#the issue being that people arguing about this woman's gender are absolutely delusional.

[wasabikitcat]

Has anyone in this Olympics women's boxing argument ever stopped and thought about whether it would make any sense for women to be more susceptible to being injured in boxing than men? Like sure, it's a fairly common assumption that men are physically stronger than women, and therefore a man would have an advantage at boxing because he can punch harder... But how would that make you more resilient to being punched in the nose? Like I would think the assumed advantage would be that women can't hit as hard and therefore would require more effort to take someone down, but what everyone is arguing over is a woman having her nose broken from a punch to the face, when a man's nose would be just as broken from the same punch. Women don't have like, daintier and weaker facial bones or something. Being punched in the face "by a man" when you're a woman is literally no different than being punched in the face by the same person as a man. If we are to assume that men (note: the person being debated about here isn't a man or even a trans woman, she is cisgender, but I digress) are so Herculean that their punches are just too dangerous for women, then men's boxing should be banned outright because it's just too dangerous for men to be punching each other with that strength when a punch to the face is exactly the same for a man as it is to a woman.

[rfdiscoursethrowaway]

alr fucker ill bite

im trying 2 understand the absolute fuckin brainrot that is terf ideology solely so i can explain to people who actually want to make an effort to not be bigoted not fall into your pipelines. i do this already. but i wanna be more thorough and get screenshots and examples for specific questions. ill do a lil back and forth, but you wont be convincing me that all trans women are pedos n rapists and that we need to detransition people en mass and that trans people are delusional. i have a series of questions, if you consider yourself a terf please try and actually answer them, in a way that actually explains your thought process and isnt just calling me slurs because thats most of the discourse on this site. -------

how do you mentally justify the contridiction in "male and female brains have no difference and women are just as capable as men" (true and real) and "men are fundimentally more violent/ women less violent" besides just blatently liking sexism so long as it hurts men and not women (blatently harmful and bigoted just with a #girlpower coat of paint)

if its a socialization issue, how does female seperatism nessisarily help that? shouldnt the goal then to not treat women as an other, and to not define people based on biological characteristics? while biological differences exist they dont affect your mental or phisical capabilities in anything (in regards to biological sex atleast). wouldnt it be more helpful to treat it as simply a medical thing? like a blood type or something? and treat genital preference as just the same as any other random aesthetic preference in partners like, idk, liking fat people or likeing brown hair what is it about gender based oppression that makes you think that its the men that are the problem and not the whole gender thing, because its men thinking that women are fundimentally different alien creatures because we literally define people by their genitals and constantly talk about how your genitals make you fundimentally different then the "opposite". an ACTUALLY HELPFUL soution should be talking about how like, yeah! some of us look different, but thats like? fine? we are people. who cares whats in that person pants. and if your answer is that thats unrealistic and will require hundreds of years of societal change (true) why is your approach to double down on men and women being fundimentally different and not to like? work? twards something objectively better and less discriminatory? most of what terfs are known for is bigotry and thats not some crazy coincidence, its because your sexism (though you love to label it otherwise) naturally leads to transphobia. its because the core of your ideology is bigotry. women shouldnt be discriminated against cuz you are? fucking people? with the exact same capabilities, you do not deserve more/less praise more/less accountablitity more/less agency. infact id argue that this bending over backwords to try and exclude people you deem as men is why radfems are so much more of a pushover to conservatives. your willingness to go on and on about how biological differences make you a fundimentally different person just so you can rant about how men are all ugly evil penis havers just lets you be suseptible to violent reactionary shit by conservatives. regardless of where you come from politically, this applies to BOTH of us, if you refuse to really think deeply and critically about why you hate the things you do and why you like the things you do, and instead operate on gut reactions and absorbing politics from people on tumblr SOMEONE from SOME IDEOLOGY is always trying to take advantage of that. and transphobia IS violent reactionary shit, most the time i see transphobia especially against trans women its based entirely on appearance, people jumping all over themselves to body shame her for not being enough of a woman, talking about how gross and disgusting she is for wearing a dress or for having a deeper voice. why is this body shaming ok so long as you deem someone a man? attatching morality to appearance is just a blatently bad idea and its frankly gross how little so many of you are willing to critique that.

