#if you think all feminism is TERFism that says more about you | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

genderqueerdykes · 2 months ago

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im just saying people don't get anywhere near as pissed off at me for saying that gays can be women, genderfluid, multigender or nonbinary as i do when saying lesbians can be men, genderfluid, multigender, or nonbinary. this isn't because lesbians literally can't be those things, this is because of rad fems and how many people are getting wrapped up into their rhetoric. this is because of lesbian separatism. this is because of "political lesbianism". it doesn't make it right. this is politically charged and has nothing to do with real lesbianism.

these beliefs aren't even being pushed by actual lesbians most of the time: most terfs and rad fems are not actually lesbians, but women who pathologically avoid men at all costs. most rad fems and terfs are NOT lesbians, but "political lesbians", where their stances on gender and sexuality have everything to do with regressive, restrictive politics and nothing to do with queer identity. they're just looking for a girl's club to join to bitch and whine about how much they hate men. this has nothing to do with lesbianism.

there's a reason i don't hear anywhere near as many people saying "female gays are invading the queer community and putting us in danger!!!" as i do people saying that lesbian men are an active threat to the lesbian community. this has nothing to do with the truth and everything to do with rad feminism, terfism and lesbian separatism. remember that the first targets of lesbian separatism were butches, cis trans or otherwise. this has nothing to do with preserving the lesbian community. it has nothing to do with doing what the lesbian community wants. never forget that the first people targeted by these individuals were butch, gnc, trans, and genderqueer lesbians.

this is just "women safe, men dangerous" at its finest. there's a reason why people are so much more angry and militant about lesbian men than there are people who are this destructive about female gays. yes people are shitty about female gays but the treatment toward male lesbians is so much more widespread and viewed as good and right. and it's not because that's what the lesbian community wants- it's because so many lesbians suck up to rad fems for approval. so many lesbians secretly think that rad fems and terfs are "right" and want their approval. so many lesbians suck up to those beliefs and espouse them because of how aggressive these people are, but just because they're firm in their beliefs doesn't make them right.

you don't have to behave this way about male and mascs lesbians, because none of this has anything to do with actual, real lesbianism.

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velvetvexations · 22 days ago

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I saw someone saying TERFs started with being furious about trans women but for some reason if you look at every single major TERF from the 20th century they all came out of general radical feminism and have extensive histories talking about All Men and how evil All Men are and how they would all gladly eradicate All Men if it were a possibility. The Transexual Empire, from the fucking eighties, the first major defining work of TERF literature, was all about the view that trans people were an extension of the patriarchy they'd been fighting ineffectually their whole lives. Stone Butch Blues talks about radfems hating butch lesbians for being too masculine.

I think part of the issue is that people literally don't understand who or what radfems are anymore. There's this pernicious belief, it seems, that a radfem is simply a shortening of trans exclusionary radical feminist. If you view TERFism as it's own separate thing and you refuse to look at it's broader roots or surrounding culture then you would get the impression that TERFism started with hating trans people because, like, no shit? It's tautological. Of course TERFs only hate trans women, that's their whole thing, right? But they didn't 'start' with hating trans women at all, because TERFism was not initially a movement all it's own! It is and was a specific and dominant school of thought within the radfem movement. While I may think radical feminism always bends towards unavoidable transphobia, TERFs were literally first named TERFs by other members of their category who considered themselves "trans inclusive!" Before that, being trans exclusionary was just one part of being a radfem.

Nowadays many TERFs are mind virusing themselves hard and becoming increasingly obsessed with trans people exclusively, yet even that has many detractors within radfem spaces who do also still hate trans people but think people around them are being ridiculous for losing track of what they consider the bigger picture. I've even saw TERFs calling other TERFs "homophobic" conservatives for caring more when a kink blog is ran by a trans woman than when it's ran by a cis man on the notion that those TERFs have more of an issue with gender non-conformity and queerness than what radfems are "supposed" to care about.

You are. Just. Wrong. Look at their fucking blogs right here on Tumblr. You will a lot of transmisogyny and exorsexism. You will see less transandrophobia on average because they try to keep their hatred of transmascs lowkey but you will see it if you look for it.

But you will, more than anything still with at least some of them but omnipresent among all of them, see a fuckton of complaining about whatever cis men are doing this week, and while none of them may hate cis men more, cis men give them daily opportunities to work themselves into a rage.

And a portion of the issue with THAT is that in large part a lot of people who otherwise disagree with them generally agree about a lot of their complaining about cis men. Few publicly take it to the point of calls for genocide of everyone with XY chromosomes, but TERFs and praxis progressives can agree on getting furious every time a sexual abuser gets a slap on the wrist. That means that you can show people a long list of TERFs hating men, like I've compiled twice, and then have half the examples dismissed because those are justified examples of expressing outrage at men. The thing that fails to understand, though, is that the point of TERF ideology is wrongly seeing trans people as an extension of the system that allows for things like that!

No matter how open TERFs are about their beliefs, TRFs will just say that you "shouldn't take fascists at their word" and then turn around and lap up the line that TERFs simply love trans men too much in a way that's a little too overbearing. It's so blatantly a self-centered cope to pretend that you are objectively the gender you say you are because no one could ever sincerely disbelieve in it. The only way for the "gender is a real thing that actually exists because we're positionally women" thing to work is for trans men to either not be men or not be oppressed at all.

Transfem TRFs don't care because this framework makes them feel like they're in the Wymbyn Club.

