#also a lot of individual opinions you just see the terf hand guiding.

[geoffrey]

the seperation of lesbians and gay men is a travesty. "why are there so many historic gay bars and only like a handful of lesbian bars in the whole country" why are being gay and lesbian not the same thing in this context. you dont need to fuck everyone at the bar and it is a problem that needs to be addressed if these spaces arent mutually hospitable. and this applies to most gay/lesbian spaces imo

[eternalgirlscout]

how to spot a TERF*: an incomplete guide

TW: transphobia, misogyny, transmisogyny, misgendering, dysphoria

*disclaimer: the term “TERF” is both largely disliked by people to whom it can be accurately applied and is not always preferred by people targeted by these ideologies (TWEF has been in occasional use instead, standing for trans-women-exclusionary feminism, to highlight the specific transmisogyny central to these arguments). however, I use TERF in this post because it is the most easily-recognizable and common acronym for the ideas and groups at hand.

the thing i think a lot of people don’t realize is that TERF rhetoric doesn’t necessarily look like sentimental fawning over the “Sacred Female Body” or calling every single trans woman a “predatory man in a dress” anymore. yes, a lot of TERFs still do these things, and at a certain level most don’t disagree with them, but there are plenty of people pushing the same rhetoric and agendas who do so in much more insidious, sometimes seemingly-innocuous ways.

for example, it’s important to know that “gender critical” (or even “gender realist”) means being critical of gender as separate from sex--the “gender critical” school of thought accepts the (false) idea that biological “realities” necessarily define all social and material experiences and accesses to privilege. queer folks in spaces i’ve been in are fond of saying “gender is fake” as shorthand for “the gender binary is a restrictive construct”; this isn’t itself a problem, but people in TERF/GC circles (as in gender critical, not to be confused with GNC as an initialism for gender non-conforming) will say things like “gender is bullshit” when they MEAN that gender identity as a category that does not perfectly reflect a cissexist binary system of gender&sex categorization is bullshit. so-called “feminists” who subscribe to GC frameworks aren’t defining womanhood as a ~sacred experience of the perfection of having a vagina~ or whatever; their rhetoric is less transparent than that, and harder to poke holes in, so it’s important to understand what they’re actually saying.

at the same time, there are gender critical individuals who are not TERFs per se and/or attempt to distance themselves from trans-exclusionary radical feminism due to how widely shunned TERFs are by name. there are TERFs and GC people who, in fact, claim they want to support trans people! but only certain trans people--the corollary here is that there are trans people who repeat TERF talking points and go to bat for TERFs. there are TERFs who will point to the token trans person who parrots their bullshit and say “see! this is one of the good ones. these are the people actually worthy of support.” tokenizing individual trans people is an attempt to absolve themselves of accusations of simple bigotry. too, plenty of TERFs won’t deny the reality of gender dysphoria or the right of people to transition. instead, they portray people with debilitating dysphoria who also agree with them as the rare overlap in the venn diagram of  people worthy of respect--as long as they don’t get too loud or insist that a trans woman could be a “real woman,” that trans women could truly experience womanhood. and don’t get confused; they’ll throw trans men and all manner of nonbinary people under the bus any chance they get, but the microscope is nearly always on trans women first and foremost. trans women are hypervisible in ways that make them easy targets. TERFs and GC people will even sometimes accept AFAB trans people into the fold, as long as they don’t get too loud about trans issues or stray from the message that biology=material reality=social reality and all the aforementioned categories are (at least to some extent) immutable.

here are a few other TERF/GC terms and dogwhistles to look out for, that i’ve had the unpleasant experience of seeing through hours spent blocking every TERF i can find.

if you see these terms and ideas in a post, be very, very careful. reblogs/likes/retweets etc are a way that TERFs rely on your tacit acceptance of their worldview:

“TRA”

(”trans rights activist”)

“TIM”

(”trans-identifying male”)

“gyn”/”gyns”

(used as a noun in place of “women”)

“adult human female”

(usually in bio/blog description, sometimes shown as the dictionary definition of “woman”)

“dysphoric female”/”dysphoric male”

(used for trans men/trans women respectively)

“peak trans”

(used to malign any trans person or trans ally who says something TERFs can portray as bigoted, violent, or untrue)

“genderism”

(a negative term for the belief in gender as a social construct)

self-proclaiming to be a radical feminist/”RadFem”

(there are, of course, radical feminists who are not TERFs. however, the particular strain of radical feminism that is trans-exclusionary tries to paint itself as the One True Radical Feminism, and TERFs rely on this equivalency to make themselves seem in the majority in at least one corner of feminist thought)

decrying liberal feminists/”LibFems”

(for this one, it’s especially important to keep an eye on context; there are plenty of genuine criticisms of, for example, liberal White feminism that have nothing to do with TERF ideology. however, many TERFs will construct and perpetuate a discourse wherein mainstream liberal feminism is “too trans-positive” to the point of silencing any dissenting opinion)

“TERF is a slur”

(TERFs will take any opportunity to portray themselves as being “silenced.” watch out for accompanying concern about “silencing women.”)

pushing for gender separatism

(especially true of people who justify this separatism by claiming men are inherently violent)

biological essentialism

(see above: arguing that the biological “realities” of the “two” sexes result in inherent differences in behavior, leading men to be fundamentally abusive and women to be incapable of similar abuse or oppression)

the idea that trans men & other transmasculine people are “gender traitors”

(this is an especially hypocritical one; the reasoning more or less goes that trans women can never lose the ~male privilege~ they hold even after transitioning, but trans men are stealing all the privilege for themselves by doing so)

pushing for gatekeeping practices in trans healthcare/access to transition

(this includes but is not limited to: emphasizing dysphoria as the central element of trans people’s validity, assuming trans identity is caused by a psychological problem until proven otherwise, taking a stance against self-ID laws for gender markers)

this is far from a complete list of terms and ideas common in TERF ways of thinking. i’m certain i’ve forgotten some, and i’m also sure there are plenty i’m not aware of. i just hope this post helps people see through the veneer of feminism that TERFs, GC people, and other camps of exclusionary dogma utilize that are less obvious than their more bold-faced claims.

EDIT: none of this is to imply that all the terms or ideas i’ve listed here are innocuous or not obvious when pointed out. rather, many of them are things i’ve seen in posts reblogged by well-meaning people who aren’t familiar with them or on blogs i see as the source of posts about other topics. others are simply common TERF rhetorical tactics i think it’s important to be aware of.