What's the difference between TERFs and mainstream feminists? TERFs dare to treat transwomen how (too many) mainstream feminists treat men.

oggyb · 2021-06-04T00:05:18+00:00

This is a really thought-provoking take.

Of men: Dangerous, overpowered perverts who can't control themselves.

Of trans women: Dangerous, overpowered perverts who can't control themselves.

Feminists and TERFS are seeing a similar thing in two groups of people, but TERFS take it a step further because they're simultaneously stereotyping a vulnerable class and adding the stereotype of the class they don't identify with.

Feminists: men are trash and just want to rape me

TERFS: trans women are men pretending to be women and therefore they just want to rape me.

geeses · 2021-06-04T00:00:02+00:00

I'd say it isn't that they know they treat men badly, but that they are fine with treating men and women differently.

They think treating a women as they treat a man is wrong. To them it is like treating a hamster and a poisonous snake the same.

If you were deadly afraid of poisonous snakes and killed one that came up to you, that's reasonable. Apply the same logic to a hamster and people would think you're insane.

They see men and women as different enough that sort of difference in response is acceptable. There's simply a disagreement over how "woman" is defined.

You're not going to convince them by showing them they treat men badly, the response will be "So what, they deserve it." Instead, convince them that the reasons that they think men should be treated badly aren't logical.

Ok-Dragonfruit-697 · 2021-06-04T02:56:11+00:00

TERFs are just more complete in their hatred for male biology. Non-TERF feminists believe some can be redeemed or reformed, or belong to a different group worthy of sympathy or mercy.

heretik · 2021-06-03T23:59:43+00:00

TERFs believe that transwomen ARE men. That's why they treat them the way they do.

DefiantDepth8932 · 2021-06-04T06:00:21+00:00

Reminds me of how the only problem that the users of AskFeminists seemed to have with the "Men are trash" and "Kill All Men" stuff was that it's a subtle transphobic dogwhistle and not the not-so-subtle sexism, hatred and genocidalism. Transphobia is also the only reason why FDS users are banned there..

Btw I made a meme which expresses this exact same thought.

PARAN01D_R1GHT01D · 2021-06-04T00:09:47+00:00

This is a really good point, and somewhat related to something I was thinking earlier. I see a lot of mainline feminism discussing the murder rate and health care outcomes of transwomen and what a tragedy it is. Many of these outcome are similar to cistgender males. But I was speculating how much of these poor outcomes for transwomen is just a result of their being raised/socialized as men and otherwise experiencing society as a man for many years prior to transitioning. It only now becomes an urgent issue when they've transitioned to being women? And TERFs of course say transwomen are: loud, aggressive, entitled, selfish, potential abusers and rapists. That's exactly what mainstream feminists say about all men, all the time.

Deadlocked02 · 2021-06-04T00:28:17+00:00

I’m gonna go against the tide and say that, based on my own experiences, radfems (AKA gender critical feminists) aren’t nearly as transphobic as they are misandric. Thing is, transphobia is a much more encompassing and accepted term than misandry. Radfems do believe there are only two genders and that you can’t simply opt out of it, but well, so do many MRAs. How they react to such belief varies. The ones I came across personally, while holding disgusting views towards men, didn’t show the same hatred for trans people and were even supportive of their rights. One example is the girl I considered to be my my best friend for years, who happens to be a rad. We probably wouldn’t be friends if I met her today, but I was part of a very progressive bubble when we met and had zero knowledge of the MRA. Given my recent involvement with the MRA, of course I feel each time more uncomfortable about such relationship, though. Anyway, yesterday she shared a post about how gay men should be grateful to black trans woman, as “it was a black trans woman who started Stonewall”. Last month, this same friend shared a post about how she thinks it’s fair that an unemployed man who fails to pay child support goes to jail.