Transmasc TRFs don't care because playing pretend and imagining they have structural power over any subset of women, which now includes cis women based on "transmascs shouldn't get access to sexual abuse shelters despite being sexually abused at rates astronomically higher than cis women," gives THEM gender euphoria and might also turn some of them on based on how they act like they're in a bar telling me all about their Women's History class hoping I'll go home with them tonight.

There's this desperate desire to fashion a reality where it is provable with hard science that JK Rowling is not only wrong, which she is, but that her assessment of their status as women is exactly as demonstrably wrong as people who think the Earth is hollow. Except, the method they've come up for doing so is saying that JK Rowling isn't wrong, she's secretly right, but is just so driven by pure bigotry that she lies and spends millions of dollars and spits on her fanbase and let's herself become a despised figure...just to be mean. To trans women specifically and no one else.

And it's so obviously contradictory!

"TERFs hate men and perceive trans women as men"

"no they don't and you can tell because they hate trans women"

"but why"

"because they show that womanhood is not based in collective misery"

"okay so you don't believe Womanhood is a thing that objectively exists specifically because it's a defined category within an oppressive patriarchal society and that's the justification for how someone really can be a Woman in a material way rather than it simply being an internal sense of self"

"no I do believe that"

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX

#so angry about so many things #transandrophobia #transmisogyny #transfeminism #discourse

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transfaguette · 9 months ago

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I ask this in good faith, but how is it that so many transmascs hate the idea of (trans inclusive) radical feminism so much? All I know it does is liberate everyone from the evils caused by cis men and the patriarchy.

Well first I would say this isn't an opinion unique to transmascs, but thats the circle I orbit so I understand where that perception comes from.

The problem is that you really can't excise the problematic elements of TERFism simply by removing the overtly transphobic parts.

Radical feminism, both trans exclusive and "inclusive" hinge on the idea of Men (sometimes cis, sometimes not) are perpetrators and Women (and sometimes, vaguely, some* non-women)are victims. Putting aside the individual capability to cause harm which is easy enough to debunk, even on a societal level this is not telling the whole story. The Patriarchy is a system of societal control and allotment of power, and it aims to control everyone, men included. Most men, all but the most powerful in society, which is capitalist, christian cishetero white men, have the patriarchy weaponized against them!

"Cis men" as a class, as individuals, don't cause evil. They are just human beings. Human beings with equal capability to love and nurture and fight for what is right. Which is the other problem with radfeminism, is that it seeks to strip away this humanity from the people around you, and isolate you. and like...what is a cis man, anyway? Like I know the answer seems obvious, but at what point does "cis man" end and "nonbinary person" or "trans person" begin? What elements of cis-manhood cause evil? Where does that "evil" go when someone transitions or no longer identifies as a cis man?

This is, I think, the fundamental problem of "trans inclusive" radical feminism. In continuing to divide the world into Evil Men and Good Women, you STILL impose a system of gender essentialism in a way that does not coalesce with the ideas of queer liberation. A nonbinary person can be a cis man one day, come out as nonbinary and change nothing else about their life from that point. What then? Are they no longer evil? Were they ever evil? How do you even being to decide that without just using the same trans exclusive rhetoric you're supposedly fixing, anyway? And I'm not even getting into the impact this has on trans men, because we are put in this position of being a marginalized gender and victims of misogyny but also placed in this position of privilege due to being men that is not accurate to reality. And sure, maybe you can remedy that by always specifying cis men, but many TIRFs don't see that as a flaw of the ideology, anyway. They Do think trans men are gender traitors and Do think we inherit some sort of evil power the moment we become men.

And there is much, much more to be said on the topic of radical feminism and its pitfalls. These are just the broad points. The dehumanization of Cis Men as a class is not simpatico with queer liberation and it just never will be. It is a good question worth asking, because it can seem good on the surface unless you know what to look for.

#asks #transphobia #exorsexism

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spacerockfloater · 6 months ago

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I can’t believe that I have to say this, but I need to remind y’all that radical feminism locating the root cause of women's oppression in patriarchal gender relations DOES mean that:

a) a huge amount of cis straight men dominate and oppress women, other genders and literally any kind of human being that is not exactly like them.

b) a radical reordering of society is necessary.

But radical feminism surely DOESN’T fucking mean that:

a) we should hate men.

b) we should hate trans people.

It’s an absolute disgrace that such a revolutionary ideology is automatically associated with bigotry nowadays.

Misanthropy in the form of misandry and transphobia is vile and will absolutely not get us where we want to be. Do not use a movement meant to liberate women and all the people who are oppressed by patriarchy to mask your sick hatred and make it more palatable.

The fact that some fake ass “feminists” sat down all these decades ago and had the audacity to suggest that a major threat to womanhood is the trans community, which makes up about 1% of the world’s population, is outrageous. No such thing as TERFism exists. I mean, it obviously does unfortunately, but the ideology itself is fucking bullshit because you can’t advocate for the rights of oppressed cis women while simultaneously shitting on the rights of trans men and women who are oppressed by literally fucking everyone. The idea that we, as cis women, are somehow more oppressed than trans people is outrageous. Y’all are just transphobes and disguised conservatives.

Also, radical feminism and marxism feminism coexist. Women and other genders are oppressed because most/a lot cis straight men harbour intense hatred for anyone that doesn’t resemble them to a T and they are also oppressed because the cis straight men in power benefit from their oppression. Conflicts between both class and gender have led to patriarchy. It’s not a competition about which theory has it right. It’s about understanding what’s wrong with the world and how we can fix it.

My sincerest apologies if I used any incorrect terms regarding gender in this post. Please do correct me if that’s the case.

I will not be participating in any kind of arguments about this. There’s nothing controversial about saying that hating people depending on their gender is bad (which is the basis of feminism btw) and if you think any type of hatred can be excused or justified, you’re not welcome in my blog. If you want to be hateful towards people, take it elsewhere or you will simply get blocked.

