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kotomikun
Joined: 06 May 2013
Posts: 1205
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Posted: Thu May 02, 2019 9:39 pm
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Kaori Makimura wrote: | /eye roll
How about unless someone is receiving DEATH threats, the government backs the hell out of it? |
Maybe it was a bit lost in the noise, but the government wasn't punishing people for having a Twitter war, or anything of that nature. Article says they were "questioning Katy Minshall, Twitter's Head of UK Government, Public Policy and Philanthropy, on the subject of the abuse of women on Twitter," and apparently by some means or another they came across this anime image and used it as part of their argument.
And they misread it, somehow confusing TERF with the C-word, unknowingly feeding back into the Twitter battle they got the image from. The whole thing is a bit silly because, I mean, it can't be that difficult to find a clear example of obnoxious sexism on Twitter, or anywhere on the internet for that matter. Whole place is infested with it. Instead, they managed to find someone criticizing the subset of feminists who are also transphobic, and misinterpreted it completely. Apparently they just assumed TERF is what the hip young dudes use instead of the C-word or whatever else.
This whole story really is an astounding maelstrom of missed and mixed messages, though. Kind of sketchy video that looks completely different taken out of context. Someone implying that something is a witch hunt because those two words are too inflammatory to state directly these days. (There probably is some overlap between TERF-hating and regular old feminist-hating, but it's not just that.) Members of Parliament not bothering to look up neologisms. Yikes. Sometimes I wonder why we can't all just get along, but this sort of thing makes me wonder how society hasn't imploded into a black hole of confused hatred.
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Wyvern
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Posts: 1583
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Posted: Thu May 02, 2019 10:09 pm
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When powerful, out-of-touch politicians discover internet memes, hilarity ensues. Yes, lady, that fictional anime girl is totally going to shoot you with a gun. Trans people in Britain are being assaulted and even murdered at an unprecedented rate right now, but this Terf is the REAL victim because someone sent her a rude meme.
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King Pickle the Wise
Joined: 21 Apr 2019
Posts: 37
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Posted: Thu May 02, 2019 10:18 pm
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octopodpie wrote: |
It's not related at all. All of the context is in the actual article. |
Oh! My mistake!
Kaori Makimura wrote: | How about unless someone is receiving DEATH threats, the government backs the hell out of it? |
That's what they're doing though isn't it? How can people look at statements like "kill all ___" or "all ___ must die!" and not see that as calls to violence? Thankfully it seems some of the Twitter accounts spewing that hate speech have been suspended. Threatening a woman by saying you're going to shoot her seems really messed up.
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roxybudgy
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 132
Location: Western Australia
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Posted: Thu May 02, 2019 11:41 pm
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I'll preface this by saying that I do not agree with the opinions commonly shared by TERFs, I don't consider TERF to be a slur, and have only ever used the term in a descriptive way.
However, I do understand why TERFs consider "TERF" to be a slur. My understanding is that their preferred term is "gender critical", and that very few (if any?) TERFs use the term "TERF" to refer to themselves. They argue that the term "TERF" is exclusively used by non-TERFs in a derogatory way, thus it is a slur.
I guess you could think of it as "gay" being one way of describing a person who has a particular sexual preference, but also used as a slur in certain contexts. Usually it's pretty clear from context whether someone's use of the term "gay" is meant to be descriptive or insulting. According to TERFs, the use of the term "TERF" is generally intended to be insulting. Whether that is true or not is debateable.
Personally, I find that "trans exclusionary radical feminist" or TERF, to be a simple and accurate way of describing someone who believes that women's advocacy should only apply to people who are biologically born as female.
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SquadmemberRitsu
Joined: 26 Jan 2012
Posts: 1391
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Posted: Fri May 03, 2019 12:33 am
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Yeah, was not too surprised to find out that Joanna is deeply transphobic. Bigots gonna bigot.
Swear to god though, how come one guy in a fursuit did a better job of calling out Ronda Rousey’s transphobia than every major wrestling news site over the entire year she was working in WWE? If you’re in wrestling journalism and Anime News Network is quicker on the uptake than you, ya might as well find a new career path
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jdnation
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 2058
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Posted: Fri May 03, 2019 12:44 am
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Ashabel wrote: | No, it's not? It's two members of a well-known hate group abusing their political power and connections in an attempt to repaint a term used to refer to them as a slur because they're terrified that their bigotry just might become known to the public at large. They have repeatedly lied about how the term is actually used in the process.
It's basically the same as Nazis crying about how the right way to refer to them is "alternative right" because being called Nazis hurts their feelings. |
Uh huh... Well, regardless of which side one is taking in this particular brouhaha, a paradoxical fight is precisely what this is, and each side is a member of an identity group and we're now in a place where people are fighting over whose rights trump whose and what words we get to sticker onto the other and who gets to denigrate who and to what extent.
