One of the funny things about the conspiracy theories made about "TERFs" is that they are frequently totally, bizarrely contradictory. I had to start compiling some of them, lol.
First: Gender critical women love abortion and are indoctrinating young white women into aborting male fetuses. But also, gender critical women are pro-lifers intent on removing abortion access for all women.
Zionists are all TERFs. But also, TERFs are antisemites putting coded antisemitic messages into their works on gender theory.
TERFs are fascists. But also, TERFs are tied to radical environmentalist groups that oppose the entirety of Western Civilization and explicitly call race an evil settler construct.
TERFs are coldhearted intellectuals who put intellectual theorizing over compassion. But also, TERFs are just hysterical bigots.
TERFs hate homosexuals. But also, TERFs are all man-hating lesbians who want an Amazonian society.
TERFs are conventionally attractive cis women who want to restrict womanhood to conventionally attractive cis women. But also TERFs are all ugly themselves.
TERFs are anti-sex prudes. But also, TERFs are sexual perverts obsessed with genitals.
TERFs are an outgrowth of the skeptic/ New Atheist movement. But also, TERFs are the paid minions of Evangelical Christians.
A couple more: TERF arguments are transparent and easily disproven. But also, TERFs are masters of seeming reasonable and their arguments are hard to refute.
TERFs are minor and insignificant. But also, TERFs are a powerful political lobby activating JK Rowling as a political cover for genocide.
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A lot of leftist radfems who got involved in this fight 18 months ago are really worried that feminists' strategic alliances with conservatives might "hurt our credibility" with the left. Well, leftists were threatening to rape and kill us back in Dworkin's day too.
This mentality is classic gaslighting, and honestly it's a coping mechanism. The leftists who show up with baseball bats to women's meetings are not waiting to see whether you are sufficiently politically pure to decide whether they want to work with you or beat you up.
I hate to say it but I think a lot of women desperately *want* to be able to say the left hates them not for their GC views but because of those "other bad women" who weren't doing it right. Women are often socialized to blame the bad woman and not the actual abuser.
Lately I've noticed an interesting trend among trans "philosophers": they say that while they believe in sexual reproduction and secondary sex characteristics, they do not believe in a sex binary, and do not think "male" and "female" are meaningful terms to describe people.
Their exact position is intended to be confusing, but they seem to be resuscitating the old philosophical position of nominalism.
Nominalism states that only particulars are ontologically real. That is, in our universe there are people with XX chromosomes, and there are people with uteri, but there exists no abstract "natural kind" called female that can be instantiated in a person.