#radical feminism #marxist feminism #anti terfism #anti terfs #anti misandry #anti transphobia

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starfieldcanvas · 2 months ago

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SUSPICION POLITICS vs SOLIDARITY POLITICS.

i was going through my old twitter bookmarks in anticipation of deleting all my activity from my old politics account and i found this absolute banger of a thread from may peterson (which WAS originally public, it's just private now because every sane person is privatizing all their old twitter shit.)

if you've been frustrated (on either side!) by the talk about reaching out to men to counter their radicalization, you should 100% read this thread so you can start to see the parallels with other problems in social justice movements.

transcript below the cut

a series of tweets from May Peterson, username maidensblade on twitter. (for context, may peterson is a trans woman.)

seeing discussion of what defines TERF rhetoric, which is a good place to practice distinguishing between what an ideology PROFESSES vs what it DOES Misandry is often seen as the core of TERFism, but this lacks explanatory power and can lead us to miss a deeper issue 🧵

Misandry isn't useful to explain why and how TERFism works, although suspicion toward men is an important ingredient (more on that later)

TERFism does a great job of showcasing something about how philosophies of the oppressed can become something harmful

TERFs *profess* suspicion for maleness, and this is advanced as their main charge against trans women. And this is for a reason, all ideologies have more than one simple cause.

But what TERFism *does* is to sharpen the divide between the sexes created by white male supremacy, by favoring gender policing, pushing for a dualistic concept of gender, and approving of fundamental parts of white male supremacy ("women are weak, men are strong")

It's normal for an ideology to have effects that disagree with what people with that ideology profess to care about. TERFs profess to want to topple patriarchy (male supremacy) but their ideology in practice feeds into reinforcing male supremacist functions like gender policing

TERFism by and large is not a threat to men, but it is a threat to trans people and especially trans women. This is partly because of what the TERF ideology declares to be the solution to the problem it identifies (which is: men oppress women)

It's likely to only add confusion to try and diagnose what the ideological root of TERFism is, because not all TERFs have the same conscious thoughts, and because thinking is not as deep or as motivating as feeling. So let's look at the emotional shape of TERFism

TERFism is a good example of a SUSPICION POLITIC. This arises from an oppressed group (in this case, cis women) coming from their emotional reality as the subject of violence and exploitation that seems relentless and hopeless to fight.

What a SUSPICION POLITIC does is offer an answer to that state of fear, rage, and helplessness, which is to encourage its followers to be suspicious toward people who are, or might be, members of the group that collectively represents their oppression.

IOW, TERFism as a suspicion politic is saying "men rape and abuse and oppress you, but there's no end in sight to this problem, so you should armor up as much as possible against men. Don't give them any chance to hurt you. Be distrustful of everything to do with men."

The original state is FEAR, which calls for action to find safety. Since a strategy to stop gender violence has not successfully emerged yet, the next response is LACK OF TRUST. The entire worldview about gender is thus poised on a trust-mistrust axis.

The action that arises from suspicion politics tends to include some kind of separatism, a call to close ranks within an in-group, and deep hostility to the out-group.

Yes, for TERFism, this does mean making women and -in-group and men the out-group.

This is an expression of the suspiciousness embedded within radical feminism in general; feminists have seen the lack of impact of liberal feminism and moved toward a more radical posture, but one that was also less hopeful and more inclined toward suspicion.

Women don't have a meaningful way of dismantling male supremacy, so as the trust-mistrust axis becomes the center of the politic, those practicing it have to funnel energy toward anything that feels like it creates armor, even if it doesn't do anything to solve the problem.

So radfems became split along this line: police the in-group as much as possible by transferring this suspicion toward trans women—whom cis women do exercise power over—as a way of *feeling like* they're sealing up cracks against the invasion of male violence.

The other side of the split is feminists who saw solidarity with trans women as a way to unite against male supremacy and give refuge to an even more battered victim of gender violence.

But to TERFs, the ones scapegoating trans women as a way to feel safer, the solidarity extended by the other radfems was a sign that the transfeminine "infiltration" was successful and exactly the thing to be feared that they felt it was.

We can absolutely narrate the development of the TERF movement as coming from an understandable fear of men among women that hardened into a politicized mistrust, which got transferred over to trans women.

However.

This narrative only makes sense if transmisogyny was already there was a path of least resistance.

We have what happens a lot with suspicion politics, which is moral discharge. You can't fight the real problem so you discharge against someone you can fight.

Feminist and queer circles tend to have very poor transmisogyny literacy partly because it's a complicated oppression that clusters together a bunch of different tools male supremacy has to maintain its gender system.

Those tools are like release valves, things people use to relieve stress on gender relations, and these become more and more critical to use when you're trying to use a gender distinction to create safety.

I fully believe that ideologically, consciously, many TERFs do feel that the real agenda is to rebuke men and that transmisogyny is just an acceptable byproduct of that.

But if we buy this without question, we miss that the outcome harms trans women much more than it harms men.

Moreover, we miss a much larger lesson that EVERYONE could be learning right now: this is a common outcome of suspicion politics.

Genders are not naturally very distinct, so to be suspicious of a gender means you need to be able to suss out who is part of that gender.

The only way for this to work is to double down on tools used to regulating gender grouping, which always always turns into transmisogyny eventually no matter what the motivation is.

But the bigger piece of this is that suspicion politics are in contrast to solidarity politics, like I mentioned above with cis women offering refuge to trans women and trying to build solidarity with us.

