“A woman is anyone who identifies as a woman!”

A) You can’t define a word using that same word.

B)What does it mean to “identify as a woman?” What makes up the woman identity? You can’t answer this without being sexist.

“You’re reducing women to their genitals!”

A) The term “adult human female” has nothing to do with genitals. Sex is based on gametes, not genitals. For example: if a man loses his penis in some accident, he’s still male.

B) It’s not “reducing” to say that women are female. If we say that humans have two arms and legs, we aren’t “reducing humans to their limbs.” You know what is reducing women to their genitals, though? Terms like “people with vaginas” and “menstruators.”

“What about intersex people?”

Intersex people, now known as people with DSDs, are still male or female. There is no third sex because there is no third gamete.

“You’re reducing women down to baby making machines!”

The dictionary definition of female is: “of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) that can be fertilized by male gametes.” The word CAN is important here. While not every female person is able to become pregnant, they are part of the only sex that CAN. So, not all females can get pregnant, but absolutely no males can.

“You’re just like the Nazis and the far right!”

A) Radical feminists support abortion, female separatism, abolishing gender roles, intersectionality, gay rights, and (sometimes) antinatalism. The far right and Nazis do not support these things- and if they did, it would be for different reasons than radfems do.

B) You might be thinking of the people doing Nazi salutes at Posie Parker’s rally. While Parker is gender critical, she is not a radical feminist (or a feminist at all) and therefore not a TERF. So this argument doesn’t apply to us.

“Feminism should be intersectional and include trans women!”

You’re right that feminism should be intersectional. It’s important to acknowledge that, while women are all oppressed on the basis of sex, there are other ways that women face oppression and have privilege. The term Intersectionality was coined by a Black woman (Kimberle Crenshaw) to discuss how WOC have different experiences than White women, and the term has now expanded to include gay women, disabled women, and poor women. Trans women, however, are not included here because they are not female. Feminism is for female people.

“Not accepting people will make them kill themselves!”

Threatening suicide if someone doesn’t agree with you or do something for you is a common emotional manipulation tactic. This sentence is abusive. I am not responsible for someone else’s mental health. Also, someone who attempts suicide because someone didn’t affirm them online should not be on social media at all.

“TERFs are causing violence and killing trans people!”

Trans women are overwhelmingly killed by men, often homophobic men. You should be focusing your energy on these predatory, violent males, not young women quoting Dworkin on Tumblr.

“There is a trans genocide!”

A) No.

B) Many people from groups who have faced genocide in the past have come out and stated how offensive this “trans genocide” rhetoric is.

C) The dictionary definition of genocide is: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.” As of right now, there is not a mass murder of trans people going on. States banning “gender affirming care” is not genocide.

“Kids aren’t getting surgery and hormones! This doesn’t happen!”

Okay, so if it doesn’t happen, why is it a problem if it’s not allowed?

Are you male or female?

If you’re male, you were socialized to be masculine.

If you’re female, you were socialized to be feminine.

You’re forced into a pretty narrow box based on your sex, not just by your parents, but by society at large. You can’t escape it. None of us can. It’s in books, television, movies, magazines, radio, and theater. It’s enforced at school and work, in medicine and science, in psychology, and just about every field you can think of. You see it your neighborhood, in the city, the suburbs, and out in the country. It’s everywhere, engrained into our culture, laws, attitudes, forming the very foundations of our society.

It’s a social construct because it was socially constructed, enforced, and refined over time by society and everyone in it. It can differ by culture, country, and time period, but the end result is always the same, without fail.

Now that you have some basic awareness of gender, you get to choose what you do next.

Do you:

A) Acknowledge that gender is fake and harmful, an oppressive construct created by men for men to benefit men and oppress women. Embrace that being a man or woman means nothing but the state of being male or female, and that gender roles/stereotypes are artificial. They’re not found in nature. Society is wrong. Gender isn’t real. It’s enforced. Women are not weaker, nor inferior to men. We are not innately feminine. We are not born with a preference for high heels, makeup, or a desire to be dominated by men. That’s a man-made lie. Men are not superior. They are not born hallow shells unable to express emotions with a preference for cars and the color blue. That’s another man-made lie. Sex and gender are not the same. They only seem connected because we as a society keep pretending they are. Remove humans from society, and you’ll see the only differences between men and women are biological, and that’s only for reproductive purposes, which we as human beings don’t even have to do any more if we don’t want to. Realize all this, and work together and talk with other members of your sex to overcome the oppressive concept of gender, share your experiences, realize you’re not alone, normalize gender non-conformity, start the long process of changing society for the better, and help everyone heal. That’s revolutionary. That’s “fucking the gender binary”.