The other thing we can observe is the overall hilarity and hypocrisy over the whole issue of labels and that as much as we decry bullying and labelling and threatening people and violence against women, when time comes to identify the 'enemy', it's then all well and good to bully and label and threaten and depict physical violence against women so long as you are part of a group that has self-proclaimed dominance over the other. And then we're in the spot about who gets the right to take offence and interpret which words or images are used to identify to denigrate the other, by another group who is precisely all about what words you use to identify them and which they feel are offensive and say they are being violently threatened and denigrated, then determine which labels are simply hyperbole, and which side is the more offended victim group whose demands should trump the other, and which rules apply to you and not to me.
Terms and even acronyms that were believed to be acceptable labels for certain people in the past, can years later, depending on the context of their usage, can become denigrating, depending on how the culture uses it in common parlance. Obviously in this conversation between the two dies, the term is hardly being used in any academic way, so naturally it has taken the form of a slur, and used in the same context as one. So... who gets to decide?
This is like a kindergarten fight in the playground, and it makes as much or little sense as far as I'm concerned. Basically, the grand equality revolution has led inevitably to this, society as a whole is now at an impasse. This situation can never be reconciled. All that's left to do is to separate to the left or the right and then once the first domino gets knocked over to simply commence Armageddon.
At least we'll have the memes to entertain us. Let them fight.
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Rosiero
Joined: 05 Jun 2013
Posts: 122
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Posted: Fri May 03, 2019 6:39 am
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The thing is, TERFs choose to be bigots and hurt trans people. There is no shame in excluding people for unacceptable behavior--if their actions have consequences, people will be discouraged from being so awful.
People can't choose what sex or gender they are. They can choose not to be horrible. So if you don't want to be called a TERF, you should probably try not being a TERF.
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gridsleep
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Posted: Fri May 03, 2019 7:03 am
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While I have not found myself in agreement with any Reactionaries, I can begin to understand their dedicated dislike of anything nontraditional, since following the subject in this particular article alone is giving me a headache, and I have some sympathy... for someone here. I am not sure whom, though. Exactly.
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whiskeyii
Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 2265
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Posted: Fri May 03, 2019 8:42 am
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roxybudgy wrote: | I'll preface this by saying that I do not agree with the opinions commonly shared by TERFs, I don't consider TERF to be a slur, and have only ever used the term in a descriptive way.
However, I do understand why TERFs consider "TERF" to be a slur. My understanding is that their preferred term is "gender critical", and that very few (if any?) TERFs use the term "TERF" to refer to themselves. They argue that the term "TERF" is exclusively used by non-TERFs in a derogatory way, thus it is a slur.
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I think it runs a little deeper than that; by trying to command the semantics of their label, they're trying to paint themselves as "rational" or "thoughtful" by incorporating the term "critical" in "gender critical". I think this is intended to give themselves an out--they're not being trans-exclusionary or transphobic, they're just being "critical" of identities outside the gender binary. By rebranding themselves as pseudo-intellectuals, they're trying to give their actions a sheen of respectability, the same way that white supremacists prefer the term "white nationalists" or racists prefer the term "race realist". All of these words are semantics to try and obfuscate the actual nature of their policies, which are often grounded in fear-/hate-mongering.
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Haterater
Joined: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 1727
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Posted: Fri May 03, 2019 10:50 am
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Shame on trying to use TERF as a slur. Its like saying the word "Racist" is a slur.
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AkumaChef
Joined: 10 Jan 2019
Posts: 821
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Posted: Fri May 03, 2019 12:25 pm
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whiskeyii wrote: |
On-topic, TERF is not a slur; you could, I suppose, try framing it backward: radical feminists who exclude transpeople and use RFWET instead, but it’s still not a slur. Nothing about the words “trans-exclusionary”, “radical”, or even “feminist” are slurs....It is inherently factual—unflattering, to be sure, but that’s perhaps an issue with TERF policies rather than the words that make up the acronym TERF itself. |
I agree with you completely, but I think it's only a matter of time before things change. Plenty of terms start out as simple factual descriptors and then become slurs due to common usage--either by people who don't know what the term really means, or by people deliberately trying to be insulting or offensive. The term "re******" was once a simple factual descriptor. Like "TERF" it was unflattering, but it was meant as a simple factual statement. However common usage turned it into a slur even though it was once a technical term. The same thing may well happen with TERF. It all depends on how the majority of the people use the term. If enough people use it in the manner of a slur then it might as well become one. It's a game of whack-a-mole: the moment a term is misappropriated enough then a new one will be invented to be the "factual" replacement. And then the cycle repeats over and over again.
