TERF: what it means and where it came from

1. I claim Dworkin states that exclusion is the trans person’s “primary emergency.” For some reason, you edited out the part where she made that claim.

   Here’s your quote from page 186:

   There is no doubt that in the culture o f male-female
   discreteness, transsexuality is a disaster for the individ­
   ual transsexual. Every transsexual, white, black, man,
   woman, rich, poor, is in a state of primary emergency
   (see p. 185) as a transsexual.

   You failed to go to page 185, as Dworkin instructs. Had you gone to 185, you would read the following:

   Transsexuality

   “How can I really care if we win “the Revolution”? Either way, any way, there will be no place for me. – A transsexual friend, in conversation”

   Let’s not erase Dworkin’s words, okay?

   Reply

   1. >I claim Dworkin states that exclusion is the trans person’s “primary emergency.”

      Exclusion from society? Sure! Exclusion from the definition of “woman” or “female”? Clearly not, as the whole section is about breaking down gender barriers and not considering *anyone* at all as members of the patriarchally constructed “woman” or “female” image. (Using a non-biological definition of “female” there. My thinking that “female” and “male” are useful scientific descriptors outside of culture, as intersexuality is limited to rather uncommon genetic or developmental disorders, might be the one thing where I disagree with Dworkin. She suggests that “hermaphroditism” might come out to be a lot more common than we realize as medical science advances… No such luck since the book was written. Estimates of the prevalence of intersexuality range from 0.018% to a maximum of 1.7% depending on what you consider intersex.)

      Let’s not forget about this sentence, in particular:

      >Three, community built on androgynous identity will mean the end of transsexuality as we know it. Either the transsexual will be able to expand his/her sexuality into a fluid androg­yny, or, as roles disappear, the phenomenon of trans­sexuality will disappear and that energy will be trans­formed into new modes of sexual identity and behavior.

      So nope, nobody’s erasing Dworkin’s words here. Some people just like to interpret her words to hell and back to fit their own worldview. 😉

      Reply

      1. Dworkin cites a conversation she, the iconic radical feminist, had with a trans friend. When Dworkin is communicating about the “revolution,” what does Dworkin say she means when engaged in communication?

         This book is an action, a political action where revolution is the goal. It has no other purpose. It is not cerebral wisdom, or academic horseshit, or ideas carved in granite or destined for immortality. It is part of a process and its context is change. It is part of a planetary movement to restructure community forms and human consciousness so that people have power over their own lives, participate fully in community, live in dignity and freedom.

         The commitment to ending male dominance as the fundamental psychological, political, and cultural reality of earth-lived life is the fundamental revolutionary commitment. It is a commitment to transformation of the self and transformation of the social reality on every level. The core of this book is an analysis of sexism (that
         system of male dominance), what it is, how it operates on us and in us. – Dworkin, p 17

         “The Revolution, as we live it and as we imagine it, means destroying the Immovable Structure to create a world in which we can use our holy human energy to sustain our holy human lives; to create a world without enforcers, doorkeepers, guards, and arbitrary Law; to create a world —a community on this planet— where instead of lying to survive, we can tell the truth and flourish.” – Dworkin, p 203

         When Dworkin is communicating with someone about the “revolution,” what does she say she’s talking about?

         Dworkin writes on page 186:

         Every transsexual, white, black, man, woman, rich, poor, is in a state of primary emergency (see p. 185) as a transsexual.

         On page 185, Dworkin writes:

         “How can I really care if we win “the Revolution”? Either way, any way, there will be no place for me. – A transsexual friend, in conversation”

         When Dworkin is talking to someone about the concept of “revolution,” what does Dworkin say she meas?

         Once we settle on an evidence-based understanding of what is communicated in the quote, I’ll be happy to move on to the other secondary topics you bring up.

         Reply

         1. The revolution to overthrow gender, obviously.
            Trans people are very welcome to contribute, which doesn’t mean trans identified males get to be considered females and colonize female-only spaces.

            Reply

            1. At no point does she state that her goal is “to overthrow gender.” Here’s what she states her goal is:

               The core of this book is an analysis of sexism (that
               system of male dominance), what it is, how it operates on us and in us.

               What is sexsim?

               1: prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women
               2: behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex
               https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexism

               Such a radical feminist analysis was completely in line with other opinion leaders of her time, like Anne Koedt. Koedt defined radical feminism in the book, Radical Feminism (1973) as: “the advocacy for the total elimination of sex roles.”

               In fact, Dworkin suggests using gender expression as a weapon against sexism: androgyny. If her goal was the overthrow of things like androgyny, why did she promote it? Why were other radical feminists like Cell 16’s Dana Densmore promoting gender neutral pronouns? It seems clear that the pre-disco radical feminist movement’s goal was the overthrow of sexism.

               Would you dispute that Dworkin said her goal was, “an analysis of sexism (that system of male dominance), what it is, how it operates on us and in us.”

            2. Gender *is* sexism. Ask any so-called TERF (witch) today and she will most likely point out that “gender” to her is a short synonym for “sex roles and stereotypes.” Gender is the word used in radical feminist discourse to refer to the system Dworkin called us to overthrow.

               You should read The Root Cause, the last chapter in Our Blood.

               > I have made this distinction between truth and reality in order to enable me to say something very simple: **that while the system of gender polarity is real, it is not true.** [emphasis in original]
               > …
               > In my view, those of us who are women inside this system of reality will never be free until the delusion of sexual polarity is destroyed and until the system of reality based on it is eradi­cated entirely from human society and from human memory. This is the notion of cultural transformation at the heart of feminism. This is the revolutionary possibility inherent in the feminist struggle.

               Androgyny is not an expression of gender. Androgyny is the elimination of gender. The androgynous human encompasses all natural human characteristics, which the system of gender is trying to divide and force onto two halves of humanity based on the genitals they were born with.

               I’m sorry to say, you clearly do not understand Dworkin, nor radical feminism in general. You try to claim it for yourself and convince others that it supports your ideology, because you feel how powerful it is.

            3. Are you making the fact assertion that the following aspects of gender = sexism?

               – Gender orientation: the subjective experience of your body’s sexed attributes.
               – Gender expression: your contextualization and expression of gender orientation.
               – Gender identity: the public persona you constructed that references your gender orientation.

               You’re claiming that all of the above = sexism, correct?

               I mean, I totally agree that the following aspects of gender are part of sexism:

               – Gender stereotypes
               – Gender hierarchies
               – Gender roles

               But… do you actually think you can force people to stop having a personal experience of their bodies? Do you think you can stop them from expressing that experience to others?

               I would agree with Dworkin, “that while the system of gender polarity is real, it is not true”

               The “SYSTEM of gender POLARITY is real,” but it “is not true.”

               If all was androgyny, there would be no SYSTEM of gender POLARITY because the POLARITY would be gone. In this sense, androgyny would not be part of that gender POLARITY. It’s clear that the binary system is what she’s talking about; I agree that the gender binary *is* the root of sexism.

            4. No, the three things you’ve listed at the top do not equal sexism. They are not the system of gender; they are results of the system of gender.

               If society did not forcibly create an association between sexual anatomy and personal identity, people would not have such significant “subjective experiences” of their sexed bodies that relate to their personal identity.

            5. You wrote: [If society did not forcibly create an association between sexual anatomy and personal identity, people would not have such significant “subjective experiences” of their sexed bodies that relate to their personal identity.]

               Can you present any evidence to support the postulation that without sexism, people won’t experience their body morphology as the basis for who they are?

            6. So why do so many gendercrits support systems, like gatekeeping, which enforce sex roles and stereotypes?

            7. They think that Zucker-informed “treatments” where gender non-conforming kids go through behavior-modification adjustments so that kids act more stereotypically male or female. Somehow supporting Zucker is “gender-critical.”

            8. It is unclear to me how medical gatekeeping of people claiming to be transgender relates to sex roles and stereotypes.

            9. Well, sometimes gatekeepers insist people go full-time first, with all its risks, and some decide based on physical characteristics, but others decide based on sexual orientation, clothing preferences, childhood play preferences, willingness to wear makeup, etc… All of these can screw people over, the last set definitely enforces sex roles and stereotypes, and the first set can enforce sex roles and stereotypes if gatekeepers decide butch or androgynous presentation doesn’t count as full-time.

2. Let’s be honest here. The author of this article thinks cis women are stupid. We’re not. The term TERF is just a new form of misogyny. The term TERF is used as an insult to silence & demean cis women in exactly the same way that cis men use similar insults to demean all women.

   Cis women who are transphobic SHOULD be challenged. They should not be subjected to misogynistic insults. I would have hoped that trans women would understand that. This is bad for everyone.

