Gender-critical feminists are anti-feminist
March 10, 2021
Various feminist groups spearhead gender equality, but one group of “gender-critical” cisgender “feminists” only produces obstacles to true progress. This group, colloquially known as transgender-exclusionary radical feminists, or TERFs, argue that transgender people further gender inequality as they “erase the concept of sex.” TERFs believe that cisgender women, especially lesbians, are at risk of losing civil protections if they are grouped in with transgender women and non-binary people. In reality, they do not even acknowledge the existence of non-binary individuals.
TERFs do not believe in gender identity, only sex. A notable TERF, J.K. Rowling, author of the acclaimed book series “Harry Potter,” elucidated this in a tweet, saying “If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.” The idea that having a gender identity which differs from one’s assigned sex makes that sex obsolete is scientifically unfounded and illogical. Gender identity is not determined by one’s sex.
TERFs believe that genitals define your relationship with oppression over a lifetime — in other words, being born with a penis creates an oppressor, and a vagina creates one that will be oppressed. Many understand, however, that it is not sex that determines one’s experiences with oppression, but gender identity’s relationship with that sex. Cisgender women are undeniably oppressed in comparison to cisgender men, and their oppression is not dismissed when being compared to their transgender sisters. Transgender people face discrimination, harrassment and assault in almost every facet of their lives, from housing and work to relationships with peers and family members. They need just as many protections, if not more than cisgender women require.
In fact, TERFs have become so concentrated on spreading anti-transgender sentiment that they have diverged from their feminist agenda. They are hypocrites who work with ultra-conservative misogynists to limit transgender rights and freedoms rather than increasing them for all women. By passing bills against trans-inclusive bathrooms, limiting access to medical treatments such as gender-affirming care and smearing the name of Planned Parenthood, TERFs have become a blight on true feminism.
Intersectionality in activism and justice has been shown to be of utmost importance as oppression can be compounded with one’s gender, sexuality, race, social class, etc. If even one marginalized group is excluded from movements to which they belong, the movement loses its credibility and momentum. It instead becomes a competition of oppression, as the TERFs have created by excluding anyone who does not identify as a cisgender woman. They have chosen to direct their efforts toward hatred rather than working together against the common enemy: the patriarchy.
Cisgender women, transgender women, non-binary and genderqueer people must form a united front against the patriarchy in order to see progress of any kind. To attain an equal society across all genders, as is the goal of feminism, every gender identity must be acknowledged, respected, supported and loved.
Rhi • Jan 8, 2022 at 2:52 pm
You can’t spell raCISt and fasCISt without CIS, and the TERFs are both. Just look at how many of them are willing to appear on white supremacist media like Scumsucker Carlson, or Nosy Parker on a Quebec fascist podcast.
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/10/15/gender-critical-posie-parker-interview-jean-francois-gariepy-mumsnet/
TERFs are so bigoted, hateful and reactionary that they call the cis- prefix a “slur”. Cis TERFs view cis as the default as much as the view white as the default and “think” it’s inappropriate to speak of them otherwise.
a real lesbian • Dec 10, 2021 at 10:07 am
another dick pandering handmaiden
Helen • Sep 23, 2021 at 7:59 am
Thank you. As a cis woman and feminist I despise the so called ‘gender critical’ hate movement.
I see the TERFs have arrived with their usual nonsense; arguing that trans women damage cis women’s ‘fragile gains’; that cis is a slur (a repackaging of the homophobic “I’m not straight, I’m normal” for the 21st century); that TERF is a slur, (even though it was a term coined by a trans inclusive cisgender female radical feminist); that trans people are demanding that everyone change their language (citation needed); that feminists who disagree with transphobia are brainwashed by patriarchy (even though men fawn over transphobic women); that trans women and allies are destroying cis women’s rights, (even though it’s the GCs collaborating with the anti woman groups like the Heritage Foundation and Proud Boys).
You just come on here spouting your hateful repetitive slogans, when all it does is prove the author’s point.
It’s a shame none of you used the dog whistle coined by that weird supremacist GC Posie Parker, insisted that all trans men are autistic confused lesbians or pulled the whole “I played with a truck once when I was five, nowadays I’d have been transed”.
Add on the word ‘handmaiden’ and I’d have bingo on my TERF Tropes Card.
Elle • Aug 26, 2021 at 2:06 pm
First of all, I object to the use of TERF in this piece, as it is a slur, directed at all women who might object to calling men women and women men on reasonable grounds.
I also object to calling women men or men women, as it flies in the face of material reality — the physical charactristics on which sex has traditionally been based. A female horse is a mare, a male horse is a stallion, A female human is a woman, a male human is a man.
