Open Letter to TERFs
Open Letter to TERFs
Hello
I would normally start this address by saying ‘hello friends’, but you have made it very clear that we are not friends and you would rather I was dead or forced into a hideous existence of medically-mandated gender dysphoria. Which is rather dystopian of you.
On the heels of the over-reach of Westminster – the UK government has decided that Scotland’s parliament is not actually allowed to make laws or govern concerning it’s own domestic health policies – I have decided to write to you all as a block of people with no individuality as it is a refreshing exercise to not be the recipient but the perpetrator of such a thing.
I am a transman, I began my life as a baby who grew into what was outwardly considered a girl, then I became what society deemed to be a woman and then I transitioned over the course of a decade until I am indistinguishable from any cis-gendered man walking about. I defy you to point me out in a crowd. I am speaking up today because I have grown weary of the only voices being that of people who have locked arms with the devil and Nazis to push a deep hatred of women and womanhood onto the main stage, since I know you already don’t give a rat’s ass about me and mine.
Don’t worry, I will expound on that, as I assume you are all frantically and angrily pointing out that you are defending women and womanhood and how dare I, etc etc. The current craze among TERFs is to point at pictures of cis-gender women in the public sphere, actresses, politicians, influencers and so on, and loudly proclaim how manly their features are. Inferring, I suppose, that they are secretly “men in dresses” and must therefore be the enemy. I find it frequently hilarious that for a group who prides itself on the use of ‘biology’, ‘facts’ and ‘logic’ that you cannot point out a real transwoman unless you already heard she was one.1 Your detection skills are as faulty as your grasp of genuine biology.
Here’s the thing, enemies – may I call you enemies? Are we on good enough terms for such affection? - real biology is, in the common parlance, a shit show. As with all other aspects of humans (hair colour, eye colour, height, build, etc.) sex and gender are on a sliding scale between two points. It is true that most commonly human beings have but two sex chromosomes and that those are XX and XY, but it is not true in the slightest to say that that is the only configuration or that it’s common to even know what your chromosomal arrangement is. Sometimes a person can have just one chromosome. Sometimes a person can have four! And this is important for real scientists to know because chromosomes play a part in how we treat conditions and diseases2. See again my previous observation about biology and shit shows. Ah, but I’ve tried to bring real science and logic into the argument and you’ve already proved you neither care nor will listen and be taught what is actually real.
Anyway, what does this have to do with your hatred of women and womanhood?
Simple.
When you start assuming that women with square jaws, big shoulders, hair in random places and other, more ephemeral “Masculine” traits, like loudness or having an opinion or skilled leadership, are in truth “men in dresses”, you constrict the window for what is an acceptable way for a woman to present herself and her own relationship with feminity. You tell every little girl in your sphere of influence that she must perform and fit into an Acceptable Standard of Feminity to be accepted. Girls begin to mute their opinions, they start to be passive in group situations, they crush down all the parts of themselves that are not “Feminine”. Its horrible to watch when little girls switch from being competitive and funny and opinionated into little shells that try not to rock the boat. It’s heart breaking.
This is not, by the way, hyperbole and fear mongering. We are already seeing the result of what paranoia about the right to bodily autonomy has wrought in the form of girls who are athletic high achievers being banned from sports they love3, because what if they’re actually “boys in dresses”?!
Your desire to “protect girls and women” is insulting. It assumes at it’s base state that women are always the victim, the weakling, the little thing that needs a nice, strong figure to protect her. It’s demeaning to every woman I’ve ever met and the fact you can’t see it is doubly so.
Ultimately, the reason why you TERFs are lumped in with Nazis, which is very emotionally laden as an “accusation”, is that these talking points you make, ultimately dancing around the concept of women being lesser, is the backbone of Nazi ideology. If you are insulted by the comparison, then good, I hope so, because it means you are not so deep in the morass of fascism that you cannot choose to turn back.