   Reply

3. […] transexkludierender Radikalfeminismus. Im Englischen: Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism, kurz „TERF“. Dieser Zusatz ist wichtig, da es auch Radikalfemist*innen gibt, die trans-inklusiv denken. […]

   Reply

4. The reason that the term “TERF” is problematic is that it focuses on the act of exclusion rather than the act of inclusion, which inaccurately reflects the focus of the group that it’s referring to. The focus in having a female-only space isn’t to exclude males, but to include females. This is similar to the Black Lives Matter movement, which has made certain meetings for Black individuals only. In this, they are not excluding non-Blacks, they are including Blacks. It may seem like the focus here is exclusion, so let me give a contrasting example. If the KKK has a meeting, the point of it is exclusion because the focus of the group itself is to exclude certain groups. It is not the focus of a female-only women’s group or a Black Lives Matter meeting to exclude other people. Their groups and spaces are not established for the purpose of hating others, but for focusing on themselves. That is what separates them from hate groups and why the term “TERF” is problematic. For the same reason that transgender individuals should be allowed to have a transgender-only space, females should be allowed to have a female-only space, and Black people deserve to have a Black-only space. One might argue that it’s different because while transgender people are a minority group, females by comparison, are less of a minority. But, regardless of a group’s size, every person feels a sense of personal fulfillment from congregating with individuals like them. It gives people a chance to decompress, to share stories of similar life experiences, and to relate to each other in the way that only they can. Is it appropriate to create homogeneous groups in every context? No. But, this issue often comes up in a social and political sphere, and in that regard, I do think that gathering in a homogeneous group is acceptable. Just think of how much the transgender community would suffer if transgender people couldn’t get together without non-transgender individuals present. Imagine if there were no place where transgender people could all get together and discuss their life experiences, their personal feelings, and to do all that without having to censor their words or worry that a non-transgender person would be offended or fail to understand what they’re saying. That would be a loss to the community. Other groups feel the same way. Just as there is an unspoken understanding between transgender individuals, there is likewise an unspoken understanding between females, between Black people, and other groups. This unspoken understanding gives us all something and it’s not right to take it away from anyone. As a White person, I might feel excluded by a Black-only Black Lives Matter meeting, but when the people you care about say to you: “I need this to feel a sense of connection with other people like me,” you listen and respect that. Because, ultimately, deep down we all have that same feeling in some respect or another, and we would wish them to respect us if we asked for the same thing.

   I hope that this conveys the reason that sometimes a homogenous group is desired. If it does not, I fear that there may be no way for me to explain it to you. I can only hope that you may reflect on your own desire for a homogenous space, and then treat others as you would wish them to treat you.

   Reply

   1. If I had to guess, I think the feminist community came up with “exclusion” because it has been seen in feminist circles as a big issue for trans people for a long time. The radical feminist pioneer, Andrea Dworkin noted in her 1974 book Woman Hating that exclusion was the “primary emergency” facing trans folk.

      Reply

   2. the problem is that you’re differentiating between women and transwomen as if they should not be sharing female-only spaces when transwomen ARE female regardless of their physical bodies. so, no, TERF is not problematic or even necessarily a slur. it’s a means of identifying the shitbags who think transpeople aren’t allowed to claim their own genders or be involved in their fauxminism. i’m not even going to get into all the derailing false equivalences you used as examples. what you’re trying to claim is that cisgender women should be allowed cisgender-only spaces when spaces like those are already widely available to them, and sorry but that’s still trans-exclusionary and still attempts to differentiate transwomen as being somehow Other than cisgender women. a TERF isn’t just someone trying to keep transwomen out of the conversation, they’re jerks who like to harass me to my face on a regular basis, in public, because they think my gender expression/identity entitles them to. a TERF is dangerous to transpeople like me, TERF rhetoric is what keeps people like me excluded from everyday spaces like FUCKING BATHROOMS IN SEVERAL AMERICAN STATES, FOR EXAMPLE.

      stop caping for cisgender people. they aren’t the marginalised group of the two.

      Reply

      1. Transwomen are male.

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         1. And ontologies are culture.

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         2. And ontologies are culture.

            Reply

            1. Female/male are not cultural. You won’t be able to milk a bull (male bovine) no matter what culture you were raised in; you will need a cow (female bovine).

               Societal roles, images, stereotypes, values, duties, meanings, etc. projected onto members of the female and male sexes by humans are cultural.
               The sexes themselves, however, are not.

               It’s kind of like saying “feline and canine are just cultural.” Well, no.

            2. I’d agree that bodies are material realities; however, I can’t agree that your thoughts about bodies exist outside of your head. You can argue that ontologies aren’t culture all you like but it won’t make you right.

               It never ceases to amaze me how reticent sex essentialists are to admit that their thoughts don’t comprise material reality.

            3. Firstly, “sex[sic] essentialism” (the correct term being “gender essentialism”) is the idea that certain personality traits are essential to members of the female and male sexes.

               For instance, to think that female people are essentially feminine (passive, subservient, fearful, wanton, etc.) or that male people are essentially masculine (active, dominant, courageous, dignified, etc.) is what we would call gender essentialism. In other words, it’s the belief that sex-based stereotypes are natural and inevitable. The belief that a feminine male must really be a “woman on the inside” or that a masculine female must really be a “man on the inside” is often based on this gender essentialism.

               To assert that the female and male sexes exist outside of cultural constructs is not called sex essentialism (or gender essentialism). That is a particularly nonsensical abuse of the term that was invented later, I suppose by post-structuralist “scholars” who were enjoying pseudo-intellectual masturbation.

               When I say sex exists outside of culture, that does not mean the abstract concept of sex exists in nature. Abstract concepts are by definition the product of intelligent minds.
               What it means, instead, is that every intelligent mind anywhere on the planet, regardless of the culture they were brought up within, will be able to independently develop the concept of sex categorization, because this conception is a fairly direct mapping of material reality into abstract logic. The intelligent person will observe that: 1. roughly half of all humans have either one broad shape of genital (concave) or another broad shape of genital (convex), 2. that these genital shapes correlate with other anatomic features such as the distribution of height, hip/shoulder proportions, certain facial structures, etc., 3. that the people with concave genitals tend to sometimes bleed out of their genitals and that they have the ability to become pregnant, whereas those with convex genitals eject a white cream-like liquid out of their genitals during sexual climax, and so on and so forth. Based on these objective observations, the intelligent person will conclude that there are two configurations of the human body with regard to all these characteristics. (If the person gets to know a lot of people and pays attention, the person may notice that a small minority of people don’t fit into these rules [intersex], which hopefully the person will see as an interesting variation instead of labeling them “wrong.”)

               On the other hand, beliefs such as gender essentialism are socially constructed. This means: while it’s possible that there’s a natural bimodal distribution of a few personality traits across members of the female and male sexes, variations are far too great to make general statements. The belief that people with female bodies and people with male bodies essentially and necessarily have a certain type of personality is, as feminist analysis reveals, a politically motivated belief which requires a complex set of socially enforced rules to uphold the illusion that the belief is supposedly true. Hence we have restrictive gender norms, which are not observed but enforced. The belief is based on a motivation, rather than objective observation. This is the difference between a natural truth that exists outside of culture, and a social construction that depends on culture.

               I find it amazing how few people understand the terms “gender essentialism” and “socially constructed” after they’ve been thrown around so many times for so long now.

            4. “Sex Essentialism” seeks ontology through a reductionist essentialism of bodies.

               “Gender essentialism” seeks ontology through a reductionist essentialism of behavior.

               Both are constructs designed to objectify material reality.

               Bodies, reproduction, & their resulting condition are material realities; your thoughts about them are not. Please drop the POMO “my thoughts create reality” nonsense. Your words won’t make you free.

               Maybe read some radical feminist materialism? Maybe start with Monique Wittig’s The Straight Mind?

            5. What is a “reductionist essentialism of bodies” if not high and mighty word salad to make a basic objective categorization of human bodies sound like something bad, when such categorization is of central importance for medical as well as political purposes? If you can’t distinguish between people with functioning legs and people with disabled legs, you can’t talk about the latter group’s need for wheelchairs and wheelchair-friendly architecture. If you can’t distinguish between people with functioning vision and vision-impaired people, you can’t talk about the latter group’s need of blind-friendly pedestrian traffic systems and user interface design. If you can’t distinguish between people who get pregnant and people who don’t, you can’t talk about the former group’s need of maternity leave, abortion access, and other social services. Equitable treatment of all members of society inherently requires their classification.

               Sometimes different classifications have a very high overlap. For instance, people who can get pregnant, people who have periods, people who are born with concave genitalia, and people who develop biologically (not stereotypically) feminine physique during natural puberty (such as 10-12% essential body fat as opposed to just 3-4%, relatively high hip/shoulder width ratio, and noticably protruding breast tissue, among other traits) are categories with a nearly complete overlap. Relatively few people in society belong to some of these groups while not also belonging to all others. Therefore, we talk about an over-arching category that is the union of these, and we call that category “female”. This is relevant not just medically but also politically, as they share many struggles ranging from abortion access, to highened risk of sexual harassment beginning in childhood, to highened risk of intimate partner violence. This is the basic materialist class analysis upon which radical feminism is built.