Doctors used to refer to people with certain disabilities as being "slow". Then that became offensive so they switched to "re******" because they wanted to stick to facts rather than being insulting. That became offensive so terms like "special education" came about...repeat ad infinitum.
Mod Edit- If you know a word is a slur and only used as a slur now, don't type it out in full/uncensored please.
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Hellsoldier
Joined: 21 Jun 2013
Posts: 801
Location: Porto,Portugal,Europe,Earth,Sol
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Posted: Fri May 03, 2019 1:21 pm
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I have no words for how dumb all of this is. TERFs are TERFs. Regressve, Backwards, False Feminists.
About Lilly: Love Her! Respect Her!
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Commander Cluck
Joined: 02 May 2019
Posts: 123
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Posted: Fri May 03, 2019 1:48 pm
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SquadmemberRitsu wrote: | Swear to god though, how come one guy in a fursuit did a better job of calling out Ronda Rousey’s transphobia than every major wrestling news site over the entire year she was working in WWE? If you’re in wrestling journalism and Anime News Network is quicker on the uptake than you, ya might as well find a new career path |
I'm going to guess because Rousey made those comments about MMA, not wrestling.
What's telling is when people who obviously don't even know those basic facts or have any ties to the sport have a lot of strong opinions about it. Maybe don't treat a scrawny gamer in a fursuit as some authoritative voice on a subject they don't know anything about.
Rousey ain't the only one who feels that way. The issue of transgendered women in sports is a topic everywhere, and a lot of them feel the same way. Plenty of other MMA fighters said the exact same thing as Rousey did, but don't get any attention at all because Rousey's the bigger name and will naturally garner more haters. Plus she's a woman, so naturally you'll get the misogynists crawling out of the woodwork to attack her for daring to have an opinion.
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El Hermano
Joined: 24 Feb 2019
Posts: 450
Location: Texas
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Posted: Fri May 03, 2019 4:09 pm
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whiskeyii wrote: | On-topic, TERF is not a slur; you could, I suppose, try framing it backward: radical feminists who exclude transpeople and use RFWET instead, but it’s still not a slur. Nothing about the words “trans-exclusionary”, “radical”, or even “feminist” are slurs. You can certainly use those words in a derogatory tone, the same way people in certain sections of the Internet fairly spit the term “feminist”, but TERF as a word is not derived from any of the derogatory origins that other slurs are—like skin color or genitalia. It is inherently factual—unflattering, to be sure, but that’s perhaps an issue with TERF policies rather than the words that make up the acronym TERF itself. |
To piggyback on AkumaChef's post, even if people say it's a 'factual term', it's being used differently and people are noticing. "person who cares about social justice" is a factual term, but is wordfiltered on these boards. "Trap" is also banned here, despite it being officially recognized in the industry by mangaka and professional translators. ANN has the right to censor whatever words they want, but this does show how people critically look at inherently innocuous terms and make descisions based on how they are used. More and more sites are cracking down on using the word terf as time goes on as they become more educated on its use, so don't be surprised when you get pushback for using it as it becomes more and more associated with violence towards women; especially when it's lumped in with verbs like "punch" and "kill".
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ChiilongCha
Joined: 26 Jul 2018
Posts: 37
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Posted: Fri May 03, 2019 6:03 pm
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El Hermano wrote: |
whiskeyii wrote: | On-topic, TERF is not a slur; you could, I suppose, try framing it backward: radical feminists who exclude transpeople and use RFWET instead, but it’s still not a slur. Nothing about the words “trans-exclusionary”, “radical”, or even “feminist” are slurs. You can certainly use those words in a derogatory tone, the same way people in certain sections of the Internet fairly spit the term “feminist”, but TERF as a word is not derived from any of the derogatory origins that other slurs are—like skin color or genitalia. It is inherently factual—unflattering, to be sure, but that’s perhaps an issue with TERF policies rather than the words that make up the acronym TERF itself. |
To piggyback on AkumaChef's post, even if people say it's a 'factual term', it's being used differently and people are noticing. "person who cares about social justice" is a factual term, but is wordfiltered on these boards. "Trap" is also banned here, despite it being officially recognized in the industry by mangaka and professional translators. ANN has the right to censor whatever words they want, but this does show how people critically look at inherently innocuous terms and make descisions based on how they are used. More and more sites are cracking down on using the word terf as time goes on as they become more educated on its use, so don't be surprised when you get pushback for using it as it becomes more and more associated with violence towards women; especially when it's lumped in with verbs like "punch" and "kill". |
It's the meaning of the word that's important. The N word literally came from the word 'Death', and the word 'Trap' implies deception, while the term TERF accurately describe the group of people as extremists because majority of feminist do not subscribe to their views..
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