Paid subscribers get access to voiceovers read by yours truly as well as occasional early releases. If that sounds enticing, please consider a paid subscription. Thank you all so much for your engagement and support.
Trigger Warning: meanie-face TERF being mean, lies and deceit, excessive use of extraneous adjectives, excessive use of non-adjective words, and unnecessary curses, as always.
Contents:
Introduction and Inspiration
The Why: They Need to Hate Us
The Why: They Can't Refute Our Arguments
Arguments:
You Think All “Trans Women”are Rapists
You're Right-Wing
You Hate Trans People
I don't feel I can blame those who oppose the gender critical and misrepresent our positions too harshly. In fact, I would say that they have several good reasons to once again abandon reality for their land of fantasy. And if I’m being honest, we all engage in these behaviors at times - myself included. However, I’m not here to criticize myself (I do that constantly and in private) or my gender critical peers. I’m here to explore some of the ways in which our positions are misrepresented. While untruthful statements are often an attempt to mislead the listener, it is very easy for those lies to get spread by well-meaning but uneducated trans allies, to our detriment.
I want to clear up some of these misconceptions in the hopes of bringing about more honest and fruitful discussion on the topic of gender, and more specifically, about trans-identified men and their impact on women. This isn’t meant to convince non-gender critical readers of the joys of TERFdom, but about truth and mutual understanding.
And for the majority of you who are gender critical, maybe this can help spark ideas about more points of confusion that need to be straightened out. Perhaps it can serve as a cure for insomnia, or maybe you even know someone who would read it and learn something.
With that out of the way: in the name of truth, integrity, honesty, and all that stuff that sounds really good - let’s get on with it!
Not only do they love to hate us - they need to hate us. In order to all but avoid a meltdown due to critical levels of cognitive dissonance, it is necessary for transphiles to turn us into the monsters required to not only dismiss our concerns but actively hate us. The trouble with rational, reasonable people packing opinions bolstered by arguments you can’t even touch is that they pose a threat to your sense of self and everything else this ideology offers you. You may feel a sense of obligation to engage with a decent human being (uh oh), so you’re going to need a way to weasel out of it.
You just need to turn your opponents into people to whom you feel no sense of obligation. You need to make them your enemy.
Unfortunately, it seems to me that they cannot even understand our arguments. While I don't say this in order to be condescending, I am saying it with condescension. As much as I tend to write others off as not being very intelligent (I'm working on it), I do think that they have the gray matter needed to grok our talking points. Probably.
This means that they are willfully ignorant, which, to my mind, is worse than being legitimately dumb as rocks.
Either way, not being able to understand an argument means you cannot begin to analyze—let alone refute it—meaning the result is always an inability to interact with us in a substantive way and no possibility of refuting our arguments, deftly or otherwise.
This is why you'll see plenty of
TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN
TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN
TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN
TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN
online and not so much of the opposite. A tautological slogan unaccompanied by arguments to back it up is considered not only an acceptable but clever way of dealing with “transphobes” (especially if you include trans flag emojis).
I have yet to see any accurate portrayal of a gender critical argument tackled with an earnest attempt to dismantle it, and not for lack of trying. (That's the whole reason why I've tortured myself with reading Judith Butler.)
While I could likely list at least one dozen commonly misrepresented TERFy beliefs, I can only write about this shit for so long before I crawl into the fetal position and cry myself to sleep.
Given that, how about we start with just three?
You think that all “trans women” are dangerous rapists and/or abusers, and therefore do not permit them to use what you claim to be single-sex facilities such as restrooms and locker rooms. This is an overtly discriminatory position anchored in prejudice against trans-identified men.
I find this argument to be particularly frustrating because it makes use of one of, if not the most, obvious logical fallacy: the strawman.
A strawman is an argument that replaces the actual argument at hand with one that is easier to grapple with. The statement “all trans women are rapists” is absurd enough that all but a few people would vehemently disagree with it.
The trouble is that no one has said that all trans-identified men (or any group of “all”men for that matter) are rapists. This argument is so egregious that one would be a fool to engage with it, and that's exactly how this trick works.
The other aspect of this false argument that particularly frustrates me is just how willfully ignorant one must be to buy into it. Single-sex services and spaces already exist for a reason (well, several). Until very recently, most people understood and respected this obvious necessity for keeping women and children safe.
