TERF & Terf (pronounced turf)
(1) The acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist (trans-exclusionary
radical feminism), a fork of the fork of radical feminism which maintains a
trans woman’s gender identity is not legitimate and rejects the inclusion of
trans people and the gender-diverse in the feminist movement.
(2) In genetics as (1) TERF 1 (Telomeric repeat-binding factor 1), a protein which in humans is encoded by the TERF1 gene & (2) TERF 2 (Telomeric repeat-binding factor 2), a protein present at telomeres throughout the cell cycle.
2008: Coined by Australian feminist writer Viv Smythe (@vivsmythe
(fka @tigtog, @hoydenabouttown & @GFIComedy) although Ms Smythe suggests the
acronym may previously have been in use but her blog entry is the oldest
instance extant, hence the credit. By
virtue of use, TERF has become a word and thus the noun terf (and its
variations) is correct. The use in genetics dates from the 1990s , the definitions written as part of the project which decoded the human genome (the complete results of which weren't released until March 2022).
TERF was said first to have been coined as a “deliberately
neutral” descriptor of a certain intellectual position among certain feminists,
CISgender women who self-identify as feminist but who oppose including
transgender women in spaces (physical, virtual & philosophical) which their
construct of feminism reserved for those assigned female at birth. Implicit in this is the denial that trans
women (or anyone anywhere on the trans gender spectrum) are women; they regard
them as men and because, by definition, men cannot coexist with their feminist construct,
they must be excluded. However, though
TERF was of the feminists, by a feminist, for the feminists, once in the wild it
is public property and TERF didn’t long stay neutral, soon used as a slur, applied
as a term of disparagement by those sympathetic to trans rights and just as
quickly embraced by some TERFs in an act of reclamation (a la slut, the
infamous n-word etc). In use online
since at least 2008, TERF has different connotations, depending on who is using
it but even when it’s been applied as something purely descriptive, feminists
who have been labeled TERF have called the term a slur because it has come to
be associated with violence and hatred.
It is a loaded term.
The coining of TERF inspired
some neologisms. TERF bangs (existing only in the plural and noted since 2013 although use didn't trend until 2014)
is a sardonic reference to a woman's hairstyle with short, straight,
blunt-edged bangs (historically called baby bangs and a variation of what's
known by some hairdressers as the "Joan of Arc" fringe), especially
when paired with a bob and claimed to be associated with TERFs, the link
impressionistic and possibly an example of a gaboso (generalized association
based on single-observation). The link
is thought to be part of the opposition to transphobia, the TERF bangs noted
for their relationship to the Karen (speak to the manager) bob and all Karens
are assumed to be transphobic. TERFdom is
either (1) the holding (and expression) of trans-exclusionary feminist views or
(2) being in some way present in the on-line TERF ecosystem. TERFism is the abstract noun denoting
variously the action, practice, state, condition, principle, doctrine, usage,
characteristic, devotion or adherence to TERFDom. TERfturf is an expression variously of the
physical, virtual or philosophical space occupied by TERFdom. TERFy, TURFish & TERFic are adjectives
(usually applied disparagingly) which suggest someone or something may be
tending towards, characteristic of, or related to trans-exclusionary feminism
or those who hold such views. It's
tempting to ponder TERFery, TERFed & TERFistic and the use to which they
might be put but there's scant evidence of use.
TERF also provided the model for the back-formation acronym
SWERF (sex worker exclusionary radical feminist), describing the position of
those radical feminists opposed to the sex industry (including pornography), regarding
all aspects of the business as exploitative and that women who participate are
victims of coercion, any assertion of agency or willing participation a form of
false consciousness.
