TERF is a myth. TRA = repackaged MRA. Calling movements you disagree with "fascist", "bioessentialist", and "Nazism" is lazy & underhanded; but since you're dishing it out, I assume you can take it. Anti-natalist, anti-theist, pro-woman and LGB people. I'm not an activist, nor am I a receipts blog. I do not read DMs, my notifications, or argue/debate.
"Radical feminists are racist, Euro-centric, and supporters of white supremacy!"
Considering that radical feminism is the reason why women and women of color specifically have rights to vote, own property, and be treated as human beings, there are already blatant errors to be pointed out in that claim. Feel free to Google "second wave feminism".
Now, why would the feminist movement that made such huge leaps of progress into equality and progress towards liberation, be labeled as "racist" of all things? Let's take a look.
I emphasise women of color because intersectionality - in its true form - is a theory about how different axes of oppression (e.g. race and sex) intersect and feed into each other; women of color, for example, black women, are oppressed on the basis of both sex and race. Race causes her to experience oppression such as slavery, if she lived in the past; segregation, closer to the future. Sex causes her to experience oppression such as rape, objectification, and forced servitude; all three of which are still commonly experienced by black women - every woman - today.
This means that the true form of feminism is radical feminism. It recognizes social classes, analyzes them as they are in reality and not as they are in theory, and works towards the goal that it has always had: female liberation. In countries where men have more control over societies, such as Iran and South Korea, feminists cannot afford the weak and defanged feminism of liberals in the Global North. I will keep this as succinct as possible. In plain terms: Western feminism has lost focus and surrendered to the patriarchy because women still do not have class consciousness. It is useless. Spineless. Weak.
Women in the Global South cannot do campaigns for buccal fat removal, nor can they espouse bimboism and choice feminism - they are fighting for their lives and their rights to exist as a human being, in societies where male supremacy is worse than it is in the West, where patriarchy already dominates. Do you think that the South Korean women going against the societal expectations to tolerate a man, and be forced to have children, have any use for a form of "feminism" that cannot even define what a woman is?
To say that radical feminism is racist is to deny reality. I am aware that this is a favorite pastime of TRAs, but women all around the world, women of color, their feminism is radical feminism because there is no other form of feminism that has ever worked. Liberal feminism has brought nothing but AGPs and male predators into female-only spaces.
Brown and black women all around the world fight for reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, and how can they fight a fight when they cannot tell you what the cause is? It is female liberation; female liberation from sex-based oppression caused by males. It is also ridiculous to outright say that radical feminism is racist when radical feminism is one of the only few ideologies and movements that can identify classes in society. It is far more racist to insinuate that a "cisgender" black woman has more in common with a TIM because you think black women are more "masculine". A black woman is a woman - a man in a dress is a man.
There is no Euro-centrism, or racism, or white supremacy in radical feminism. Feminism is inherently incongruent with those beliefs, unless it is the false, tepid, pathetic excuse of "feminism" adopted by the West used to uphold the patriarchy rather than dismantle it. Shameful.
Fascism, while hard to define, boils down to a far-right ideology with an extra emphasis on nationalism. It espouses dictatorships and an autocracy, the eradication of individual goals, needs, and interests for the nation/state, a belief in an inherent social hierarchy (e.g. anti-Semitism, patriarchy, racism), and a dirigiste economy.
As neither radical feminists nor TRAs are particularly able to establish this kind of government nor are they inclined to, this is not a reasonable comparison to make. However, TRAs are particularly fond of calling women on the Internet fascists - so I am more than willing to humor them.
Let's compare the TRA movement to fascism as per these common features identified and defined by Umberto Eco, taken from his essay Ur-Fascism.
1. The cult of tradition
Gender roles are established fiercely: that men are masculine and women are feminine. A woman, defined by TRAs, is a person with a womanly essence within them, who performs femininity and enjoys makeup, dresses, as well as heels.
Women who do not conform are often treated as trans - they have their pronouns questioned even though they are blatantly female, because a woman not appearing as feminine surely must mean that she is not a woman - which is not a polite thing to do as many TRAs think it to be. It is an insult. It is as if saying that a woman is not a woman because she does not look like what a woman is supposed to look like. It is classic misogyny.
A woman is a woman because she is an adult human female, that is, she is of the sex that produces or has the potential to produce ova. There is no list of requirements that a woman has to fulfill, in order to be a woman, other than being an adult human female.
Trans identified males, so-called trans "women", only enforce gender roles with their talk of artificial/supplemental estrogen making them "dumber", how wearing skirts and lingerie is the epitome of womanhood, and that a vaginal canal is simply a wound carved in the male body.
