TERFs Should Stop Being Mean to Trans People

It's immoral and unsavory to be cruel to your ideological opponents, and in this case it undercuts gender-critical positions.

Conservatives believe that it’s a scientific fact that humans are either male or female (I agree). However, they also believe that God designed us that way and that we are not animals, which contradicts their supposed deference to science.

That said, it’s un-Christian to mock the mentally ill, which is why I and many others arrive at the conclusion that conservatives are homophobic and uncomfortable, and their arguments are post-hoc rationalizations of a desire to lash out.

TERFs, on the other hand, are a bit more nuanced in their takedowns of gender ideology.

Philosophically, TERFs maintain that thinking you're a woman can’t make you a woman. Progressives increasingly refer to biological sex as a social construct, secondary to gender identity. If we believe that, TERFs argue, then gender ideology becomes a religion in which we inhabit our bodies as spirit-like gender entities.

Psychologically, TERFs show uneven compassion for trans men and trans women. They see trans women as perverted, entitled, delusional men who get off on invading women’s private spaces. Trans men, on the other hand, are more likely to be seen as victims—women who have been shamed into destroying their breasts and vaginas, a shame that most likely originates from male misogyny.

TERFs are angry because they see these narcissistic perverts winning at women’s sports, pressuring lesbians to suck their “girl dicks,” and eroding the very existence of women in our collective consciousness by squeezing concession after concession out of progressives. Social media allows new ideas about gender to spread quickly and then iterate on themselves in echo chambers with zero pushback—and then these same echo chambers serve as the courts of public opinion where transgressors are humiliated.

The anger is understandable, but you can express anger without being mean. You can be indignant about protecting the existence of women without mocking someone’s physical appearance or sexual predilections.

So why be mean? Probably because it feels good. On the internet in particular, you get to have the catharsis of hostility without the guilt of seeing the pain you’ve inflicted. And on Twitter, meanness can trigger a profitable, profile-boosting dogpile.

This behavior is wrong, cruel, and, from an advocacy standpoint, foolish.

Here are 8 reasons why:

1. Displaying a lack of empathy for trans people undermines your demand that others care about your safety and autonomy

2. If you define trans people as mentally ill, we should be fighting with their enablers, not them. Trans women obsessively want to be women and they're being told by their governments and educational institutions that this is possible. In a public health crisis, mocking the afflicted undermines your position that they actually are afflicted.

3. If body shame is the origin of the trans mind virus, you are indirectly making the problem worse by shaming people about their bodies. Additionally you are causing collateral damage. How many masculine-looking dykes in your audience are cringing when they see you rip into a trans woman for their jawline or hairline?

4. Derogatory comments about trans people not passing are very similar to derogatory comments about cis people not passing—for example, a man with man-boobs or a woman with facial hair. Mocking people for not passing reinforces the sex stereotypes you ostensibly stand against.

5. Lashing out isn't a political position, and doing so makes you look like you don't really have a position, but rather are rationalizing a disgust response.

6. Trans people are less likely to desist or side with you when you are being cruel to them. I think a lot of trans people want to be part of a cult so people will be nice to them, and showing them cruelty will only push them deeper into the ideology. And if you believe some of these cult members are children whose sex organs are being mutilated (as I do), then it is pretty despicable to be transphobic towards them or in front of them.

7. Detransitioned people who still look and sound strange are likely to be hurt by your comments.

8. Taking pleasure in misgendering trans women is sadistic. Even if you don't believe trans people's claims of high suicidality (I do), gleefully calling what you perceive as a suicide bluff is sociopathic behavior. I understand if you feel an ethical obligation to correctly sex (and thus misgender) trans people, but you should not be grinning from ear to ear when you do it.