The term TERF, or Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, has become more known in recent years as the fight for (and unfortunately, the fight against) trans rights continues. But what exactly is the deal with TERFs and what relevance do they have with trans people?
This post will give an explanation of TERF ideology and why it is harmful towards transgender people.
Feminism and Radical Feminism
First, what is feminism? I like the simple definition given by bell hooks that encompasses various strands of feminism throughout history – “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.” Radical feminism can be described as a strand of feminism which seeks to eliminate the patriarchy with a re-ordering and re-structuration of society.
Feminists and radical feminists point out the existence of the patriarchy, which can be roughly described as a social system in place that advantages men and disadvantages women in various social aspects of their lives. Such social aspects include one’s social standing, access to material resources, how they are affected in the political sphere, etc. The advantages that men have in society in virtue of being men is what makes them privileged, in contrast with women who are oppressed due to the disadvantages they have in virtue of being women.
Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism
Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism, or TERF, can be described as believing in these two points:
Following feminism in seeking to end oppression towards women
Gender is identical to sex and is thus a biological phenomenon
As explained in a previous post by Cloud Dancers, those who believe that gender is a biological phenomenon believe that whether a person is a man/woman is based on biological features, typically one’s sex chromosome make-up and their sex organs. For such people, what it is to be a woman is to be a person with XX sex chromosomes and a vagina. This is also how one’s gender is assigned at birth.
Those who believe that gender is a strictly biological phenomenon typically deny the existence and identity of transgender people – people whose gender does not align with one’s sex assigned at birth.
So for TERFs, trans-women do not count as women. As such, they are excluded from being considered oppressed as women in following their project of feminism.
Furthermore, it is seemingly the case that those associated with the term TERF also vehemently criticize trans activism. For instance, J.K. Rowling and Dave Chappelle are two such notable individuals and have criticized trans activism and trans people within their fields of work. For more on this, see Cloud Dancer’s posts on Rowling and Chappelle.
As seen through the actions and reception towards Rowling and Chappelle, those associated with TERFs see much support due to their public endorsement of feminist ideals, yet their ideology continues to hurt trans people by denying their existence and identity or painting their activism in a negative light.
On April 13, 2023, an emergency rule from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey was introduced that restricts gender-affirming care for transgender people in the state. According to an article by AP News, the ruling “will impose numerous restrictions on both adults and children before they can receive puberty blocking drugs, hormones or surgeries ‘for the purpose of transitioning gender.’” It goes into effect on April 27 and expires in February 2024.
Such restrictions include:
Transgender patients must have undergone at least 15 hour-long sessions in therapy over a course of at least 18 months prior to seeking gender-affirming care
Patients must be screened for autism and “social-media addiction,”
Patients with psychiatric symptoms due to mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, must first be treated and resolved
As we can see, Missouri has made it nearly impossible for transgender people to attain gender-affirming care. As noted in previous posts from Cloud Dancers, transgender people often go through various mental health struggles due to the discrimination and stigma they face.
In fact, according to the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry, “research demonstrates that gender-affirming care… greatly improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse, transgender, and non-binary children and adolescents.” Furthermore, a 2021 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health involving 11,000 gender-diverse youth found that access to such care reduced depression and suicidality.
Additionally, the ruling is harmful in an intersectional manner as it denies access to gender-affirming care to autistic transgender people. In other words, the ruling is harmful towards transgender people, autistic people, and autistic transgender people.
Unfortunately, Missouri isn’t the only state to see bans on gender-affirming care. Other states such as Alabama and Florida have had similar rulings implemented.
Not too long ago, “[Texas] Gov. Greg Abbott told state health agencies… that medical treatments provided to transgender adolescents, widely considered to be the standard of care in medicine, should be classified as ‘child abuse’ under existing state law” according to a 2022 article by the New York Times.
Many organizations are already looking to challenge this ruling. For instance, the ACLU and Lambda Legal said in a joint statement that they would “take any necessary legal action” and urged those affected to call, according to another article by AP News.
The Current State of the Data on the Trans Community
According to the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), “Transgender people, and the issues they face, are under-studied because surveys of the general population rarely ask whether a respondent is transgender.” Furthermore, “Without including questions to determine whether a person is transgender on general population surveys, we lack official information about unemployment rates, income and poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, and all other data that are regularly measured in the general population.”
This point is echoed by the U.S. Foundation Funding for Trans Communities, stating that “Many federal programs and major surveys do not collect data on gender identity. This lack of data has made it difficult to identify and fully understand the unique needs of transgender communities.”
