TERF

TERF stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist.

Here is notable gender-critical ideologue J.K. Rowling wishing a fan a “Merry Terfmas”:

Merry Terfmas 😘

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 14, 2022

Ruth Pearce, Sonja Erikainen and Ben Vincent write¹:

Notably, while many (but not all) trans people and allies describe trans-exclusionary feminist campaigners as ‘TERFs’, the campaigners themselves generally object to this acronym. In recent years, many have preferred to call themselves ‘gender critical’ – a term that denotes, less a critical approach to gender, and more an emphasis on claiming ‘biologically defined’ notions of femaleness and womanhood over gender identity and social concepts of gender. In addition to attacking trans people’s right to access public

toilets in line with their sex/gender presentation, ‘gender critical’ feminists have criti- cised social developments such as LGBTIQ-inclusive school education and positive

media representations of trans people. Increasingly, they argue that such developments result from what they call ‘gender ideology’ (see e.g. 4thWaveNow, 2019).

Is it a slur?

Certainly, TERF (like ‘cis’) is often used in angry commentaries online by both cis and trans feminists, either as an accusation (e.g. ‘you’re a TERF’) or an insult (e.g. ‘fuck off TERF’). Yet, it is important to understand and account for the power dynamic at play here. In examples such as those above, members of a marginalised group and their allies seek to identify, and express anger or frustration at, a harmful ideology that is promoted primarily by and in the interests of those who are systemically privileged as cis (men as well as women). That is not to say that this is a helpful process without qualification. For example, a well-meaning but poorly-informed individual may be unfairly labelled a ‘TERF’ due to their lack of awareness or understanding of the realities of trans lives. This does not, however, mean that ‘TERF’ actually functions as a slur. Christopher Davis and Elin McCready (2020), for example, have argued that while the acronym can be used to denigrate a particular group, this group is defined by chosen ideology rather than an intrinsic property (in contrast to trans people for instance, or women). It is this denigration of a group defined by an intrinsic property that is necessary to constitute a slur. Moreover, in the case of ‘TERF’ the act of denigration does not function to subordinate within some structure of power relations (in contrast to acts such as misgendering, and sexist slurs such as ‘bitch’)¹.

History of the term

The ontological question

In the mid-1960s, around the time that the term ‘transgender’ was beginning to appear in medical discourses (Williams, 2014f), groups of feminists especially in Anglophone and European contexts began excluding certain women from feminist spaces. During this period, the excluded women in the 1960s were principally lesbians, as being a lesbian was considered akin to being an un-woman: someone who had left ‘the Territory of Womanhood altogether’ (Koedt, 1973, p. 247). This created a constituency of feminists split in two: authenticated women who enjoyed visibility and inclusion within feminist spaces, and deauthenticated women who endured shunning and had to fight for their

inclusion. This type of constituency-policing would later significantly affect transgender women, and thus offers important context for the history of deauthentication, dehumani- zation, and violence directed at trans women.

In 1970, in response to their exclusion, some lesbians began promoting a notion of ‘woman’ that could be inclusive of their experiences, describing a ‘women-identified woman’ as one who obtained ‘her internal sense of self’ from ‘ideals of nurturing, com- munity, and cooperation that she defined as female’ (Gianoulis, 2015) because she was

not ‘considered a “real woman”’ (Radicalesbians, 1970). Reflecting upon the exclusion of lesbians in feminist spaces, Rita Mae Brown, a member of both the Radicalesbians and Furies Collective, framed the experience thusly: ‘those [feminist] women, most of whom were rather privileged and very bright, treated lesbians the way men treated them . . . [Betty Friedan] tossed me out and said that I was the Lavender Menace’ (Makers, 2012). The deauthentication of lesbian women’s experiences of selfhood to compel them to assume a social context not representative of their truths, experience, or class realities was and is an enfeebled attempt to grasp at empowerment through a form of lateral vio- lence; an animus directed against one’s peers rather than one’s oppressors. Such empow- erment strategies have been disruptive and destructive to constituencies of women.²

References

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