Biff on Nostr: https://unherd.com/2025/01/what-i-learned-at-terf-school/ And so I logged on to Terf ...
https://unherd.com/2025/01/what-i-learned-at-terf-school/
And so I logged on to Terf school with low expectations. As for the poor dears who had to attend alongside me, they were warned they would have to contend with some tricky opinions — ones that run counter to their firmly held beliefs. Hence the obligatory trigger warning; mine and Kathleen’s work “should be considered to carry a giant content warning for transphobia — often misogynistic, specifically, transmisogynistic, generally queerphobic, and sometimes eliminationist tropes”.
Sounds exciting. But even I was unprepared for the 12 hours of turgid neo-Marxist hyperbole I was ultimately exposed to. I’d like to tell you what we were supposed to be learning about, but it was mostly incomprehensible nonsense about how Terfs are quasi-fascists, and how our ideas are based on antisemitism, colonialism, racism and every other -ism you can think of.
More telling, perhaps, is what the course didn’t touch on. There was not one mention of the male Terfs, such as Graham Linehan, Matt Walsh, or Simon Fanshawe. How interesting Lewis was only interested in taking out the women, the same women who have been responsible for setting up women-only services for victims and survivors of men’s violence, the ones she refers to as fascist enemies. In short, transgender ideology, including when promoted by women, is nothing short of misogyny.
And so I logged on to Terf school with low expectations. As for the poor dears who had to attend alongside me, they were warned they would have to contend with some tricky opinions — ones that run counter to their firmly held beliefs. Hence the obligatory trigger warning; mine and Kathleen’s work “should be considered to carry a giant content warning for transphobia — often misogynistic, specifically, transmisogynistic, generally queerphobic, and sometimes eliminationist tropes”.
Sounds exciting. But even I was unprepared for the 12 hours of turgid neo-Marxist hyperbole I was ultimately exposed to. I’d like to tell you what we were supposed to be learning about, but it was mostly incomprehensible nonsense about how Terfs are quasi-fascists, and how our ideas are based on antisemitism, colonialism, racism and every other -ism you can think of.
More telling, perhaps, is what the course didn’t touch on. There was not one mention of the male Terfs, such as Graham Linehan, Matt Walsh, or Simon Fanshawe. How interesting Lewis was only interested in taking out the women, the same women who have been responsible for setting up women-only services for victims and survivors of men’s violence, the ones she refers to as fascist enemies. In short, transgender ideology, including when promoted by women, is nothing short of misogyny.