The Importance of Data Collection
As noted above, the lack of data on transgender people has made it difficult to accurately identify and understand the depth of the issues they face. As such, it is clear that the more data we have on trans people, the better we are able to understand their plights and act accordingly to deal with those issues.
For instance, let’s consider the importance of data collection in other social spheres. This article by the NCBI notes that “Racial and ethnic disparities in health have been extensively documented… Making progress toward the goal of eliminating disparities will require widespread, reliable, and consistent data about the racial and ethnic characteristics of the U.S. population.”
Insofar as there are health disparities between the trans community and the general population (and there definitely are), then eliminating these disparities will also require collecting reliable and consistent data on trans people.
First, we encourage transgender people to participate in the NCTE’s United States Transgender Survey (USTS). The 2015 USTS has been to date the largest national survey that has collected information on transgender people, covering their experiences and the issues they face. The next one started in October 2022. The more transgender people that participate in the survey, the more accurate data we will have on the community.
Second, we call for more investigations and research into transgender people and the issues they face. As noted above, transgender people and the issues they face are under-studied.
Many people believe that ‘gender’ is simply another word for ‘sex.’ As such, to say that one is male is identical to saying that one is a man, and to say that one is female is identical to saying that one is a woman.
Additionally, it is believed that whether a person is a woman/man (and thus whether that person is female/male) is based on biological features. The main features that are said to determine whether one is a man/woman are typically one’s chromosomes and sex organs. Women are people with XX sex chromosomes and have vaginas; men are people with XY sex chromosomes and have penises.
These coupled beliefs are typically held by those who deny the existence and identity of transgender people. For instance, Maya Forstater, a researcher who worked for the Center for Global Development, has previously tweeted “… male people are not women. I dont think being a woman/female is a matter of identity or womanly feelings. It is biology.” For more on Forstater and her involvement in J.K. Rowling’s transphobia, see Cloud Dancer’s previous post on the matter.
Sex and Gender as Distinct
In contrast to the idea that gender is simply synonymous with sex, or that one’s gender is identical to one’s sex, many feminists believe that sex and gender are distinct. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article ‘Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender,’ the distinction is characterized as follows:
Provisionally: ‘sex’ denotes human females and males depending on biological features (chromosomes, sex organs, hormones and other physical features); ‘gender’ denotes women and men depending on social factors (social role, position, behaviour or identity).
The idea is that ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ refer to two different phenomena – the former referring to a biological phenomenon and the latter to a latter phenomenon. Since they refer to different phenomena, then it does not make sense to say that they are identical.
Unlike the idea that sex and gender are identical, this distinction between sex and gender is able to explain and account for the existence and identity of transgender and non-binary people – those whose gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth.
What exactly does it mean to say that one’s gender identity does not “align” with one’s sex assigned at birth? It’s helpful to understand this idea by first understanding what makes someone cisgender – when one’s gender identity does align with their sex at birth.
Typically, cisgender people are characterized as one of these two:
People who identify as a woman and were assigned female from birth (Cis women)
People who identify as a man and were assigned male from birth (Cis men)
People who do not find themselves under one of these two relationships are said to be transgender or non-binary.
People who identify as a woman and were assigned male from birth (Transwomen)
People who identify as a man and were assigned female from birth (Transmen)
People who neither identify as a a man or a woman despite their assigned sex from birth (Non-binary people)
One of the key focus areas of the Cloud Dancers Foundation is documenting transgender stories. We have previously documented the stories of trans seniors such as Petra Wenham and Maeve DuVally who have shared their journeys in becoming their true selves and the hardships they faced along the way. But why is it so important to document the stories of trans people?
Feminist Standpoints and Situated Knowledge
Storytelling is important because it allows people to listen to and better understand the realities of marginalized individuals. These stories consist of the personal experiences of marginalized people, experiences that non-marginalized people never had. As such, people who don’t identify with certain marginalized groups have a harder time identifying and understanding the issues that these groups face. Such theses are discussed within feminist social philosophy, mostly in the idea of standpoint theory.
From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, two relevant claims of feminist standpoint theory are “(1) Knowledge is socially situated. (2) Marginalized groups are socially situated in ways that make it more possible for them to be aware of things and ask questions than it is for the non-marginalized.”
The idea is that insofar as the situations and experiences of marginalized groups are different from that of non-marginalized groups, they will come to have different understandings and interpretations of their social situations. As Sandra Harding, one of the seminal authors on standpoint theory, puts it, “knowledge is supposed to be based on experiences, and so different experiences should enable different perceptions of ourselves and our environments.”