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whats your explaination for the tonal dissonance between "i dont want trans people dead and im not violent" and painting trans women as "always being men with terrible intentions who cosplay as women to have an excuse to rape and assault people"

because while you may not directly say "i think all trans people should be murdered" and you do it in a roundabout way with "all trans people are rapists and all rapists should be murdered" that does still say "i think all trans people should be murdered", just with extra steps. and are you aware that this is the exact retoric used by colonizers to justify genocide and slavery? painting black people as "savages and rapists"? whats your justification for painting a large group of people as fundimentally evil and violent, and how nessasarily is it somehow different then the retoric used to oppress any other marginalized group? + if its a "but im right!" consider this is also what a rapist or an antisemite or a mysogenist would say, and why you are parroting the exact same thing. like do you genuinely actually think that having a boy brain, or more testosterone, or a penis, makes you a rapist and a pedofile? really? and again if you agree with me that its a socialization issue why! dont you! treat it that way!! if you mean one thing, SAY THAT! and FIGURE OUT WITCH ONE OF THOSE YOU BELIEVE. because you cant fuckin have it both ways! if you wanna say that we shouldnt be treating women as stupid vile little vagina having worms (real and true) then like, you cant ALSO be like oh i also think we should be treating men as stupid vile little penis having worms >:) hehe i am so progressive and counter culture ignore all the horrific damage that catagorizing people like that has had i think it will be funny when we do it with men you see.

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what is with this insistance that people define themselves based on whats in their pants, like if having a pussy is just having a pussy thats fuckin fine alr but if you start insisting that people make that their ENTIRE PERSONALITY and that if you have one you HAVVVEEEE to have only a specific subsection of names and you HAVEEEE to be called a woman and use she/her and shit

like girl it is just words, who gives a fuck, if a guy says hey i wanna change my name to this girl name cuz it sounds cool as fuck its like! yea! hell yeah brother! and if hes like actually i prefer more feminine words to refer to me :) its like! hell yeah sister! how does that hurt fuckin anyone. is using words so hard 4 u. and before you be like ooOOuuyhghhg IM NOT DEFINING PEOPLE BASED ON THEY ARE PUSSY how is catagorizing people based on their chromosomes / genitals / appearance (and lets be honest here. its mostly appearance but you use chromosomes and genitals so you can pretend theres some kind of science proving that youre right, there is no chromosome detector 3000 for real life) not flattening them? like genuinely how the fuck do you justify that. you have to go to a different bathroom you have to go to a different doctors office you have to go to a different sports team all because i assume that your chromosomes and your genitals make you eaither unsafe or violent or constantly in need of protection and fundimentally less capable. terfs love to constantly insist that gender is whatever and then constantly try to force people to define themselves by their biological sex? why is whats in MY pants any of your fucking buisness? unless im at a gynocology appointment you dont need to know shit. all of this girlsgirlsgirlsgirls stuff what if you dont wanna be called a fuckin girl? what if i find it weird that you profile people and assume things about them because of their body? if gender is whatever why do you HAVE to be a male or a female. why do i have to fucking put my biology out on display for people to assume things about me based on? because i KNOW you assume things based on peoples biological sex and i KNOW you think more or less of people based on their biological sex thats half the ideology! why do you think every trans women is a sexist mysogenist who woke up one day at 24 and decided she was gonna be a girllll and wear dresses so she could opress woemennn moreeeee, why do you assume all trans men were groomed and exploited and brainwashed into thinking that theyre boys because of mysogeny and not cuz sometimes? being called a dude feels good? having a dick feels good? having a flat chest feels good? using he him or whatever the fuck feels good??? rad fem shit is just, sexism repackadged, do you never see the similarities? do you never see the fine print? that the core ideology is the same? this is just mysogeny again! like women are always the victim and men are always the perpetraitor. is just women have fundimentally less agency and men more agency women do bad things because theyre dumb and men do bad things because they had a good reason to. is just women have fundimentally less agency and men more agency please explain how that ISNT just the same mysogenist veiwpoints with a hashtag girlboss coat of paint. and this isnt me projecting mysogenistic right wing ideas onto you, i wrote all this stuff while looking through "radfem101" "terf reference guide" "things TRA's need to get thru their heads" posts. theres a reason people get them confused, ive been told these exact same things time and time again by alt rights and conservatives and mysogenists. so witch are you? why do you agree on so much?

