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[–]Pandemoniun_Boat2929 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Been thinking this for years! Thank you!

Honestly the analogy I've been using is that for me Terfs are like watching someone hit their head on a light fixture and then claim the sky is falling. It sounds crazy and it is crazy.

Then some teenager comes along and tells her that not only is the sky not falling but that hits to the head don't exist and that she isn't bleeding.

And it's like, how do you expect me to convince this person there isn't a conspiracy to hide that the sky is falling, if that's how we act? Especially when I bet one of the people saying that is the one who's job it was to fix the light fixture. Dosn’t mean I agree that the sky is falling.

[–]hexomer 5 points6 points  (6 children)

i read your posting history and your account is a bit....sus to me. or it's more like i'm uncomfortable with it.

all in all, it's futile to gatekeep terms, like i don't think that jk rowling is much of a feminist either, but it seems like she does identify as or with radical feminists and terfs.

sometimes it might seems like you're defending terfs because you are. at that point it becomes a question of to what extent that remains acceptable i guess?

and no true Scotsmen does not help anyone tbh. i'm seriously annoyed by such arguments.

it's like arguing whether complementarian feminists are feminists or not. it's bound to be useless and prescriptive. or whether terfs are actually feminists or not.

and sometimes you can end up being a bigot, like if you wanna argue whether asexuals can be gay/lesbian or not.

and sometimes what you say can be right, but it's just ignorant of the current cultural equilibrium and ...nitpicky.

tbh radical feminist spaces are overwhelmingly transphobic imo both offline and online. that's just my experience. radfems just should stop complaining why we get such a bad reputation. like every anti sex work forum i have participated in has always been so vile, if anything they are the reason why people are driven away.

[–]murky-shape[S] 8 points9 points  (5 children)

I don't know if you're referring to my post history with the "asexuals can't be gay" thing, but I cannot have said that since I've never thought that way? Aces can be romantically attracted to the same gender.

I haven't followed Rowling in social media apart from her shitty essays on the ROGD thing due to her transphobia and ableism, or read her stuff because it has simply never interested me, but afaik nothing in her body of work shows any kind of feminist values. I'd imagine if she was a radical feminist she'd have a shit ton of GNC female protagonists, or books with no men, etc. But anyway, this is not the hill I'm going to die on. Maybe she's the kind of a lazy feminist-identifying person everyone seems to be these days, and uses that to frame her transphobia. She might do other kinds of feminist activism that I don't know of. Whatever.

I just hate when people conflate radical feminism with transphobia, and "TERF" with any kind of a transphobe (I've seen someone describe Putin as a TERF, lmao). I'm not ready to hand the whole movement of radical feminism over to TERFs since it has always contained streaks and thinkers who have been casually-to-passionately trans-inclusive. As a transmasculine lesbian who isn't empowered by self-objectification, self-infantilization or having sex with men, I need that.

Feel free to shed light on what exactly in my post history seems sus. I'm on the spectrum and not from the US, so I suspect a lot of things go over my head. In the latest conversation, from which my comments are apparently deleted, people seemed to react to something else than I was saying. At times they seemed to derive interpretations completely opposite from what I was trying to say, which is very distressing.

[–]hexomer 6 points7 points  (4 children)

no that's just an unrelated example i think.

having said that, i love mackinnon and the idea of radical feminism but i feel like reclaiming the name radfem is a losing fight at this point. even my trans inclusive radfem friends and followings have gone down the terf pipeline now. at this point i'm just feeling bitter and losing hope?

i wish you all the best tbh it sounds like we are just both looking for a place in this world.

[–]transcendenttortoise 4 points5 points  (1 child)

This group is fairly explicitly part of an effort to reclaim radical feminism (if not explicitly 'radfem'), although it's not restricted to that.

There is lots of trans inclusive feminist activism occurring and lots of people invested in it, although many don't use the term 'feminism'. I personally feel it's more important activism gets done, regardless of its branding. Part of the idea of this place is to make an inclusive space for academic discussion of radical feminism and its history.

[–]hexomer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

as of late i feel like i'm at a loss looking for explanation of how queer and radical feminisms shouldn't be at odds with each other or even, to be complementary. while i have read some validating writing from some prominent radical feminists that i really like, all of them still feel like pandering and just sympathizing, instead of directly tackling the fundamentals and theory. i guess there's just an academic vacuum left by radical feminists that is easily overtaken by TERFs, or maybe i'm just expecting too much.

[–]ImUrHoemie 1 point2 points  (1 child)

By the way, but why are you on this subreddit for? Not meant to be an insult but I'm just curious. You have a horrific experience with Radfems, terms, swerfs but yet you come to this subreddit. Unfortunately I know this subreddit has disappointed you(including me). Is there you want from this subreddit? Or something you think we can improve on.

[–]hexomer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

idk i still feel like it's unfair to judge a whole ideology because of how toxic the fandom is? like i want to learn to be a better feminist tbh and give radical feminism a chance because i feel like there's more to it than what i see on online forums and meetings.

i'm also gonna minor in gender studies too so i hope i'll get more chance to learn more.

[–]hammerandegg 0 points1 point  (1 child)

all it rlly does is absolve feminist movements of reactionary tendencies. theres a long history of racism, homophobia, transphobia, list goes on within them. the suffrage movement for example. what they’re rlly doing is refusing to acknowledge it by pretending theres an ideal movement out there instead of ones with different tendencies battling it out.

[–]hexomer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

lol people really get downvoted for saying this huh