You may have heard the phrase that “Trans Rights are Human Rights”. Think it through, why would rights for a small percent of human beings (roughly the same as that of natural redheads4), work for everyone and be important for women in general?
Body Autonomy.
I made it bold and because I cannot shout it loud enough.
That’s right. Trans rights are the vector of attack for any fascist who wants to deprive women of the rights to their own body. Once they can successfully argue that I am too incompetent to make my own decisions regarding my own body, for my own health and welfare, that argument can always be expanded to include more people. It grows to include you. Once fascists are able to make my body property of the State, they can make your body property of the State. This means abortion access, contraception access, this means sex education. And once your body is no longer yours to do with as you see fit, well what happens then? You are owned by someone, right? If not your husband, then your father. This means you no longer have a right to your own career, your own bank account. Your own name.
Phew! That sounds like a lot, right? Real alarming, dystopian stuff.
Except it wasn’t so long ago that it was genuine fact. Our grandmothers, in some cases our mothers, grew up in exactly that world.
Ultimately, here’s the thing: I don’t need you to like me. I don’t need you to agree with my decisions and I sure as hell don’t need you understand me. I am thankful in a way that you don’t, because it means you don’t experience gender dysphoria which is a state of mind that I do not wish upon casual enemies (only my most reviled).
What I need from you is to understand that every time you try to tear down a trans person’s right to just exist and to have a job, or have a wee in quiet dignity, or walk down a street without being harassed, you are attacking the foundations of something that protects you just as much.
If you really consider yourself a feminist, then start to think about all the people that that umbrella truly covers.
It’s everyone.
It’s just everyone. Every man who wants to be a nurse, or who wept over his deceased pet, or wanted to stay home with his baby to bond. Every woman who wants to be a leader or a trailblazer in some field, or who doesn’t want to shave the patchy facial hair she grows because her religious feeling is that she should not alter the plans of the Divine for her. Every intersex person who does not want medical intervention, or who wants it in a way that is different to the decisions made by people the moment they were born.
TERFs, your rhetoric demands we all live consigned into rigid little boxes, but you also can’t reliably tell who belongs in which box and instead of coming to the realisation that boxes are stupid, you double down and just start shoving people into whatever box you think fits ‘most’.
I know this letter won’t hit most of you, but I hope it finds some people who are on the fence. TERF rhetoric is Fascism. It does not protect women and womanhood. It is doing active harm to our societies and you have the power to change that. There are more of you than of them. If you still don’t get transpeople, that’s okay. Do this for yourself. Do this for every little girl who wants to run around and get dirty and every little boy who wants to do art. Do this for all of us and for a better tomorrow.
We transpeople are not your enemy. We are just out here trying to live our best lives, happy and in the sun. I don’t know why that offends so many people, but give us a break, mind your own business. We ain’t hurting you.
Yours most faithfully
Matty
Transman extraordinaire
Feminist
1 TERFs cannot tell that Sigourney Weaver is in fact a cis-woman
2 Raznahan, A et al, Sex-chromosome dosage effects on gene expression in humans. June 26, 2018 - 115 (28) 7398-7403 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1802889115 (also known as: Oh god, how do drugs do?)
3 Inflicting “Genital Inspections” on athletes suspected of being trans
4 Red heads are 1-2% of the population, so, roughly, are trans people but y'all make it so hostile to come out that we don’t know for sure.
where’s that post that’s like “you can tell by people’s writing that the only reading they’ve has done since high school is fanfiction”
I’m so sorry to be mean but the first sentence made me crack up lol this is so melodramatic. This is the equivalent of people being like “no. You know what? Fuck this. Fuck you.” Kfjjdkdkdmdndjdkkd
OP thinks this is them
Omg I was going to say the same thing, this reeks of main character syndrome
“Here’s the thing, enemies – may I call you enemies? Are we on good enough terms for such affection?” lmfao. op watches too much anime.