Here's the thing: solidarity politics is the only method that has any chance of being effective. It is 100% impossible for oppressed groups to simply hole up in a paranoid shell and endure against oppression forever, which is ultimately a form of defeatism.

TERFism is particularly instructive about this because cis women are *the largest group of oppressed people* in the world. And even they can't simply pull away from society and hide behind armor. It isn't going to work.

But the problem with solidarity politics is that it is scary and it feels absurdly counter-intuitive.

It says "you know how X people have hurt you a lot and will hurt you again? Okay, turns out you need to make friends with some of those people"

On an emotional level, this feels like self-destruction. It's asking you to give up the one piece of armor you do you have that at least gives you a sliver of protection against the onslaught. Why would you do that?

That's the question we all need to be asking ourselves, because here's the punchline: suspicion politics of some kind is what most of us practice, and what most of us have come to when everything else stopped working. So it's, uh, relevant

Why should oppressed groups give chances to people outside of our in-groups, when so many of those people have earned our mistrust? Well, this isn't just paranoia talking, it's survival instinct. It's natural for oppressed people to become suspicious

The divide between suspicion politics and solidarity politics is the difference in emphasis on self-interest vs. shared interest. And it is really hard to tell someone whose self-interest has been continually violated that they should give it up.

This is also why it's useless to try and get TERFs to change their minds. Their problem isn't intellectual. Contradictions in their reasoning don't faze them. Their problem is emotional: they're legitimately afraid, so they double down on what power they have to curb that.

The real, lasting solution to that is to actually solve and abolish oppression. I want even TERF cis women to stop being oppressed too. No oppression is good. But that's a long way off.

Don't get me wrong, *trans women* don't owe TERFs solidarity. They owe solidarity to us. And this is also instructive because it's something else we have to ask to make solidarity politics viable—who does the solidarity need to be coming from, and with who?

With TERFism, the answer is pretty simple. With political ideologies like social justice, it's more complicated because we have vast webs of cross-community clashes and shared interests contrasting with opposed interests.

The answer to "who owes solidarity" is often "you do." And that really hurts to hear because, man, I know I'm not the only marginalized person who feels battered by neglect and aggression and wants to finally be heard about my needs and not have more responsibility put on me.

I see this a lot in dynamics on Twitter. In particular with intra-queer community suspicion toward transfeminine people, who are highly susceptible to moral discharge. But it also happens in other ways; another big example on Twitter is discharge against Black people

When a small cluster of oppressed people starts being able to create an in-group, it can be an incredible relief because finally you're able to exercise some control over the social dynamic. This is a survival response.

When one in-group has to parley with another cluster of marginalized people, who have their own in-group, what tends to happen is that each ask the other for solidarity.

And then, often, each group treats that request with suspicion.

Can you think of times you've seen this?

Do you see how rational it is? Do you see how understandable those emotions are, when pressure to relax a protective boundary feels like a threat?

The outcome I see the most is for those groups to develop an uneasy alliance, with at least some effort made on both sides to signal alliance and yet some tightness and discomfort to occur when one group has to make space for other group's needs.

The complexity of oppression systems means we all have really, really good reasons to fear being erased, and this fear is so intense that it's hard not to be suspicious when someone is asking you to think of yourself as a potential oppressor who has responsibility toward others.

Oppressed people are tired of hearing that we're the ones with responsibility. We would rather focus on how others are responsible toward us, because our needs have gone unmet for so long and when we try to center those needs, we often end up nickeled-and-dimed into compromise.

The core of TERFism in terms of *power* is transmisogyny.

But the core of TERFism in terms of *emotion and psychology* is suspicion.

There's something universal about this suspicion dynamic and it's something social justice communities need to reflect on.

We're never going to feel our needs fully being met while oppression continues. This is the sad, enraging truth of our situation.

But we benefit more from building around shared interest than we do from hostility toward other oppressed groups.

This is another place where I wish social justice would emphasize emotional work much more than mental work. Because oppressed people are often coming out in public flushed with stress hormones and fear and anger, and this is only aggravated by social media.

It makes no sense, emotionally, to tell people to be less suspicious, unless we are doing something to naturally relieve that fear and create an environment that feels safer.

Social justice communities tend to lean hard in punishment, which is also a product of a suspicion-infused environment. But this means the fear is only increasing, turning into a subculture of paranoia because trust isn't being built.

As a result, marginalized people who spend time in social justice tend to easily become burned out, to lose what trust they do have, to be socially harmed or disposed of, and to grow more suspicious and less hopeful that solidarity is possible.

Every environment has a problem with transmisogyny, yes, but that's not the only thing we can learn from TERfism. I think the appeal to see misandry as the bigger problem is an attempt to identify the problem of suspicion politics.

This is why we have to look at what an ideology professes vs. what it does. Social justice is supposed to be about making social environments less oppressive, but the outcome is often that marginalized people are only hurt more.

A big thing everyone can to do be less like TERFs is to consciously choose solidarity with trans women, in a way that's charitable, leaves room for imperfection, that gives second chances, and looks for shared interest.

This is also the model for solidarity with anyone, and it's not something you can take on as a program, a self-improvement project. Solidarity has to grow out of relationships of trust.

This isn't to say "suspicion bad." That is, ironically, the mentality of suspicion politics itself, which is motivated to root out impurities and treat reality as black-or-white.