Or

B) Acknowledge that gender is fake and harmful, but delude yourself into thinking you can get out of it by creating your own gender and identifying as something you’re not, all in a futile attempt to save your own skin while throwing everyone else under the bus and keeping them firmly in these harmful boxes so you can feel better and superior for a while. Uphold gender roles by pretending you’re some special exception to the rule. That you aren’t a man or woman because you don’t like blue or pink, you like green. Do nothing but try on genders you found on the internet like trendy accessories. Force everyone to cater to your new niche identity on the threat of punishment. Refuse to speak to other members of your sex. Silence them when they talk about socialization and male privilege/female oppression. Doxx them when they don’t agree with you. Post long rants on Twitter about how disgusting and fetishy gay people are. Start calling anyone you don’t like a “terf” so you can justify threatening them with violence. Don’t change a damn thing. Exist in your bubble pretending society is evolving while it remains the way it always has. Put yourself and only yourself first. Treat family, friends, and strangers alike as validation machines, making it their job to prop up this gender identity you’ve created. The world must change everything for you, or else. Keep the gender binary firmly in place. Uphold traditional valued.

1. realize that there’s nothing to “figure out”

2. feel a little ashamed at the time you wasted

“Adult human female:” clear, concise, makes sense, has been used for centuries, gives a precise definition, doesn’t reduce women to stereotypes, includes half the global population.

“Anyone who identifies as one:” makes no sense, unclear, no actual definition, no clue on who is included, reduces women to sexist stereotypes.

I don't "identify" as female, it is the literal unavoidable, unchangeable material reality of my sex. I don't have a gender identity, just a female body and sex dysphoria. Same way I don't "identify" as brunette or 5'5" or green-eyed lmao. Gender and sex aren't the same. Aren't you guys always saying that? 🙄

When i see TiM's performing "femininity" is always from a product stand point. Dylan Mulvaney, for example, talks about girlhood from his pink apartment, in his expensive clothing, with what he thinks girls get during their childhood because that's what media told them girlhood/womanhood is. And this applies for almost every single famous TiM out there right now.

But what about the other girlhood? What about the poor woman's womanhood?

What about the girlhood of the girl who never had a doll because her parents cannot afford it? what about the woman who doesn't wear make up or nice clothes because she's mother of five and she has no time nor money for it? What about the girls who are busy cooking for their younger siblings, cleaning the house, because they have only one parent and that parent is working their ass off? What about the girl who wear whatever her slightly older male brother/cousin passes down, because the clothing in her family is inherited. What about the girl who never had a pink room because she slept in an orphanage with another 20 children?

Although the porn industry is heavily flawed and needs to be corrected, I think people by and large have become cautious of people who attack porn because of the association it's gotten with fundamentalists who attack not just porn, but sex and masturbation and kink and anything they deem to be morally wrong which almost always includes the lgbt+ community as well

Generally, anyone who trying to end pornograohy in all forms is a crank. There will always be pornography of some kind, whether it's couples posting videos of each other fucking on reddit or weird furry art on tumblr. The entire industry could crumble tomorrow, and people would still be posting hole. It's the nature of humanity to be horny, barring exceptions.

Criticisms of specific problems within the industry are much more legitimate, but the thing is, most anti-porn advocates aren't listening to them because many of the most informed criticisms come from the porn stars themselves. Ginger Banks was very instrumental in pushing pornhub to tighten their policies around stolen and otherwise nonconsensual content, while condemning the efforts of religious anti-porn organizationslike Exodus Cry. Stoya exposed James Dean (not the actor) as a predator. Even Mia Khalifa who became a bit of a darling for anti-porn activists for a hot minute is pro-porn as long as it's consensual, and continues to post lewds on onlyfans.