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how do you deal with the whole, not wanting womens genitals to be constantly policed and have that be all that defines them (true and real) and the very real fact that there is no chromosome detector 3000 and if you want to create "female only spaces" you realistically are eaither going to have to subject billions of women on a daily basis to sexual harrassment to see if they are "real women" or do it just based on appearance. witch is enevitibly going to cause a disproportionate ammount of hate and violence twards black, gnc, and intersex women for not being "women" enough. something that is already happening, because trying to give rigid requirements for what looks like a woman and what looks like a man is always going to impact these groups disproportionately, you know its gonna be based off of like a white skinny cis girl! and uh! not all women are that!

and assuming there is a chromosome dectector 3000 in the future, a) intersex people b) trans men exist, and while im sure you can argue day and night about how they arent real men and phallo dicks are just a mutilated skin tube or whatever half of what you guys talk about is how you feel unsafe being in the same bathroom as someone who "looks like a dude" and who has a penis. considering the strictness in needing 100% gender conformity in trans women im sure the exact same people wouldnt be comfortable with a trans guy eaither, if youd feel ok just so long as they had the right reading on the chromosome dectector 3000 then all this talk about trans women being violent cuz penis and body hair and testosterone is just bullshit. and sense terfs love to play hypotheticals with 100% cis dudes just telling people theyre girls so they can get through the female bathroom security (a thing that totally exists believe me guys) (and also yeah telling a police officer that youre "just a trans girl" would totally actually help you in a legal case dont google trans panic defence shhhhhh its ok its ok, statistics you dont read from "xxvaginawomxngirlfucker" arent real its ok,,) couldnt a cis dude just lieeee about being a trans man? whos saying nobody can lie about my chromosome detector 3000 score! are you gonna put a bouncer in the female bathroom security gates? and like, where do trans people even pee then. we just rename the mens bathroom to the trannies and mysogenists room? the biologically more violent room? yeah lets shove a bunch of little intersex girls into the violent mysogenists room, she had body hair and a harsher jawline and that scared me so im lumping her into the room with all the people i think are pedos and rapists, she will feel totally ok about this and this wont effect her perception of herself, this wont enforce gender roles and make women having a complex about being feminine enough worse. women can be anything! except anything i think looks like a guy. so women can be feminine and nothing else :) but women can be anything i put in this super limiting box! i genuinely cannot imagine a world where this doesnt dramatically worsten sexual phisical and emotional violence against literally everyone.

and to say again. im not looking for quirky rebloggable snapbacks to each of my points i want you 2 put an equal ammount of effort as i did scrolling terflandia and writing all this up. so dont just call me a delusional tr-nny i want you to give me like. atleast a little substance here. something to chew and bite and pick apart

[discyours]

What are your thoughts on contrapoints' new video if you've watched it ?

I had actually watched it before I got this ask but I wanted to rewatch it to make sure I had a good answer. Terrible idea, I spent way too much time on this, too much to justify shortening this out so I’ll put a cut out of courtesy to my followers. 

I did actually find myself agreeing with her on a few points, though I didn’t spend much time being excited about that since criticising “TERFs” is hardly a new or rare thing. Starting out the video with a dramatic reading of a Germaine Greer quote was funny in my opinion, but it did set people up for an obvious bias. Some radfems truly are that transphobic and that’s really important to acknowledge, but it’s hardly news to anyone in her audience. I would’ve preferred if she’d engaged with more moderate forms of gender critical feminism, though I can’t say it’s all that much of a surprise that she didn’t do so since the entire basis of her channel is essentially putting on a wig to create a strawman (that’s not to say that the points she argued against were never made by anyone, but she does get to pick and choose which ones she talks about rather than debating a real person).

It’s also quite telling that she only asked past gender critical feminists for their input, not anyone who currently holds those beliefs (though again, can’t say I’m surprised). I did actually like her explanation of gendercrit ideology (”The idea is that gender [femininity, masculinity, gender roles, all that] it’s all a patriarchal construct, and biological sex is the only thing that makes a person a man or a woman.”). It’s fairly rare to see people represent it even somewhat accurately, so props for that.  She then went on to mock questions about trans ideology as being comparable to “the Jewish question”, so,,, that strong start didn’t last long.

