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TERF (also written "terf") is an acronym for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist". The word is applied those who exclude trans women from womanhood and women's spaces. Supporters of the word see it as descriptive and politically neutral, while opponents find it to be a slur.

Coinage and meaning

Feminist blogger Viv Smythe (also known as Tigtog) is credited with coining the term in 2008 as an online shorthand. It is primarily used to describe feminists who oppose the inclusion of trans women in women's spaces and organizations, or who dispute that trans women are women. These parties are a minority within feminism and are often considered to be transphobic. In a 2014 interview with The TransAdvocate, Smythe noted:

"It was meant to be a deliberately technically neutral description of an activist grouping. We wanted a way to distinguish TERFs from other RadFems with whom we engaged who were trans*-positive/neutral, because we had several years of history of engaging productively/substantively with non-TERF RadFems."

Opposition to the word

Feminists who exclude trans women from womanhood and women's spaces refer to themselves as gender critical. They object to being labeled as TERFs, calling it inaccurate (citing, for example, their inclusion of trans men as women), and arguing the term to be a slur or even hate speech. Journalist and commentator Sarah Ditum, writing for the New Statesman in 2017, said the term was too widely used, writing that "the bar to being called a 'terf' is remarkably low". Claire Heuchan, criticizing the 2017 deplatforming of Linda Bellos from Cambridge University on grounds of her perceived transphobia, wrote that the word was often used alongside violent rhetoric, and the word was used to dehumanize women who are critical of gender. She added that the term obscured who was responsible for violence against transgender people: "The term 'terf' and the violent rhetoric that often accompanies it only serve to obscure the reality: women and trans people alike are targets of male violence. To make radical feminists the villains is to blame men's violence on women's thoughts."

In August 2018, seven doctors of philosophy, in a guest piece for the philosophy news site Daily Nous, expressed concern for the normalization of the term in two articles by McKinnon and another scholar published in the journal Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. They described the term as "at worst a slur and at best derogatory". The editors of the journal responded that " did not escape the attention of the editor responsible for the publication of this article, who consulted with several senior distinguished scholars in the relevant field, whose consensus view was that though the term in question might evolve to become a slur, the denigrating uses that you have exhibited are on a par with denigrating uses of 'Jew' and many other terms, and quite compatible with its having a descriptive meaning".

Sociolinguist Deborah Cameron noted in 2016 that the word had evolved from all caps to lower case, and from functioning as an acronym to an ordinary word. She concluded that it "does not meet all the criteria that have been proposed for defining a word as a slur, but it does meet most of them at least partially." She said that it is used "in a kind of discourse which has clear similarities with hate-speech ... it seems to me impossible to maintain that it is 'just a neutral description'." In June 2018, a graphic T-shirt was removed from Teespring for featuring the words "FUCK TERFS". The commerce site cited their policy on hate speech in making their decision. Writing of a July 2018 event sponsored by The Economist, H.J. London specified they would "avoid all slurs, including TERF", citing its usage to silence debate, particularly from women."

Responses to opposition

Trans activists have advocated that the term is not a slur. Writing for The TransAdvocate, Cristan Williams argued that the term references "a brand of 'radical feminism' that is so rooted in sex essentialism and its resulting biologism, it actively campaigns against the existence, equality, and/or inclusion of trans people." Trans feminist and author Julia Serano has argued that, because the word was originally created by radical feminists as a neutral term, it cannot be a slur, and "if the term has since accrued negative connotations, it is simply because most contemporary feminists view trans-exclusion as invalid, and TERF rhetoric as unnecessarily disparaging". YouTuber Natalie Wynn has asserted the word is not a slur because "it targets bigoted behavior and beliefs, not a type of person" and also that the insistence on this point is hypocritical because "most of the language used by TERFs is specifically designed to be maximally hurtful, harmful, and insulting to trans people". Philosopher of language Rachel McKinnon has also maintained the word is not a slur, nor even pejorative by itself, because it can be used in a purely descriptive way, while slurs and all derogatory terms are necessarily derogatory in all contexts.

Linguists Christopher David and Elin McCready, writing in a 2018 paper for the University of the Ryukyus and Aoyama Gakuin University, argued that three properties make a term a slur: it must be derogatory towards a particular group, it must be used to subordinate them within some structure of power relations, and the derogated group must be defined by an intrinsic property. In their discussion of the term, they wrote that it satisfies the first condition, fails the third condition, and that the second condition is contentious, in that it depends on how each group sees itself in relation to the other group.

