:PROPERTIES:
:ID:       af44dd54-fa7a-4ced-bba9-85b5a295715e
:ROAM_REFS: cite:RuthPearceSonjaErikainen1978
:END:
#+TITLE: Terf wars: an introduction

* Race and Gender

#+begin_quote
These discourses have racist undertones, as the implicit whiteness of the women
who are the subject of protection means that racialised and especially Black
women and nonbinary people are more likely to be considered dangerously
masculine (Patel, 2017). This is due to the enduring colonial legacies that have
long defined racialised women as the unfeminine or ‘masculine’ contrast to white
women’s presumed ‘natural’ femininity (see e.g. McClintock, 2013). Racialised
women (cis and trans alike), non-binary and intersex people are especially
likely to be rendered ‘gender suspect’ due to discourses that position bodies of
colour as gender deviant in relation to white body norms (Gill-Peterson,2018;
Snorton, 2017).
#+end_quote

#+begin_quote
It is disproportionately cis people (both women and men) who are dangerous to,
and perpetrators of violence against, trans women, not the other way around
(Bachman & Gooch, 2018; Hasenbush et al., 2019). In this way, trans-exclusionary
feminist politics can work to erase forms of gendered and racialised violence.
#+end_quote

* TERF / Gender-Critical
#+begin_quote
Notably, while many (but not all) trans people and allies describe
trans-exclusionary feminist campaigners as ‘[[id:b08fb6b0-aedf-4066-ba3c-ca03aa323d33][TERFs]]’, the campaigners themselves
generally object to this acronym. In recent years, many have preferred to call
themselves ‘gender critical’ – a term that denotes, less a critical approach to
gender, and more an emphasis on claiming ‘biologically defined’ notions of
femaleness and womanhood over gender identity and social concepts of gender. In
addition to attacking trans people’s right to access public toilets in line with
their sex/gender presentation, ‘gender critical’ feminists have criticised
social developments such as LGBTIQ-inclusive school education and positive media
representations of trans people. Increasingly, they argue that such developments
result from what they call ‘gender ideology’ (see e.g. 4thWaveNow, 2019).
#+end_quote

* Terminology
#+begin_quote
In understanding the current landscape of trans-exclusionary feminist politics,
the terminology used by different parties in the debates is central, and
constitutes a challenge for analysing trans-exclusionary discourses. This is
because language is being deliberately used to include, exclude, and/or denote
power relations: for example, trans-inclusive feminist writers tend to prefer
the term ‘trans women’, because this implies that a trans woman is a kind of
woman (like ‘gay woman’). ‘Gender critical’ writers, however, generally use
‘transwomen’ and avoid using ‘cis’, which can (implicitly or explicitly) exclude
trans women from the general category ‘women’, by conflating ‘women’ with ‘cis
women’.
#+end_quote

#+begin_quote
Cisgender (or cis) is a descriptive term indicating people who are not trans
and/or whose experience of gender corresponds with their assignment at birth. In
use since as early as 1992, the term has come to replace terms such as
‘not-trans’, ‘born-women/men’, ‘biological women/men’ or ‘natural women/men’,
ultimately serving a neutralising function. In resistance to this, many ‘gender
critical’ activists claim that cis (like TERF) is a slur. Recognition of the
limitations of a trans/cis binary have been academically articulated (e.g. Enke,
2013).
#+end_quote

#+begin_quote
Certainly, TERF (like ‘cis’) is often used in angry commentaries online by both
cis and trans feminists, either as an accusation (e.g. ‘you’re a TERF’) or an
insult (e.g. ‘fuck off TERF’). Yet, it is important to understand and account
for the power dynamic at play here. In examples such as those above, members of
a marginalised group and their allies seek to identify, and express anger or
frustration at, a harmful ideology that is promoted primarily by and in the
interests of those who are systemically privileged as cis (men as well as
women.)
#+end_quote
* ‘Gender critical’ feminism in the post-truth era
#+begin_quote
It is increasingly argued that we are living in a ‘post-truth’ era, where
 conventional notions of expertise and the epistemic status of facts are
 fragmenting, exemplified by the proliferation of so-called fake news especially
 in digital spaces (Marres, 2018). As an unprecedented number of people have
 access to the internet and social media where they can read and circulate
 information of all kinds, numerous differently positioned knowledge claims now
 coexist digitally. Indeed, it has been argued that many people are abandoning
 conventional criteria of evidence in favour of alternative knowledges and
 beliefs (Lewandowsky et al., 2017).
#+end_quote
* Appeals to science
#+begin_quote
By appealing to ‘biology’, authorities lay claim to the ‘neutrality’ and
‘objectivity’ of science – a claim that has public appeal even if it has been
contested in social scientific and humanities scholarship for decades (e.g.
Haraway, 1988; Spanier, 1995). Yet, the authority of ‘science’ allows
‘biological truths’ about sex difference to be presented as incontestable
realities trumping (merely ‘social’) gender.
#+end_quote

#+begin_quote
‘Gender critical’ feminists are constructing and mobilising very particular,
contested versions of biological ‘facts’ that are also lending support to the
politics of anti-feminist organisations.
#+end_quote