She explained that trans people are on the defensive against genuine questions because of the amount of transphobia we have to deal with from the government, the press, and oftentimes our family. It’s the reason we stick together and stick to unambiguous slogans that don’t concede anything (”trans women are women”). Which, cue 10 people unfollowing me, I don’t disagree with. I started this blog to talk about trans issues and at this point I’m about as trans-critical as troons can get, but even I don’t have the energy or desire to engage every single person I come across in their genuine concerns about trans people. The part Natalie leaves out however is that these slogans and chants are often part of an attempt to change legislation, where you don’t get to just state that trans women are women and refuse to discuss it when people don’t blindly accept it. Being on the defensive makes sense, but it’s incompatible with being on the offensive to change laws and social norms.

Moving on to CONCERN ONE: GENDER METAPHYSICS

This is one part where I actually strongly agreed with Natalie (well, as much as could be expected). She explains that sometimes, people use metaphors to explain feelings that are difficult to put into words, and that that’s how she understands the “trapped in the wrong body” language. Thanks to some groups who do mean this literally (thanks transmeds!) I don’t blame radfems for taking those statements seriously and attempting to debunk them, but I’m also really not fond of radfems jumping on just about any attempt to talk about dysphoria. A lot of the time these objections go beyond wanting to debunk something that is assumed to be meant literally, and beyond wanting people to think critically about their dysphoria; it reaches the point of expecting that they’ll simply reason people out of their dysphoria, since being dysphoric (and being trans) just doesn’t make any sense.

She also criticises brain sex theory much in the way that I do, and says she thinks of herself as a woman who used to be a man rather than having always been a woman. I’m too gendercrit to relate or agree completely, but compared to most trans people’s stance on this it’s pretty damn agreeable.

She finishes off this… chapter? With a quote about “living as a woman”, and while I have plenty of thoughts on that it’s elaborated on later on, so let’s move on.

CONCERN TWO: GENDER STEREOTYPES

Natalie explains that her clothes, makeup or voice don’t “make her a woman”, and that no trans woman thinks femininity and womanhood are the same. Rather, they’re using femininity as a cultural language to prompt people to see them “for what they are” (women).  

Obviously the question of what makes someone a woman has yet to be answered here (unless the quote from the last chapter was intended to but that’s pretty circular [go watch the video this is too goddamn long to copy everything]) so I’ll leave the “see us for what we are” be for now. But it’s absolute bullshit that no trans woman equates femininity to womanhood. How many trans women have explained that they knew from a young age because they liked to play with dolls and their mother’s makeup? There have literally been trans women claiming that butch lesbians are closeted trans men, and that an aversion to femininity counts as gender dysphoria. I do agree with her last point, though. I didn’t cut my hair when I came out because I thought that would “make me a man”, I did so because it’d help me pass. A lot of radfems are intentionally obtuse about the existence of cultural signifiers just to paint trans people as delusional gender-worshippers.

I am actually gonna quote her here because I think it’s important;

“I think butch or gender nonconforming cis women sometimes side-eye hyperfeminine trans women because they don’t identify with this version of womanhood at all, and they’ve had to struggle since childhood against a society that’s told them they have to be feminine. And I completely sympathize with that. I think there should be more gender freedom, less coercion less restriction. But also, I’ve had to fight against the same society that told me I should really, really, really, not be *this*. So, I feel like we should be able to form some kind of solidarity here.”

I was ready to be mad at the start of the sentence but I actually agree. I just think that solidarity is lost when trans women refuse to acknowledge that society’s insistence that they don’t be like *that* is about gender roles and hatred of gender nonconformity. There is great potential for solidarity between GNC females and feminine trans women, but trans women reject it because they don’t want to be seen as GNC males or acknowledge that other people do. They want to be treated as normal, feminine women, and not doing so counts as misgendering.

CONCERN THREE: ABOLISH GENDER

Natalie argues that, while potentially a good idea, abolishing gender is a Utopian project (/pipe dream), much like abolishing borders. That denying trans people their gender identity because “abolish gender” is much like denying immigrants citizenship because “abolish borders”. It’s targeting the people who are most vulnerable under the present system, and then leveraging that system against them under the pretense of abolishing it.

