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“And remember kids! Feminism isn’t about “””””equality””””” feminism only is about questioning popular things and making personal commentary. Kids on this site these days 🙄”

Me at all the wacked out lib fems on this hellsite.

[howtospotaterf]

Thank you, @ blimpeh on Twitter for this warning! ZERO TOLERANCE FOR TERFs and transphobes. Also don’t exclude male and non-binary witches! That’s not the witch way.

[howtospotaterf]

im sorry i have to point this out but TWERFs are smart. keep reading. they intentionally employ tactics that they know will get people to switch to their side.

they know how to argue people in. they were argued in. they know about nontransfemnine people’s latent transmisogyny and they know that we are not as vigilant as we should be. they make popular posts.

they are undercover. they pretend to be allies. there are nonbinary TWERFs and TWERFs that are WOC. keep reading. these people have been coerced in and know how to coerce others in. there are many different ways, and there are many different things to look out for.

when i say don’t argue with TWERFs, when i say ignore them and don’t give them a platform in the first place, it’s not a giving up tactic. it’s because TWERFs know that if they can point out one tiny flaw in your logic, or spout some bullshit that some nontransfeminine person has thought about before, they’ve hooked someone.

TWERFs count on preying on the young and impressionable, the people that don’t know or talk to transfeminine people. this has to be pointed out. the only reason i know this is because i am not transfeminine and i have seen many of my peers, not transfeminine, fall to them.

stop arguing that they’re stupid. don’t let your guard down.

EDIT: and they are only one specific type of transmisogyny so watch yourself

[howtospotaterf]

Febfem is used almost exclusively by TERFs

Just found the term “febfem” (female exclusive bisexual females) and... it’s bad. Just a bunch of biphobia, sex essentialism, and transmisogyny.

[howtospotaterf]

Identifying fascists and their friends on tumblr

Most important step--who do they reblog from? If they reblog from fascists, they're a fascist. Look out for the following things in URLs/bios/posts. If you see it, it MIGHT be unintentional, but 95% of the time the person is a reactionary.

NOT A COMPLETE LIST. More can be found on the Anti-Defamation League's website. Feel free to add your own.

Antisemitic Dogwhistles:

(((Triple parentheses)))--used by antisemites to identify Jewish names

"Cultural Marxists"--means Jews

"The mysterious, wealthy elites"--means Jews

"Powerful satanic pedophiles"--means Jews

"XYZ Jew or rich person is secretly a lizard/robot/alien"--hearkens to the Jews control the world narrative

Generalized statements about Israel as a major global power/influencing the US

"Controlled media"

"International bankers"

Referencing "certain people on the east coast of the US"

"New York intellectual"

"Dual loyalty"

Overt fixation on the Rothschilds/George Soros

Depictions of unlikeable people as having hooded eyelids, dark curly hair, large hooked noses

"Controlling the masses, puppet master, mastermind"

References to or depictions of the happy merchant

ZOG/Zionist Occupied Government

Nonspecific language and rhetoric often used by fascists/friends of fascists:

Cumbrain

Smoothbrain--eugenicist phrasing

Correcting for overpopulation--ecofascist rhetoric

Degenerate

Social Darwinism/survival of the fittest/natural selection

Traditional values

Symbology to double check:

Scandinavian symbology (inc. Norse runes)

American front cross

Celtic cross

Depictions of German soldiers (w/ or w/o swastika)

Imperial German flag

Iron Cross

Eagle (akin to Nazi eagle)

Pepe the Frog (for real)

Wojak (paying attention to any other symbols added to it or showing a deformed head/damaged brain)

URLs + Self-identifiers to be wary of:

Trad/traditional/traditionalist

Monarchist

Punished

Risen

Nationalist

Crucified

Aryan

Unforgiven

Patriarch

Patriot

Fallen

Chad

Egalitarian

Unrepentant

Prussia/Prussian

Liberty

Anglican

Catholicism/saints/church (yep)

Numbers to look at:

83

14 88 (together or individually)

[howtospotaterf]

womansart is a TERF. stop reblogging from her.

Her about links to a twitter which is marked as transphobic through the Shinigami Eyes extension. When she says “art by a male” that means art by a trans woman. When she says “liberal misogynists” she means people who aren’t blatantly transphobic. 

(x)

She FREQUENTLY reblogs posts from known TERFs / transmisogynists that include transphobic links, and are transphobic posts in nature. She is no stranger to terms like “genderists” and is very comfortable reblogging transmisogynist caricatures. 