TERF, TWERF and others
Whatever the life TERF subsequently took, Ms Smythe’s
original piece was a critique of the undercurrent of transphobia in the UK
British media, something hardly hard to detect nor restricted to the most
squalid of the tabloids. However, as she
noted, regardless of her purpose or the context of the text, TERF has became a weaponized
device of the culture wars which, in the way of the battle, assumed its
identities at the extremes of the trans-inclusion & trans-exclusion
positions and it could hardly have followed a different course, the notion,
however applied, hardly one amenable to subtle nuances (although some have tried). That it had the effect of being an inherently schismatic force in radical feminism seemed especially to disturb Ms Smythe and
later she would suggest a more accurate (or certainly less divisive) acronym
would have been “…TES, with the “S” standing for separatists”, adding that many
“…of the positions that are presented
seem far too essentialist to be adequately described as feminist, let alone
radical feminist.” Of course, that view
was in itself exclusivist and a kind of assertion of ownership of both “radical”
and “feminist” but that’s entirely in the tradition of political philosophy
including the strains which long pre-date modern feminism, gatekeepers never
hesitant in lowering the intellectual portcullis, intruders rarely welcome.
Still, it wasn’t as if feminism had been immune from the fissiparousness
which so often afflicted movements (secular and otherwise), the devolution into
into competing doctrinal orthodoxies of course creating heretics and heroes and
to think of the accepted structure of the history (first wave, second wave etc)
as lineal is misleading. Nor was the
process organic and it has been claimed there are TERFs (notably some of the
self-described) for whom the identification with feminism became attractive
only when it seemed to offer a intellectual cloak under which push transphobia,
an accusation leveled at members of the US organization Gender Identity Watch
(GIW). Described variously as a “hate
group” and the “Republican party in sensible shoes”, GIW’s best known activities
include lobbying and monitoring legislatures and courts to try to ensure those
who are transgender are not granted either the status of women or whatever
rights may accrue from that. Their basis
was simply definitional, those designated male at birth (DMaB) can never be
anything beyond men in disguise (MiD) and thus have no place in women’s spaces.
Other theorists developed their own form of exclusivism. The idea behind the back-formation TWERF (Trans Women Exclusionary Radical Feminist) was that it
was "pure womanism", the needs of trans
women being not only different from “real” women but irrelevant too, again by
definition because trans women are still men and even if in some way defined as
not, were still not “real” women. The
distinctions drawn by the TWERFs was certainly a particular strain of radical
feminism because they raised no objection to the presence of trans men, the agender
and even some other non-binary people into at least some of their women-only
spaces although the rationale offered to support this position did seem
sometimes contradictory. Some however seemed
well to understand the meaning and they were the transsexual separatists,
apparently a cause without rebels, support for the view apparently close to
zero. The transsexual separatists argue
that they need to be treated, for the purposes of defined rights, as a separate
category, a concept which received little attention until the Fédération
internationale de notation (Fina, the International
Swimming Federation) in June 2022 announced a ban on the participation of transgender
women from elite female competition if they have experienced “…any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage
2 or before age twelve, whichever is later." As something a workaround designed somehow to
combine inclusion and exclusion in the one policy, Fina undertook to create a
working group to design an “open”
category for trans women in “some events”
as part of its new policy. The transsexual
separatists may not have expected Fina to be the first mainstream organization to
offer a supporting gesture but what the federation has done may stimulate
discussion, even if the work-around proves unworkable.
Discursiveness is however in the nature of feminist
thought, the essence of the phases of renewal which characterized progress,
formalized (if sometimes misleadingly) as waves and it’s unrealistic to imagine
trans-related issues will be resolved until generational change allows a new
orthodoxy to coalesce. It really wasn’t
until the high-water mark of second wave of feminism in the early 1980s that
some of the early radical feminists began to attempt to distance the movement
from the issues pertaining to trans people, reflecting the view that the
implications of what was characterized as the transgender agenda would only reinforce
sexual stereotyping and the gender binary. Even then, the position taken by radical
feminists was not monolithic but it was the exclusionists who attracted most
interest, inevitable perhaps given they offered the media a conflictual lens through
which to view the then somewhat novel matter of trans rights, until then rarely
discussed. Third wave feminism was a product
of the environment in which it emerged and thus reflected the wider acceptance
of transgender rights and few would argue this has not continued during the
fourth wave, the attention given to TERF (and its forks and variations) an
indication of the interest in the culture wars and the lure of conflict in media
content (whether tabloid or twitter) rather than any indication a generalized
hardening of opposition among feminists.
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