One thing I would like to explore, but is most likely too complex for me to tackle on my own, or all at once, is the popularity of the word TERF as a tool against feminism as a whole. This will be explored, of course, from a trans positive point of view.

My main point of interest is one brought up by Alice Cappelle in her recent video “Who gets to reclaim slurs?” (which you should definitely watch - I won’t repeat all of her points verbatim but they’re more than worth listening to).

Viv Smythe, who is credited with having coined the term TERF in 2008 (although she claims that it is likely she was merely the first one to use it on a blog that still exists, source: TheGuardian), meant the term as a “deliberately technically neutral description of an activist grouping”. She adds “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.” (Quote: TransAdvocate)
In a comment published on one of her own blog posts about the topic of trans-exclusionary feminists in 2008, Smythe added: “After a bit more reading, I think the trans-exclusionary set should better be describe[d] as TES, with the S standing for separatists. A lot of the positions that are presented seem far too essentialist to be adequately described as feminist, let alone radical feminist.” In her article on TheGuardian in 2018, she mentioned that the term “TES” didn’t catch on, theorising that the term wasn’t ambiguous enough to.

In her video, Alice Cappelle brings up the way in which the acronym “TERF” has been reclaimed by those we now view as TERFs. Alice proposes: "They took advantage of the fact that they were still referred to as feminists to position themselves as the minority within the movement." She uses the Twitter profiles of self-proclaimed TERFs as examples - they use positive terms such as “happy lil TERF” and cutesy heart emojis in the colours of the suffragette flag. (A term with a history of having been reclaimed, as she mentioned in passing earlier in the video.) She goes on to describe that “[...] their feminism is super limited. 90% of what they do is comment on pro-trans videos, articles, tweets, and it's always the exact same thing: "We don't know what a woman is anymore" and "Why do we say people who menstruate, and not women?"”

In fact, in my experience, many so-called TERFs - whether they reclaimed the term or are being called such by another party - are not actively feminists, if they are feminists at all. In many cases, the acronym is used to describe any transphobe who turns out to be a cis woman. Recently, a YouTuber I watch regularly (...whom I will not name for this is not meant to be a call-out post), a cis lesbian whose content and public image show a history of being a trans ally, misspoke about a trans man she had read about. While it is evident that I can’t speak for her true opinions and intentions, it immediately struck me when I saw commenters claim it might turn out that she’s a TERF. Having watched this YouTuber for years, I recall her mentioning in older videos that she didn’t involve herself with feminism, and I certainly don’t recall her content being specifically feminist. There is, in fact, no argument to be made whatsoever that she’s a radical feminist; though I mentioned the claim that she wasn’t involved in feminism came from older content, there exists a chance that she still doesn’t take the time to educate herself on feminism, period. Yet, when these commenters saw the possibility that she was transphobic, they used the word “TERF”. My question is: why? Is it because she’s a woman, or perhaps because she’s a lesbian? Is being sapphic now synonymous to being a radical feminist? Because that sounds to me like a can of worms I don’t even want to touch.
In truth, the history of lesbianism and political lesbianism is also a complex issue, which I won’t explore in-depth for the time being (though I will clarify that I’m very much criticising the idea that just because a woman is attracted to women in the year 2022, she should automatically be labelled a feminist), but I will express worry that people, many of them queer, I assume, being this YouTuber’s viewers, are willing to turn against lesbians and feminists - and that worry is one of the main sources for my wondering about the impact of using “TERF” as an insult against women.

As a note, I will add that I don’t align this train of thought with the debate of “TERF“ being a slur. As philosophy of language professor Veronica Ivy mentions: “The idea—it seems to be—is that ‘TERF’ is a term used to denigrate women, and so it is a slur. However, this is an absurd, nonsensical view of the nature of slurs.” (Source: The Epistemology of Propaganda, PhilPapers) While I may bring up the problematic ways in which any word that can describe women and/or feminism negatively winds up being used against any and all women, claiming that “TERF” is a slur is also a blatant misuse of the word “slur”. In criticising TERFs’ claims that the acronym be a slur, Ivy mentions: “[Radical feminists who don’t accept trans women as women] were labeled by fellow (cisgender) radical feminists as TERFs. This point is important, since many contemporary TERFs accuse trans women of coining the phrase/term—and, ludicrously, claim that ‘TERF’ is a misogynistic slur.” Ultimately, the “TERF is a slur” debate is one based in ignorance, if not full-on lies.