I also object to the characterization of those who espouse my point of view — “TERFs do not believe in gender identity, only sex”. According to biological science, the human species, like many others, is sexually dimorphic, that is humanity is manifested in two different physical forms (bodies) , each with its own reproductive role — a role that is essential to the survival of the species. Without sexual reproduction and two sexes to participate, there is no more human species. On the other hand, how anyone identifies “themselves” psychologically is up to them. So, two sexes determined by evolution, and a multiplicity of genders, arising from each body determined by each person’s own psychological make up.
Trans-women are men who for some psychological reason do not feel the way they think men should feel, but the fact that they can’t or do not want to identify as male, does not make them female. Only nature can do that, and nature made that call at the moment of conception.
I object to the statement “TERFs believe that genitals define your relationship with oppression over a lifetime — in other words, being born with a penis creates an oppressor, and a vagina creates one that will be oppressed.” I do NOT believe that. I believe that as both males and females are essential to the survival of the species, in nature’s book and mine, they are of equal value to the species. How a society constructs their value is a different story altogether.
I object to the statement that “[TERFS] are hypocrites who work with ultra-conservative misogynists to limit transgender rights and freedoms rather than increasing them for all women.” In fact, feminists who place transwomen’s rights above the rights of women are the true misogynists.
Sadly, many feminists, having been brainwashed by patriarchy, actually have as much contempt for the female body as our culture does and seek to distance themselves from it unceasingly. First by claiming that minds were separate from bodies, and therefore minds had “no sex” — no such thing as a male mind or a female mind, merely a human mind, and therefore women could not be discriminated against based on their mental capabilities. There were two things wrong with this argument, first minds are not separate from bodies, but a product of a brain which is a part of the body, which is either male or female. Second, they unconsciously defined “mind” in terms of “male mind” when they claimed that women’s minds were as good as men’s. I have never heard a man bragging that his mind is as good as a woman’s.
Also, women as a group have issues that transwomen do not have. Young transwomen do not have to worry about having access to or the wherewithal to buy menstrual pads. They do not have to deal with being knocked up. They do not have to deal with having access to or the wherewithal to buy contraceptives or get abortions. They do not have to deal with having access to or the wherewithal to good gynecological, obstetrical, and pediatric medical care. They do not have to deal with having access to or the wherewithal to pay for childcare. They do not have to deal with nursing and breast pumps . They do not have to deal with breast, ovarian,or cervical cancer, post partum depression, menopause, hot flashes…. You get the picture. These are all issues that affect the lives of many or most women at one time or another.
We live in a country with the poorest record in the industrialized world of providing services to women, paid maternity leave, etc. and our infant and maternal mortality rate is a scandal. In other non-industrialized countries, things are worse, Look what women are facing at the hands of the Taliban.
I object to the statement that “If even one marginalized group is excluded from movements to which they belong, the movement loses its credibility and momentum. It instead becomes a competition of oppression”
As trans issues are not women’s issues, then they are not part of the same poltical group. And, by erasing the line between male and female, transactivists are undercutting women’s power as a political force. A Congressman could argue that since Caitlyn is a woman and Caitlyn has a penis and can’t give birth, women, as women, don’t need paid maternity leave or access to child care or abortions. And i find the phrase competition of oppression so offensive. I am not trying to prove that our society oppresses women more than it oppresses transwomen, but that they oppress the two groups differently.
Tia • Jun 4, 2021 at 3:49 pm
Trans women: reducing people to their body parts / bodily functions is harmful, hateful and bigoted
Also trans women: if you don’t use these terms instead of “woman” or “girl” then you’re a TERF and a transphobe
– people with vaginas
– people with uteruses
– bleeders
– menstruators
– chest feeders
Jennifer • May 21, 2021 at 9:46 pm
I feel that since gender is so absolutely complex and subjective that any attempt to dichotomize it into a strict binary is simply wasted effort. Even though some may not like it the only option that works is to respect each person’s views about what gender and sex mean to them, as well as how they want to be treated as socially in regards to this aspect. Your own views are yours no one else has the right to tell you different or exclude you to access to your innate privileges and decorums that every one else in society enjoys. Trans woman being accepted as woman only strengthens feminism. Without them feminism is not whole it is missing an important part.
lostgirl • May 13, 2021 at 12:25 am
No question that transpersons need protection for discrimination, but I’m confused why that puts them in the exact same camp as ciswomen? Can’t two different groups both experience oppression without being exactly the same? I also agree that a united front against patriarchy is ideal, but again, why does that mean ciswomen and transwomen have to be considered the same? Where I get really lost though, is that if gender is not tied to sex, then how do transwomen know that they are women? Because it seems like if you want to argue someone was born in the wrong body, then that’s a concession that sex (as in a person’s genitals), is a determinative quality as to gender and particular persons have a gender-identify (female) that doesn’t match the body they were born with (male). But, if you take away the sex part and say that female bodies don’t define being female (meaning the sex component is less than the gender-identity component) than why does trans even exist? What does it mean to be female as a gender divorced from sex? Why is a transwoman looking to be if or what is she if sex has no part in that? Define woman. At that point, there could be many attributes ascribed to being female, such as wearing certain types of clothes, being penetrated in sex, have a certain body type, being caring/motherly, but all of these attributes would run counter to the idea that women are not defined by these roles that society puts on us, which is the essence of feminism. Women are not defined by makeup, clothes, submission. So I guess i get lost in why some feminists are called TERFs if there is something about being a woman that is tied up in ones sex. I think people are free to do what they want and would never want to cause suffering to another person, but there are real questions to be answered about the sex vs. gender and I don’t think labelling everyone who asks questions a TERF is a way to promote understanding or unity.
