#academic language

I'm reading this book right now as a part of my efforts to read all the seminal texts in the field of Neurodiversity Studies and I must say, it's an absolute breeze. Wish academic texts took pains to make their language this simple and accessible! Despite being in academia myself, I hate academi-speak and wish they had Simple English translations all the time.

However. Academic language can be weaponised and used to gatekeep people from higher education and that’s fucked up.

Academic language has its time and place, and people that use it out of context or when they know it might confuse others look like pretentious fuckwits. I’m sorry, I know you probably felt all cool showcasing your smarts, but if it impedes communication...well that’s not actually too smart is it?

“compulsory heterosexuality” is a theoretical term that is used in academic feminism. It is awful that TERFs are trying to co-opt academic language, but theoretical language doesn’t change just like that because a hate group is trying to claim it. Just “heteronormativity” or just “cisheteronormativity” aren’t the same theoretical construct and they can’t be used interchangably, although coercive heteronormativity is an alternative term and we do tag comp het posts with that too (or at least I do, I don’t fully know what the other mods tag) and I try to mention it in those to. 

The thing with TERFs is that they are, at their core, transphobes that try to hide their transphobia behind real academic feminism, and if we stopped using all the construct they’re trying to co-opt, we would end up without any words to use at all, and they would sit on a mountain of theoretical concepts, and that would just lend them more power. If we refuse this co-opt and keep using the term, they cannot claim it, but if we give in, it will be theirs.