This is gonna start off sounding weird but stay with me for a second:
We really need to move on from the current performative culture of “no terfs allowed” and “reblog to make a terf angry”
Because that’s not a valuable solution to the underlying problem.
You know what would really bother trans exclusionary/exterminatory radical ‘feminists’? IRRELEVANCE. They’re just like the Alt-Right; their worst enemy is an audience that isn’t receptive to their message of hate and won’t give them a voice to keep spreading it. Instead of giving them a free pass to go back to their echo chambers and prey on young wlw that they can indoctrinate and radicalize into their transphobic cult, make it so that their voices don’t actually reach anyone in the first place. Deny them stable footing to build a platform on.
You know how you do that?
Build an alternative culture of radical acceptance and validation for trans women in women’s spaces and especially wlw safe spaces.
Don’t just toss out a “fuck terfs” every once in a while and think your job is done. If you actually want to be an ally to trans women, BE AN ALLY TO TRANS WOMEN. Make your spaces a safer place for us, and be VOCAL about it. Be consistent, persistent, and insistent on defining us authentically as women and make it obvious that we’re accepted and welcomed as such. And make sure you are boosting the voices of trans women in queer and women’s spaces if there’s any doubt that you don’t have the best information to hand out on trans issues, because misinformation about us is the best weapon terfs have. START DENYING THEM THAT WEAPON BY ACTIVELY PRESENTING A TRUTHFUL NARRATIVE ABOUT TRANS PEOPLE INSTEAD.
This exposes new generations to the reality of trans women’s lives and identities instead of letting terfs pick off and cultivate the vulnerable ones who don’t know any better and using the dismissive nature of performative allyship to convince these young wlw that there’s some gender conspiracy that’s letting men invade women’s spaces.
(Which is obviously insane just on face value. Can you honestly even imagine a cis man having to face the reality of womanhood for an extended period of time? It’d be a trainwreck. The whole basis of their philosophy falls apart in SECONDS when you just represent the lived experiences of trans women in an honest way. No cis man could live a day in a trans woman’s shoes.)
If you don’t have the energy to deal with these people personally, by all means care for yourself by keeping them at a distance. But NEVER believe that slapping a “twerfs can choke” in your bio is by itself enough to deal with the source of the problem, which is terfs preying on vulnerable young wlw by feeding them misinformation about trans women.
If you really want to be an ally to trans women you HAVE to present an alternate narrative of truthful information so these younger generations won’t be swayed by the false narratives that terfs are currently selling them.
Deny them their recruiting grounds by ACCEPTING AND VALIDATING AND WELCOMING TRANS WOMEN IN WOMEN’S AND WLW SAFE SPACES, STAND UP FOR US WHEN YOU CAN, AND NEVER LET TERFS CONTROL THE NARRATIVE ABOUT US. Make their voices irrelevant by exposing them for what they are: predatory radicals that use the same isolation and misinformation tactics as the Far Right to cultivate new generations of twisted, vile rhetoric and a philosophy of violence and hatred.
Don’t just “reblog to make a terf angry”. They take out that anger on US while you remain safe in the ‘terf-free zone’ you want your blogs to be.
Instead build an authentic culture of love and support for trans women and spread visibility for the truth of our womanhood so terfs can’t keep selling their snake oil to new generations of vulnerable young wlw who end up making comics about literally boiling us alive.
Reblog to start building that culture of trans positivity and make the world a safer place for us to live.
Reblog to validate a trans woman.
being a gay trans woman in wlw fandoms is so weird because like, personally i want to just forget about all the terrible shit that every cis celeb or idol and enjoy the connection to other gay girls and not have to feel like an outside or alone. theres like the temptation to forget your politics and just try to enjoy the fandoms for what they are. i know i really try to just ignore the transmisogyny i see when i first enter a fandom
but like, you fucking cant at all. because there’s so much transmisogny embedded everywhere. and its in the shitty g!p fanfiction and the assumptions about how any lesbian couple might have sex. its in telling trans women to calm down and not fight all the time and just let things go. its in cis wlw assumptions that THEY’RE way of being gay/loving women is the standard and should be treated as such. its in describing women and female characters as soft/small/delicate and the fetishization of a girl with a dick. like i would just love not to have to think about it at all but its too big to be ignored at this point.
but it blows my mind when people accuse trans women of looking for mistakes and moments where their cis idols fucked up. like i fucking wish kate mckinnon didnt hold such terrible beliefs about trans people. that would make everything so much easier. i wish it for all the big names like aubrey plaza and gillian anderson but its too late. they revealed what they really think and we have to deal with it. otherwise you shouldnt have any “no twerfs” shit in your sidebar.
If you would like to actually learn about this hate group and the awful things they do to trans people please visit TheTERFs or Name the TERFs for much more in depth info.
