USAmericans stealing almost $900 million worth of gold in Iraq, 2003

If you are going to call trans women "radfems", I suggest that you first define your terms. Like answer the following: what do you think radical feminism is, what separates it from other forms of feminism, why do you think it's bad, and what exactly has this trans woman said that marks her as a radfem?

I suspect basically none of them can do it. That's because their definition of "terf" has more to do with 70s era reactionary caricatures of feminists as evil hairy man-hating lesbians than their actual beliefs. (This site's definition of "baeddel" is that caricature, except transfem.) And whatever understanding there is poisoned by a general unacknowledged antifeminism, so talking about basic feminist concepts like patriarchy, male privilege and misogyny is terfy/radfem.

What marks a radfem as distinct from other forms of feminism is not to talk about male privilege and misogyny, but to understand those terms in bioessentialist and biodeterminist terms, as "sex-based oppression." Not that bioessentialism or transmisogyny among feminists is unique to radfems, but their ideology is uniquely defined by it.

I've seen transfeminists accused of being "trans-inclusive radical feminists", of taking radfem ideas and removing the bioessentialism so trans women are counted as women. But that's another thinly disguised antifeminist argument, because what is supposedly left that is distinctly radfemism without its bioessentialism and how is that distinct from general feminism? The idea that we live in a patriarchy in which men have privilege and women are oppressed are pretty foundational to all of feminism.

Screenshot source link.

Screenshot source link.

Like it's so obviously hypocritical. It's basically:

"Trans women talking about misogyny, patriarchy, male privilege, all feminist terms that exist outside of the radfem branch, that's terfy. But talking about "sex-based oppression", a literal terf term that is their biodeterministic definition of misogyny, that is basically only used by them, not terfy."

And like their definition in these post are basically the same as the terfs. "the misogynistic oppression us afabs experience from birth" which also brings up that other radfem meme, "female socialization." Like it inherently implies that trans women experience of misogyny is lesser, that it only comes later in life when they transition. Like It all relies on a dubious distinction between gender and sex, where trans women only experience mere "gender-based oppression" i g.

And these posts basically all imply that trans women criticizing radfem ideology and cis-centric explanations of misogyny is somehow erasing the existence of "sex-based oppression" from the public consciousness, which is a major terf trope. Apologies for linking to a terf text, but they say this all the time and the article in the link is an excellent example.

Part 1: actually defining the problem

The thing about "terf ideology and rhetoric" is that it is actually an extremely widespread problem among queer people. Like the transandrobros say that constantly, and taken literally, they are completely correct. The problem is that they don't know what terf ideology and rhetoric actually is (or pretend not to), and are actually extremely guilty of it themselves.

The transandrobros use "terf ideology/rhetoric" to refer to transfems doing basic feminism and talking about patriarchy and misogyny. They occasionally use "baeddel" or "tirf" when they acknowledge that transfems are doing it, saying we're doing "terfism but for transfems" as if that is a thing that could exist. That's because functionally, terfism is cis women using their cis privilege to give a feminist ideological justification to the genocide of transfems, transfems have no transfem privilege to do the same to other marginalized groups.

Of course, that's because the transandrophobia people because of their own transmisogyny deny the transmisogyny of terf ideology, and have no definition of terf beyond "feminist that i dislike", or terf ideology beyond "man-hating feminism."

And of course, things are bit more complicated than that.

To put it simply, terfism is not talking about misogyny, that's basic feminism, but talking about misogyny as "sex-based oppression." It is a feminism that accepts patriarchal society's reification of the two sexes as an unchangeable natural biological fact, and views it as the origin of patriarchy. This type of feminist ideology is called cultural feminism, and from that naturally comes transmisogyny. Trans women are because of this bio-essentialism by definition "biologically male", and not real female women, thus can't experience real misogyny that comes from having a womb, but merely gender-based oppression from being gender non-conforming males.