Maria • May 6, 2021 at 1:21 am
I have nothing but sympathy for trans women and trans men but increasingly losing all respect for that part of the community and “allies,” who think they can bully the entire world into towing the “trans women are women /trans men are men,” as gospel truth, even though they know it’s a lie. (See: Rachel McKinnon, The Norms of Assertion).
Lilith • May 5, 2021 at 12:29 pm
I believe passionately that gender-diverse and transgender persons must be protected from discrimination, but not at the cost of women’s very fragile gains. The word “woman” has a clear biological definition, and it’s an important political and statistical category, because our biological differences and capabilities are precisely the reason for which we have been oppressed.
Not believing in biological sex—when it was perfectly clear which sex was barred from opportunities for all of history—is morally reprehensible.
Women’s reproductive capabilities put women at unique risk for harm that transwomen cannot, and will not ever, experience. If you believe that there is any inherent trait shared by all women beyond biology (as ‘brain-sex’ has been scientifically debunked countless times), you are a misogynist. If someone merely pointing this out enrages you, you are a misogynist.
The mis-selling of feminism back to women as a general be-nice-to-everyone movement (in which women coincidentally do all the social, emotional, and physical work) is one of the most breathtakingly outrageous bait and switch moves of the 20th century.
Lilith • May 5, 2021 at 12:26 pm
I believe passionately that gender-diverse and transgender persons must be protected from discrimination, but not at the cost of women’s very fragile gains. The word “woman” has a clear biological definition, and it’s an important political and statistical category, because our biological differences and capabilities are precisely the reason for which we have been oppressed.
Not believing in biological sex—when it was perfectly clear which sex was barred from opportunities for all of history—is morally reprehensible.
Women’s reproductive capabilities put women at unique risk for harm that transwomen cannot, and will not ever, experience. If you believe that there is any inherent trait shared by all women beyond biology (as ‘brain-sex’ has been scientifically debunked countless times), you are a misogynist. If someone merely pointing this out enrages you, you are a misogynist.
The mis-selling of feminism back to women as a general be-nice-to-everyone movement (in which women coincidentally do all the social, and emotional) is one of the most breathtakingly outrageous bait and switch moves of the 20th century.
women need protection from this. • May 3, 2021 at 2:06 pm
it’s ignorant to say that women are “cis”women. We are women and it means to have a female body. Women are oppressed because of their bodies and not because of some kind of imagination, fantasy, feeling or dysphoria. Trans exclusionary feminists wouldn’t have to push this, if trans rights activists didn’t pretend like women had some kind of privilege, when being born female, especially outside the west, is literal torture in most countries. Breast ironing/mutilation, forced pregnancy with no possibility for abortion, female genital mutilation, forced marriage (of young girls), rape, femicides, forced (removal of) hijab, prosecution for anything really. Please stop this, you people are erasing feminism and it’s progress with your narrative and this is from a former ally. You cannot change the definition of women to include men. This is not okay. People are gonna peak even more in the next years, because the trans movement is completely delusional, homophobic and misogynist.
Another Point of View • Mar 17, 2021 at 6:25 pm
Okay I get what you’re saying, and I certainly don’t agree with a lot of the rhetoric that TERFs push. However, I think it’s a bit tone deaf to suggest that gender identity has more to do with oppression than sex, or even that sex does not correlate with oppression at all. Your point might have more weight in a country like the U.S., but is far less salient when we consider the experiences of women outside of the West. According to the World Health Organization, over 200 million (!!!) girls and women alive today have been victims of female genital mutilation. I think it is disrespectful to these women to suggest that their sex has nothing to do with this violence, or that they somehow identified into it. Not sure if this is what you’re trying to say, but this is how it might come off.
Trans women and cis women have some of the same experiences, but it’s a disservice to both groups to pretend that we are the exact same. Trans women go through struggles I will never understand, just as I go through struggles trans women will never understand. Sex-based and gender-based oppression are both real and incredibly harmful — there is no reason to deny one or the other.
a real lesbian • Dec 10, 2021 at 10:10 am
How do women and perverted men have the same experiences? Please enlighten all of us…