You’ve undoubtedly heard the term. Perhaps you’ve seen J K Rowling say she isn’t a terf, or perhaps you’ve heard her saying she is. A lot of people for whom the moniker fits say it describes them, say it doesn’t describe them, and say it’s a slur, then call themselves it. Often the same person does all four. So we thought we would answer the question: what is a terf?
Trans exclusionary radical feminist
Viv Smythe, a freelance writer who contributes to the Guardian, Australia (not linking to the guardian after it decided to partner with Open AI) is credited with coining the term in a 2008 blog post about the exclusion of trans women at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. Smythe wrote that she “rejected the alignment of all radical feminists with trans exclusionary radfem (TERF) activists.”
Sidenote: if you see the word womyn, you’re probably dealing with terfs. And from what we’ve read, some of which we’ll share below, MWMF was awful. Like, death threats, violence, abuse, for years. That’s the MWMF.
TERF was designed to be a technical, neutral term. It has become contentious. It is often described as a slur by the people it describes. Let’s see:
As offensive is defined as “causing someone to feel resentful, upset, or annoyed” and it’s on the person who is offended to decide if something was offensive, then TERF could be offensive. Is it used deliberately to show a lack of respect? That’s more difficult. The vast majority of trans people certainly don’t respect the bigots who wish trans people were eradicated, but the word isn’t used to show a lack of respect. The lack of respect exists outside the word. Andrea Long Chu pointed out “all bywords for bigots are intended to be defamatory.”
This is a very broad description of slur. It includes words like American and English, but doesn’t include cunt (Scottish usage).
Many British media outlets (that are possibly staffed by TERFs) such as The Economist, state that the term is a slur and require it not be used in their articles. The AP style book advised journalists to avoid the term as it is “vague and political.” It’s not vague at all, it has a very specific meaning (though it is often misused) and when did journalists start avoiding political words? Are they not to mention democrat or republican too?
Linguists Christopher Davis and Elin McCready argued that for a word to be a slur it had to fit three properties:
1 be derogatory towards a particular group
2 used to subordinate the group within some structure of power relations
3 the derogated group must be defined by an intrinsic property
They argued that TERF passed the first property, failed the last, and the second was dependent on how the groups saw each other.
“I wonder what name self-declared feminists who wish to exclude trans women from women’s spaces would be called? If they do favour exclusion, why not call them exclusionary? If they understand themselves as belonging to that strain of radical feminism that opposes gender reassignment, why not call them radical feminists?”
Judith Butler
So, it might be a slur. Is it at least accurate? No, it’s not actually accurate either.
Jennifer Saul, a philosophy of language professor, pointed out that many people labelled TERF aren’t radical feminists at all, and offered the term anti-trans activists, whilst others have suggested feminism appropriating radical transphobes (FARTs) which is definitely derogatory.
What makes a person a terf?
Well, some people are incredibly small-minded and just awful bigots and… wait, that’s not what you meant, is it? What, specifically, does a person do that makes them a TERF?
Jennifer Saul had a point. The word has been misapplied for over a decade now, given to anyone who is trans-exclusionary. Some people claim the word for themselves even though they aren’t radical feminists. Or any kind of feminists at all; that’s where the feminist appropriating part of FART comes from.
Nowadays TERF just means trans exclusionary. Which makes us want to reassess the slur claim. They are trans exclusionary, their whole thing is excluding trans people, so maybe it’s the feminist part they feel is derogatory and insulting. If it is, it would certainly make a lot of sense.
In 2021, there was a public hearing on ‘Foreign interference on the financing of anti-choice organisations in the EU’ jointly hosted by the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) and the Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation (INGE). It was to address concern over ongoing organised movement against safe abortion, contraception, LGTBQIA+ rights, and sex education. This was supported by the rise of the far right. These movements received funding from within Europe, and from Russia, and the US. The US funding comes from Christian far right organisations. TERF organisations have received this funding.
If you’re funding comes from far right organisations that are also funding anti-abortion campaigns, you’re probably not a feminist.
They let the mask slip here. Two points. First: “we really need to stop referring to this strict religious misogynistic homophobic faker group. please.” They know who their allies are, it’s not like it’s some coincidence, or they haven’t noticed who agrees with them. Second: “We would do that, if only there were other reputable organisations saying the same thing. It is disconcerting that our only “allies” seem to be the rightwing fundies who haven’t yet drunk the KoolAid.” There’s a reason their only allies are right wing fundamentalists and reputable organisations don’t agree with them.
Science Denial
We’re planning a big post on this at some point, but basically: science agrees with trans people. Biologists have said that human sex is a spectrum. Every major medical organisation agrees. Studies support transitioning. Puberty blockers are reversible and unharmful. There was a doctor who argued TERF points at one point – she was a pediatrician arguing about genetics with geneticists who disagreed with her, if we recall correctly.