(Historian Alice Echols who popularized the term cultural feminism made a distinction between it and the US-american radical feminism of the late 60s and early 70s which rejected the sex binary, but even in Echols history of US second-wave feminism, more or less everyone who has called themselves radical feminists since 1973 are cultural feminists, a movement which grew out of and replaced the original radical feminism)

And while open terfs or "gender critical radical feminists" have the most obvious, most virulent, most openly genocidal form of this ideology, this kind of thinking is ubiquitous in a softer form even among ostensibly trans-accepting feminists and tme queer people. Cultural feminism took over western feminism in the early 70s, and hasn't let go since.

Outside the openly GC spaces, it has of course been softened to accept that "trans women are women", but it's an empty slogan. The underlying bio-essentialism is preserved by a distinction between sex and gender, where sex is natural, real, unchangeable and biological, whereas gender is socially constructed and thus fake and non-material. So they accept that trans women can be "gendered" women, but we are forever "biologically male", and thus less real women than "biologically female" cis women.

(in reality,biological sex is just society's ideas about gender made into a bio-truth, and the "gender-critical feminists" are actually hard-core "genderists" themselves, they just reify their ideas of gender as biological and natural)

And this translates into practice. For this kind of ally, trans women's social acceptance as women is always dependent on good feminine behavior, while cis women's womanhood is natural and in-contestable. The tme self-described "transfem ally" is always prepared to accept the womanhood of the ideal trans woman in their head, but actual flesh-and-blood transfems who have human flaws and that most unfeminine quality of having a backbone is a different story. These transfems are systematically rejected from tme-dominated social settings as rude, male socialized, perverted and sexually predatory, one after another. These tme allies will reject the terf caricatures about transfems as a false generalization, but continue to apply them to every transfem that displeases them.

That's because transmisogyny is ubiquitous in society, and what cultural feminism/terfism does is present society's conventional view of sex/gender, and the transmisogyny that comes with it, in feminist terms. It's the same things fascists and religious conservatives believe but put in a way that appeals to liberal/leftist tme people. Most tme people have to work to unlearn their transmisogyny and bio-essentialism, and it's just easier to keep believing what you were taught as a child, but believing yourself to be a trans-accepting progressive or radical.

Part 2: the transandrobros on tumblr

The transandrophobia crowd here are no different. Their beliefs about transandrophobia are revealed to be the old terfy beliefs about "sex-based oppression", about how "afab people" because of their biological sex have a deeper experience of oppression and especially misogyny than transfems have. Like the leading transandrophobia bloggers here have openly repeated their belief in sex-based oppression as, i have chronicled on this blog before.

This kind of unexamined transmisogynist bio-essentialism is the real root of their opposition to transmisogyny theory, and to transfems talking about the misogyny we experience. Fundamentally they don't believe we are the victims of misogyny.

Their push to make transfems talking about basic feminism "dangerous terf rhetoric" is" effectively is a form of projection. Defining terfism as simply "man-hating" acts as cover for their own terf ideology and rhetoric. It enables MRA-style rhetoric about man-hating feminists to function in conjunction with an insidious transmisogynistic bio-essentialist feminism.

It's of course somewhat contradictory, but reactionary ideologies seldom are 100% coherent. And it's rooted not in logical thought, but in the desire of the transandrobros to always be the innocent victim. So transfems are mean to them by being man-hating radfems, but also they are being mean by using their male privilege to talk over real wombyn talking about their experiences of misogynistic oppression, often at the same time.

This is them rhetorically fusing " the worst associations of men and women in TMA people and the best associations of both men and women in TME trans people." to quote this excellent essay. The transandrobro gets to be the rational male standing against the screaming man-hating feminist harpy, and also the innocent woman screamed at by an aggressive male, all at the same time. Talking about the patriarchy is evil misandry oppressing them, but also a denial of the misogyny they experience. None of it makes sense, but it doesn't have to.

Part 3: a transandrophobia truther gives us the perfect example

As an example, i'm gonna give you some screenshots, all from the same blog.

(Image id: screenshot of a tumblr post reading

"OMFG no way you are saying trans men are less affected by misoginy than trans women, no fucking way.

