User:Dragnet54/sandbox

The only thing TERFs deserve is being doxed and killed TERF is a term applied to anyone who believes that trans women are male and that trans men are female. TERF's are characterized by their belief that gender identity is based on regressive sex stereotypes and restrictive gender roles. They make a clear distinction between gender and biological sex, while transgender activists conflate gender and biological sex. Check out: Sex and Gender - A Beginner's Guide  They do not believe that transwomen are women, because trans women are born with a penis and XY chromosomes.They acknowledge the 1 out of 20,000 - 50,000 XY women with and people who are born intersex,but make a sharp distinction between intersex people and  genderqueer people. many intersex people are angered at wha they perceive to be the transgender community's appropriation of medical intersex conditions  . Those referred to as TERF's want to   completely abolish the classic gender binary, and oppose biological essentialism.

The term "TERF" is not used by those in the group, who consider it a slur comparable to "feminazi"and http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Feminazi&redirect=no, and think of themselves as simply acknowledging biological reality. Instead of "terf" they refer to themselves as  "gender critical", because they are critical of the regressive gender stereotypes promoted by transgender ideology [] They are also very critical of the lesbophobia [] and Rape Culture[] promoted by the trans movement.

Many gender critical feminists live in fear of being labelled as "terfs". The "terf" label has led to women being fired, unpublished, censored, doxed, threatened with rape, assaulted,and even killed Banned By Trans: Who's Silencing Who?

TERFs (and SWERFs) are a loathed subset of feminism because they directly challenge male entitlement. TERF's do not believe males are entitled to access female spaces simply be declaring themselves females. TERFs also believe that the gender self-declaration promoted by the trans activist community is harmful to women, undermines their hard-won Title IX rights, and threatens the safety of women in homeless shelters disabled women in homeless shelter raped by man claiming to be transgender, domestic violence shelters, and prisons http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/women-and-equalities-committee/transgender-equality/written/19532.pdf.

Against feminism
Broadly speaking, there are two major points on which TERFs and mainstream feminists vehemently disagree — on the question of gender, and on the nature of the third wave of feminism.

Towards binary gender
TERFs almost universally reject the concept of cisgender privilege, and even the term "cisgender" itself, as demeaning to women (another controversial term in LGBTQ+ circles that is usually understood as a transphobic shibboleth). TERFs tend to reject any terminology models (for words such as "woman" or "man") that are not based on biological organs, gametes, or chromosomes. Thus defining their own movement as that "of women to liberate women from oppression, and that female biological reality is a defining aspect of women's experience of oppression." You may call me a TERF but I am not transphobic]

Academic radical feminism  is premised upon the idea that gender is entirely a social construct (and further, that it is harmful). Some transgender people maintain, on the other hand, that gender is to some extent intrinsic (that is, even though they were raised as one binary gender, they have always identified as the other, and further, trans people often, but not always, want bodies to match). As frequently happens when ideology runs up against someone else's lived experiences, ideologues respond by trying to silence those who threaten their belief system. As such, there has been  a rich current of censorship and attack underlying much transgender activism on the issue of sex-based oppression in general. https://bannedbytrans.wordpress.com The obvious conflict between the notion that "gender is innate" and the goals of liberating women from sexist stereotypes seems to escape them.

While not all radical feminists would agree, those that critique — "I'm not transphobic, I'm trans critical!" — TERFs maintain that trans women are males with sex dysphoria rather than males with "female brains" and that trans men are females with sex dysphoria rather than females with male brains.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/12/01/brains-arent-actually-male-or-female-new-study-suggests/ Many detransitioned trans men now claim that they used the option to transition to cope with sexual trauma, internalized misogyny, or bothhttps://mariacatt.com/2016/03/31/the-adult-baby-story/. When detransitioned trans men share this information they tend to be derided or erased by the transgender community https://thirdwaytrans.com/tag/detransition/).

Because no logical argument can be made that maintains their beliefs, they actively seek to silence any discussion or dissent regarding transgender ideology. When anyone questions the idea that trans women are women, the canned response typically  is "trans women are women."Tautology

Against the Third Wave
TERFs tend to champion the work of feminism's Second Wave, which gave women the right to safe legal abortion; Title IX and Title X protection in sports and education;The Equal Credit Opportunity Act;laws against marital rape; domestic violence shelters; rape crisis centers;the Pregnancy Anti-Discrimination Act; and laws against workplace sexual harassment https://feministactivism.com/tag/second-wave-feminism/ Many TERF's consider the Third Wave of feminism a backlash due to its focus on hyper-individualism and its uncritical support of male sexual entitlement http://www.feministcurrent.com/2016/07/12/emily-ratajkowski-remains-confused-difference-female-body-sexualizing-female-body/ http://i-d.vice.com/en_gb/article/defining-the-f-word-why-we-need-to-be-radical-with-feminism.