               All in all, it’s pretty ironic of you to accuse me of post-modernism (POMO) when you use verbiage like that to pretend that such a medically and politically important material categorization is somehow bad.
               Did you perhaps think you’d throw the term POMO into the room before someone notices it’s exactly what you’re doing yourself?

               (As an aside, the correct term is post-structuralism, whereas po-mo more accurately refers to the art movement. And incidentally, Judith Butler is one of the biggest feminist supporters of transgender ideology while also being a fairly notorious post-structuralist. Gender identity ideology mostly only rests on post-structuralism.)

               Thoughts *are* never material reality. Rather, thoughts and language (ideally) *reflect* material reality to aid in communication. Hence, the conception of the sex binary and the words “female” and “male”. Because it is a material reality that approximately 49% of all human bodies belong to one category and approximately another 49% to another category with regard to a large group of coinciding traits such as chromosomes, genital shape, reproductive role, and average anatomic features. (49% + 49% = 98%, leaving a generous 2% for intersex people, which is more than their actual numbers even by the most inclusive criteria.)

            6. You wrote, “What is a ‘reductionist essentialism of bodies’…”

               Think of that which you assert is essential to your idea of “sex” and reduce a body to that notion; that’s a “reductionist essentialism of bodies.”

               For instance, it won’t matter to you that I have a female phenotype, and that this phenotype is consequential in the material world in that it defines how I am able to function in this culture. These things are irrelevant to you. My phenotype, in your notion of “sex,” is not a sexed variable, at least for me and my body. I –my entire body– is “male,” because there is some attribute that you will assert to be essential to making the body itself “male.” In your analysis, I have a male phenotype because my body presumably has/had that which you claim to be essentially male and that I must be mistaken/confused/lying/deluded about my day-to-day material condition; by (your) definition, my day-to-day material condition MUST be that of a “man.”

               It doesn’t matter to you if culture places me into the female condition on a day-to-day basis; material reality isn’t what defines “woman” in our culture. Instead, there is some essential body attribute that is appealed to that reduces a body’s asserted condition, regardless of lived experience. This means that while I might claim that my material condition is defined as “woman” on a daily basis, this is essentially a male experience because of X attribute, hence “reductionist essentialism.”

               You wrote: “All in all, it’s pretty ironic of you to accuse me of post-modernism (POMO) when you use verbiage like that…”

               Yours is not a materialist analysis. Material condition is not what defines experience; rather, my body and its condition is defined by whatever you might assert is essential to the “real” label I should be using. You believe that if I just adopt the sexed words you want me to use, you would have engaged in productive change toward your asserted goal of ending gender. It seems quite POMO to think your labels will make you free.

               I’m chiefly concerned with the material condition I and those I see around me sharing.

            7. Firstly, you are apparently conflating categorization with reductionism. Categorization is the observation that a set of entities can be divided into groups based on a certain feature or set of features of said entities. For instance, when there are ten balls, and I observe that five are blue and five are red and categorize them as such, I am not saying that being red is all there is to the red balls, or being blue is all there is to the blue balls. I can still distinguish red balls from red cubes, and blue balls from blue cubes, for instance, as a different categorization (e.g. based on shape not color) can be applied to the same set of objects.

               In categorization, a certain feature is put into focus temporarily due to a presumed importance of said feature.

               For instance, we categorize bodies into reproductively female and male because only the female ones can become pregnant and only the male ones can impregnate, which can have deep implications in social situations. According to this categorization, your body is not female. It is male or neuter (depending on whether you can impregnate).

               Another categorization (mostly overlapping with the previous) is people’s social and political experiences within a sexist society based on their perceived sex at birth. According to this categorization, you were put into the male social class, which some would argue cannot be changed as it has permanent implications with regard to personal development.

               Another categorization would be the “phenotype” that you mentioned, i.e. whether the current external anatomy of a person is of feminine or masculine physique. This is not unimportant either, as it strongly influences how a person is treated in day to day situations. Based on this categorization, you individually could perhaps claim to be female (never seen you face to face), although many (most?) transwomen still could not, as their facial structure or other anatomical aspects such as shoulder width or limb size gives them a noticable amount of masculine physique regardless of possible aspects of feminine physique such as breast tissue; they could perhaps claim to be combined male and female, or partially feminized male (esp. taking into consideration the development of their physique over time).

               As I said previously, sometimes several detailed categorizations have a high overlap, such as the ones mentioned above. In such cases, we conceptualize an over-arching categorization that contains all people who e.g. fall in the “female” category on several but not necessarily all of the detailed categorizations. E.g. we don’t exclude an infertile woman just because she falls out of one particular detailed categorization from many. Based on this logic, it could be argued that some early-transitioned passing transwomen should be considered members of the over-arching female category, due to fulfilling one or two female categorizations. (Say, female phenotype, and partial female socialization beginning from teenage years albeit not childhood.) This would only include a small minority of transwomen, and it would still be controversial, as they fulfill less categorizations than most other people we consider female in the over-arching category. Being born and socialized male in childhood, lacking the internal female reproductive system, having male genitalia or only a surgical imitation of female genitalia, and often having visibly masculine physique, puts many if not most transwomen fairly clearly outside of the over-arching female category.

               >Material condition is not what defines experience; rather, my body and
               its condition is defined by whatever you might assert is essential to
               the “real” label I should be using.

               Yes, it is material condition that defines our experiences, and we should choose our labels based on accurate categorizations of material reality. We should not assert that somebody’s experience is a “female” experience just because that person chooses, out of nowhere, to apply the “female” label upon themselves. Whether the label “female” applies to that person should instead be decided by considering whether that person shares most of the material conditions of all the other “female” people. For which, see above: transwomen share few material realities with women, and that mostly only if they pass to some degree.

               >You believe that if I just adopt the sexed words you want me to use, you
               would have engaged in productive change toward your asserted goal of
               ending gender. It seems quite POMO to think your labels will make you
               free.

               Nope, this is a flat-out misrepresentation of what I’ve been saying. It’s important to accurately label people based on which social/political class they belong to under sexism, as otherwise we cannot name the problem and therefore cannot fight against it. If transwomen cannot acknowledge that the transphobia they face (I don’t mean the day to day misogyny faced by a passing transwoman, but the transphobia faced by an out transwoman) is due to the fact that they are a male person who does not conform to the gender rules assigned to male people, then transwomen cannot meaningfully fight against those gender rules that lead to that transphobia. They can try to brainwash society into a strange dogma wherein people chant “trans women are women” or even “trans women are literally female” but ultimately this will lead to more problems than solutions, as firstly it doesn’t adequately describe what the problem really is, and secondly you will unlikely succeed in brainwashing a large enough section of the society permanently; backlash will inevitably ensue not even just from conservatives but (as we’re already seeing) from women.

            8. Whether ontology is constructed through reductionist essentialism or some other means, it is still a cultural construct.

               If, by your name, you support Dworkin’s views, you will know that “woman” is defined by her material conditions within a culture that, as Dworkin wrote in RWW, “keeps women women.”

            9. By your definition, literally everything is a cultural construct.

               I can call a tree a wolf if I so wish, because it fits some strange, contorted definitions I’ve made up for whatever reason, that I found to be more interesting than the typical definitions.

               Yet the tree will still cover me from the heat of the sun, and the wolf will still tear my flesh.

               You can call male people female and vice versa, but it won’t change any of the material facts related to being female or male.

            10. As MacKinnon rightly states, noting exists outside of culture.

                You said, “I can call a tree a wolf if I so wish…” So?

                The category “women” is defined by her material conditions within culture that keeps her a “woman.” You pretending that controlling the words I use to describe my material condition will change anything about my material condition or will somehow lead to your liberation is POMO nonsense. What you personally think about my material condition has NO bearing on the reality of my material condition.

                Pretending that my body does not present a female phenotype, that such phenotypes don’t have meaning in Western culture. The man who raped me PIV didn’t first ask for a genetic printout because sex essentialism is not the basis upon which the sex class “woman” is predicated. You calling me a “man” won’t stop the next rapist, will it? You calling me a “man” won’t make it safe for me to walk at night, will it? You calling me a “man” won’t mean I don’t have to be a family caretaker, will it?

            11. Nobody here is trying to control your words. I don’t have that sort of power over you, and I hope nobody else does either. Indeed we can call your material condition whatever we want, but it won’t change the fact that it’s not equivalent to the material conditions of a person born female. Your material condition is that of a person born male, raised male, who (I presume) started to identify with the stereotypical “girl” and “woman” role and image at an early age, and became transsexual, after which you apparently experienced some of the appalling treatment people born female have to face everywhere on the planet for being born female, regardless of how they identify. It is very unfortunate that you had to suffer such treatment, but you should understand that it’s only one part of the many experiences many female-born people are made to go through in life.

