The march through the institutions
I happened on this piece from the National Women’s Law Center last June. I don’t think I saw it or shared it at the time (a word search turns up too many items to check). Apologies if this is a revisit.
Happy Pride, the title tells us. Don’t Be a TERF, it adds.
Women’s Law Center, putting men in dresses ahead of women.
The content is asinine.
It feels like every day there’s a new attack on trans people—whether it’s a ban on medical care for trans youth or legislation making drag shows illegal.
What do drag shows have to do with trans people? Trans isn’t drag. Haven’t they been told?
Anti-trans rhetoric is currently taking center stage in the news and online, and unfortunately, some of these transphobic talking points are being repeated by well-meaning but misinformed people.
Many people have been exposed to—or even use—this harmful ideology disguised as feminism without even knowing it. Whether you know what a TERF is or not, you should know that they’re using every trick in their book to get you on their side.
That is truly sinister, ugly stuff. Protocols of the Elders of Zion level sinister and ugly. You’d think we were plotting genocide.
To save you from that fate, we’re breaking down how we got to this moment and why you can’t support women and be a TERF at the same time.
Putting it in bold doesn’t make it true.
What is a TERF? they ask on our behalf.
The technical definition of a TERF is a trans-exclusionary radical feminist. Most TERFs came to their ideology via second-wave feminism that radicalized into the lie that trans people are a threat to women.
That’s a staggeringly impoverished definition, especially from a group of lawyers. What is meant by “trans-exclusionary”? People who don’t know what “terf” means aren’t going to know what these fools mean by “trans-exclusionary radical feminist.” What ideology? What is second-wave feminism? What do you mean “radicalized”? And finally the idiotic over-simplification of the final sentence.
Some language to look out for: TERFs often self-identify as “gender critical” or as an “adult human female.” They believe in “sex-based rights,” “LGB rights,” and “protecting women and girls;” they call trans people “trans rights activists,” “the trans lobby,” “the trans debate,” and call trans women “TIMs” (Trans Identified Males).
Ooooh I’ll look out for that. Wait. Why will I look out for it? What’s wrong with it? What’s wrong with identifying as “gender critical” or as an “adult human female”? What’s wrong with believing in “sex-based rights,” “LGB rights,” and “protecting women and girls”? Doesn’t the Women’s Law Center believe in those things? If not why not?
It doesn’t get any more intelligent as it goes on. It’s mind-bendingly sub-literate, clunky, barren of thought, bossy, insulting, and dishonest. It makes Chase Strangio look reasonable in comparison.
The authors are Lark Lewis, Senior Manager of Creative and Digital Strategies, and Jordan Reynolds, Manager of Creative and Digital Strategies, Social Media. They must have a combined mental age of 15.
“…staggeringly impoverished definition,..”
On top of that, it isn’t even a definition – it’s just stating what the acronym stands for.
Exactly. It’s the same when people argue against the manipulation of kids into so-called ‘trans healthcare’, there is always the sarcastic ‘Oh, won’t someone think of the children!’ as if concern for the welfare of minors is something to be derided. They take perfectly reasonable – and sometimes necessary – opinions, ideas and actions and frame them as ‘bad things’, yet never get round to explaining exactly why they’re bad. Even when it’s written one can hear the sarcastic ‘sPonGEbOB’ voice in their words.
Actually, that’s been dropped down the memory hole along with the war with Eastasia. “Trans” now encompasses the group that used to be called transsexuals (ie, those who went through years of therapy, then more years of hormone treatments, before finally getting a doctor to sign off on surgical procedures), transvestites, cross-dressers, crossplayers (cosplay is simply dressing up in a costume of a favored fictional character; some cosplayers like or admire characters of the opposite sex and dress up as them; while the results are often comic more than anything, the admiration is usually sincere, and it’s a shame that a boy can’t, for instance, opt to emulate Wonder Woman’s ideals of peace through strength and compassion, or Batgirl’s cunning and idealism, without being told he’s now a girl), drag queens, tomboys, effeminate men, and any individual who decides that there’s some advantage to getting their gender status changed, even if they have no intention of adopting dress or mannerisms associated with their new gender.
This strategy of inflation through definition is common among religious groups; American Christians, particularly those who want to change the law to favor their interpretation of the writings of 2000-year-dead goatherders, will often use shifting definitions of “Christian” to make their positions seem more populist than they really are.
I call it ‘umbrellaing’, and it’s really just another form of forced teaming.