(x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Block her and stop reblogging from her. 

[howtospotaterf]

TERFs aren’t uneducated either. They’re not your standard run of the mill transphobic person (a lot of those are uneducated) they’re a militant ideology formed entirely in reaction to trans identity/existence. To be a radical feminist you have to have done a respectable amount of gender studies homework, and to be a terf you have to decide that that must be applied (often exclusively) to the exclusion of trans women.

They are in fact very often open about using lies as propaganda, and a lot of the danger they present comes from positioning themselves as authorities on womanhood and using that position of authority to cut trans women/transfemenine people off from resources they’re in need of.

very inch resting how cis “allies” will be like “nooo don’t hate terfs aha they’re just uneducated they should be educated not hated but i’m not goin to make any effort to do so because i don’t care, you trans people should be forced to interact with and try in vain to reform your oppressors instead of hating them for oppressing you. i’m extremely woke for this.”

[howtospotaterf]

Friendly reminder that this flag, not to be confused with the non-binary flag, is a terf flag. Unsurprisingly OP is a terf. Scrutinize your sources

[howtospotaterf]

TERFs

I saw the leaflets the TERF infiltrators were distributing at London Pride last weekend and noticed that they’d referred to trans men as ‘young lesbians’, as per. Yet it seems that many people still see TERFs as a group which just has a ‘simple difference of opinion’ at one end, or as a group which behaves transphobically at Pride but behave normally the rest of the year at the other. In reality, TERFs are a classic example of an extremist hate group, and I want to show how they operate as such by sharing my personal experience and research on a subset of TERF groups that focus their hate on trans men.

These particular TERF groups operate mostly online and are dedicated to delegitimizing trans men so as to legitimise their brand of feminism. DirtyWhiteBoi67 [Do not look at her website] is a particularly distressing example of someone who has hurt me, my friends, and community. These TERFs use textbook hate group processes to permeate and destroy us and our communities. They seem to work as follows …

Discourse:

Most TERF groups insist that we’re butch lesbians forced to transition by misogyny and patriarchy. At the more extreme end, some groups insist we’re straight women forced to transition for the same reasons, in combination with assumed sexual abuse. Either way, they insist that we’re women for various reasons, including that they want to blame someone for the reduction in traditional butch lesbian communities that they were once part of, and we are an easy target. They position this ideology as loving and caring about young girls suffering from structural or intimate abuse and who need to be saved from transition. In reality, this is largely incongruous with our own life experiences as queer/gay/straight/etc men – life experiences we make freely available online, but they choose to ignore as it undermines their ideology.

Doxing:

To prove their ideology, these TERF groups dedicate a lot of time to stalking trans men online. They steal trans men’s photos and videos of our transitions, our hormonal chest, and genital changes in particular, and create dossiers on individual trans men. They use these to create catalogues of ‘evidence’ for various uses; to prove that we’re self-hating and self-mutilators; to out us to employers; to have power over us; to degrade us. Pages and pages of screenshots of random trans men’s genitals with various dehumanising slurs alongside. They have done this to me and my friends and thousands more. It is very distressing. They claim to be interested in our medical procedures out of care and concern for us. In reality, this is predatory stalking with the ultimate goal of coercing us into detransition.

Dissemination:

These TERFs distribute their supposed evidence in leaflets and online. Like most hate groups, their websites aim to inform members and the public; encourage participation; claim divine calling and privilege; promote in-group love and accuse out-groups of being the problem. While most TERF literature is usually explicitly hateful towards trans women, this literature tends to show apparent care and concern for trans men. In reality, this is a façade to make their ideology more palatable.

Delegitimisation:

Like most hate groups, these TERF groups use pseudoscientific and in-house evidence to claim that we are not trans/men. ‘Scientific’ evidence is often used by hate groups as it has more weight to erode one’s sense of self. Often, these TERFs are white middle class ex-academic types, so are very capable of using intellectualised language to convince people that they are knowledgeable. And as women, they can also convince people that this knowledge comes from a caring approach. They twist, ignore, and erase our lived experiences; our transness, masculinities, sexualities, dysphoria, terminologies etc. They use tactics such as gaslighting on weaker people and sealioning on stronger people. Their aim is to exhaust us and make us more malleable to their own brand of trans healthcare; reparative therapy. In reality, this goes completely against all best practice guidance published by trans communities, academics, and medical bodies.