                Further, what would you say about the many male-to-female transsexuals or transgender-identifying males who have a very evidently male appearance? Consider Danielle Muscato or Alex Drummond, who look like any random man, just with a dress, pretty hair, make-up, etc. They don’t even undergo HRT, let alone SRS. Does society treat them as women, or does it treat them as gender non-conforming men? At which point does a person’s experience in life stop being a male experience, and becomes a female experience? I accept that many transsexuals suffer some of the same treatment women have to suffer in life, and I wish more cooperation would happen on that ground. (The same could be said for effeminate/gay men to a lesser degree.) But women still have every right to point out that their childhood socialization, teenage life, reproductive health-related struggles, etc. are very different from that of transsexuals, and that hence they see you as transsexuals and not women. (And the looney ones like Muscato or Drummond as plain old men playing out a ridiculous fantasy of womanhood in their heads.)

            12. You wrote: “but it won’t change the fact that it’s not equivalent to the material conditions of a person born female.” This is called gender essentialism. You’re appealing to a cultural role to validate your womanhood.

                Culture places people into sexed classes; not you and not me. That’s the root. Neither of us have any choice about this. As Catherine MacKinnon said: “Simone de Beauvoir said one is not born, one becomes a woman. Now we’re supposed to care how, as if being a woman suddenly became a turf to be defended.”

                You wrote, “Further, what would you say about the many male-to-female transsexuals or transgender-identifying males who have a very evidently male appearance?”

                What have people been saying about genderfuck expressions since the 1970s? Such expressions are, in part, invariably political by virtue of ur culture. Personally, I think that 40 years of political genderfucking made it a lot easier for gender diverse people to live in our culture and I think any activism aimed at trying to put these people into boxes serves the patriarchy.

                Again, neither I nor you get to decide who culture places into the political sex class “woman.” That is something that is done to us.

                I will say that the net result of gender critical activism has been the harassment and sexual assault of FAAB women who are being gender policed in bathrooms. In this way, your moment has advanced the patriarchy in materially devastating ways and sex essentialist activists should take ownership of that harm: http://wncn.com/2017/09/22/woman-says-strangers-forced-her-to-prove-she-was-not-transgender/

            13. Acknowledging the material conditions of people born female is not “gender essentialism.” Gender essentialism refers to the belief that people born with a female body are also inherently suited to be members of a certain social identity, as determined by their brain structure, hormones, etc. E.g. the belief that women are inherently feminine and men are inherently masculine is gender essentialism. To say that a clearly identifiable set of people (those born female) are forced into a social identity is not gender essentialism. It’s in fact one of the core tenets of feminism, and exactly what de Beauvoir was talking about. The correct translation of her sentence is “one is not born, but is made to become a woman.” This being made to become a woman is something done to female people. It does not matter what they identify as. Conversely, it is not done to men, in fact they are starkly discouraged from it (one of the reasons of transphobia), because they are born male. If they do not steer away from femininity and towards masculinity, they are seen not as women but as “failed men.” At no point are they made to become women the way female people are.

                To say that acknowledging the material conditions of people born female is “gender essentialism” would be like saying that acknowledging the material conditions of black people is “racial essentialism.” You wouldn’t call it “racial essentialism” if a black person said, “what defines us black people as a political class is our material conditions as people born with a dark skin within a racist society.” To call such reasoning “essentialist” is frankly POMO nonsense that only undermines liberation politics.

                You can’t fight against a problem whose existence you don’t acknowledge. And women’s problem in society, that leads them to pursue a liberation politics, is their material conditions in society, into which they are forced for the sole reason that they are born with a female body. They do not ask to be groomed into femininity (i.e. ritualized submission), they don’t ask to be targets of sexual assault due to the genitals they have, the breasts they develop, or the feminine facial structure they have, they don’t ask to have their genitals mutilated, they don’t ask to have their reproductive rights taken away, they don’t ask to be forced to cover up their bodies, they don’t ask to be burned at the stake for having the wrong thoughts, they don’t ask to be killed after they are widowed, they don’t ask to be forced into tiny huts far away from the village while they’re menstruating because men think it means they’re “cursed” or “dirty”, they don’t ask to be selectively aborted before they even come to this world, and they don’t ask to be trafficked into sex slavery… One could go on. All of this is done to women for the mere fact that they are born with a female body. (Or even just the prospect that they will be born with a female body, if we’re talking about selective abortion.) All of this is their gruesome material condition, their oppression. That is what unites them GLOBALLY and even cross-historically as an oppressed class that is seeking its liberation from millennia of domination by men.

                And once again, if you’re going to appeal to some of the ostensibly similar experiences young-transitioned and passing homosexual (as in androphilic) MtF transsexuals go through in life to suggest that they should be considered part of the same political class, then ask yourself 1. what percent of transwoman-identifying males fall in this tight subcategory of young-transitioned androphilic MtF transsexuals, 2. even focusing only on that small percent, how much do their experiences really overlap with those of female-born people? Please understand that I’m not trying to undermine the importance of fighting the violence and ostracism MtF transsexuals are made to face. I think that is very important. But it won’t be of much help to distort the reality around women’s and MtF transsexuals’ vastly different lived experiences.

                By far, transwoman-identifying males as a whole class have barely a similarity to female-born people in terms of political experience. And from the small subset of the young-transitioned and passing androphilic MtF transsexuals, their experiences are still less connected to those of other women, when contrasted to how connected the experiences of all female-born women are. As such, you should be understanding towards women who don’t see you as one of them, which doesn’t mean they look down on you or think your struggles are unimportant. They would just like to concentrate on their own struggles, since nobody else is doing that for them.

                As for “genderfuck expressions” as you’re calling it: nobody here is trying to force those people to back up and obey gender rules. The point is that a male person who dons a beard and puts on a dress is not a woman under any sensible definition of the word. Yet people like Danielle Muscato, Alex Drummond, or Charles Clymer really want people to see them as literally women. They can wear whatever the fuck they want; it just doesn’t make them women. It makes them men in dresses or men who wear makeup, which is fine. Nothing wrong with being a man who wears dresses or puts on makeup. Seriously, you would think this is obvious among anyone with a basic feminist understanding.

                I would like you to provide a single shred of credible evidence for the claim that “the net result of gender critical activism has been the harassment and sexual assault of [women] who are being gender policed in bathrooms.” The link you provided contains no suggestion that the perpetrator in question had any affilliation to gender critical or radical feminists. It could have been a fundamentalist Christian, someone of far right-wing politics, or even a mentally ill person. The likening of gender critical or radical feminists to such groups is a standard misogynist smearing strategy used to debase them (much like misogynist trolls call nearly all feminists “feminazi” and compare them to Nazis). Anyone who has even a bit of contact to GC/rad feminists would know that they would never in a thousand years behave that way. At most, it could have been a fanatic outlier amongst such a group, who would surely be strongly condemned for their behavior if other gender critical or radical feminists learned of it. Go ask any GC/rad feminist, and I guarantee you that she will not hesitate at all to say that the behavior in question was terribly inappropriate. On the other hand, go ask your average trans activists what they think about the physical assault by trans activists on Maria MacLachlan… Riley J. Dennis publicly supported it, Zinnia Jones publicly celebrated it, The Queerness published a long, dismissive, trivializing piece on it, and perhaps worst, scariest, and most outraging of all: PlanetTransgender published a piece that claimed MacLachlan was the true assailant, based on a short clip they cut out from the whole footage in which she is fighting back. That, right there, is something you would expect from Nazis, not transgender activists.

            14. I agree, merely acknowledging material conditions of people sexed female at birth live in is not “gender essentialism.” But that’s not what you did. You appealed to the gender conditions of birth as that which is essential to “woman,” which is gender essentialism.

                My liberation as a trans woman is absolutely contingent upon your liberation as a cis woman and your liberation as a cis woman is absolutely contingent upon the liberation of trans and intersex women. None of us are free until all of us are free because we share a material condition WITHIN CULTURE.

                Pretending that culture consults your personal ideas for what is essential to “woman” (a sexed designation at birth) *is* POMO nonsense. Your personal beliefs about what is essential to woman doesn’t exist outside of your own head and in no way defines my material condition within culture. Your thoughts don’t define material conditions and they certainly do not dictate who culture places into which political sex class. Your thoughts hold mo magical power to shape material conditions.

                ALL women –cis, trans, and intersex– are forced by culture into similar roles. It doesn’t matter if a trans or intersex girl began being forced into that role a 4, 10, 20, etc instead of at birth; what defines “woman” are the material conditions she lives in right now. If there is a person who shares the material conditions of “woman,” she is part of the political sex class called “woman” because culture put her there.