Calling the results of a penile inversion a "neo-vagina" is an insult to the female organ. The vaginal canal is not a rotting mess that accumulates feces, mucus, bacteria, and hair. It is self-cleaning and acidic enough to bleach fabric, and certainly enough to rid itself of harmful bacteria. It does not need to be dilated every day in order to prevent the body from healing the damage. The two are not comparable.
By perpetuating the myth that women are simply modified men, TRAs are also perpetuating the myth of gender - and subsequently gender roles - the very thing they claim to destroy with their ideology. It is a dissonance for them to hear that their ideology is an ideology, because many of them are brainwashed or simply delusional, and so they are especially susceptible to broadcasting their belief without critical thinking or, really, thinking at all. As gender roles and the patriarchy has been around for as long as males have been around, this fits the criterion of "cult of tradition" very well.
2. The rejection of modernism
The abolition of gender roles has been staunchly opposed for as long as it has been worked on. Referring back to the first point, equality between the sexes is modern compared to the millennia that men have spent oppressing, disenfranchising, hegemonising, and persecuting women for the crime of being women.
This is seen as immoral and - simply - bad, as all feminist movements have been perceived and treated as. TRAs have now stepped up to the mantle of opposing women the way plain old men, without the autogynephilia, had, against the suffragettes.
3. The cult of action for action's sake
When the TRA movement is observed, a lack of thinking can be spotted quite easily - especially by a keen eye. This is caused both by the fact that a large amount of this movement consists of children and naïve young adults, and also by the fact that men largely do not engage in rational thought.
Protests are thoughtless and often aimless, such as leaving urine in bottles and urinating everywhere in one particular incident. They also prefer to fight for non-existent problems and erode other people's rights in the process, such as female bathrooms being replaced with "gender-neutral" bathrooms and the men's bathrooms being untouched.
There is a history to the sex segregation of public bathrooms, and that is because women's needs were not considered in public places, and bathrooms used to be single sex: for males. They could not use these facilities because they would get assaulted or worse, and women frequently suffered from UTIs or incontinence due to this inhumane treatment. Removing female bathrooms is the start of reviving this tradition of blatant misogyny, and undoing the fight our foremothers fought and won - along with the rampant denial of reality.
Misogyny is well and alive because our culture has not dismantled the patriarchy yet, and so every impulsive or idiotic TRA act is shaped by, driven by, encouraged by, and benefits men, without the majority of the TRA movement even noticing.
4. Disagreement is treason
The most blatant example. In the heydays of dyscourse (dysphoria discourse, where the terms "tucute" and "transmed" were widely used), discussion was at least still somewhat encouraged, though radical feminists have always been demonized and silenced throughout history. Civil discussions of the TRA movement were not an immediate ticket to being branded a bigot, and while it was not particularly productive, differences in opinion was not as widely persecuted as it is now.
Questioning something about the TRA movement these days gets a person harassed and insulted, even in good faith. The entitlement of TRAs lead them to act in uncouth ways towards well-meaning people, and still they demand subservience, because an unfounded accusation of "transphobia" can ruin a life nowadays - and that accusation can stem from anywhere between refusing to use neopronouns or outright violence, usually not even transphobic violence. It is too wide a term to have such weight.
You are expected to blindly follow and have faith in the TRA movement without question - lest your life is ruined and you are yelled at for daring to think - even ridiculous parts must be regarded as acceptable. You must follow their worldview, faith, and religion, and alter your own worldview and map of reality to be in accordance with the one deemed acceptable by the TRA movement.
Reprogramming your pattern recognition to ignore secondary sex characteristics, and to feed into the delusions of TRAs better, is not only a prerequisite of the foundations - only foundations, beginnings - of being a "good ally", it is also a prerequisite of what makes you a "good person". Morality is now defined by whether or not you submit to the whims and constantly-moving goalposts of the TRA movement, and agree with them.
5. Fear of difference
Similar to the previous feature, anyone who disagrees or does not hold the beliefs deemed acceptable by the TRA movement is shunned and feared. For example: Buck Angel and Blaire White, two very prominent trans people, are often demonized and called bigoted, despite being extremely pro-trans.
There is also the slightly amusing trend of the extreme lengths that the younger, female crowd of the TRA movement goes to in order to be unique (e.g. adopting strange names, microlabels, neopronouns, and even psychiatric disorders), and ending up a monolith of appropriation and crude opinions combined with the most embarrassing time of one's youth. They fear being different the same way they crave it. It is a rather strange contradiction, but those are common in TRA circles.
6. Appeal to social frustration
One of the things that the TRA movement has done successfully is indoctrinating young women and girls into their ideology in the guise of feminism and social justice.
