[preface: i think its literally been years since i was active on this account but idk where else to put my massive amounts of thoughts on this subject. sorry in advance for my censoring of some words, not sure what tumblrs gonna be up in arms about~]
Let's Talk About TERFs and SWERFs and Why They're Stinky!
Let's start with the definition of "radical feminism"; or the "rf" end of the acronyms. Radical feminism aims to dismantle the patriarchy and male supremacism through social and political radical activism. Radical feminist ideology puts male oppression at the root of misogyny and inequality when it comes to women's rights.
In the past, men have justified withholding rights from women on the basis of s3x. Women were "the weaker s3x" (bleugh) because their biology and s3x organs were primarily used to nurture and care for children. Women had a role to play, and men wanted to maintain power over them by keeping them in that role. Radical feminists work to dismantle this structure.
But TERFs (or Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) are hyperfocused on isolating trans women (and sometimes trans men) and removing them from association with biological women, and therefore removing them from their type of feminism.
"Trans women aren't women because they can't menstruate or have babies."
This is an incredibly common argument among TERFs. Remember the definition of radical feminism? Remember the aspects of the patriarchy used to suppress women? The patriarchy reduces womanhood to their outdated gender roles (i.e. homemaking and having kids) and their biology and s3x organs (i.e. menstruating and pregnancy). Apparently, TERFs also see these as the requirements for being a woman.
Many BIOLOGICAL women are born with these s3x charactaristics, assigned female at birth, live as a woman, and aren't able to menstruate or get pregnant. Many women are infertile, and it's no choice of their own. According to this TERF logic, these women aren't women either. TERF rhetoric like this is hypocritical, harmful, and counter-intuitive to feminism as a whole.
Another "sub-type" of radical feminism is SWERF (S3x Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminism). This kind also deals with the patriarchy, unbeknownst to the people using this mindset to descriminate against s3x workers.
What comes to mind when you think about s3x work? Pr0stitution? Cam girls? OnlyFans? P0rn? S3x work is all of these things. S3x workers perform s3xual acts in return for compensation, but not always direct s3xual contact like prostitution. By SWERF ideology, women participating in s3xual acts like this as a profession are becoming victims to a harmful system that prolongs objectification, s3xualization, and harm toward women.
Many, if not all other types of feminism encourage women to practice s3xual agency at their own discretion. Encouraging women to break out of those patriarchal norms discussed earlier is one of the base ideologies of feminism in general, and doing what they want with their bodies denies men the satisfaction of confining women to their previously enforced gender roles.
SWERFs also routinely ignore other harmful industries such as modeling in order to attack women in the s3x industry. Just like TERFs, SWERFs are isolating and removing a very specific group of women from their feminism, and that isn't feminism, it's bigotry.
TERF and SWERF ideology is hypocritical AT BEST, and people who employ it are most definitely just trying to justify being bigoted against types of women that they don't like. Any "exclusionary feminism" is just an excuse to discriminate against specific groups of women, and that's not very "fuck the patriarchy" of the people that use it.