In her article Radical Inclusion - Recounting the Trans Inclusive History of Radical Feminism (source: TransAdvocate), trans historian Cristan Williams describes the blatant misuse of pioneering radical feminist opinion leader Andrea Dworkin’s work by TERF activist Sheila Jeffrey. “While she credited Dworkin as being her inspiration and spoke at length about Dworkin’s pioneering book, Woman Hating, she also denigrated the bodies of trans women and asserted trans medical care to be unnecessary. During her entire presentation, Jeffreys never once noted that—in the very book Jeffreys cited as being the inspiration for her activism—Dworkin advocated that trans people be given free access to trans medical care or that Dworkin viewed gender identity research as being subversive to patriarchy.”
In the same article, Williams uses the example of Olivia Records, a radical feminist lesbian separatist music collective described as the pioneer to the 1970s-era women’s music movement, which “was itself trans inclusive, and [...] paid for trans medical care.” As she explains, Olivia [Records] endured “threats of boycott and violence from TERF activists who demanded that the collective become trans exclusionary”. Sandy Stone, a trans woman member of Olivia, was regularly threatened, and it culminated when a TERF group named The Gorgons came to a show in Seattle with guns, to be thankfully stopped by Olivia security - which had been seriously increased due to their violent threats.

What becomes evident to me is that radical feminists and TERFs are not and historically haven’t been synonymous. It cannot be denied, however, that trans-exclusionary subgroups have always existed near radical feminists, and nowadays transphobic women continue to co-opt the name, despite arguably putting less and less effort in appearing feminist at all. That being said, TERFs have always been, and continue to be a hateful group with every intent to harm other, non-transphobic feminists (and let’s not forget their willingness to perpetuate violence against trans women directly). By claiming to be the “true” radical feminists, not only do they undermine the image of the movement, but they also give themselves otherwise non-existent credibility.
My argument is: by forgetting that TERFs are, in fact, not representative of historical radical feminists, we are being played by them and contributing to harming feminism and radical feminism as a whole. By letting transphobes rewrite history (as if they don’t do that enough already), we are contributing to a world in which feminism will be misinterpreted as transphobic and, as such, passé - a movement to leave behind as humanity becomes less ignorant. To cite Cristan Williams once more: “When promoting the idea that TERF activism is radical feminism itself, it becomes difficult to clearly see the courage of the women of Olivia who endured months of threats of boycott and violence from TERF activists who demanded that the collective become trans exclusionary.”

By exploring this question, I have myself learned more about radical feminism. The truth is, I had been led to believe to a certain degree that TERFs were the only radical feminists. While I dissociated them from the word feminism on its own - which fewer and fewer people even attempt to do nowadays - I had come to view “radical feminism” as synonymous with “trans-exclusionary radical feminism”. While I still have much to learn about the presence of current trans-positive/neutral radical feminist groups, I am now better informed about the history of the movement. To be honest, this will be a helpful tool to me, a cis woman, when cis men are ~nice enough~ to accept that I’m a feminist, but still have to remind me that “feminists have a history of being radical”. With my pre-existing knowledge of the strides allowed by radical feminists - even those with views that may not hold up today - it will be easier for me to defend our history and current positions now that I’m clearly aware that transphobes were never representative of radical feminism, and even strived to hurt it. Transphobes, or trans-exclusionary separatists (TES) as Viv Smythe put it in 2008, were always a hateful group of their own, with a historical wish to absorb radical feminists indeed, but no success or direct link whatsoever; our goal should be to ensure they still do not succeed.

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