For pimps and sex buyers, the reason for rejecting that form of feminism is, in large part, because critiques of the sex trade could have a serious impact on their profits and/or freedom to buy the use of women's bodies (and the bodies of children and men as well). It has been well documented that sex buyers and sex traffickers have influenced sex work policy that decriminalized pimps and sex buyers. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/22/pimp-amnesty-prostitution-policy-sex-trade-decriminalise-brothel-keepers http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/if-keith-vaz-paid-sex-his-prostitution-report-biased-worthless-1579703 In countries where women enjoy the highest levels of equality (Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France) prostituted people have been decriminalized while pimps and sex buyers continue to be held accountable for their exploitation and abuse.http://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/02/16/decriminalizing-victims-lets-adopt-the-nordic-model-of-prostitution-law/ http://www.feministcurrent.com/2013/12/08/10-myths-about-prostitution-trafficking-and-the-nordic-model/ http://www.feministcurrent.com/2016/04/15/the-nordic-model-is-not-de-facto-criminalization/

In countries such as Bangladesh https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2016/06/13/heartbreaking-photos-show-what-its-like-living-in-a-walled-city-of-a-brothel/ Germany http://www.feministcurrent.com/2016/05/09/legalization-has-turned-germany-into-the-bordello-of-europe-we-should-be-ashamed/ http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/welcome-to-paradise/ and the Netherlands http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/why-amsterdams-prostitution-laws-are-still-failing-protect-empower-women-1467733 sex trafficking has rapidly increased and the number of sex workers murdered by sex buyers is many times higher than those murdered under Nordic Model regimes.http://www.feministcurrent.com/2015/11/03/remembering-the-murdered-women-erased-by-the-pro-sex-work-agenda/

TERFs and wingnuts
{{cquote|Trans activists claim that In the 1980s, TERFs successfully brought an end to transgender access to government health care. But in the 1980's, transgender people HAD no access to government health care, so this is simply false http://transadvocate.com/fact-checking-janice-raymond-the-nchct-report_n_14554.htm. The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, prohibits insurance companies from discriminating against transgender people, and many state insurance plans cover medical gender transition http://www.transequality.org/know-your-rights/healthcare.

TERFs, being both feminists and often lesbians, are hated as much by the the Religious Right as they are by transgender activists. Nonetheless, TERFs are accused of aligning themselves with the Religious Right for objecting to the idea that males can become females through hormones, surgery, or fashion choices. The Religious Right objects to anyone opposing "God's will" by attempting to change their physical sex. The Religious Right also believes that the gender hierarchy is God's will, and that human beings must submit to it as God intended http://www.equip.org/article/the-transsexual-dilemma/ TERFs differ from the Religious Right in that they are not opposed to people medically transitioning. They are only opposed to the idea that "woman" can be redefined to include males who claim that they are female simply because they do not conform to masculine gender norms. TERFs fear this will undermine sex based protections such as Title IX that women gained during the Second Wave of feminism http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/public-bathroom-regulations-could-create-a-title-ix-crisis {{quotebox|Criticism of the practice of transgenderism is being censored as a result of a campaign of vilification by transgender activists of anyone who does not accept the new orthodoxy on this issue.}}TERFs have been compared to Nazi's due to their open objection to transgender ideology. Female journalists and academics have been effectively silenced on this issue. https://bannedbytrans.wordpress.com/masterpost/

Sex worker exclusionary radical feminism
Sex worker exclusionary radical feminism (also known as SWERF) is yet another offshoot of feminism, one that opposes men's use of pornography and prostitution. The term was coined to match that of TERF, as their memberships overlap. Their ideology also overlaps as both subgroups follow a liberatory approach to feminism; i.e., liberating women from male domination and control — TERFs by seeking to free women from restrictive gender roles, and SWERFs by seeking to free women from men's exploitation and abuse.

SWERFs criticize the objectification and exploitation of women within pornography and the sex industry, as well as the violence and abuse that sex workers frequently suffer.

SWERF is a name typically thrown at sex trade survivors and others who speak out against the harms of the sex trade. Sex Trade survivors such as Rachel Moran https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TG24BDK/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1, Natasha Falle http://www.sextrade101.com, Bridget Perrier http://www.sextrade101.com, Rae Story https://inpermanentopposition.com/tag/rae-story/, Vednita Carter http://www.breakingfree.net, Brenda Myers-Powell http://thedreamcatcherfoundation.org/staff/brenda-myers-powell/, and so many others are attacked as liars and SWERFs by the pro-sex trade lobby. Sex trade survivors and other SWERFs are censored and silenced in much the same way that TERFs are http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/article/sex-industry-lobby-group-disrupts-survivor-book-launch/

The bottom line
The fatal problem either lies in the method of propagation of the TERF message, or in the message itself. Given that trans activists often fall into very familiar scripts reminiscent of denialism and other dead-end positions, and that people (especially academically oriented third-wavers) are denied the opportunity or actively prevented from reading or hearing the TERF argument cluster, it's probably the method of propagation or lack thereof that is the problem here, not the message.

For example, below is a typical misrepresentation of the TERF argument: An accurate representation of TERF arguments is as follows:

TERF: we are here to abolish gender

Feminist: oh, so we won't use gendered pronouns anymore?

TERF: no keep those

Feminist: gendered clothing?

TERF: no thats ok

Feminist: segregated bathrooms?

TERF: no those are important

Feminist: so we're going to do something about the gender binary, yeah? We're going to attack the idea that gender is intrinsically linked to one's anatomy, and we're going to boost the visibility of trans and intersex people, who, along with biological women, face violent consequences of the sex and gender binaries - yes?

TERF: Yes. Exactly that.