I guess the key question is, what qualifies as transphobia? It’s a very complicated question. Many radfems don’t believe you can simply opt out of your gender and/or have pet peeves with a specific section of the trans community (two examples they often talk about are trans people who feel “triggered” by female conversations about things like menstruation, as well as trans women who, in their opinion, try to shame lesbian women into having sex with them by alleging they are transphobic if they refuse), but are not necessarily opposed to trans rights, such as unisex bathrooms, the right to transition and live free of prejudice, etc. That at least was the case for most of the radfems I met. And then there’s also a huge portion of them who are indeed transphobic and have no shame about it. Usually, the ones who are not transphobic also fail to call them out, truth be said, which could also be an argument to say they’re complicit.

However, I have never met a radfem who didn’t hold extremely hateful ideas towards men. Personally, I think radfem is the most dangerous of all strains of feminism. With libfem’s fading credibility and people growing tired of identity politics and corporative feminism, radfem can really look like an oasis in the middle of the desert. I was a victim of that trap once, much to my dismay and shame. I was lucky enough to see radfem for what it truly is, but it still concerns me to see how radfem rhetoric seems to grow. You see it in the rising number of anti-pornography pages on Facebook and Instagram, you see it in places with anarchist or Marxist leanings that are constantly reproducing radfem discourse (the idpol sub comes to mind). It’s a very hurtful and misguided ideology that only ends up profiting from the craziness of its sister strains, because people who are at odds with their own strain of feminism tend to simply seek another instead of just abandoning it altogether.

Oncefa2 · 2021-06-04T00:14:19+00:00

I like the term MERF to describe the rest of them: Male Exclusionary Radical Feminists.

And the thing is, whether they realize it or not, they are radical feminists. Radical feminism is the belief that society is set up so that men are privileged and women are oppressed (aka that society is a patriarchy). Non-radical feminists, commonly called liberal feminists, do not believe in the patriarchy, nor do they believe that men are oppressing women. These feminists do exist, they're just not all that common anymore, especially online.

MERFs are the original radicals. TERFs and SWERFs were only ever an expansion of that.

Unit_08 · 2021-06-04T16:40:19+00:00

Thank you for putting into words what I've been thinking for years.

BeGayDoThoughtcrime · 2021-06-04T20:18:12+00:00

Yeah this is a big problem. I think it's called gender essentialism by some people. There's not much we can do about people who strongly believe it, but we can try to spread information about how it is harmful and how gender and sex does not define people, to prevent more people from believing in it. We can also voice our disagreement when someone says something like 'men are trash.' Just showing that there are people who aren't that way can go a long way to prevent more converting.

Also just having friends of the other gender can help make us see them as individuals and not a monolith, and help them see us that way too. I make sure to have male and female friends. It won't fix the world but it will help us be less affected by it.

I don't think we can solve the issue completely, but it's not a lost cause. I know some people who used to be misandrists and are not like that anymore, but it had to be because they saw what was wrong and purposefully changed their toxic views. You can't make someone change or see your point of view.

Robble93 · 2021-06-03T23:08:03+00:00

To me it only makes sense that feminists exclude trans women, because trans women can't be hindered in their career by the female reproductive function.

clocksfornipples · 2021-06-04T06:27:06+00:00

What’s wrong with terfs?

edit: Don't understand the downvotes this was a genuine question.

Minerva472 · 2021-06-03T23:50:55+00:00

I'm sorry I don't really understand. Mainstream feminism tried to oppress men in the same way TERFs try to oppress trans people? Could you be a little more specific?

Blauwpetje · 2021-06-04T13:04:53+00:00

TERFS are even more misandrist than other feminists. But the reason the others hate them is that they do believe men are men, and nothing like 'gender is a social construct' etc. In other words, they are hated for the wrong reasons, it's a Judean People's Front - People's Front of Judea - fight.

Old-Compote-9991 · 2021-06-04T00:40:27+00:00

Okay, you'll need to give some examples as to how TERFs treat transwomen and how Feminists tend to argue against them.

I'm not exactly sold on this take.

Title	What's the difference between TERFs and mainstream feminists? TERFs dare to treat transwomen how (too many) mainstream feminists treat men.
Author	Grow_peace_in_Bedlam
Upvotes	264
Comments	109
Date	June 3, 2021 10:36 PM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/nrpzii/whats_the_difference_between_terfs_and_mainstream/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/whats-the-difference-between-terfs-and-mainstream.1061173 https://theredarchive.com/post/1061173

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