                You wrote: [I would like you to provide a single shred of credible evidence for the claim that “the net result of gender critical activism has been the harassment and sexual assault of [women] who are being gender policed in bathrooms.”]

                Shall I show you sex essentialist activists who self-ID as “feminists” and/or “radical feminists” supporting so-called “bathroom bills” and the panic around these bills? Were not sex essentialist activists the first to weaponize trans women in the bathrooms at the 1970 Christopher Street march in NY, explicitly targeting Sylvia Rivera with it? Do not sex essentialist materially support so-called “bathroom bills” and the panic around it? Well, this is where this sex essentialist activism leads: http://wncn.com/2017/09/22/woman-says-strangers-forced-her-to-prove-she-was-not-transgender/

                I’m part of the activist group materially supporting the fight against such things. Can you talk about the ways you also fight against this sex essentialist activism?

                As for the fighting I saw in the Maria MacLachlan video, I condemn all violent actions. Violence is not the way Sisters should behave towards each other.

                Speaking of violence… How do you feel about that time sex essentialist activists threatened a member of the Lesbian Avengers with a knife because they were trans inclusive? How do you feel about that time sex essentialist activists showed up with guns to murder Sandy Stone at an Olivia event because Olivia was trans inclusive? How do you feel about that time sex essentialist activists beat the radical feminist Robin Tyler because she used her own body as a wall, protecting a trans woman they were trying to bash? How do you feel about the sex essentialist activists who arranged Sylvia Rivera to be beaten at the 1970 Christopher Street march in NY while concern trolling about Sylvia’s use of the women’s bathroom? Will you join me in saying violence is not the way Sisters should behave towards each other?

         3. incorrect, but your comment IS anti-trans violence. so fuck off.

            Reply

5. […] contemplate the time period TERF to be a slur that demonizes their views, the time period was popularized by radical feminists who needed to separate themselves from their anti-trans […]

   Reply

6. […] some radical feminists consider the term TERF to be a slur that demonizes their views, the term was popularized by radical feminists who wanted to separate themselves from their anti-trans […]

   Reply

7. […] some radical feminists consider the term TERF to be a slur that demonizes their views, the term was popularized by radical feminists who wanted to separate themselves from their anti-trans […]

   Reply

8. I find it fascinating that TERFs can regard the term “TERF” as derogatory!
   If you are a feminist, do you regard the term “feminist” as derogatory, or is it a label that you wear with pride?
   If you are a radical feminist, do you regard the term “radical feminist” as derogatory, or is it a label that you wear with pride?
   So if you are a trans exclusionary radical feminist, why is that different? Why aren’t you proud to be recognised as someone fighting for what you believe in?
   Could it be that TERFs know, deep down inside, that what they are doing is fundamentally wrong? That the reason they rely on lies is because the facts do not support their case, and that their abuse is based on nothing more than bigotry and unjustifiable hate? And that by joining with the extreme right wing and religious fundamentalists, they are underminingthe credibility of all feminists, and jeopardising everything that has been achieved by feminists in the past century or so?

   Reply

   1. “TERF” is to “radical feminist” what “feminazi” is to “feminist.”

      “TERF” is used almost purely as a slur and is not even an accurate description since so-called “TERFs” generally include trans-identified female people (“trans men”) in their politics. It would be more accurate for starters to call them “MERF” for “Male-Exclusionary Radical Feminist”.

      Reply

9. […] http://www.transadvocate.com/terf-what-it-means-and-where-it-came-from_n_13066.htm […]

   Reply

10. The Trouble with the TERFs

    Reply

11. Napišem “žena” i bude žena
    lana pukanić | 04/07/2015 12:45 | feminizam, LGBTIQ, vivisekcija

    1. Život je izašao iz mora tako da je tu početak: nalazimo se pored puste, stjenovite obale mora. Sunce blješti. Procijenite želite li dlanom zasjeniti oči ili škiljiti (nemate sunčane naočale). Procijenite intenzitet vjetra, s obzirom na to kad vam kosa izgleda najbolje i koliko ste dramatični. More je ovdje možda metafora za više stvari.
    2. Metafore su oruđe feminističkih tekstova jer teorijske koncepte čine opipljivima. Crna američka feministkinja Kimberlé Crenshaw piše o raskrižju u kojem promet dolazi iz svih smjerova. „Diskriminacija, kao promet na raskrižju, može teći u jednom smjeru i može teći u drugom. Ako se na raskrižju dogodi nesreća, mogu je uzrokovati auti koji putuju iz različitog broja smjerova, a nekad i iz svih. Slično tome, ako je crna žena ranjena jer je na raskrižju, njezina ozljeda može biti rezultat spolne ili rasne diskriminacije“. Tako njen pojam intersekcionalnosti (eng. intersection – raskrižje) dobiva slikovitost.
    3. „Intersekcionalnost“ nastaje 1989., no crne su žene od vremena ropstva u SAD-u koristile brojne pojmove kako bi opisale presijecanje spolnih, rasnih, klasnih i drugih opresija u vlastitim životima. Slaba prisutnost crnih žena i njihovih teorija u središnjem ili mainstream feminizmu, koja se u nešto manjoj mjeri događa i danas, u prvom valu pokreta bila je posljedica njegova besramnog rasizma. Američke sufražetkinje, uključujući perjanice Susan B. Anthony i Elizabeth Cady Stanton, većinom su zagovarale bijelu nadmoć („Bijeli će suprematizam biti osnažen, ne oslabljen, ženskim pravom glasa“).
    4. Od svojih začetaka, feminizam je teoretizirao o „ženi“ kao nježnijoj, osjećajnijoj i slabijoj od „muškarca“, vezanoj uz dom/obitelj i seksualiziranoj unutar patrijarhata, te izvodio svoja rješenja iz tih kritiziranih postavki. Premda potpuno validna za bijele žene srednje klase, ta su se teoretiziranja ženskosti pokazala nedostatnima da obuhvate iskustva drugih žena.
    5. Uzmimo u obzir da je more prozirno kad ga stavimo u bocu iako uvijek mislimo da je plavo.
    Autor svih fotografija: Eric Cahan
    6. Na skupu u Akronu 1851., Sojourner Truth rekla je: „Onaj muškarac tvrdi da ženama treba pomagati da uđu u kočije i podizati ih preko rupa, i da svugdje moraju imati najbolje mjesto. Meni nitko ne pomaže s kočijama, ni blatnim lokvama, niti mi daje najbolje mjesto! A nisam li ja žena? Pogledajte me! Pogledajte moju ruku! Mogla sam orati i saditi i nositi to u štagalj i nijedan muškarac nije bio ispred mene! A nisam li ja žena?“. Truth je bila glas ženskosti nevidljive u tadašnjem feminizmu i utjelovila ono o čemu piše crna marksistička feministkinja Gloria Joseph: crne se ropkinje nikad nije vidjelo kao „ženstvene“. „Na poljima i na plantažama, kad su radile i kad ih se kažnjavalo, bile su tretirane jednako kao muškarci“.
    7. Pojmovi feminizma koji uvijek (prešutno) govori o bijelim ženama s vremenom doživljavaju prilagodbu. Moya Bailey prije pet godina skovala je termin „misogynoir“, koji Trudy s bloga Gradient Lair definira kao „specifično anti-crnu mizoginiju“. Trudy piše da crne žene „kroz nasilnu maskulinizaciju“ i istovremenu „hiperseksualizaciju koja crnu ženskost svodi na seksualni objekt bez statusa osobe“ rod doživljavaju kao „ne-žene“. Pojam misogynoir prema njoj je „konceptualiziran kao način da se objasni da je to više od rasističke mizoginije ili čak objektivizacije“: radi se o potpunoj dehumanizaciji crne ženskosti, kao suprotnosti i opreci bijeloj.
    8. Neke feministkinje, pogotovo bijele feministkinje srednje klase koje još uvijek dominiraju pokretom, takvo bujanje sve preciznije terminologije i postojanje feminističkih skupina koje su odvojene i izrazito kritične prema mainstreamu vide kao nepotrebno dijeljenje i slabljenje sestrinstva, a nerijetko i kao za feminizam destruktivnu silu (o „Toxic Twitteru“ čitajte u sjajnom tekstu Shaadi Devereaux). Propuštaju prepoznati da slabljenje sestrinstva nekad znači tek slabljenje potpune prevlasti jedne njegove struje. „Patroniziranje crnih žena bilo je jedno od sredstava koje su koristile da nas podsjete kako je ženski pokret ‘njihov’ – da možemo sudjelovati jer su nam one to dopustile“, piše bell hooks1 o iskustvima crnih žena u feminističkim prostorima. Zbog vlastite potlačenosti, neke feministkinje ne mogu ili ne žele vidjeti svoje opresivno djelovanje prema ostalim skupinama s ulozima u feminizam. Među tim skupinama želim posebno istaknuti trans žene.
    9. Odjednom, u daljini vidimo ogroman val.

