“I don’t look like an electrical engineer, but I’m in charge of power continuity in Manhattan. Don’t get me wrong— I have a boss. But I’m the only black woman who is the shift manager of a control room. So when it’s my shift, I’m running shit. And I’m proud of that.”
and i dont like when people try to act like there’s a big distinction between legally/ilegally dating a teenager. like if the legal age of consent is 16 and you’re 20+ pursuing 16 year olds, you’re still a creepy predator and the fact that it’s “legal” doesn’t minimises the severity of your behaviour
romulandefector asked: Oof, just when I'd thought I'd seen every acronym, another pops up... Could you explain what Terf is? I've never heard of it. *_*
TERF stands for Trans Exclusionary Feminist. Another term for them is TWEF, or Trans Woman Exclusionary Feminist.
The two words I think are most accurate to describe them are transmisogynistic and transphobic.
Terfs have existed for decades as a part of the Feminist movement that specifically hate trans people, and trans women most of all. Historically they have been conditionally accepting of trans men who agree with them on political issues. Their anti-trans rhetoric has had a huge negative effect on transmisogyny & transphobia in the Feminist movement, and has served to make transmisogyny & transphobia worse in society at large.
One of the most notable works in TERF rhetoric (aka transphobic hate speech) is the book The Transsexual Empire (1979).
The popularity of this book & the ideology that sprang from it & other terfs means that I can’t really trust cis feminists (“liberal” feminists or “radical” feminists) unless I’ve seen some explicit proof that they aren’t a transmisogynist bigot. (Although I have the same mistrust of men in general lol.) Terfs who don’t want to be called terfs usually call themselves a “radical” feminist or “radfem” or “gender-critical.”
The TERF political agenda as far as I can tell is to increase violence against trans women by opposing our civil rights, and creating feminist discourse & events that exclude trans women (even while conditionally allowing trans men).
The violence of TERF ideology is structural when there are privileged, decision-making “feminists” who hold those views. But I have no doubt that the structural exclusion of trans women from all safe spaces (including battered women’s homeless shelters) inevitably leads to physical violence being committed against trans women.
Anyway it’s a complicated issue. I do think that the visibility of trans women has really increased in recent years and so perhaps there will be a decrease in bigotry soon… But such things are a cold comfort when trans women of color & especially black trans women are currently encountering an epidemic of violence.
