A TERF by any other name...

You may have heard by now that J.K.  Rowling has a problem with trans women. That's a big disappointment, since she has generally been a supporter of the queer community.

Sometime last year I was having lunch with a lesbian meetup group and someone mentioned that a trans woman had asked to join. "How cool!" I thought. "No way!" said the others. A civilized argument ensued, and I was most definitely in the minority.

Thus was my first introduction to terfdom. TERF, for those who don't know, stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. Basically, a terf believes that trans women are not real women and therefore should be excluded from women's spaces. It's rumored that terfs killed the venerated Michigan Womyn's Festival rather than admit trans women.

The idea, at least according to my lunch companions, is that trans women can't  possibly know what it's like to be a woman, because they were raised as men. They don't know, for example, what it feels like to feel unsafe in a bathroom when a man enters.

Wait, what? I call bullshit.

First, I'm pretty sure a trans woman feels a lot less safe in a public bathroom than the average cis woman. And that's probably true whether she's in the men's room or the women's room.

Second, no one can know the experiences  of another. So if women's spaces are only for women with shared experiences, which experiences are we talking about? Because a white woman has experienced a very different life from a woman of color. A wealthy woman has not experienced life as a woman in poverty. If you insist on experience as a basis for inclusion, then you are destined to be in a group all by yourself, my friend.

In any event, the whole "experience" argument is pretense. This became clear when some of the women at lunch said perhaps a trans woman could be included in the group if she has had surgery.

I'm sorry, what on earth does that have to do with common experience?

The bottom line is this: terfs are transphobic. Their beliefs may be sincere, but that doesn't make them any more palatable.

Now, at this point I should address the whole language thing. Many women object to the word "terf " They consider it to be a slur. They prefer "gender critical." In other words, they are demanding politically correct nomenclature.

Sorry, but bigots don't get to play snowflake.  And they don't get to obfuscate their agenda by cloaking it in softer, gentler words.

Not racists. Not misogynists. Not Nazis.

And not terfs.