#trans central station #lgbtqia #fuck the patriarchy #scratch a terf find a fascist #long post #it's fucking good though #can i please stop seeing twenty posts a day about how conflating 'men' with 'patriarchy' is ~actually praxis!!1!~#i didn't learn to reject man-hating rhetoric from men (trans or otherwise). i originally learned it from trans women #terfism #trans women #social justice

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cat-in-a-mech-suit · 1 month ago

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Hey I know that my blog looks fake because it’s 10 seconds old but i promise this isn’t bait, I am a trans woman and new to radical feminism thru trying to interrogate my feminism bc of recent irl developments (big fight with a radfem close friend who is also trans) and that’s why my account looks sus

I’m wondering what you mean by trans radical feminism & how you think it’s in your recent post? Like I dunno maybe im super naive bc I am only recently online again but to me a radfem critique has been really valuable in understanding my position as a woman & I don’t see it as transmisogynistic , but maybe my understanding is based on a different interpretation of it. Id appreciate your time and consideration in this 🖤🖤✨

Sure. I also recommend you read my posts and other peoples posts on this. I understand how reading some radical feminist theory or ideas could be helpful in understanding how patriarchy and gender works in our society, and I think a very critical reading of radical feminism can be valuable in certain ways. But the fundamental issue with radical feminism is that it can never truly escape essentialism, whether that’s bioessentialism or gender essentialism (they are one and the same really). It is also lacking in intersectionality because the reason it is called radical feminism is because of the belief that patriarchy is the “root” of all oppression. This reflects that classic “radfem” ideology was only meant to serve one group of women: white cis women. In reality, all oppressions are inseparable and intertwined. We cannot divorce patriarchy from capitalism, white supremacy, antisemetism, ableism, and all other oppressions that exist. Patriarchy didn’t develop in isolation: it is a product of how various human societies has been specifically working for about 10,000 years, which is only a small fraction of human history. There is nothing in nature that predisposes beings to patriarchy or heterosexuality. It is invented, and this is important, in tandem with all other oppressive systems in human society. Not in isolation.

Classical radical feminism is indistinguishable from TERFism because it posits not only that misogyny based on “biological sex” is the root of all oppression, but that sex and gender are immutable, binary traits. I just ask how anyone can take that ideology and make it trans inclusive without changing it completely. There is nothing radical feminism that doesn’t reproduce white cis feminism even if the people calling themselves radfems aren’t those things. Liberation from patriarchy can only be achieved with all trans people.

Classical TERF radical feminism says that trans women are dangerous men invading women’s spaces, and trans men are gender traitors/lost lesbians with internalized misogyny, and nonbinary people don’t exist. The only difference in “TIRFism” or “inclusive” radical feminism, is repeating all the same arguments as the classical radical feminist, but then supposedly “including” trans women as women. The transandrophobia and exorsexism remains, and so does the transmisogyny - it is just more veiled. But make no mistake, “trans inclusive radical feminists” still only accept trans women who can be neatly slotted into classical, gender essentialist ideas of what womanhood is. Multigender people, who identify as both men and women? Bisexual people? Radical feminists do not like them..

I suggest intersectional feminism, which acknowledges patriarchy as connected with all other struggles and rejects gender essentialism.

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rewritingcanon · 10 months ago

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Sorry, this might be a long rant but those anons and replies you were getting got me going. TERFs always say how trans women are “cosplaying” or “performing” what they think a woman is. But, and I say this as a cis woman, don’t cis women do that too? I’d argue that it’s not even performing womanhood, it’s performing femininity, and isn’t femininity a performance at the end of the day? Cis women wear makeup, jewelry, dresses, etc. usually to express their femininity, but it’s not inherent to being a woman. Being born a woman doesn’t automatically come with a gene that makes you interested in traditionally feminine things or ways of expression, it’s all socialization. People associate gender affirmation only with trans people, but cis men and woman do it too? Men will go to the gym to build muscle or get hair transplants to feel more masculine, and women will do things that make them feel more feminine. It’s all a performance that we put on for society. Cis women get cosmetic surgery to adhere to female beauty standards all the time (even JKR, allegedly) but suddenly it’s a problem when trans women do it?

It sucks because I do consider myself a radical feminist but TERFs make it hard to exist in that space. I think TERFs and I would agree that women getting plastic surgery is actually not an empowering or feminist choice and only further feeds an industry that profits off of making women (especially women of color) feel insecure. However, I don’t blame women for getting work done, because they’re essentially the victim in the scenario. Why would I blame someone who is groomed by a society that tells them certain parts of them are bad and need to be changed? It’s pointless and self righteous, and it only further puts the burden of being the “perfect victim” on women. I feel the same for trans women (and men). I don’t like that we live in a society that pressures people into undergoing sometimes very serious procedures to be more palatable. But that’s hardly their fault, is it? Can I really blame anyone for being worn down and making a decision to try and make their life in a toxic world easier? Specifically for trans women, it also involves their safety because they (specifically trans women of color) are the most at risk members of society, especially when it comes to violence. The more they ‘pass’, they are keeping themselves safe.

It’s just so crazy to me how TERFs can acknowledge that the patriarchy is toxic to women in ways that affect their daily lives and how they present themselves, but can’t seem to understand that it also affects other groups of people in those ways as well. Trans women aren’t our enemy, they’re just trying to survive, just like we are. How can I fault anyone for that?