    10. Trans aktivizam i transfeminizam („transrodni pogledi na feminizam ili feministički pogledi na transrodna pitanja“2) proširili su dotadašnje feminističke razgovore o rodu i spolu. Za manje upućene čitatelje, ponovimo neke osnovne pojmove. „Riječ ‘transrodno’ opći je termin koji se se koristi kako bi se opisalo osobe koje se ne poklapaju ‘s društvenim očekivanjima i pretpostavkama o muškosti i ženskosti; uključuje ljude koji su transpolni (koji žive kao pripadnici roda različitog od onog koji im je pripisan po rođenju), interspolni (koji su se rodili s reproduktivnom ili spolnom anatomijom koja ne odgovara tipičnim definicijama muškog ili ženskog) i genderqueer (koji se identificiraju izvan binarne opreke muško-žensko), kao i one čije se rodne ekspresije razlikuju od njihovog anatomskog ili doživljenog spola (uključujući transvestite, drag izvođače, maskuline žene, ženstvene muškarce, itd)’. Osobe koje su u životu proživjele samo poklapanje svog ‘podsvjesnog’ i tjelesnog roda nazivaju se cisspolnima, tj. cis osobama“3. Da bismo razumjeli kako će ti pojmovi zakomplicirati feminističke diskurse, moramo nakratko ući u špilju gdje obitavaju dva tajanstvena bića, spol i rod.
    11. Drugi val feminizma donio je podjelu na spol kao biološku datost (= spolne organe) i rod kao poimanje spola u društvenom kontekstu, odnosno društvena očekivanja od muškaraca/muškosti i žena/ženskosti u obliku različitih ponašanja, praksi i obaveza koji su pojedinom rodu pripisani (= rodne uloge). Tu je distinkciju bilo bitno napraviti jer su joj prethodila stoljeća seksističke znanosti i medicine; profesora, doktora i filozofa koji su ženinu inferiornu društvenu poziciju objašnjavali kao rezultat njene biološke inferiornosti. Biologija, tvrdili su, žene sprečava da se približe mogućnostima muškog roda. U jednom od bezbrojnih primjera, žene nisu smjele studirati jer je taj mentalni napor u njih mogao izazvati „anorexiju scolasticu“. Tojest, pokušaj učenja kod ljepšeg i slab(oumn)ijeg spola doveo bi njegove pripadnice do rapidnog mršavljenja i slabljenja. Možemo zamisliti njihova onemoćala tijela na podovima fakulteta, gdje kao ribe na suhom zure u muškarce koji virilno utrčavaju u učionice – sve zbog nesposobnosti da probave taj napor za koji su muškarci stvoreni. Feminizam je stoga čvrsto postulirao da je rod, za razliku od (biološkog) spola, kulturni konstrukt koji usvajamo socijalizacijom i internalizacijom poruka o primjerenom rodnom ponašanju, kojima smo bombardirani od rođenja. Drugim riječima, ništa od onoga što prepoznajemo kao „ženskost“ ne proizlazi iz onoga što se nalazi u ženskom tijelu – bila to maternica ili mozak.
    12. U odličnoj knjizi Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine hvata se u koštac s ogromnim brojem pop-znanstvenih knjiga i znanstvenih članaka koji iz sitnih razlika u strukturama mozgova izvlače velike zaključke o biološkim razlikama između muškaraca i žena i tako objašnjavaju njihove rodne uloge, te takvu šlampavu znanost naziva „neuroseksizmom“. „Zasad, sve razlike u mozgu za koje se mislilo da objašnjavaju odnose spolova na kraju su bile odbačene. No, prije no što bi se to dogodilo, spekulacije bi postale činjenice, posebno u rukama nekih popularnih autora. Stigavši u javnost, ove bi takozvane činjenice o muškom i ženskom mozgu postale dio naše kulture, češto plutajući njome i nakon svog roka trajanja. Tu bi davale potporu i legitimitet rodnim stereotipima koji su u dodiru s našim umovima, tako pomažući u stvaranju upravo onih rodnih nejednakosti koje neuroznanstvene tvrdnje žele objasniti“.
    Rodnu nejednakost neprestano učimo iz svog okruženja, nesvjesno i implicitno (putem „implicitnih asocijacija“), jer sve što vidimo i čujemo utječe na naše umove, ali i mozgove. Kauzalost geni –hormoni – mozak – okruženje, piše Fine, danas se smatra reliktom, jer su naša biologija i društvo u neprestanoj interakciji – mozak se doslovno mijenja pod utjecajem naših misli i ponašanja te našeg okruženja. Zahvaljujući tome, rod nije fiksan – „savitljiv je, prilagodljiv i promjenjiv“.
    13. Šum je sve glasniji i s prvim kapljicama na licu shvaćamo da je udar neizbježan.

    14. Kad je Caitlyn Jenner rekla Diane Sawyer da je „njezin mozak više ženski nego muški“ i zato se u 65. godini života odlučila na tranziciju, neke su feministkinje morale reagirati. Elinor Burkett napisala je za The New York Times tekst „What makes a woman?“, koji započinje nezadovoljstvom izjavom Jenner, kao i njenom ženskošću: „korzet koji podiže dekolte, erotične poze, puno maskare“. No Cailtlyn je bila tek povod za ispisivanje šire kritike trans aktivizma, kojeg Burkett, doduše, gotovo pa poistovjećuje s Jenner. Tako trans pokret optužuje za rodni esencijalizam, zbog lociranja ženskosti u ženskom mozgu, za antifeminizam, jer trans žene utjelovljuju sve seksističke stereotipe o ženskosti, i za ugnjetavanje žena zahtjevom da rekonceptualiziraju same sebe, zbog inzistiranja trans zajednice na rodno osjetljivijem jeziku. Burkett zaključuje da će feministkinje „sretno, s ljubavlju“ prihvatiti trans zajednicu u svoju borbu, ali to neće moći uključivati utišavanje, brisanje i preimenovanje ženskih iskustava i identiteta.
    15. Taj tekst, koji je čak i naš Centar za ženske studije podijelio na svojoj Facebook stranici, tendenciozno i pogrešno predstavlja trans žene i trans aktivizam, bez dobre namjere da zaista uspostavi dijalog sa zajednicom. Njena analiza može djelovati objektivno ljudima koji se nikad nisu susreli s onime što se naziva „trans debatom“4, ali Burkettičin je položaj u njoj očit onima koji jesu. Za detaljnu analizu preporučit ću (toplije od vrućeg ljeta) ovaj tekst Caryja Gabriela Costella, no on je u najkraćim crtama ovakav: Burkett ne vjeruje zaista da su trans žene – žene. Govori o njima kao o osobama „koje nisu živjele cijeli život kao žene“ i „muškarcima koji su zbacili plašt muškosti“. Osim toga, znakovito, skraćenicu „TERF“ („trans-exclusionary radical feminist“) naziva „novom trans uvredom“.
    16. TERF je izraz koji se koristi za radikalne feministkinje koje isključuju trans žene iz ženskih (feminističkih, lezbijskih) prostora i zajednica. Iste radikalne feministkinje izraz vide kao uvredljiv i pogrdan, nekad i kao govor mržnje, i uvijek kao izraz delegitimacije feministkinja čiji su stavovi, njihovom terminologijom, „rodno-kritični“. (Ironično je stoga što je skraćenicu TERF smislila cis radikalna feministkinja, kako bi se radikalne feministkinje koje nemaju negativne stavove o trans osobama odvojile od onih koje imaju.) Želja trans žena da sudjeluju u ženskim prostorima prema ovim je feministkinjama tek pokušaj muškaraca da uđu u ženske prostore i prisvoje ih kao svoje ili dobiju seksualni pristup ženama. Jer trans žene, da utvrdimo, za njih nisu žene već muškarci. Jer su TERF-ovke, da se ne zavaravamo, esencijalisti – muškarca i ženu za njih definira spolni organ (a nekad i misteriozna muška ili ženska energija).
    17. I samo tako, nos nam je pun zapjenjene slane vode koja peče za grlo.