See also

• Feminist theory
• Feminist views on transgender topics
• Fighting words
• Freedom of thought

References

1. Smythe, Viv (2018-11-28). "I'm credited with having coined the word 'Terf'. Here's how it happened". The Guardian. Retrieved 2019-04-13. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
2. Ditum, Sarah (2017-09-29). "What is a Terf? How an internet buzzword became a mainstream slur". New Statesman. Retrieved 2019-04-13. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
3. O'Connell, Jennifer (2019-01-26). "Transgender for beginners: Trans, terf, cis and safe spaces". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2019-04-24. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
4. Wordsworth, Dot (2018-05-05). "Terf wars and the ludicrous lexicon of feminist theory". The Spectator. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
5. ^ Flaherty, Colleen (2018-08-29). "'TERF' War – Philosophers object to a journal's publication 'TERF,' in reference to some feminists. Is it really a slur?". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 2019-04-12. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
6. ^ Dalbey, Alex (2018-08-12). "TERF wars: Why trans-exclusionary radical feminists have no place in feminism". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2019-01-27. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
7. Goldberg, Michelle (2014-08-04). "What Is a Woman?". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2015-11-20. TERF stands for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist." The term can be useful for making a distinction with radical feminists who do not share the same position, but those at whom it is directed consider it a slur.
8. Dastagir, Alia (2017-03-16). "A feminist glossary because we didn't all major in gender studies". USA Today. Retrieved 2019-04-24. TERF: The acronym for "trans exclusionary radical feminists," referring to feminists who are transphobic.
9. Williams, Cristan (2016-05-01). "Radical Inclusion: Recounting the Trans Inclusive History of Radical Feminism". Duke University Press. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
10. Goldberg, Michelle (2015-12-09). "The Trans Women Who Say That Trans Women Aren't Women". Slate. Retrieved 2019-04-12. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
11. ^ Vasquez, Tina (2014-02-17). "It's Time to End the Long History of Feminism Failing Transgender Women". Bitch Media. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
12. ^ Serano, Julia (n.d.). "TERFs". Retrieved 2019-04-21.
13. MacDonald, Terry (2015-02-16). "Are you now or have you ever been a TERF?". New Statesman America. Retrieved 2019-04-13. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
14. Compton, Julie (2019-01-14). "'Pro-lesbian' or 'trans-exclusionary'? Old animosities boil into public view". NBC News. Retrieved 2019-03-19. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
15. Goldberg, Michelle (2014-08-04). "What Is a Woman?". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2015-11-20. TERF stands for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist." The term can be useful for making a distinction with radical feminists who do not share the same position, but those at whom it is directed consider it a slur.
16. Ditum, Sarah (2017-09-29). "What is a Terf? How an internet buzzword became a mainstream slur". New Statesman. Retrieved 2019-04-13. On the other hand, if you are a feminist, the bar to being called a "terf" is remarkably low. Woman's Hour presenter Jenni Murray achieved it by writing an article in which she pointed out that someone born and raised male will not have the same experiences of sexism as a woman; novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie likewise made the grade by answering "transwomen are transwomen" when asked whether she believed that "transwomen are women". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
17. ^ Heuchan, Claire (2017-10-06). "If feminist Linda Bellos is seen as a risk, progressive politics has lost its way". The Guardian. Terf stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. Online, it often it appears alongside violent rhetoric: punch a Terf, stab a Terf, kill a Terf. This language is used to dehumanise women who are critical of gender as part of a political system. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
18. ^ Weinberg, Justin (2018-08-27). "Derogatory Language in Philosophy Journal Risks Increased Hostility and Diminished Discussion". Daily Nous. Retrieved 2019-03-19. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
19. Cameron, Deborah (2016-11-06). "What makes a word a slur?". language: a feminist guide. Retrieved 2019-01-21.
20. Valens, Ana (2018-06-06). "Transgender designer says she was banned by Teespring for anti-transphobic designs". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2019-03-19. Teespring argued the use of 'TERFS' 'violates our Hate Speech section of our acceptable use policy.' {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
21. London, H.J. (2018-06-29). "Transgender identities: a series of invited essays". The Economist. Retrieved 2019-03-19. "In the interests of fostering open debate we have set ground rules, both for essays and reader comments: use the pronouns people want you to use, and avoid all slurs, including TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), which may have started as a descriptive term but is now used to try
22. Williams, Cristan (2013-09-24). "You might be a TERF if ..." The TransAdvocate. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
23. Wynn, Natalie (2019-03-30). "Gender Critical / Contrapoints". YouTube. Retrieved 2019-04-21.
24. McKinnon, Rachel (2017-05-24). "Trans 101 #4: 'TERF' is Not a Slur". YouTube. Retrieved 2019-04-22.
25. Davis, Christopher; McCready, Elin (2018-11-19). "The Instability of Slurs" (PDF). Semantics Archive. Retrieved 2019-04-24.

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