Read on Twitter
The terf argument is that trans women are men invading their safe spaces and treading on their sex-based rights.
They don't believe trans women are a marginalized group because trans women are male invaders trying to gain access to their safe spaces and sex-based rights. Which is weird because what safe spaces? What special rights?
In England, it's a lot of second-wave feminists who seem affronted that someone they see as different would want to into the club after the club just became comfortable after having clawed itself into a certain amount of privilege and comfort. Enter stage right, JK ROWLING.
They are also afraid of they have to give entry to trans women into their circle of protection against men will mean that it will influence children to be trans somehow. AGAIN, it's a lot of transphobia masquerading as feminism. There is nothing feminist about transphobia.
Things transphobic feminists will argue at people:
That TERF is a slur. It stands for Trans exclusionary Radical Feminist. It is accurate.
That women's prisons should be safe spaces for women.
To which we say are you arguing that prisons are safe spaces for women?
That TERF is a slur. It stands for Trans exclusionary Radical Feminist. It is accurate.
That women's prisons should be safe spaces for women.
To which we say are you arguing that prisons are safe spaces for women?
They will say trans women will make a woman uncomfortable in a rape crisis center because of they aren't women and women who have been raped don't want to see a penis. To which we say, trans women are women and no one is walking around naked in rape crisis centers.
They will say that women have certain genitals and men have different genitals. But this argument doesn't make room for intersex people who are often misgendered at birth. And intersex people are not trans people.
They also completely ignore the fact that scientists know there is a gender spectrum and also a sex spectrum. They will reduce the experience of being a woman to the word "female" to limit that experience to a woman having certain body parts. However that is really offensive.
Another thought, and forgive us as the American-owned business, but we think the rise of terfs has a lot to do with the small size of the UK. America's feminist movements were concentrated in major cities or small ones very far away from one another.
England is small enough that the incredible second wave feminists are still all friends! And the time they fought for women's lib was very different than today. For instance at one women's bookshop, a bell was rung if a man walked in.
They feel like they are being stripped of what they fought for somehow in folding in trans women. However, trans women have always been there. Anyway, there is no country-wide visible second wave feminist community in America, but there is here, and they are transphobic.
All of this adds up to this form of transphobia looking a lot like a form of ingrained misogyny, an identification of having suffered under patriarchy as a woman & the idea that the trans person will never know what that is like and therefore not deserve to belong or protection.
Most of the anti-trans sentiment stems from a privileged class of white women who instead of continuing with their work to tear down patriarchal structures are solely focused on bullying the most marginalized group of people most at risk. So, the patriarchy wins.
The result is men continue to dominate without so much as having to move a finger to block trans rights. They are letting women do all the work. Please get involved in your local politics, bathroom bills and anti-trans legislation are being put forth every week.
The NHS edited its policy toward trans children on its website this week with no announcement. If women want equality and to disrupt the patriarchy, women must protect trans rights.