That’s all the detail we’re putting here. We’ll link to our science post when it’s out, or you can google things, if you want to know more.
Violence
CW: violence, obviously. You can skip to the next section if you want.
In 1999, death threat against trans sixteen year old at MWMF: “I remember, specifically, one woman looking right at me and telling me that I needed to leave the Land as soon as possible because she had a knife and didn’t know if she would be able to control herself if I was around her.” There’s other accounts of violence against trans women going back to the 70s in there. It’s not an easy read.
Posie Parker wanted men with guns in female toilets: “I’m talking about you dads, who maybe carry – I think that’s what you say, I’m so down with the American lingo. Maybe you carry, maybe you don’t. Maybe you consider yourself a protector of women, maybe you’re that sort of man. Maybe you have a daughter or a mother, or a wife, maybe you have a sister. Maybe you have friends, maybe you just think women are human and you don’t need any absolute connection with them to feel compelled to protect us. I think you should start using women’s toilets, men.” When it was stated on twitter that this could result in masculine-presenting cis women being hurt, one TERF stated this would be “acceptable collateral damage.”
This account, dating back to 1973, is about TERFs (actual trans-exclusionary radical feminists, even though this was before the acronym was coined) sending death threats to trans women and then attacking cis radical feminists who were protecting trans women.
Feminist?
The people who are now called TERFs aren’t feminists. They receive funding from the far right, from radical right wing Christian groups. They know who their allies are.
When Posie Parker (which isn’t her birth name, but we’ll honour the name she’s chosen to be referred to by, took her Let Women Speak tour to Australia and Aotearoa, she was sponsored by the far-right Conservative Political Action Conference. She also received funding from US far right groups Heritage Foundation and Alliance Defending Freedom (the ADF succeeded in getting the abortion pill banned in Texas). She’s been interviewed on Youtube by Canadian white supremist Jean-François Gariépy, the Soldiers of Christ Online, and Tucker Carlson. She posted a selfie with Norwegian neo-Nazi Hans Jørgen Lysglimt, and has praised English fascist Tommy Robinson (also not his actual name, though in his case he was hiding a criminal past. He’s also used the names Andrew McMaster, Paul Harris, Wayne King, and Stephen Lennon).
Neo-Nazis crashed her tour in Australia. (Deep breath, we’re going to do something we didn’t think we ever would). This link isn’t clickable because we’re not backlinking to transphobic content. https:// unherd.com/ newsroom/ the-truth-about-posie-parker-and-the-neo-nazis/ you can copy and paste it into a search bar if you really have to. Remove the spaces. It goes to Unherd (link is Wikipedia). Unherd is described as “right of centre” but not “pro-conservative.” It was started by hedge fund manager Paul Marshall, who had a long standing alliance with the Liberal Democrats, but left them due to his support for Brexit. He’s given £50m to GB News. Back to Unherd, it’s columnists include Julie Bindel and Kathleen Stock.
This Unherd article tries to make the point that the Neo Nazis crashing the tour were “a melting pot of conflicting ideologies coming together in protest, counter-protest, parallel protest and unabashed opportunism.” At the end of the article, in smaller text, the writer admits that “Parker has failed to distance herself from the far-Right at times.”
Failed.
To.
Distance.
Herself.
Also known as praising, embracing, and being funded by.
Okay, but that’s just one person.
J K Rowling started with “concerns.” These were transphobic dogwhistles and trans people called her out. Mostly, we were told we were over-reacting. She liked some transphobic tweets, was called out, and said she had “fat fingers.” She wrote a transphobic essay that said she was against trans people because her ex-husband, a cis man, abused her. Trans people pointed out it was transphobic. A lot of cis people, who were fans of Harry Potter, disagreed. Over time, J K Rowling became more and more openly transphobic, until even cis people had to admit she was doing it. Recently, J K Rowling praised Donald Trump, a convicted rapist and fascist, who stated he “grabs [women] by the pussy” for banning trans women from sport.
Here are pages of articles on what terfs have stated they believe. So much of it is right wing. Organisations that terfs have started up, like For Women Scotland, do not ever campaign for women’s rights. If they do not embrace right wing people and points outright, they do not stand against them. They don’t speak out about gender based violence or abortion rights. They exist only to campaign against trans rights.
What is a terf?
It is a term that has lost all meaning. It is applied to right wing individuals and groups, and those who support them, that are not, in any way, feminist.
And it’s time we stopped using it. Stop giving them legitimancy. Stop labelling them feminists. Stop playing their game.
Don’t call them FARTs. It might be more appropriate, but it’s immature, and it makes us look silly.
Some have started saying gender criticalists. That works as a term. In Attack of the 50ft Trans Woman, Caledonia Fife uses the term gender panickers. They’ve been called gender Nazis, though Nazi should be kept for actual Nazis, like Musk. Personally, we like to call them cunts (derogatory).
Whatever term you use, it’s past time to stop calling them feminists.