Again, so sorry for the long rant but I got heated lmao

no dont apologise babe i completely agree LOL. its so sad because when i first came across radical feminism it was about their takes on sex work and the porn industry in general and i really agreed with a lot they had to say so i kept deep diving and THEN i came across the terfism. and to this day idk whether that is intrinsic to radfem ideology or if terfs are just saying it is. either way, its sad because i feel like radfems are sort of overshadowed by terfs in their spaces and get a bad rep to their name because of how many bigots use that space to promote their hateful rhetoric instead of promoting their good takes on patriarchy.

that original post about jkr got a lot of terfs/self proclaimed radfems in the shits too and i would scroll through their profiles and read what they had to say about the oppression of ciswomen and actually agree with them. and then they would turn around and argue the exact opposite about trans women which was absolutely mind-boggling to me. you tell me these people can discuss so many nuances about cis-womanhood but refuse to acknowledge similar nuances in transpeople? crazy. and very disappointing.

your point on plastic surgery and gender affirming surgery is interesting. ive never thought about it that way before or thought to compare the two. i agree with what you say about cis women getting plastic surgery btw, i also dont think it’s empowering women at all but i wont blame them. i think the difference between that and gender affirming surgery is that there are more grey areas like gender dysmorphia (although not everyone who gets this surgery has to have dysmorphia) and also what you said about safety in passing! im cis too so i dont pretend to know how gender dysmorphia feels like (i know dysmorphia is also not a trans-only thing either though). maybe the experience of that is because of socialisation and the knowledge that one’s physicality is preventing them from being socialised ‘correctly,’ and maybe that would disappear if strict ideas of gender (and what ‘man/woman’ “look” like) disappeared as well, but i don’t pretend to know lol. i dont want to make it out to be some big illusion of patriarchy or anything.

either way, you’re right. we are oppressed by patriarchy in similar ways, ways that are exacerbated for trans women (and more so for non-white trans women). even trans men are oppressed too, but im not so sure how they fit into terf rhetoric. i think they may just groups trans men in with cis women? although ive never seen a terf come on here and speak up for the oppression of trans men either so. lol.

sorry for taking so long to answer this i was pondering it for a long time 😭👍

#intersectional radfems who arent terfs ily 🫶#i wish i could send this anon to the inboxes of all those stupid terfs that got on my arse a month ago 😔#harry potter #hp #anti jkr #anti terfs #radfem #ask #anon #rewriting

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gayhenrycreel · 1 year ago

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i am so fucking sick of trans women acting like trans men arent oppressed, and im sick of trans men acting like theyre more oppressed than trans women

not fucking sorry to break it to you, but the patriarchy sees us all as faggots. stop hating on people who have no power over you.

i wont name anyone but i just went through a fantastic blog run by a trans woman. seemed fine. she had some good takes. she had some different ideas on leftism from me, but leftists gotta stick together right?

no.

she thinks trans men are basically cis men in terms of power. of course that does not mean shes a bad person. there is always room for improvement, and being wrong about something does not mean someone is bad.

it is true that trans men can experience male privilege. ive experienced it myself. but as soon as people know im trans that privilege disappears.

the instant im outed im just another faggot. im pretending to be a man. im just trying to gain power. im tricking people. im a pervert.

trans women go through this too. trans women are seen as perverts, tricking people and pretending to be women.

trans women are judged for being feminine in the wrong way. they are seen as performing feminity wrong.

trans men are judged for being masculine in the wrong way. we're just weird dykes.

the reason trans men are viewed as confused lesbians is because patriarchy believes that women cant make their own decisions. women are too stupid to have autonomy, so they cant decide to be a man.

patriarchy changes how it views trans people to suit its function.

if a trans man is experiencing emotions seen as anger (even if hes just defending himself) he is a disgusting violent man and a predator. this happens to trans women too.

if a trans woman is butch, she is faking being trans to gain power (even if that power does not exist). if she is angry, she is just another violent man.

if a trans woman is in a stereotypically feminine view by society, she is a clueless woman and shouldn't have autonomy.

if a trans man is not angry and cis passing, he is a confused woman who shouldn't have autonomy.

see?

this is about women having autonomy.

transphobia is just misogyny rebranded.

trans men and trans women are not opposites. because men and women in general are not opposites.

trans women are oppressed for being transgender women.

trans men are oppressed for being transgender men.

patriarchy is not logical, because it has no scientific basis. if a man is a man in the wrong way he will be oppressed. trans men suffer misogyny too because we are seen as women.

misogyny targets anyone who performs gender wrong.

i argue that cis men can experience transmisogyny too.

cishet men get called fags if they are not the peak of masculinity. they get called sissys if they arent strong enough.

the reason for this is that anything feminine is seen as weak, and anything not perfectly masculine must be feminine.

@our-queer-experience and @genderkoolaid are some of the only blogs ive seen be normal about both trans men and trans women.

stop drinking the terf koolaid. terfs believe that men are inherently violent abusers, and apply that to men and women who are feminine wrong.

have you not seen all those terfs fighting each other because one of them has leg hair?

yeah. terfs think women are biologically incapable of having body hair. some terfs have even ganged up on jkr herself because they think her jawline is too masculine.

terfs are so misogynistic that they think women can only be real women if they fit into a perfect little made up box.

out of all great apes, humans have some of the least sexual dimorphism. you cant automatically tell if someone is trans.

terfism is self destructive. its killing feminism. its misogynistic. its transphobic. if you pay attention its also racist and antisemitic.

yeah, terfs go after women of colour and women with big noses and say they arent actually women because they have features that arent white.

newsflash, not all races have the same features. what might be considered masculine features in white people might not be that masculine for people of colour.

humans are a variable species. there is no singular "masculine" or "feminine" face.

im a trans man and ive met cis men with more stereotypically feminine features than me, and cis women with more stereotypically masculine features than me.

humans evolved to have facial variation so we could recognise individuals easier. not so we could fight over whether humans should have variations.

im not even on testosterone yet and i have chest hair. its normal. cant you see the beauty of the human form? we share so much DNA and we all look so different.

terfs think women cant be women if they are gendering wrong, just how patriarchy does.

patriarchy also thinks men cant be men if they gender wrong.

patriarchy and terfism both believe that people are lying about themselves if they dont conform.

patriarchy is forced conformity.

and its whats killing the queer kids.

hating men is not a cure for misogyny.