    18. Ni da se postavim na glavu, ni s nogama na stropu, ni da se nebo prevrne, ne bih mogla u idejama rodno-kritičnog radikalnog feminizma pronaći išta osim isključivosti, transfobije i lošeg osjećaja u trbuhu. No prijeđimo sad s riječi na tijela i natrag u mozak Caitlyn Jenner. Njena je izjava o ženskom mozgu promašena jer ženski i muški mozak ne postoje, no Jenner nije ni znanstvenica ni filozofkinja, nego žena koja vlastitim riječima pokušava objasniti (dijelom zato što cis većinu uvijek zanima ZAŠTO KAKO ZAŠTO) svoju osobu, svoje osjećaje, svoje želje i svoj identitet žene kojoj je pri rođenju pripisan muški spol. Vokabular za to, koji nije medicinski, još uvijek je u nastajanju. U knjizi Whipping Girl, Julia Serano predlaže ranije spomenuti pojam „podsvjesnog spola“: „možda najbolje mogu opisati kako osjećam svoj podsvjesni spol time da mi se čini da, na nekoj razini, moj mozak očekuje da moje tijelo bude žensko“.
    20. Izbacili smo biologiju kroz vrata i vratila se kroz prozor. U sljedećoj knjizi, Excluded, Serano (biologinja po struci) piše kako su je zbog te izjave optuživali za esencijalizam, a problematični su bili i opisi utjecaja hormona koje je uzimala. Serano je itekako svjesna da feministkinje i queer aktivistkinje imaju dobrog razloga sumnjati u sve što smrdi na biološki determinizam, no ističe kako se ta skepsa pretvorila u a priori negativan stav prema biologiji. Svaki spomen toga kako biologija može utjecati na rod nekome će donijeti etiketu seksista, jer seksisti su ti koji redovito (zlo)upotrebljavaju biologiju. Zbog štete koju je njeno seksističko i neispravno korištenje učinilo, biologija kao znanost za feminizam je tabu.
    21. Serano pak predlaže vlastiti holistički model roda i seksualnosti koji počiva na tri postavke. Prvo, svi smo biološki slični na mnoge načine, ali smo isto tako proizvod biološke varijacije – nitko ne dijeli naš jedinstveni genetski i psihološki ustroj. Iako dijelimo istu kulturu ili društvena očekivanja i norme, svi smo i jedinstveno društveno pozicionirani – nitko ne dijeli naš specifični set životnih iskustava ili okruženje. Stoga, iako naša zajednička biologija i kultura mogu stvoriti određene trendove, trebamo očekivati da varijacija naših biologija i životnih iskustava generira raznolikost naših rodova i seksualnosti. Drugo, sva su ljudska ponašanja, pa tako i ona vezana za rod, spol i seksualnost, kompleksne osobine – što znači da se pojavljuju kao rezultat zamršene interakcije bezbrojnih bioloških i društvenih faktora i okruženja. Treće, biološko se nikad ne može odvojiti od društvenog i od svog okruženja. Najbolji je primjer njihove isprepletenosti razvoj mozga. Iako naši mozgovi dijele određenu temeljnu arhitekturu, nevjerojatno su plastični – i kao rezultat naših jedinstvenih okruženja, iskustava i biološke varijacije postaju vrlo individualizirani, što smo već čuli i od Fine.5
    Zaključuje da „seksizam ne proizlazi iz opservacija da neki ljudi imaju različite sposobnosti i obilježja, nego iz primjenjivanja dvostrukih mjerila na te sposobnosti i obilježja – iz pretpostavki da su neke osobine superiorne, prirodnije ili normalnije od drugih. Kao feministkinje, trebamo osporavati seksistička dvostruka mjerila, a ne trošiti sav trud na uzaludno negiranje bioloških utjecaja na rod i seksualnost“6.
    22. Duboko udahnemo.

    23. „Očito smo multispolna vrsta čija se spolnost/seksualnost proteže duž ogromnog fluidnog kontinuuma, gdje elementi koje zovemo muškima i ženskima nisu suprotni“. Ovo nisu riječi transfeministkinje niti queer aktivistkinje, nego radikalne feministkinje Andree Dworkin7. Dworkin to zaključuje nakon nabrajanja 14 točaka (o hormonima, gonadama, kromosomima, itd.) koje pokazuju da binarnost spolova (biološki) nije nimalo jednostavna i očita. Da parafraziram onu rečenicu o pištoljima, biologija ne proizvodi seksizam – seksisti proizvode seksizam. Biologija nas ne hijerarhizira, biologija (+ društvo) proizvodi varijaciju kompleksne ljudskosti u svim kombinacijama svih varijabli – koju kao društva, zajednice i pojedinci proglašavamo više i manje vrijednima, boljima, lošijima, čudnima, normalnima i nenormalnima, iako je jedina realna distinkcija: ono što je često i ono što je manje često.
    24. Svi su naši rodni identiteti – naše definicije, izbori, osjećaji i izrazi roda – validni, i bili bi to i da nemaju potporu biologije. Biti skeptičan prema nečijem rodu, osporavati ga ili pak eksplicitno negirati znači staviti se u položaj suca za tuđe svijesti i živote – dehumanizirajuće je, bolno, opasno i izrazito bahato. Naše ljudskosti nisu ni na koji način uvjetovane našim rodom i tijelima.
    25. Naša je borba za ravnopravnost zajednička i naša je borba skup mnogih borbi.
    26. Ok, more je ful lijepo, ovako veliko i plavo, i drugačije plavo na svakom milimetru i svaki milimetar neodvojiv od drugog.

    27. Završimo s ovime. Stereotip trans žena kao hiperfeminiziranih upravo je to – stereotip koji ne odgovara stvarnosti. No čak i da ga se utjelovljuje, puno maskare, dekolte i minicu Caitlyn Jenner možemo vidjeti kao „(p)održavanje rodnih uloga“, „groteskno glumljenje ženskosti“, „podrivanje feminističke revolucije“ i „otežavanje položaja (cis) žena“ (zaista ironično, jer su trans žene jedna od najugroženijih društvenih skupina) jedino ako na stvar gledamo iz vrlo uske cis feminističke perspektive.
    Trans žene vjerojatno ne misle da žene definiraju šminka i suknja. Naše mizogino društvo misli. Cary Gabriel Costello piše kako se trans osobe uvijek nalaze pred nemogućim izborom kad su u pitanju rodne norme: ako ih slijede, „često nas se vidi kao hodajuće stereotipe: ‘O, svi ti trans muškarci s njihovom regresivnom muškošću (…). A trans žene su još gore, nose šminku i pete u dućan i puštaju muškarce da ih nadglasavaju kao da feminizam nikad nije izumljen!’. Ali ako prekršimo norme roda s kojim se identificiramo, možemo platiti užasnu cijenu toga da se naši rodni identiteti negiraju i ismijavaju. ‘On je nakaza—lik u suknji koji ni ne zna kako se prave žene ponašaju’“. Costello to naziva kvakom 22 cisseksizma, uvjerenja da su rodni identiteti trans ljudi inferiorni i manje autentični od onih cis ljudi.
    Razlog zašto je letvica viša za trans žene nego muškarce taj je da je ženskost uvijek inferiorna muškosti. No za razliku od cis žena, kojima se nesreća ženskosti dogodila, trans žene su je izabrale prigrliti – njihova odluka da budu slabe, a mogle su biti doživljavane kao muškarci, čini ih ne samo inferiornima, nego i devijantnima. To je transmizoginija.
    28. Dok trans ženama nećemo tolerirati isti raspon ženskosti koji dopuštamo cis ženama, njihovo ćemo ponašanje ocjenjivati strožim kriterijima. Laverne Cox i ‘seksi, objektificirano tijelo iz crtića’, povikat će bijela cis feministkinja, ne osnažuje nikoga! Nikoga, vikat će, jer ne može shvatiti da je za crne trans žene javna afirmacija ljepote i seksualne privlačnosti radikalna. Jer riječ „transmisogynoir“ predstavlja još jedan dosadan klip pod noge jedine prave Borbe – one bijelih cis žena protiv patrijarhata. Kirijarhat, kao intersekcionalni termin8 koji označava umrežene strukture dominacija, moći i svih postojećih -izama, čini se sve privlačniji.
    29. Povijest kaže da je Sojourner Truth rekla „Pogledajte moju ruku!“ i ogolila svoju crnu, mišićavu ruku do ramena. Iako vi to ne znate, i ovo je ženskost, rekla je njena ruka, poruka koja putuje do nas već 160 godina.
    Feminizam je rad na pretvaranju postojećeg u nepostojeće kako bismo otkrili kako izgleda nezamislivo. „Moramo zaboraviti naučeno o konstelacijama da bismo vidjeli zvijezde“. Zaboraviti i ponovno naučiti: ženskost nije manja od muškosti. Nijedna ženskost nije manja ni od čega.

    Naslovna fotografija: Eric Cahan, fotografija neba. Naslov teksta parafraza je stiha iz pjesme “Šuma” Anke Žagar.

