stormdog | (no subject)

I get frustrated when I feel like there's a fight about language that the side I'm on ends up losing. I'm all about descriptivism in language, but I think I can accept and use current understandings of terms and still be angry when the issue behind is primarily political and the change feels like a concession to opponents.

TERF as a slur. My instinctive response to the idea that TERFs are upset about being referred to by a word that's a slur is that that's basically the point of a slur, right? It's a slur that's not racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or anything that otherwise attacks vulnerable groups. It's a slur, in that it is "an insulting or disparaging remark or innuendo" (Miriam-Webster online). And you know what? They deserve to be referred to with a slur. Finding out that someone says that some women are not women makes me want to insult them. If you don't like being referred to with a slur, stop doing things that deserve it. In arguing that TERF isn't a slur, it feels like we're trying to wiggle out from under the idea that we're intentionally saying something to upset people. "It's just descriptive."

I feel like saying it's "simply descriptive," or "TERFs created the word themselves so it's ok" is it's own kind of prescriptivism. The word *means* something beyond its literal meaning, and words change over time. To TERFs, it feels like a slur. I'd argue that that's because that is the way it is used. I own that, and I think it's deserved. Rather than say "this word means what *I* say and not what *you* say", in a prescriptivist way, what feels right to me is saying "yes, I use that word because it upsets you and you deserve that."

It feels just like the people arguing that social security and similar things aren't entitlements because people pay into them. Of course they're entitlements; people are damned well entitled to them!

I guess I just had to get that out so I don't still feel so frustrated that I want to block content that I otherwise love, like Assigned Male Comics.

Again, I'm not saying that anybody is doing anything wrong. I just wish things hadn't ended up this way.

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TERF is not an insult or slur, just, as you say, a descriptive.

A descriptive of certain entitled (talking of entitled) people who'd like to see me dead or deprogrammed so excuse me if I don't feel much empathy for the precious wee flowers.

I find it hard to feel sorry for people who'd rather I didn't exist.

This.

To me, a slur has to have some power behind it to be a slur. It’s like white people saying that cracker is a slur. It can be I guess if it’s class-based (wealthy white people using it to refer to poor rural whites) but it’s practically never used that way, and it’s weaksauce compared to everything that whites can say about POC.

TERFs are just really keen to call themselves something other than what they are, like gender-critical or gender natives (all of my Indigenous friends really appreciate that one) but in this context, their identity is based around hating on an already marginalized and vulnerable group. They may have other identities but this is a term that describes a particular shitty political position.

The fact that the suggestions they make about how trans folks should be treated are exactly the same kind of horrors that were being perpetrated on LGB people a generation back doesn't seem to penetrate their crania.

Is it me, or have some of them actually got into bed with the religious right? It certainly feels that way!

I knew I remembered a specific occurrence of this.

I sometimes try to get them to append any other descriptor of a woman besides trans and say the same sentence they they just said, but their brains explode and they claim it's somehow magically different.

I don't mean to suggest I have empathy or sympathy for them; sorry if appears that way. I just feel like TERFs deserve to know that I think their beliefs are awful, that they are hurtful, hateful people, and that I think the name they originally used for themselves deserves to openly be a focus of scorn.

"Don't call me a TERF, it's a slur!"

"Damn right! TERFs are awful!"

I never thought you'd be sympathetic to them.

Trouble is that they're a loud shouty minority and they get way more airtime than a group like that should.

What they are suggesting should be done to me and people like me is exactly what was being done to people like them a generation back.

They call it irony in the trade..........