No one ever claimed that all men were rapists or abusers when it came time to insist upon single-sex spaces for women the first time. They don't have to be. It is enough that the number of offenders poses a significant risk and that we are incapable of distinguishing good men from bad men on sight.
All of a sudden, we have men who think they get a free pass to enter female-only spaces. And yet, despite the rates of sexual crimes for imprisoned trans-identified men being significantly higher1 than that of other men, many of us aren't thinking too much about the dangers they may pose.
Personally, I am more worried about man-dudes than lady-dudes taking advantage of the apathy surrounding safeguarding and the complete disregard for women. Let me put it this way:
How “trans” does a “trans women" need to be to enter female spaces?
If you answer that question, you should be able to plainly see where the problem lies. “Men don't need permission to enter these spaces; they will just do it anyway” is a short-sighted and frankly stupid perspective on the situation. Unfortunately, it is also a common argument.
No, individually, they don't need permission. Some men will always just enter spaces where they are not welcome but that doesn't mean we should be making it so much easier for them! It most certainly does not mean that we should be giving up our ability to enforce these boundaries. Once you let trans-identified men in, you give up the ability to tell any man no.
If the argument is that trans women are abusive because they are “really” men, then the abiding assumption is that men are abusive as a class, or by virtue of their penises, and that in any given scenario they, the ones assigned male at birth, are the true abusers.
Who’s Afraid of Gender? p. 159
I mean, Butler is totally right if you buy into her strawman and then the “logic” that fails to follow from said strawman. There’s this undercurrent of dramatics in her work that I can’t help but find exhilarating in phrases like “the true abusers”.
Stop pretending that we are classifying all trans-identified men as abusive or dangerous predators lurking around in restroom stalls in order to once again misrepresent them as a victim of TERF cruelty. It always has been and always will be as simple as this:
Good men stay out so that bad men stand out.
You're Right-Wing, conservative, MAGA, or at the very least aligned with them. TERFs actively collaborate with conservatives and are therefore comprised solely of evil.
Nothing strikes fear in the hearts of liberals like those three words. Well, maybe except “racist”, “fascist”, and “whitecishet man”. As someone who has moved in liberal circles my whole life, I know very well what sort of reputation politically conservative people have with the Left.
Conversely, I know very little about the values of those who oppose transgenderism on the Right. They are supposed to be the ones whose religious considerations lead them to an insistence on biological essentialism but knowing what I do about how trans-identified folks and their allies represent someone like me, I don't entirely trust this narrative.
I want to keep an open mind and remember that while I may have different political opinions from conservative opponents to transgenderism, they should not be flattened into caricatures of how they are perceived by my peers. (No matter how good it might feel to indulge in that behavior sometimes.)
The truth is that many of us are not only not aligned with the political Right, but actively involved in liberal politics. This demographic does not fit neatly into the narrative touted by transphiles and is often outright ignored for the inconvenience. When the media leaves us out, it erases our existence, and consequentially, the voices of politically liberal gender critical women.
Anyone who might belong there is thrown in with the enemies who make up the Right, despite the fact that we have absolutely nothing in common with them; instead only having our concerns about gender that connect us, and yet we disagree about the finer details on even that topic!
It's not only frustrating for those of us seeking productive dialogue, but it spreads disinformation in a space where we are already rich with untruth. Many of those who oppose the gender critical have no qualms about spreading lies as long as it vilifies us.
It is in that spirit of enthusiastic defamation that many love to try to take advantage of disinformation by trying to ally us with conservatives in opposition to transgenderism. One particular example that comes to mind is Judith Butler. She is so desperate to get rabid, conservative-hating liberals to associate us with their greatest enemies that she ends up undermining any credibility she has to do so. And sure, it probably works, but what is the cost of such dishonesty, and how much of that burden is carried by the very idiots who employed it?
Here are just a few of the silly things Ms. Butler has said in an attempt to trap gender critical women into guilt by association:
Sex can be both real and mutable, unless we believe that “the truth” is always immutable and never historical, a proposition that would once again ally Rowling with the papacy.
Who’s Afraid of Gender? p. 153
Wow! You almost figured out what “the truth” actually means right then! So close, and yet…She weaves this sort of nonsense throughout her writing in a desperate attempt to brute force two opposing sides together in the reader’s mind. In simple terms: she’s a liar who doesn’t feel bad enough to not lie to and manipulate her audience. At least she’s doing it in defense of a bunch of men who think all there is to womanhood is a “feeling” and a desire to jerk off to one’s mirror image. Totally worth it.