True feminism - i.e. radical feminism - is frowned upon and seen as too, well, radical, and TRA-brand activism is just socially acceptable enough that the cage of the patriarchy looks gilded and shiny. Women and girls experience our oppression, and recognize it as oppression; and when given the chance to do something about it in a safe manner, even without actually making any progress, most would likely accept.
It is not cowardice that I am describing necessarily, but fear. I do not blame women and girls for not wanting to partake in socially unacceptable behaviors and campaigning for their rights, when women's rights are seen as socially unacceptable, because conformity is safe, and in some ways, more comfortable, in the same way a jail cell is comfortable because it is familiar. It is not true comfort. Being chained to a wall and allowed to wander for as far as the chain will allow is not freedom, either - and this kind of faux-freedom is what the TRA movement is offering to people.
7. The obsession with a plot
TRAs always feel under attack, and they say as such. There are always people who are "transphobic" when they state realities - such as J.K. Rowling's initial statement, which was that she acknowledged biological sex whilst still supporting trans people.
Even acknowledging a simple reality is offensive. There is always a nefarious reason behind every single statement that goes against their beliefs, and there is always a nefarious group of the "other" that are covertly taking away rights or killing people.
Trans people are often murdered or assaulted due to homophobia or misogyny. There is no "transphobic violence", because TIMs are identified as homosexual males and TIFs are identified as homosexual females by anyone assaulting them. This risk is increased if they are prostituted. As an addendum, men are in the overwhelming majority of people that assault trans people.
8. The enemy is both weak and strong
Radical feminists are literally killing trans people, but radical feminists are also NEETs on the Internet who don't participate in real life activism scenes at all, and J.K. Rowling is only running her mouth on Twitter, but J.K. Rowling is also single-handedly removing trans people's rights, and the US Govt. is putting laws in place that are bad for trans people, but they're also ineffective... et cetera.
9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy
TRAs condemn holding a neutral stance towards radical feminists. It is always black or white, bad or good, and even agreeing with one post by someone branded a radical feminist on Tumblr is enough to send a barrage of anonymous messages towards someone - for the crime of agreeing with someone who is the enemy, even unknowingly. There is no middle ground. It is disallowed.
The Shinigami Eyes extension (made by an alleged rapist, by the way) is a particularly blatant example of this kind of extremism. All posts by potential radical feminists and "transphobes" must be avoided at all costs - or else, you are also "transphobic" by association.
10. Contempt for the weak
Again, TRAs are expected to always have reactionary and violent responses at the ready to be aimed at any radical feminist or "transphobe". Rape and death threats are amongst the most common, as are threats of assault, bodily harm, and doxxing. TRAs who do not act like this or have a moral aversion to these behaviors are often accused as sympathizers or encouraged to betray their morals, and to view radical feminists as subhuman.
Dehumanizing the enemy is an effective way to enact cruelty against them without feeling remorse.
11. Everybody is educated to become a hero
Any TRA can become a figurehead. This position falls mostly to males - although some women come close to it - spokespersons and advocates, Internet personalities, and such, are all considered "heroes". And there are many of them.
Dylan Mulvaney is a good example of this phenomenon. He went to the White House to speak for all trans people, TRAs, and especially TIMs; encouraging transition for children and representing the entire TRA movement to the president of one of the most powerful countries in the world. Regardless of your opinions on the USA - mine are absolutely negative - this is an irrefutable truth, and a truth I wish was not true.
The fact that a man pretending to be a woman for a few months is enough to buy him a ticket to the White House is utterly ridiculous, and it shows that anyone can potentially become him, and the males do, at the expense of themselves and others. The women? Well, they sacrifice themselves for the movement for a fraction of the glory the men get.
12. Machismo and weaponry
TIMs and AGPs are often middle-aged white males with children, a wife, a house in the suburbs, and guns. Feel free to scroll through every Reddit MtF selfie thread for five minutes to prove my point. They also commit a lot of violent crime such as rape, assault, and murder. I must admit, I have seen a post by a TRA comparing radical feminism to this very same list - and they omitted this point, conceding that nothing that radical feminists do can be twisted to fit. And yet this is, by far, the easiest point on this entire list for myself to talk about.
Men are - which is what TIMs are - prone to violence that is sexual and dominating in nature, because of the very nature of the patriarchy and the way it oppresses women.
When they started castrating themselves via synthetic estrogen and can no longer get an erection, the threats and violence both discussed and enacted freely against women (on the Internet, usually against the group of women for whom violence is encouraged; radical feminists) fit perfectly into the "ersatz phallic exercise" mentioned in the original Ur-Fascism essay.
