Controlling the Dialog

I was a transgender ally, even before my son came out as a trans boy.

I was shocked and appalled to learn that not all feminists are trans allies. Some feminists are flat out transphobic. They insist biological sex is the only aspect that truly counts in gender identity, and cis women are the only ‘real’ women. These transphobic feminists are called TERFs – trans exclusionary radical feminists.

Apparently, trans-exclusionary radical feminists don’t want to be called TERFs. They claim, against significant evidence to the contrary, that it is a slur. TERFs demand that they be labelled with the more respectful, transphobia-erasing term of “gender-critical” feminists, even as they file transphobic briefs in court claiming that transgender women are just ‘men in dresses’.  TERFs insist that everyone should respect their identity as ‘gender critical’ at the exact same time that they refuse to respect the identity of trans women as women. According to TERFs, respect and identity are like women’s toilets – for cis women only.

Many feminists are lining up to coddle the TERFs tender feelings, in the name of inclusivity and civilized dialog. Not me. I will continue to call a TERF a TERF because I will not collude with transphobia or the erasure of criticizing transphobia. I will not put the concerns of cis women above the concerns of the trans women being denigrated.

The rejection of the TERF anonym is nothing more or less than an attempt disguise the transphobic narrative of so-called ‘gender critical’ feminism. The term ‘gender-critical’ looks innocent, benign, and elides the transphobia at the heart of that ideology. In contrast, TERF explicitly labels the group as transphobic by naming them trans-exclusionary. If no one is allowed to call them a TERF, it is easier to deny the manifest transphobia of their rhetoric behind banalities and claims that they are merely concerned about the ‘safety’ of women and girls.

(Golly. No racist or hate group in history has ever argued that they are merely ‘protecting’ themselves before.)

Moreover, by recasting TERF as a slur they are recentering themselves – rather than the trans people they are hurting – as the victims. They are changing the discourse, denying their own oppression of others by naming themselves as the oppressed.  It is a lot easier to obfuscate transphobia with phrases like “the truth isn’t hate speech” when the person saying them is known as ‘gender-critical’ rather than trans exclusionary.

While I am sure that the people espousing TERF ideology have been subjected to abuse online, including sexualized abuse, that does not give them a pass regarding either the term TERF or legitimate critique. In a misogynistic society, even those fighting the patriarchy often unthinkingly situate name-calling in misogynistic terms. I’ve seen, with my own little eye, members of an online group form to protest the gendered abuse of Hillary Rodham Clinton, demand that ‘bitch’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “shut her whore mouth” when she criticized Clinton. If the so-called ‘gender-critical’ feminists want to forbid the use of TERF because they suffer sexist abuse online, they need to also get rid of the term ‘feminist’ because it is a locus of sexist abuse. 

It sucks to be a woman online. It also sucks to be a transwoman online who is attacked as a woman on one hand and then as a ‘not-woman’ by transphobic bigots on the other.

I also find it ironic that the TERFs who are now complaining that they are marginalized were not so concerned with their historical marginalization of trans women in the feminist community.  The trans-exclusionary feminists in the 1970s “called for trans woman Sylvia Riveira, one of the leaders of the Stonewall Riot, to be ejected from the platform at New York Pride” and  “At the West Coast Lesbian Feminist conference in Los Angeles that year, poet Robin Morgan called for the expulsion of trans woman Beth Elliott, one of the conference organizers.” TERFs have physically battered trans women and feminist trans-allies for daring to exist in feminist spaces. Feminist author Janice C. Raymond literally wrote the book on dehumanizing trans women — The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. The book may have been initially written in 1979, but it was still getting reproduced in 1994 and it is debunked theories are still cited as holy writ by TERFs. 

In sum, I will continue to call transphobic feminists TERFs to highlight that they are trans-exclusionary radical feminist, not inoffensive ‘gender-critical’ scholars. I will not put the wants of cis women feminists above the needs of trans women feminists. If the TERFs don’t like it, I suggest they stop being trans-exclusionary. When they stop their transphobia, everyone will be happy to stop calling them TERFS.

I’ll stop calling them TERFs when they stop trying to deny the gender identity of people like my son.