doesn't understand poverty or money.If the tampon tax had stayed at 20% it would have cost us each on average £3.50 each per year, making our total average tampon bill £20 per year £20 per year is not a material amount to anyone's welfare. £3.50 a year even less so. 88p? Why are we still talking about this? Maya Forstater (@MForstater) on Twitter, 11:46 AM, Jan 5, 2020
Forstater appealed her original case in April 2021.Maya Forstater’s ‘gender critical’ views are ‘hate speech’ and a ‘threat to trans people’, tribunal told, Pink News, 28 April 2021 The CGD's barrister told the appeal, "Maya is not being required to express a belief she does not hold. She is simply being required not to harass others." The judgment found in favor of Forstater, that her beliefs were protected under employment law. The judge conceded that beliefs "akin to Nazism or totalitarianism" would not be protected, but found that Forstater's denying the existence of trans and non-binary people somehow did not "did not seek to destroy the rights of trans persons". He interpreted Forstater's beliefs as not including the hostile or offensive elements the original judge had condemned, and justified her beliefs as commonly held, partly because the law only admits binary gender and therefore she was within her rights to believe non-binary gender wasn't real.
In his judgment on the appeal, the Hon Justice Choudhury was keen to emphasize that employers must protect trans people's rights, ensure correct gendering, and provide a safe working space and that the judgment did not affect the rights of trans people against discrimination, which suggests other grounds for upholding Forstater's non-employment; he also stated that some of Forstater's comments were "within the lower category of hate speech ... which includes 'serious, severely hurtful and prejudicial' comments that can justifiably be restricted by the State".Maya Forstater vs GCD Europe and others, Employment Appeal Tribunal, before Hon Mr Justice Choudhury (President), At the Tribunal on 27 & 28 April 2021, Handed down on 10 June 2021 Hence, there was little to suggest that Forstater would be an acceptable employee and that without a court considering her employment status it wasn't even clear that she was dismissed, let alone unfairly dismissed. But on the other hand, denying the reality of trans and non-binary people is apparently legitimate in law.
==More sensible viewpoints==
Although the majority of TERFs only care about "women's rights" when it gives them an opportunity to shit on trans people, some works by TERFs, when it doesn't have to do with transgender people, are actually quite good. Kajsa Ekis Ekman is known for her on-point criticisms of capitalism, prostitution, and surrogacy. Julie Bindel was one of the first domestic violence and sexual assault campaigners in the UK. Meghan Murphy was also a major figure on the Canadian left, opposing anything from pipeline projects to free-trade agreements.
==See also==
==External links==
*"Radical Feminism and Trans Rights", a compilation by 
*You might be a TERF if... by Cristan Williams (also see this brief journal article by Williams charting a history of trans-inclusive radical feminism; open access version here)
*The TERFs — lots of resources, from a history of transphobia to a list of websites TERFs run
*Inflamed TERF Takes XX
*GenderCynical, a satire and mock-subreddit of /r/GenderCritical, /r/Gender_Critical, /r/GenderCritLesbians, and the farcical /r/GCdebatesQT. Check out their *wiki for a long archive of TERF stupidity!
*Shit TERFs say Exposing TERFs/SWERFs for the hate group they are!
*A series of Twitter accounts documenting the overlap between TERFs and other forms of bigotry, including GC
**Ableism
**Antisemitism
**Biphobia
**Homophobia
**Misogyny (archives)
**Racism
==Notes==
==References==
 
Category:Anti-LGBT bigots
Category:Anti-intellectualism
Category:Antifeminism
Category:Antisemitism
Category:Anti-Christian bigotry
Category:Conspiracy theorists
Category:Cults
Category:Denialism
Category:Fascism
Category:Feminism
Category:Homophobia
Category:Islamophobia
Category:Identity politics
Category:Internalized discrimination
Category:Internet kooks
Category:Leftists who turned right with age
Category:Misnomers
Category:Political terms
Category:Pseudohistory
Category:Pseudoscience
Category:Purity culture
Category:Racism
Category:Sexism
Category:Transphobia
Category:United Kingdom