TERFs, feminism, privilege
I was gonna write about language, but I’ve got feminism on the mind.
So the thing is, most things that TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) feminists … wait, that was redundant. Most things that TERFs say would easily be considered hate speech coming from anyone male or a part of an organized religion. If you’re new to the concept, the gist of it is that they refuse to see trans women as women, lobby to try and kick them out of women’s shelters, accuse queer trans women as metaphorically “raping women” and a lot of other things which make about as much sense as the tenets of scientology. It’s easy to google if you’re still curious.
They’re a tiny, albeit vocal, minority. The problem is that their dogma seems to trickle down into mainstream queer culture in a diluted, yet mildly to blatantly transphobic form. Many trans women have tried to criticize this phenomenon, but are often dismissed—albeit in academic, latinate language—basically because their trans. This is a whole ‘nother bag of worms. Again, easy to google if you’re curious.
Okay, so there’s a small branch of toxic feminism out there. Sad, but so what? Well, I think it illustrates a bigger problem with current feminism: bogus theory that goes unchallenged. Read the rest of this entry »