We are also witnessing a new kind of machismo, the kind that still forces the penis onto every woman; genital "preference" discourse. Not desiring male genitalia is "transphobic" and TRAs have gone on witch hunts to harass, condemn, and threaten any woman who expresses such non-desire, let alone active repulsion.
It is a moral failing to not be attracted to the male body - or the mutilated male body, even - in a way that uses morality and guilt-tripping techniques alongside the threat of social ostracism.
13. Selective populism
Men want this to happen. Men have had this happen in their favor for the majority of human civilization. By association, TRAs also want this to happen, and so they push for it, such as with the aforementioned Mulvaney example. Women's voices are being drowned out by men skinwalking as women, and the TRA movement is encouraging this, as this is exactly what the patriarchy wants.
14. Newspeak
Catchy TikTok slang. Easily memorized mantras, such as "trans women are women." It is easy to spot if one knows what one is looking for, because it is so repetitive and brainless that it rings completely hollow - "punch a TERF" is also included in here, along with the word "TERF" itself. Terms like "TMA" and "TME" also count. Even Twitter's limited word count forces TRAs to crunch their thoughts and eliminate all nuance from their ideology in order to be able to fit it into one, snappy, viral Tweet.
As I have established, critical thinking is completely discouraged and regarded as a "transphobic" behavior - even if indirectly - and this then encourages the younger side of the TRA movement to abandon it entirely. This is an effective way to "limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning", such as mentioned in the Ur-Fascism essay itself.
There is a commentary to be made about the new generation of Internet slang in general, but that deserves its own post - a post I cannot be bothered to make at the moment. Its problems are the most prominent with the TRA movement and its blatant disdain for any kind of freedom regarding freedom of speech and opinion; radical feminism is not hate speech, and painting it as bigotry with quick, short slogans akin to advertisements, is the reason why people are so opposed to radical feminism without even knowing what radical feminists stand for.
Which is our problem, and has always been our problem. TRAs refuse to understand radical feminism, its core tenets, the way radical feminists are very well acquainted with TRA talking points. They will not have people supporting the movement otherwise. The trans rights activist movement is simply illogical and oppressive.
TL;DR
Don't be fucking lazy, read the entire thing. Theory should be read and engaged with and not "consumed" only via snippets and short quotes.
Gender dysphoria is a psychological disorder characterized by distress regarding one's biological, and only, sex. It is often co-morbid with eating disorders, dissociative disorders, personality disorders, depression, anxiety, and it is more prevalent in women and girls. Transition should only be a last resort to those with severe dysphoria - the aim should always be therapy, not irreversible and elective medical procedures.
Sex is an observable, immutable trait of the human body. It governs your endocrine system, the way your organs develop, your agility, strength, bone density, and structure. It is inherent, and while it is not the same between the two sexes, it does not dictate worth. Sex is a biological reality that says nothing more than just that, a person's biological reality.
Gender is a social construct, and a social hierarchy. It subjugates women and girls, that is, adult human females and female human children, and places men as the superior class. It is not inherent and it is harmful. It dictates worth and it is bioessentialist - gender assigns traits, roles, and authority to people based on sex, which is dishonest, not based on reality, and anti-woman.
Intersex people are not your pawns. Disorders of sex development do not make a separate, third sex. To say so is alienating to intersex people who have medical conditions - and unscientific. They are still either male, or female. Disorders of sex development are disorders that affect chromosomal, anatomical sex, and gonadal development, and therefore only present in one sex or the other. The karyotype is vital for diagnosis.
5-ARD: Only affects people with Y chromosomes, i.e. males. It impairs DHT production and so causes issues such as ambiguous genitalia and deviations of the urethral opening.
AIS: Androgen insensitivity only affects people with Y chromosomes, i.e. males. People with these conditions produce testosterone and androgens, but their body does not react to it. PAIS, the partial form of this disorder, causes ambiguous genitalia. This disorder especially deserves more nuance than a simple rundown - but I will use it as an example nonetheless because a female human being cannot be affected by any form of AIS.
Turner syndrome: A male cannot be born without one X chromosome; he will die. A female, having two X chromosomes, can survive with only one (a karyotype of 45,X0). This condition causes an absence of a menstrual cycle, a lack of breast tissue as the typical female secondary sex characteristics, and low or no fertility.
A woman is an adult human female. That is, she is an adult human of the sex that either produces ova or has the potential to produce ova, but does not because of a disorder.
Ovum (pl. ova): The female gamete, of an animal or human, which can be fertilized by the male gamete to incite cell division.
Gamete: A mature reproductive cell that can unite with the opposite sex's cell to form a zygote, in short, to sexually reproduce.