Degradation:

While they take our photos, they never take the context. So where a trans man might share a video about top surgery being the best day of his life, a TERF will use that same photo and call it ‘mutilation’. A trans man might share a video about how his genital growth has helped to reduce dysphoria; a TERF will use that video to call our genitals ‘botched’ and ‘unnatural’. They say gross things about our minds and bodies. They pretend to be concerned for our welfare while simultaneously degrading us and rewriting our life experiences from their own cis viewpoint. They claim that hormones and surgery are hurting us. In reality, hormones and surgery saves many of our lives.

Dehumanisation:

TERFs reduce us to up-close photos of our scars and genitals and call us freaks of nature and other slurs. They like to talk in graphic detail about all the risks involved in coming out; losing your family, healthcare, surgical problems, sexual function etc. They tell you you’ll never be a normal person. One of the reasons they do this is to try and scare young trans people away from medical transition. In reality, it is TERF-like attitudes that make being trans difficult, not being trans itself.

Demasculinisation:

These TERF groups aim to emasculate firstly because they hate men and masculinity, and secondly because they believe that if they destroy our sense of masculinity, we will return to their sisterhood and thus uphold their ideology. They do this by threatening that we’ll become bad men if we use testosterone, pitting us against cis men, being cruel about surgical outcomes, saying we’re unattractive or sexually dysfunctional, calling us degrading names, finding our ‘before’ photos, using feminised language etc. They insist that trans people reinforce sexist stereotypes while simultaneously insisting that we should perform a femininity that conforms to the sexist stereotypes they claim to be against. They also claim to care about our supposed self-hate. In reality, they instil self-hate to coerce us into detransition.

Desexualisation:

A major tactic of these groups, and TERFs in general, is the desexualisation of trans men, parallel to their hypersexualisation of trans women. They theorise trans men as asexual children and trans women as sexual predators. This is rooted in their perceptions of the genitals imo, while simultaneously claiming that women should not be judged on their physical attributes and that vulvas are no less sexual than penises. For example, they will take porn a trans man has willingly made and spent 17 hours uploading, to claim that the video shows sexual abuse. Again, this is all done apparently in sympathy for us. In reality, this completely ignores our own autonomy and our own sexualities.

Division:

They try to turn trans men against trans women and non-binary people. They try to convince us that other trans people keep us oppressed. In reality, it is of course the cis.

Blame:

These TERFs also use blame and shame; they say we go against feminism by transitioning, and that we let women down by joining the patriarchy etc. They know that if you are made to feel guilty for doing what you need to do just to survive, you might become more malleable to detransition and/or recruitment. They also blame us for more tangible things, such as the closure of traditional butch lesbian bars. In reality, there are numerous causes; the passing of time, for example. The barring of butch trans lesbians from such establishments is another good example.

Gaslighting:

While TERFs approach trans women with overt violence, these groups approach trans men with covert violence. Like most hate groups, they prey on the weak and vulnerable members of the community and promise to make them strong and powerful. If a trans man shares a post about a problem, top surgery not going well for example, they will be sympathetic and complimentary. They say you don’t need the surgery, you are a beautiful woman as you are etc. They say they can help you to recover from your self-hate. The aim is to theorise trans as the root of one’s problems rather than structural transphobia, and that detransition will solve all your problems. In reality, this is gaslighting and forced gendering/detransition, which fucks people up – but they do not care.

Grooming:

Once they’ve messed with your own sense of self, gender, sexuality, community etc., they can further coerce you into detransition and potential recruitment. Like many hate groups, those who might be at risk of coerced detransition or radicalisation tend to be the more weak and vulnerable members of the community. Those struggling in life or with transition, those late to transition, those who are isolated or don’t fit in with their local trans community, those who have low self-worth, those who are easily influenced, and those who lack good role models or grew up around toxic masculinity. They will tell you that life is better on their side. In reality, it’s not. And if it was, we wouldn’t want to transition.

Conversion therapy:

These TERFS combine apparent intellectualism with apparent care to convince trans men that they can help us. They say they want to help you become a woman again because they care about women. But just like MRAs say they care about men as a cover for hating women, or white supremacists say they care about working class people as a cover for hating people of colour, TERFs say they care about women as a cover for hating trans people. They want to make us obsolete so as to legitimise their ideology. In reality, conversion therapy is condemned by most health and research organisations e.g. the Memorandum of Understanding of Conversion Therapy in the UK.