I guess now trans men are not treated as disordered, mentally ill women. I guess now trans men are not affected by abortion bans, rape, reproductive healthcare issues, infantilization, etc.

Do you hear yourself?!?!?!

Are you trying to ignore the material reality of our bodies and the effects agab has on a person's life???? What is this soulgender crap?

Just because trans women are women and trans men are men doesn't mean trans women are treated as women and trans men are men have you ever been in this world??? I don't give a fuck about people's gender affirmation if they are pushing to ignore the material reality that affects us and from where our issues come from.")

Notice the use of actual terf terminology, like "soulgender", or the laughable misuse of "material reality" that probably made Marx spin even more in his grave. This is the standard terf narrative that transfems very existence are erasing the oppression of real wombyn, our fake claims of womanhood and experiencing misogyny are erasing biological reality.

The post even outright claims trans women are treated as men and have male privilege. And when called out on this, the blogger became even more blatant:

(Image ID: screenshot of a tumblr post reading "Me saying that trans women do not experience the same kind or ammount of misoginy as women is not me saying that they are not women, it's me acknowledging that they are a specific subset of woman with a unique experience.")

Notice the not-so subtle misgendering in separating trans women from women in this screenshot. Yet when replying to a post that correctly said that "... going to trans women's posts to harass them and crying about misandry and eyeing every feminist statement with suspicion truly is just misogyny 101 and has to stop", the same fucking blogger criticized them in the following terms:

(image id: screenshot a tumblr post reading: "It's the literal terf and radfem rethoric or men bad and dangerous women good and pure that leads to the hatred against trans women in the first place. It's what causes so many trans men and transmascs to have trouble with their transition because they are constantly being told how all masculine traits are undesireable and worse than feminine traits.")

Good articles on transmisogyny and transmisogynoir for a more comprehensive and intersectional look at things.

You can follow the author of the final one of these three (Position of Guilt: Black Hot Allostatic Load) on tumblr at @/storyweavingspider, who also offered the following interpretation & breakdown of a 2015 survey on the queer community in DC broken down by race and gender that is a quite stark statistical look at the effects of transmisogyny and transmisogynoir.

Actually good resources on transfem healthcare and HRT. The former more scientific and robust and the latter a bit less dense and in laywomans terms.

A very detailed breakdown of terf rhetoric in queer spaces, and an important essay on the ways we will find ourselves abandoning our sisters

whoa!!!!

Like. When us transfems get assaulted or murdered, it is not because we have stubble. We had stubble before coming out, it was never punished then. We get assaulted and murdered because we are embracing femininity.

Please support my autistic sister during benefit sanctions!!

Wednesday, June 3rd: Hello everyone, I’m Gem, and I’m setting up a crowdfunding campaign for my sister Cheryl. Her Universal Credit has been sanctioned for 91 days, and she urgently needs support to get through the next few months.

As stated in my previous post, my sister, who is in her 30s and autistic, recently caught the flu. While she was unwell, her unemployment advisor requested that she submit her CV for a job application. Unfortunately, due to her illness, this important task slipped her mind, and she ended up applying a few days later than expected. As a result, she has been sanctioned for 91 days, until July 15th, leaving her with a minimal welfare payment of just £7 for the entirety of June.

This is clearly not sufficient to cover her bills or purchase groceries/pet supplies. However, thankfully, due to the help of our previous post, she was able to pay off her utilities, and on June 1st, she was awarded a hardship payment of £150 to help her until the end of June. She is also awaiting word back from an appeal regarding the sanction

Unfortunately, she still has £214.91 in direct debits due in the next week and needs assistance in covering them. I also have a £93 bill due this month that I need help with. It is also my birthday on the 19th, so I would really appreciate it if anyone could help us!!

I know this is a lot to ask, but if anyone could spare any amount to help my sister and me get by, even if it’s just £1/$1/€1, it would mean a great deal, and sharing helps just as much. 

Thank you ❤️

£31.71/£300!!