I’ll concede that abolishing gender (and frankly, radical feminism as a whole) is fairly idealistic. Most radfem goals are incredibly long term and while that’s a good thing in some ways (I’m quite happy to be with a movement that refuses to accept anything less than complete female liberation, rather than some form of feminism that insists it’s only needed outside the west [”We’re already equal! I can vote! Look at the pants I’m wearing”]), it also leads to quite a lot of abstract academic bullshittery, and unreasonable expectations of ideological purity.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to view individual trans people as personally responsible for accomplishing the very long-term goal of abolishing gender. But radical feminism is not about individualism (which a lot of radfems do seem to forget, to be fair). There are radfems who are supportive of trans people; Andrea Dworkin herself supported transition. Only as a bandaid for a much bigger issue (the existence of gender) but she at least felt that trans people should be allowed this bandaid, should be allowed to reduce their suffering in current society in whichever ways they can. Dworkin’s view on this is far from rare and some radfems are even trans themselves. But to get back to the part about radical feminism not being individualistic; while individual trans people are not necessarily an issue for gender abolition, the wider trans community and its current political ventures most definitely is. The entirety of radical feminism is not going to collapse from a singular tran getting a gendered hairstyle, but replacing laws to refer to gender identity rather than sex can absolutely be devastating in the long term (and in the short term, when you look at the amount of protections that female-bodied people lose as a result), and that’s exactly what the trans community is currently pushing for.

Natalie also criticises the fact that gender critical feminists don’t seem to go after, say, Kim Kardashian for promoting gender roles. That they attack trans women with barely any following rather than people with actual power and influence. And I disagree with that, radfems are definitely highly critical of women like Kim Kardashian. But the way Natalie makes this point exposes part of the issue; nobody is going after Kim Kardashian for wearing a dress because Kim Kardashian never made an active choice to start wearing dresses. She experienced female socialisation no differently than any other woman (or, arguably, far more strongly considering who her parents were), so there’s some sympathy to be extended there. She has more responsibility due to her platform, but it’s no easier for her to break out of gender roles whereas trans people, to some extent, knowingly stepped into another gender role.

CONCERN FOUR: MALE PRIVILEGE

Natalie argues that men don’t treat trans women like their equals. That non-passing trans women are not treated like men, but like monsters, and that “male privilege” is not a good description of that experience.

This is one of those things that’s really hard to argue against because there’s an inherent disagreement about gender. Natalie’s insistence that non passing trans women aren’t treated like men comes from preexisting notions that a man is more than simply an adult human male, which is where I disagree. Non passing trans women are treated like men, but that does not mean that men will treat you like an equal; much like straight men can still treat gay men like shit, white men can still treat black men like shit, etc. “Male privilege” has never been a good descriptor of gay men’s experiences with homophobia either, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have any. There is more than one axis of oppression.

Moving on, Natalie brings up radfems’ skepticism about the whole notion of “passing”. I’m not going to bother to quote it because the entire part is good, but I do have strong feelings about this.

Her argument about gas station attendants and plumbers is completely on point, and I fucking hate it when people try to argue that anyone who reads trans people as their desired sex is simply being polite. It’s genuinely fucking impossible that everyone we run into has been indoctrinated into politically correct gender ideology, and the nerve a lot of radfems have to insist that our genuine life experiences are worthless next to their opinion is downright insulting.

Passing is, in fact, subjective. With my shift in perspective since becoming gender critical, my perception of trans people has changed too. People I used to believe passed flawlessly are now quite noticeably trans to me, but that’s not to say that that’s a result of “breaking free from trans ideology”. Relying on gender roles to identify people’s sex is in fact the cultural norm, and only actively attempting to view things differently (or spending large amounts of time around GNC people) changes that.

CONCERN FIVE: MALE SOCIALISATION

Natalie starts off by acknowledging that she has no idea what it’s like to be catcalled as a nine year old girl, or what that does to a child’s psyche. It did not start happening to her until she was an adult, when she knew what she was getting into and was ready for it. I just want to mention that separately because I just about cried when she said this. Sexual harassment at a young age is one thing I see trans women consistently failing to acknowledge, and an end has just come to the years of frustration I have suffered as the result of this argument going completely unaddressed.

