TERF — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A trans-exclusionary radical feminist; a radical feminist who does not consider trans women to be women, or thinks they should not be included in female spaces or organisations, and who considers trans men to be women; a person whose transphobia is expressed in feminist terms.

   Synonyms

   FARTGCGCFgendercritgendercritterterven

   Antonyms

   TIRFtransfeminist

   Related words

   SWERFTEHM

   Examples

   More examples (2)

   Dear “A Lesbian Democrat” Your TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) agenda and what it represents is no better than the bigoted regressive agenda of the religious right.

   At the further extreme TERF’s^([sic]) actively promote the message that banning trans women from feminist gathering implies—that trans women are not really women at all.

   Perhaps the sheer nastiness of TERFs comes from the fact that they don’t just know they’ve lost; they know they were on the wrong side from the beginning.

   More examples (3)

   Although some TERFs attend the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, none of my interviewees or other land-women have identified as a TERF, nor have any TERFs, to my knowledge, ever lived on women's land.

   The point here isn't that some TERFs aren’t XX and some Nazis aren’t “purely” white (an imaginary category); it’s that their bigotry rests on assumptions about biology and genetics which are scientifically lazy, as if you can “see” race and gender in a meaningful yet simplistic and binary way.

   That Rowling used terms like “gender critical” (the preferred descriptor of TERFs rather than, well, TERF); that she believes laws that enable trans people to use the bathrooms and changing rooms that match their gender identity will “open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside,” which she says is the “simple truth” but is not backed up by any evidence whatsoever; and that she paints the movement for trans rights as one that is “doing demonstrable harm” to women and girls and is “offering cover to predators like few before it” is proof enough of what her views are and who she aligns herself with, for all of her protestations that she has trans friends and cares about the safety of trans women.