#transphobia #transexual #trans #transgender #queer #queer liberation #transmasc #ftm #mtf #transfem #trans men #trans women #anti patriarchy #i didnt use the word transandrophobia because yous arent ready for #the idea that trans men are oppressed both for being trans and being men

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pigeonflavouredcake · 1 year ago

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i'm so close to finishing the edits on my theory chapter so here's a extract about Terf witches

I'm directly taking this from my grimoire Book of Magic (BOM), literally just copy and pasted. I'm sharing this page specifically because I'm trans and I experience this everyday so understanding the signs of TERFism in the witchcraft community was something I had to learn.

All references will be at the bottom.

-Feminism Appropriating Radical Transphobes-

TERFism (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism) and gender essentialist ideology in spiritual spaces are a common sight but often overlooked as a necessary part of spiritual practice. They’re not. There are some well-known dog whistles used by TERFs that are very commonplace; “we are the daughters of the witches you didn’t burn” “divine feminine” “pussy power”. Many TERFs deal with misogyny or internalised misogyny disguised as "pussy power girlboss" feminism.

The idea behind TERFism is that gender is a patriarchal construct and that your sex assigned at birth is the only thing that can tell you if you’re a man or woman. (Wynn, N. (ContraPoints). 2019)

The problem with that is that because no-one is able to tell what someone’s sex is at a glance, TERFs use gender essentialism and white centric stereotypes to point out who they think is a man or woman and often getting it wrong which puts both transgender and non-conforming cisgender people in danger, more so if that person is also a person of colour. Due to the racialization of masculinity and femininity and the pervasive white standards of beauty it makes it near impossible for feminine presenting people of colour to be perceived as such without leaning into hyper feminine styles akin to Barbie or Marylin Monroe.

How one would recognise a TERF out in the wild may be tricky considering many of them are self-aware enough to never share their true feelings out in the open. Many of them use covert statements or gaslighting techniques in order to portray the narrative I spoke about in my previous section on cults, a narrative of heroism. A TERF isn’t spouting dangerous ideologies that put transgender people at risk of political, medical, and social discrimination, they’re just looking out for what’s best for you, they want to protect young gay men and lesbians from being influenced by a predatory agenda and to fight for the rights of women.

A TERF will do a lot to portray themselves as the hero of an oppressive regime in order to experience the power and respect they may have been denied in life due to their own minority status as women.

Examples of Transphobic/Gender Essentialist Ideology

(primarily: Cambridge SU. 2021-22. Other sources as specified)

Refers to themselves as gender-critical, radfem, adult human female/male.

Refers to trans/nonbinary people as ‘TRA’ (Trans Rights Activists), ‘TIF’ or ‘TIM’ (Trans Identified Female/Male). (Stone, G. 2020)

Refers to trans-feminine people as predators and trans-masculine people as victims of the patriarchy/woke agenda.

Conflates gender affirming care with gay conversion therapy aka torture, another method of attributing transgender people to confused children or victims of an agenda. (Corry, W (Sci Guys). 2020)

Refers to trans women as ‘transwomen’, the removal of the space is an intentional othering and separation from women and womanhood. (Mildred & Thorn, A. (Thought Slime. 2023)

Disagrees with the term cisgender or asking for pronouns saying “i don’t have pronouns i’m a woman/a man/normal”.

Believes certain traits are, by nature, more exclusive to men/women and believes women are inherently more powerful because of maturity, periods, childbaring etc…

Sides with LGB spaces or argues to “keep penises out of lesbian spaces”.

Uses the term ‘womxn’ referring to women as people with XX chromosomes exclusively.

Uses 1st/2nd wave feminism to exclude the transgender/nonbinary/intersex/bi/pan/poly community from feminist spaces (essentially excluding anyone that could potentially not not have a vulva/uterus or who interact with people who may not have a vulva/uterus).

Covertly refers to nonbinary people as women adjacent through women and nonbinary spaces and stereotyping.

Uses dinosaur emojis and/or the colours of the British suffragette flag (purple, white, green). (Stone, G. 2020)

TERFism in Spirituality

In the witchcraft and pagan communities TERFs abound spewing this kind of nonsense with a spicey, new age flavour masking the rotten fruit beneath. You can learn about how TERFism is portrayed specifically in Hellenism on another page but generally speaking a TERF witch is one who excludes the title of ‘witch’ to cisgender women, denying and demonising anyone adjacent to men and masculinity, including cisgender men and the whole transgender and nonbinary community citing the points listed above. TERF witches believe that this community is a super special ‘girls only, no boys allowed’ club which gives them power over misogyny and sexism that caused them so much pain and frustration in their life however they forget that everyone is a victim of misogyny and sexism, including men and trans people.

I am using Lisa Lister’s book Witch as an -admittedly obvious- example of how TERF rhetoric is displayed in spiritual spaces. In their book, Lister outlines who is a witch and her power as a force of nature and a “creatrix” making constant references to “divine feminine” periods, wombs and using exclusively she/her pronouns.

