Responses – Lavender Hat

Why TERFs love “we should all use they/them”

lavenderhat April 16, 2019 Responses / TERF warsLeave a comment

This is what Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism looks like (as opposed to Feminist-Appropriating Radical Transphobes): It uses all the Right language. It’s academic. It’s self-consciously feminist; you might even call it radically so. And, it excludes trans women. Yes – referring to women as she/her puts emphasis on our gender identities. It makes gender salient in everyday interactions. For people who know we could use “they” and choose to use “she/her” anyway, that is the whole point. We need to be scouring our own beliefs to ensure that we know why TERF ideology is wrong, and how what we believe is meaningfully different.

A Difference of Values: “This is by design” does not refute “This is wrong”

lavenderhat December 9, 2017 Political Philosophy / ResponsesLeave a comment

Fact: “our government was not designed to be a democracy where everyone has equal say.”

Fact: “our government was designed to be a federation of states, all with their own government, which is why every state gets the same amount of Senators”

Those are both facts. They are both true. They are not opposing arguments any more than “the sun is a star” is a rebuttal to “the earth is a planet”. This is not a question of ignorance. The difference is in the implicit assumption about political imagination.