She goes on to argue that socialisation does not stop at childhood; that it is a lifelong process. One example she gave is that her appearance is commented on far more now that she’s transitioned, and that that’s been something she’s had to get used to. I actually think that’s a good point and one that should be considered more, but I’m uncomfortable with the implication she brings when talking about resocialisation, as if childhood socialisation can be erased/redone entirely (which I don’t believe it can).

Then there’s the “trans women don’t experience socialisation the way cis men do” argument. Let me quote this and see if you can spot anything wrong;

“But also, trans women often don’t experience the socialisation the way cis men do. Many trans women are feminine and queer before they transition, and have always experienced a kind of femmephobia that is rooted in misogyny.”

The implication that feminine/queer equates to trans is really harmful, and once again she’s arguing from a different concept of what a man actually is. Not to mention that “femmephobia” is only a thing against men, as women are expected to be feminine.

“Some trans women also identified as women years before transitioning, and internalised society’s messaging about women more than society’s messaging about men. Now that’s still not the same as living in society as a girl from birth, but it’s also pretty different from the socialisation of most cis men.”

Interestingly enough, I initially wrote down “masculine cis men” rather than “most cis men” because that’s what the captions said. I wonder if Natalie realised her unfortunate implication that feminine = trans after uploading her video and decided to change it in the captions, since the words don’t sound all that alike.

She then talks about “stolen valor”, that she suspects that male privilege and male socialisation are such major talking points for gender critical feminists because they feel like it’s an injustice for people to claim their identity without experiencing their oppression. She compares radfems to transmeds; both groups supposedly believe that you need to suffer for your identity to be valid.

Fundamental disagreement about gender is affecting her understanding yet again. Identity-based thinking just can’t be applied to gendercrit ideology at all; the whole point is that gender identity itself is harmful, and that women who consider themselves as such because they are adult human females have extremely different experiences than people who feel that they identify with womanhood regardless of their lack of life experiences actually being female.

[”You didn’t suffer like I’ve suffered! You don’t know what it’s like”] “I’m tempted to strike back by saying that you don’t know what it’s like to occupy an identity so stigmatised that most of the people who are attracted to you in private are too ashamed to admit it in public”

Ever heard of butch lesbians, Natalie?

“You don’t know what it’s like to have a body so non-normative that you’re shut out of whole areas of society”

Cough

CONCERN SIX: REPRODUCTIVE OPPRESSION

I’m getting fucking tired at this point and I hate myself for even writing this long of a reply up until now. Basically, she pulls the good ol’ “not all women experience their womanhood the same way” argument, and then makes a fucking coat hanger abortion joke. I wish I had an in-depth reply to that but I don’t. I honestly don’t have the words to express how angry it makes me that someone who has never even had to deal with even the mere possibility of unwanted pregnancy thinks they have any place to joke about the horrific lengths women were forced to go to as a result of their reproductive oppression.

CONCERN SEVEN: ERASING FEMALE VOCABULARY

Through her assumption that feminism is a mere shield for gender critical radfems to hide their transphobia behind, Natalie is disregarding the actual feminist motivations behind opposing gender-neutral language. I mean, she literally does not even touch on it, she only says that nobody has any issue with individual women referring to themselves as women rather than “menstruators” (or, by her suggestion, “people who menstruate”).

Medical lingo is complicated, and I understand wanting to ensure that trans people do not lose insurance coverage when they change their legal sex. I don’t believe that changing all medical language to be gender neutral is the only possible solution there, but at the end of the day doctors are gonna know the difference between male and female anatomy even if their textbooks talk about “pregnant people”. Medical language is not the issue here, it’s the expectation that this language becomes commonplace everywhere, including in feminist discourse. That’s the point where female vocabulary is erased, and where it becomes impossible for women to discuss the reasons for their oppression. Menstruation and pregnancy are not “gender neutral” issues when it comes to institutional oppression, and we should not treat them as such.

Moving on, let me quote her directly:

“I have no problem with cis feminists discussing or celebrating periods or wearing pussy hats at political marches. […] I totally get why cis feminists would want to celebrate their reproductive anatomy in defiance of a society that routinely shames and subjugates them for it. The problem arises only when menstruation or reproductive anatomy are used to misgender trans men or exclude [women who don’t bleed].”

