The term TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist) is a misleading label to place on radfems because it implies that our politics revolves around hatred towards trans people, namely trans "women" when radical feminism is actually about the liberation of women.
The reason why we are vocal about our criticism of the current state of trans activism is because of how it negatively affects women and lesbians. As of currently, gender identity politics has been increasing with popularity. As many people may already know, gender identity is...
..."a person's perception of having a particular gender, which may or may not correspond with their birth sex". This ideology is being used to justify trans women being centered in the feminist movement, even though they do not experience misogyny. Gender identity...
...erases women's ability to talk about sex-based oppression and the root of women's oppression is male control over women's reproductive ability. (This is evident when men make laws about whether or not women can have abortions, when society tells girls that they will...
...inevitably become mothers as if it is destiny, when men make laws about women's access to birth control, etc.) As a result, any important conversation that women have about their oppression will inevitably lead to women being called bigots by trans activists because...
...trans activists believe that they are "excluding" trans women. Any serious conversation women have with each other about their experience as females will be exclusionary by nature because only females experience this type of oppression. Therefore, the feminist movement is...
...held back by gender identity politics. Also, the definition of gender, accepted by both TRAs and radfems is:
"either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. The term is also used more broadly to denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female.
The way radfems interpret this definition is that gender refers to the social and cultural differences between men and women. The social and cultural differences between men and women is masculinity and femininity because men and women are expected to behave differently...
...in society. Radfems also acknowledge the fact that the term "gender" is used to "denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female." These identities are also known as "non-binary" genders. However, there is no reason for there to be..
..non-binary genders at all because gender is based on societal expectations for the sexes and a lot of the time, people identify as non-binary because they are gender non-conforming. It would make more sense for there to be no gender at all since men and women should not be...
...expected to behave differently in society because of their sex. Also, women and men aren't genders, they are sex categories. Male and female are sexes and "woman" means: "an adult human female" and "man" means: "an adult human male". Saying that "man" and "woman" are genders..
..implies that men are inherently masculine and women are inherently feminine because, as we understand, gender is the social and cultural differences between men and women and those social differences are masculinity and femininity. The idea that men are inherently masculine...
..and women are inherently feminine is what upholds gender roles. Sex is innate and biological, not something that you can choose but gender can be eradicated since it is a social construct. Because of trans activism, women are losing understanding of the root of...
...their oppression because women are starting to think that they are oppressed because of their femininity (which is gender). Women are starting to think that their oppression is gender-based rather than sex-based which causes women to believe that being feminine is "empowering"
and feminist when all it is is conforming to gender expectations. Additionally, gender is a hierarchy. Femininity socializes women to see themselves as inferior to men because femininity teaches women that the most important aspects to being a woman were being beautiful and...
...submissive. Women center their self-esteem around being beautiful more so than any other trait because of this even though beauty is not a measure of how good you are as a person. Masculinity socializes men to view themselves as superior to women, and to be dominant.
Trans women experience male socialization because they were born male. Trans men experience female socialization because they were born female. We have our own ideology outside of transgender politics but the reason why we still concern ourselves with gender identity politics...
...is because if we don't, then no one will and feminism will be held back for possibly decades. I understand that sex dysphoria is real but wishing to be the opposite sex is not the same as actually being a member of that sex and it is extremely unfair for trans women...
...to expect women to accommodate for them in a female-centric movement (feminism). Women are expected to carry everyone's burdens and this is proven to be true when liberal feminists say that "feminism is for everybody" and that "feminism is for men too!"
Feminism is only for women because we fight to eradicate female oppression. If we don't know what a woman is, how are we going to be able to fight to protect them?