In summary, TERFs prey on vulnerable people using Discourse; Doxing; Dissemination; Delegitimisation; Degradation; Dehumanisation; Demasculinisation; Desexualisation; Division; Blame; Gaslighting; Grooming; Conversion therapy. This includes tactics such as pseudointellectualism and pseudoscience, love-bombing, bullying, humiliation, sealioning, and coercion.

These are all the classic components of an extremist hate group according to the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Centre, both of which research and monitor extremist/hate groups in America. While ideologically different, operationally TERFs work similarly to more well-known hate groups such as KKK, Aryan Brotherhood, C18, NF, NA, ATM, Westboro Baptist Church, Family Research Council, ACT For America, Alt-right MRAs and Incels, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra Front etc.

We should not dismiss TERFs as just banner-waving loonies; transphobia is not a mental illness, it is a choice. We should not dismiss them as ‘misinformed lesbians’ of a generation gone by; the information is there, they just don’t want it.

We should reject excuses made by Pride and other LGBTQ events organisers who allow TERFs to spread their hate. We should demand that events and community organisers take an absolutely zero tolerance approach to them. We should call upon organisations and allies to be actively inclusive and supportive of trans women in women’s spaces and of trans people in general. We should urge organisations and allies to educate the wider public on how to report or challenge TERFs. We should pressure web moderators to ban TERF social media accounts and websites that promote transphobia. And we should all publicly condemn them for the hate group that they are.

[howtospotaterf]

I thought since too many of my mutuals are reblogging this post it would be easier to post this than message everyone individually, but the op of this post currently going around

is a terf, [x] [x] 

[howtospotaterf]

is it just me or is the dictionary definition format of this blog’s description intentionally phrased to the existence of mtf butches….and also why would you title the blog “trans butch community” instead of “transmasc butch community” if that’s who it’s for, unless you don’t think trans women can be butches 😐

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Transfemenine server!!!

My gf made a server for transfemenine people, it's really small and undeveloped now, but we really want more members so it can turn into a proper community!!!

The server members are all inclus and have a high a-spec concentration, we're all anti-transmed too

The link expires in one day, but I'll reblog this post with another if people want, and if you do me I'll always be open to sending you an invite

non transfem reblog please?

[howtospotaterf]

It would help so many people on this website if people learned how to use citations (both for reading and for writing)

I’m not discounting lived experience as a valid source, but it will never be one that is all encompassing. If you want to talk about broader movements, or mass reclamation, I generally need to see a better source than the first time you saw a given strain of discourse; that seldom means it was the first time it ever appeared.

[howtospotaterf]

Look out! Transphobes are now using the term TEHM (Trans Exclusionary Homosexual Man). From what I’ve seen they primarily target trans women just like TERFS and hang in the same circles as them. Stay safe and avoid anyone you see using that term!

[howtospotaterf]

nerdylil//peebee: “T(W)ERFs call trans people TRAs and that’s bad because T(W)ERFs are bad, but I’m going to coin a new term, TRE, to describe the ‘bad’ trans activists!”

nerdylil//peebee: “What do you mean actual poorly behaved trans activists can be dealt with on an individual basis and that coining a term to group them all puts a target on their back and will inevitably be weaponized against all trans activists?”

[howtospotaterf]

that’s one thing that it’s like ..important to understand about terf shit, lol. this idea that terf rhetoric teaches transmisogyny is simply not true. terf rhetoric takes advantage of a person’s preexisting fears and biases about trans women and tells them that not only are their fears correct, but that they can use those fears to blame trans women for any number of perceived evils. the vast, vast majority of our cultural influences convey messages about how transfemininity is scary, deviant, wrong, etc., and the reason it’s important to confront transmisogyny wherever it appears in our culture is not because transmisogyny and terf rhetoric are the same thing; in fact, I think it’s well known that I loathe the conflation of the two terms. the reason it’s important to confront that shit is because, among other reasons, if you teach someone to not listen to transmisogynstic fear-mongering that happens in popular culture on a daily basis, even if they haven’t worked out the finer beats of their gender theory they will be INFINITELY less likely to buy into terf rhetoric, because that shit isn’t founded on logic, it’s based in those baseless, petty, socially constructed fears. and obviously this goes for culture in general and I won’t even GET into male violence against trans women, but since we’re talking about radical feminism…that’s what I’m talking about. 

[howtospotaterf]

New concept: Lets support all trans people and not just the ones we find attractive.