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    Citirano iz knjige Excluded Julije SeranoJulia Serano,Whipping GirlCitat iz teksta http://muf.com.hr/2014/10/03/feminizam-transfobija-svojeglavost/ prema Juliji Seranou kojoj se zapravo debatira o nečijem pravu na postojanjeFine je posvetila knjigu demantiranju tendendioznog rodnog determinizma, što ne znači da je negirala postojanje i djelovanje biologije, gena, hormona – poput Serano, ona naglašava da su stvari neusporedivo kompleksnije nego što se obično tvrdi.Sve citirano iz Excluded.Iz Woman Hating.Skovala ga je Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, više npr. ovdje: http://www.deeplyproblematic.com/2010/08/why-i-use-that-word-that-i-use.htmlCaitlyn Jenner Gradient lair kirijarhat laverne cox misogynoir Sojourner Truth terf trans

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    Autor⁞ica
    lana pukanić
    dražesni pupoljak

    Vidi i

    Glazba i ironični seksizam

    „Mislim da mnogo ljudi oklijeva prozvati seksizam u glazbi

    Žena. Mjera: majčinstvo

    Prije par godina nabasala sam na jednu sintagmu koja

    Ženske genitalije: tamni kontinent

    Žensko tijelo i njegove funkcije često mogu biti izvorom

    Reply

12. […] This article discusses the clash of ideology and lived experience as exemplified by a recent BBC radio program in the UK. This article uses the term Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF) to distinguish between the trans-supportive Radical Feminism of Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, The Olivia Collective or the West Coast Lesbian Conference and sex essentialist anti-trans feminism of Janice Raymond, Sheila Jeffreys and/or the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. The feminist origins of the term TERF can be found here. […]

    Reply

13. […] exclusionary radical feminist Social Justice Warrior TERF Portlandia | Spyke Gets a […]

    Reply

14. […] as a survival tool. [Edit: It looks like we were incorrect that the term was coined by trans women: it appears as if it was actually coined by Radical Feminists.]  TERFs, on the other hand, intentionally misgender other women, advocate to strip them of basic […]

    Reply

15. […] an email was sent from a TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) who provided specific identifying information about Shanko. […]

    Reply

16. […] We tried the best we could but always worth keeping this in mind. – TERF infestation A group of trans exclusionary radical feminists (known as TERFs for short) undertook a long-term plan to undermine the event. They had one of […]

    Reply

17. […] Williams, the official schism between TERFs and mainstream Radical Feminists came recently. “In 2008 2008, the feminist community noticed that there was a real difference between the ‘radical […]

    Reply

18. […] discrimination. The designation “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist” was created by other radical feminists who are not transphobic, and who were upset that the name “RadFem” […]

    Reply

19. […] In 2008 the non-transgender Feminist/Radical Feminist community popularized the term Trans Exclusionary […]

    Reply

20. […] Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism, which seems to be explained fairly clearly in this article: TERF: what it means and where it came from from The TransAdvocate website. The people who coined the term were trying to identify entities […]

    Reply

21. […] The Guardian today published a piece entitled “If we get bogged down in the TERF war we’ll never achieve anything“. This piece of writing is cissexist in its own right, so keep that in mind before clicking through. Also if you are unsure on what a TERF is then I highly recommend reading this. […]

    Reply

22. […] About a decade ago, the feminist community came up with the term Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF) as a way to halt the default colonization of Radical Feminism and feminism itself by TERFs (and this, of course, is claimed this to be an insult). Now, under a wave of new awareness of the hate group hiding among them, feminism is becoming more vocal about its recrimination of TERFs. Old TERFs and TERF allies like Sue Hyde and Gloria Steinem have openly recanted their TERF rhetoric and other TERFs, like Max Feldman came out as trans. […]

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23. […] lesbian and radical communities. It is about opening up a dialogue of how TERFs aggressively colonized the Radical Feminist identity and aggressively (sometimes violently) claimed control of feminist […]

    Reply

24. […] http://www.transadvocate.com/terf-what-it-means-and-where-it-came-from_n_13066.htm […]

    Reply

25. […] TERF: what it means and where it came from: […]

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26. […] Exclusionary Radical Feminists a lot over recent times because they fascinate me, they really do. TERFs are the anti-vaxxors of the feminist world. Completely incapable of seeing outside their worldview […]

    Reply

27. The most amusing thing about this revisionist history is that you are actually hoodwinking some people. LMAO! Gullible kids.

    Reply

    1. The most amusing thing about unsupported fact assertions is that they are generally understood for what they are.

       Reply

28. […] You can read the full interview, here. […]

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29. […] TERF: What It Means and Where It Came From […]

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30. Feminism has failed me and my sisters and brothers. Considering abandoning it entirely. They are no better than the bullies they claim transpeople and MRAs are.

    Reply

    1. Unless you are a privileged cisgender woman, feminism was never on your side in the first place.

       Reply

31. Some could consider lesbianism a fetish.

    Reply

    1. fetish “the fact of getting sexual pleasure from a particular object”
       (http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/fetish)

       Unless women are objects, lesbianism could not be considered a fetish by this definition.

       Other definitions describe a fetish as:

       fetish “the fact that a person spends too much time doing or thinking about a particular thing or thinks that it is more important than it really is.” (http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/fetish)

       That definition equates a fetish to an obsession, particularly an unhealthy or disproportionate one. This differs from the definition of lesbianism entirely:

       lesbian “(of a woman) sexually attracted to other women; connected with lesbians” (and, for perspective, this same dictionary defines woman as: “an adult female human”)
       (http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/lesbian)

       So, with respect to that, lesbianism meets none of the criteria for a fetish. By definition, it is merely a sexuality of females being attracted to other females. As such, those who consider lesbianism a fetish would, by definition, be wrong.

       Reply

32. Those quotes from so-called “feminists” were horrible. I’ve read that some early feminists tried to distance themselves and the feminist movement from lesbians, insisting “We don’t represent them! That’s not the kind of woman that we mean when we say ‘women’s rights’!” How do these people not see that they sound exactly like them?

    Reply

33. That’s a very dishonorable history, if accurate. Wow……….I understand moments of anger and losing control to the point of violating human dignity where an apology barely made things whole. If this history is accurate and given how we catch hell from basically everyone, including family I am not surprised. TERF sounds much more insulting and malignant as an acronym than saying the words in their entirety.

    Breaking it down:

    Radical feminists: yeah they exist and apparently they take no issue with gender identity, perhaps from positive personal experiences.

    Trans Exclusive: trans persons (both male and female I presume) stay away!

    So far OK. As trans one of the first things we must accept is that many exclude us: employers, friends, family. Nothing new here. Trans Exclusive Radical Feminists: sounds better than “turf”, at least to me. No insult on its face there, however if “you look nice today” can be construed as insulting, as sexual harassment, then anything can and will be misconstrued (sounds like Miranda).

    So, we are back at intention. How is TERF intended to be used? Well, like any word with dual meanings, context, like size, matters greatly ;). Ooops, how Un-Christian of me but confession is good for the soul I am told. Ok, like most words when used, context will serve to define TERF. If used for example “those who subscribe to TERF ideology”, that is a clearly a reference to the ideology. If used “you are a screwed-up TERF!”, that clearly could be misconstrued as malevolent.

    Our journey is a gauntlet. No matter our personal characteristic (humans), we will not be loved by all, but hated by some. The lust or quest for power is not solely a human pursuit, it is observed in the animal kingdom. I accept as a given that love will elude us equally from males, females, gays and lesbians. For me, a member of the Hispanic race, I am already acclimated to this. As soon as I speak in fluent Ingles and kick ass academically, all pre suppositions about me flee faster than a TERF from a transfemale…just kidding!!!!

    So, we catch hell from basically everyone who has never experienced our gender angst and who could expect anyone to truly understand how testosterone creates male angst in a female brain? Already just stating “female brain” will garner stiff opposition, however again how could they know? We catch hell, especially me with “Christian Transgender” viewed as an oxymoron, from holier-than-thou let-me-cast-the-first-stone fake Christians.

    What comforts me is the level of intelligence found in our community that is more than qualified and blessed with inordinate courage to repel any animus we receive. Those opposed against sex/gender changes stand alone, unsupported by medical fact, whilst it is wind for our sails. Our adversaries, whomever and wherever they may be, have only psychological warfare to support anti-trans equality, and history is replete with examples of such. Fortunately, such is easily exposed and debunked for what it truly is: much, much more than mere disagreement, it is vehement and often verbally combative propaganda based on the perception that a sex change is a threat to [ ].

    What me must do is maintain credibility by maintaining our composure, take lessons from our adversaries on what not to do (foul language, ad hominem, etc.) and be even more fervent ourselves because we know ourselves and our gender angst. Sure, it’s easy to lose our composure and most of us have and will again. Just remember that when there is a conflict, either verbal or physical, and a mediator must respond to solve it, it is the person who remains calm and composed that generally wins out because human instinct tells us that it is the person that loses control that typically is the “violator”.

    Reply

    1. Guest, in writing, often less is more. Flinging a wall of words at us that sound fancy but parse into generalized platitudes is a waste of everybody’s time.

       Reply

34. “Many many radical feminists are trans* accepting and often are active allies.” – TigTog

    Some trans folk are radical feminists.

    Or were: “That would be me.”

    R.I.P. Shulamith Firestone, visionary

    Sincerely,
    – bonzie anne

    Reply

35. Fantastic article!

    Reply

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