The assumption wasn’t that every individual trans woman takes issue with women discussing their anatomy, so “I don’t have a problem with it” is not an argument. I mean, you’re obviously free to say it to get people off your back about it, but it does not debunk radfem concerns when there absolutely are trans women who believe it’s “terfy” and “exclusionary” to talk about issues that only affect “cis” women. That last point is a funny one, despite all the inclusive language trans women regularly forget that menstruation is not a cis thing. And that’s an issue Natalie appears to suffer from too, unless this was unfortunate phrasing and we were just meant to assume that trans men talking about periods is not up for discussion. Either way, it’s clear that inclusive language is clunky to everyone, the mistakes that are acceptable to make just depend on which side you’re on.

CONCERN EIGHT: TERF IS A SLUR

Natalie uses an interesting definition of “slur” here: “a pejorative that targets someone’s race, religion, gender, or sexuality”. I say interesting because I can’t find it anywhere. I could find “an insinuation or allegation about someone that is likely to insult them or damage their reputation.”, “an insulting or disparaging remark or innuendo”, “a derogatory or insulting term applied to particular group of people”, but not hers. Presumably because she made it up herself (and haf-assedly at that, did you forget disabled people exist Natalie?) knowing that all of the former definitions would, in fact, consider TERF to be a slur.

Now I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of the whole “TERF is a slur” thing. I’ve seen someone use that to say “if you call me TERF I can call you tranny”. I don’t think being called a TERF (which I have plenty of experience with) should be considered to be comparable to being called a tranny or a bitch. TERF has become essentially meaningless and is an inaccurate term roughly 95% of the time it’s used, but it is meant to have a meaning (”this person excludes trans people from their feminism”), whereas other slurs don’t tend to have any message aside from “this person belongs to a minority and I want to insult them for it”. I’m not ignorant to the fact that it’s often used as a synonym for “lesbian” though, and that it absolutely is used insultingly and with the intent to ruin a person’s reputation, so I’ll stay in my lane on that.

After comparing “gender critical” to “race realist” and mentioning a general refusal to use these terms as to not legitimise bigotry, Natalie explains that she has very little patience for “TERF requests for linguistic decorum” because of the “maximally hurtful, harmful, and insulting” language that radfems use to talk about trans people (eg, referring to transition-related surgeries as mutilation, and the terms “TIM” and “TIF”).

I have some thoughts on this because, while I fucking hate these terms, Natalie’s disdain for them is hypocritical. She just acknowledged that using certain language legitimises the ideologies behind them, and that’s exactly why “TIM” and “TIF” were born. Referring to trans women as trans women while also insisting that woman means adult human female, something trans women do not fall under, did not work out well for radfems in the past. Conceding linguistic ground merely for the sake of respect essentially meant they’d instantly lose that argument, an argument that is in fact extremely important for feminism. I justify using technically incorrect terms (including pronouns) to refer to trans people because I’m trans myself, I understand what it’s like to be dysphoric and I believe that signaling that level of respect can at times be essential to get people to listen. But this is not an apolitical issue and as much as I despise being referred to as a “TIF”, I can’t blame that term’s existence on hatred.

Natalie concludes her video by being “real” about what the core of the gender critical movement is actually about: transphobia. Visceral disgust and hatred for trans people’s very existence.

And you know, for some people that definitely is the case. But this isn’t where I concede that I’ve been faking trandom to give credibility to my transphobia, or where I break down, admitting that I’ve based my entire political stance on pure self hatred (I mean lord knows I have enough of it, but nah that’s not what happened). The reality is that there are gender critical trans people (including trans women), and I’d dare suggest that we are not the only ones who believe in gender critical ideology for reasons other than transphobia.

In conclusion, this video is just another rebuttal against a strawman of “TERF beliefs” which never even attempts to treat them as genuine, only as ignorance that is easily educated away, or hatred that can’t be argued with regardless. I can’t say I’m disappointed with this video (it’s certainly not lower quality than I’d expect from contrapoints) but I am disappointed with the political climate where this is the furthest any outsider is willing to go to debate against gender critical ideology.