callioscope

I think some people realized saying “feminazi” was starting to reflect badly on them so they shifted to “TERFs, who are just like nazis” instead. Every generation needs its own inventive way to legitimize its fear and disgust for female liberation, and this permutation is no different.

It speaks volumes that people find this comparison accurate. “Feminazi” and “nazi terf” are statements about the speaker’s own emotional reactions: they either find nazism so trivial or female liberation so horrifying that they find truth in this comparison.

 winterterf

That last bit….. that’s exactly it.

 cockk-dealer

No, they compare TERFs to nazis because you spend your time allying yourselves with the far right so you can bash a minority group.

There are also some people who hate feminists or radical feminists who like saying cringey things like “feminazi”.

 kritisch-meinschatz

where did you learn about radical feminism? because it clearly wasn’t in an academic setting if you genuinely believe this. it’s narrow-sighted and racist.

radical feminism is at the forefront of women’s rights movements in countries across africa, the middle east, south and east asia and south america, who are actively pushing back against the systemic abuse (fgm, child brides, no education, forced modesty, the infanticide of girls, etc.) maintained by their far-right governments.

not to mention, it’s disgustingly insensitive to insinuate they are comparable. nazi’s didn’t “bash a minority group”, they attempted to commit a genocide and facilitated eugenics through euthanasia and mass sterilisation. they built and used ghettos, and then camps, to ethnically cleanse. you are purposefully misrepresenting and diminishing an era of history that saw the orchestrated deaths of millions of people (mostly jews, romani and disabled people amongst others) in hospitals and death camps.

 cockk-dealer

>>where did you learn about radical feminism? because it clearly wasn’t in an academic setting if you genuinely believe this. it’s narrow-sighted and racist.

I did learn about radical feminism in academic settings, actually. And no, this isn’t racist.

>>radical feminism is at the forefront of women’s rights movements in countries across africa, the middle east, south and east asia and south america, who are actively pushing back against the systemic abuse (fgm, child brides, no education, forced modesty, the infanticide of girls, etc.) maintained by their far-right governments.

Yes, it is. I’m not talking about radical feminism here, I’m talking about TERFs. I know that some - not all - radical feminists in developing countries are technically TERFs, and that they don’t tend to ally themselves with the far right, but most of them don’t put their energy into giving the subject much in the way of thought.

The vast majority of card-carrying TERFs are middle-class white women in Western countries, who ally themselves with (which doesn’t mean they are the same as or believe the same things as) far-right (not neo-nazi, but bigoted conservative) conservative groups in solidarity in order to give credence and power to their views which are based on excluding trans people. These views are based on the theory that trans people represent a threat to them or a conflicting access need,  which in theory encourages separation, but in practice tends to involve oppressing trans people’s rights.

TERFs do not ally themselves with Nazis, but to many people, the distinctions between the extreme ends of the bigoted far right and Neo-Nazis isn’t a big one and they treat the two as the same.

However, people contain multitudes and it’s possible to be in favour of civil rights for women in minority groups and still bash members of a specific minority group you don’t like, such as trans people. 

Also, most TERFs believe that the people they are bashing aren’t women, and it’s quite easy for a shitty woman who advocates for women’s rights to bash men from minority groups. 

But, as per my last paragraph, it’s quite possible for someone to be in favour of civil rights for women and still bash women they don’t like who are from a minority group.

If you believe that I believe that you’re a woman’s rights advocate, but a racist one, then it stands to reason that racist women’s rights advocates exist, which means that it also stands to reason that people who advocate for the rights of cis black women might hate trans women - or trans men, who TERFs might view as women under certain circumstances. 

If you don’t believe that trans women are women - whatever, I don’t care. I think trans women are women and trans men are men because that’s how they operate and look, or how they feel, and also because it helps trans people to become more like their desired gender, and also because the average person doesn’t identify with or behave as the opposite sex, and also because they’re gendered characteristics and it’s possible to change gender, and also because transsexuals alter their sex.

You don’t want to believe trans women are women? OK, but they aren’t men, though. Technically, if you want to be literal about it, most trans people are androgynous. Could you believe that they’re men? Sure, just as you can believe they’re women, but that makes them men who have a lot more in common with women than most men, and doesn’t mean you aren’t bashing a minority group.

>>not to mention, it’s disgustingly insensitive to insinuate they are comparable. nazi’s didn’t “bash a minority group”, they attempted to commit a genocide and facilitated eugenics through euthanasia and mass sterilisation. 

Nazis are a historical group that no longer exist. People in Western countries are concerned with neo-nazis, who advocate for these policies without enacting them, and other, less extreme members of the far-right. Both of these groups spend their time bashing minorities. In some parts of the world, neo-nazis are more violent, like their Nazi counterparts. But in the West, that isn’t really the issue, and most developing, poorer countries aren’t white and therefore the fascism involved tends to take other routes.

>>they built and used ghettos, and then camps, to ethnically cleanse. you are purposefully misrepresenting and diminishing an era of history that saw the orchestrated deaths of millions of people (mostly jews, romani and disabled people amongst others) in hospitals and death camps.

Yeah, I learnt about the Holocaust, too.

 kritisch-meinschatz

you know what nazi’s are and what they have done, and it’s actually a completely valid comparison that isn’t diminishing or offensive at all because i should have…. just assumed you mean something different than what you wrote?

you said “they compare TERFs to nazis because you spend your time allying yourselves with the far right so you can bash a minority group”. what you wrote justifies the comparison for terfs to nazis and nazis to a group that ‘bash minorities’. it’s grossly insensitive and narrow-sighted.

i’m not a radical feminist, or a terf, or whatever. there is a lot of things i don’t agree with them on. but i have major issues with people flippantly and unnecessarily comparing things to nazism, or in your case, justifying why people compare something to nazism. because it always purposefully misrepresents and diminishes the collective harm of that era, and the continuation of those beliefs and attitudes in the modern day. it’s antisemetic, anti-roma, ableist and racist at it’s core.

nazism isn’t a issue of the past. maybe where you are from neo-nazis are “less violent”; i would argue that “advocating” as opposed to “enacting” doesn’t instantly mean there is less harm, but there certainly are places where nazi ideology is being perpetuated and enacted. maybe you aren’t a part of a community that’s been taught to be hyperaware of it. i don’t know, because i don’t know you. i don’t know if you consider all of europe to be “the west”, i’ve seen a lot of people do that recently.

but i can tell you it’s different where i am from. it’s different in a lot of european countries right now, especially for disabled and romani people.

my whole point is that (being the one who does or justifies) comparing terfs to nazis is not only offensive but it’s actively harmful to the way we perceive those events and when we do that, we erode the way we react to a resurgence. they are not the same thing. there is nothing wrong with highlighting the harm that can be done with anti-trangender rhetoric but it can and should be done without comparing them.

 thesinisterspinster

Id like examples of what bashing is. Can you find one radical feminist who physically harmed a trans person? I dont belive in gender there is no outward set of likes and dislikes and behaviors that make someone a man or woman. Matt walsh has been pretty despritely trying to find gender critical women to talk to him (ie help his cause) and he has been universally met with we dont need your help. Probly because we are too busy working on getting our human rights back wile the left is makeing it harder calling us natzis for speaking about sex.