To be fair: whereas the Right refers to its position as “anti-gender ideology”, the trans-exclusionary feminists focus on “gender identity ideology”, marking a difference, perhaps, but letting the echo resound with right-wing and often fascist politics.
Who’s Afraid of Gender? p. 143
“Yeah, okay. Maybe they aren’t the same thing at all but they still make us think of the bad guys!!”
Many TERFs would be hesitant to identify with the Vatican’s stance, yet their beliefs produce the same fear and repression.
Who’s Afraid of Gender? p. 145
Perhaps if those suffering this “fear and repression” you are concerned with would listen to anything we said rather than choosing the comfort of victimhood, they would realize that this “fear” is unfounded. Rather than lend an ear to any of our positions, they create enemies of us - branding our beliefs as hateful and “extreme”.
It is troubling to me how they prefer the role of aggrieved victim over honesty. Consider their use of the word “genocide”: rather than admit that they are not suffering from anything even remotely resembling a genocide, they seek to redefine the term.
This is a perfect example of the transgender tendency to center the lives of others around themselves. When they seek to redefine a word such as “genocide”, they are robbing genocide victims of their dignity and the perpetrators of their guilt in order to acquire more of the resource they call victimhood.
This is one reason why so many reject the “cis” label - it decenters women and instead demotes us to a subset of our own sex class, allowing trans-identified men to brute force their way into womanhood.
Thinking about it, transgenderism is largely about manufacturing victimhood as a form of social currency. And honestly? They’re pretty good at it.
These are just excuses for you to hate trans people. You're a bigot and you deserve to suffer for your beliefs.
Look, I genuinely don't give a flying fuck about being accused of hating trans-identified men because I'm the only one who can see inside my own heart.
Actually, my abusive ex partner had a habit of “mind reading” in the very same way. Somehow he always recognized the “true” nature of my intentions under my earnestness and honesty. I suppose I should thank him for that because I've learned to recognize this behavior immediately. Unfortunately for those who seek to manipulate me in this way, I have less than zero patience for this bullshit.
I'm sorry to break it to you, but, you have absolutely no clue how I feel and why. To believe you do is not only incredibly narcissistic but also a really crappy way to treat someone. People deserve to be able to tell others how they feel and think rather than having some self-righteous know-it-all do it for them in order to manipulate the situation and gaslight them.
But then again, I'm a bigoted, fascist Nazi transphobe with nothing but hate for the vulnerable in my heart so you probably should not trust anything I have to say.
Truthfully, I don't hate trans-identified people and neither do most gender critical women. I think many of them would casually use the word “hate” in lieu of “fed up with” or “massively insulted by” but I don't see much authentic hate in the circles I frequent. I certainly have not seen anything like the hate I've witnessed from transphiles.
Personally, I'm not a hateful person. I feel anger without an issue, but hate is a very different experience. I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back; I have plenty of flaws to make up for my lack of hatred, if you were interested in discovering such non-secrets. To be completely honest with you: I might just be too lazy for hate. It requires a lot of energy.
For anyone who might believe that I'm driven by hate: how and why would I have written over fifty essays about gender critical concerns if I'm just a hater? At this point, I know I've spent at a minimum 11 twenty-four hour days of my life writing for Substack (essentially for free, although I do have some amazing paid subscribers!) It just seems like a waste of time and energy if my true aim was to spread hate. I could just make cruel memes and bully trans-identified folks on Twitter. (None of that takes into account all of the other time invested in Substack and gender critical advocacy - like time spent reading and responding to comments.)
“You hate trans people” will always be one of the most commonly used techniques for shutting down the gender critical because it's not only simple, but it conveniently functions as a thought-stopping phrase, allowing the transphile in question to escape any obligation to engage in good faith.
Even better, it reinforces the belief that TERFs are essentially evil and in need of constant punishment from trans supporters. This allows them to indulge in the mistreatment of women - a symptom of the misogyny often found at the root of transgenderism.
I suppose you could say that continuing to “TERF it up” is doing the trans-identified community and their fervent allies a favor; we give them an outlet for their toxic envy and retributive aggression.
You're welcome.
Until next time, stay guilty of thought crimes!
MadFem XX
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.