The Introduction

“The part of us that was once anaesthetized, domesticated and kept numb by food (or by shopping drugs and media) is now awakening in each of us. It’s our wholeness, our intuition, our magic and our power - the power that lies between our thighs” (p xiii)

“Waking up and reclaiming the witch within us takes really big ovaries. It takes womb-deep recognition that you are: a woman who is powerful: you bleed for five days and don’t die. A force of nature who knows the ebb and flow of the moon, the seasons and mumma nature and her own body….” (p xiv)

The Witch Wound

“The pelvic bowl is a witch’s most powerful magic making tool, a place where we create, make life and connect directly to the source” (p 90)

Lister directly infers that the title of witch is exclusive to women and only the ‘working’ cisgender ones. This is dehumanising by reducing a person's power to their genitalia and only if it ‘works'. This correlates with the TERF belief that women are inherently more powerful because of a female reproductive system as opposed to women being powerful because of their autonomy as human beings. If the latter is the case, then what is stopping cisgender men or trans/nonbinary people from becoming practitioners? The answer is nothing.

My thoughts

While a spell or task one may find in specific kinds of magical/holistic practices may call for the excrement produced by a specific genitalia -such as menstrual blood used as plant fertiliser- I firmly believe an individual does not need any specific anatomy or gender to practise witchcraft. However I also think that believing your magical power comes from your own sexual anatomy isn’t necessarily bad if that is as far as the concept is taken. As long as you don’t take it upon yourself to enforce that idea upon others and deny different concepts of power and magic, it’s harmless, even empowering.

I personally try to avoid any reference to power coming from genitalia as I find the idea redundant to my own practice. I believe power comes from individual autonomy and what the natural world provides but that does not make nature a mother figure in my eyes. Nature simply is, it is its own force, always creating, destroying and recreating itself, always demanding balance. It is sexless, genderless and bodiless but it is none-theless a god.

Finally I cannot emphasise this enough, you cannot ‘always tell’ when someone is trans. Butch cisgender women being perceived as predators and harassed for using the women’s loos is evidence enough. (Maurice, E.P. 2021)

References

Cambridge SU Women’s Campaign (2021-22) How to Spot TERF Ideology 2.0. Cambridge SU. [PDF] https://www.cambridgesu.co.uk/pageassets/resources/guides/spottingterfideology/How-to-Spot-TERF-Ideology-2.0-2.pdf

Corry, W. (Sci Guys) (2023). The Science of Conversion “Therapy” | Sci Guys Podcast #239. Youtube. [Video] https://youtu.be/sFI5Ycs-nig?si=NYVKe0YydykcWsTp&t=3359

Lister, L. (2017). Witch: Unleashed. Untamed. Unapologetic. Hay House. London. [Book]

Maurice, E.P (2021). Butch lesbian harassed ‘tens of times’ in public toilets as anti-trans hostility spills over. Pink News [Web Article] https://www.thepinknews.com/2021/01/19/public-toilets-trans-bathroom-butch-lesbian-harassed-gender-critical-feminists/

Mildred, Thorn, A. (Thought Slime). (2023). Is This the Weirdest Transphobic Lie Ever? - Cringe Corner Ft. Abigail Thorn & Sophie From Mars. Youtube. [Video] https://youtu.be/EfzUtEcGluA?t=2039

Stone, G. (2020). A glossary of Transphobia. Medium. [Web Article] https://medium.com/@notCursedE/a-glossary-of-transphobia-a31a001d279

Wynn, N. (ContraPoints). (2019). Gender Critical. Youtube.com [Video] https://youtu.be/1pTPuoGjQsI

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boreal-sea · 1 year ago

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Sex based oppression is a terf term and I would recommend you don't use it, it's also transmisognyistic to imply there's a male supremacy, as a trans woman, it can be used as an argument that *I* would be harming cis women just for existing, which is what the terfs want

Please learn more about trans misogyny and learn from mistakes!

😘💕 xoxo no harm towards the previous anon or you op

I would really like it if some of y'all would cite WHY you think sex-based oppression" is a terf term. Who coined it? When? Why? Y'all also never suggest any alternative language.

But firstly:

An afab person talking about sexism and the hatred afab people face - regardless of the words they use - does not imply the existence of "male supremacy". The only way the words "sexism" or "sex-based oppression" can mean "male supremacy" is if you believe in a world of binaries, where if something is true for X, the opposite must be true for Y. If you go down THAT rabbit hole, THAT is radical feminism/terfism speaking. And if you think discussing sexism against afab people is equivalent to saying "male supremacy exists", I cannot help you.

Sexism is not solely perpetrated by males, nor are females the only targets - but we are the targets for whom sexism was designed and intended for. However, unlike the adherents to the "TMA/TME" dichotomy, I'm not going to sit here and say "only afab people can experience sexism, because sexism is only against females".

Fact: anyone can experience sexism.

A societal hatred of afab people does not mean all amab people are going to be treated as superior, because that's not how oppression works. Our society hates afab people, things associated with afab people, and anyone who doesn't perform malehood exactly right.

Two truths:

Our society treats people who were assigned female at birth as second-class citizens.

Our society treats trans women as second-class citizens for various reasons, many of them involving sexism, just like the oppression it places on people assigned female at birth!

These two facts exist simultaneously. They do not contradict each other. They in fact are intricately linked.

Furthermore, just because our society oppresses people assigned female at birth based on our birth sex does not mean all amab people oppress all afab people. People who were assigned male at birth are not oppressing people assigned female at birth just by existing.

Now. Back to your uncited claims that "sex-based oppression" is a terf term: I can find sources of academic articles (behind paywalls) going all the way back to 1983 using the phrase "sex-based oppression". What's YOUR source it is a modern-day terf dogwhistle? Or is it just that terfs happen to use the phrase a lot?

I genuinely would like someone to cite a reason why they think it's a terf phrase. I'm a scientist. Give me sources and proof, don't just say it at me.

#trans feminism #feminism #anti terf #anti radfem

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