One important aspect of this concerns matters of discrimination and oppression. Oppression is typically taken to involve two parties – the oppressed and the oppressors. Given the nature of oppression, the social situation of the two groups is radically different. While one experiences privilege and advantages along some social dimension (e.g. economic, material, etc.), the other experiences discrimination and disadvantages along those same dimensions. As such, the oppressed group who experience systematic disadvantages are in a better position to understand their plights than the non-oppressed group, who do not experience disadvantages and thus are not usually conscious of the issues that marginalized groups face.
It’s important to clarify that belonging to one marginalized group doesn’t mean you better understand the plights of other marginalized groups. For instance, being a cisgender black woman doesn’t mean you better understand the experiences of trans people than trans people themselves. To draw back on the main thesis of standpoint theory, this is because cisgender black women have never experienced what it is like to be trans.
This is a point made in a previous Cloud Dancers blog post concerning Dave Chappelle’s comments on the transgender community. As a non-trans individual, Chappelle has never experienced what it is like to be transgender and thus has never experienced transphobia. Despite this, Chappelle makes claims that imply he understands transphobia better than trans people themselves. However, his claims are uninformed by the actual realities of trans people and what they are saying.
Storytelling – Critical Race Theory
These sentiments are also echoed in the works of critical race theorists. One of the basic tenets of Critical Race Theory is what Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic call the voice-of-color thesis. Due to the different experiences that individuals from marginalized groups have, especially with respect to discrimination and oppression, they are able to communicate matters that non-marginalized individuals are unlikely to know. Within the context of race, it is difficult for America’s dominant racial group to understand what being non-white is like.
With this in mind, critical race scholars promote the practice of storytelling – for black and brown people to describe their personal experiences. The goal of storytelling is to describe the realities of marginalized individuals, realities that involve experiencing discrimination and systematic disadvantages, realities that non black and brown people will likely have a harder time understanding.
Transgender Storytelling
Similarly, Cloud Dancers looks to document the stories of transgender people, to cover their journeys and hardships in order for non-trans people to better identify and understand the issues that they face. From the activism within feminism, which brings attention to the realities of women, and critical race theory, which brings attention to the realities of non-white people, a similar practice can be made with respect to transgender storytelling, which brings attention to the realities of transgender people.
October 8, 2022 is National Depression Screening Day, a day that encourages individuals to screen for mental health issues and be aware of conditions that may be affecting them.
This is important for everyone to participate in, especially for members of the LGBTQ+ community and trans* individuals who face these challenges at higher rates than the general population (See: “The Stigma of Seeking Help”).
It’s important to address these issues as soon as possible once they arise. On a personal note, I began suffering from depression early in my childhood, but I went undiagnosed until I was 16. I felt it becoming harder and harder to control, and by the time I got treatment, it was more difficult to correct my unhealthy way of thinking as I was combating years of unhelpful habits that had built up.
Studies have shown that the chance of full remission from depression decreases the longer the illness goes untreated. There is always hope for remission, and you can take control of that hope today by getting screened.
Because of the stigma surrounding mental health issues, it’s difficult to admit you need help, and you can’t always rely on other people to notice the signs for you. That’s why it’s important to seek treatment and get screened to monitor your health.
We have yearly physical exams, so please consider this your yearly mental exam. Take a screening here or consult a healthcare professional to take care of yourself sooner rather than later. You have so much value and there are people equipped to help you. This is the first step in accessing this support.
In 2011, Kim Malek and her cousin, Tyler Malek, founded the ice cream company Salt & Straw to create a community gathering place where people can treat themselves and experience “moments of wonder” together.
As such, the company embraces people from every walk of life. Each store window displays a sign that states, “We Welcome All,” and they take steps to make each person who walks through the door feel comfortable being their authentic self.
Cofounder and CEO Kim Malek spoke with Cloud Dancers about her views on the role of business in the pursuit of social responsibility and the steps she has taken to make her workplace better for all, especially those who identify as trans*.
Malek’s kind nature and excitement over having these meaningful conversations are immediately apparent even in the age of video conference interviews. “Yay! We did it!” she exclaimed when we entered the meeting. Immediately I was put at ease, glad to know she was as eager to do this interview as I was.
Collaborating with other organizations or foundations like ours is nothing new to Malek, as she believes in working together to bring about social change. Malek grew up wanting to go into politics, but instead went into business when she realized the advocacy that was possible in the private sector.
She observes, “Business has to be at the table and part of those conversations. The government can’t do it all on its own. Nonprofits and governmental agencies can’t do it all on their own. All three have to come together to make change.” She continues, “It’s good business to be investing in the right ways. Not only is it the right thing to do for society, but it’s actually just good for your business.”
“It’s good business to be investing in the right ways. Not only is it the right thing to do for society, but it’s actually just good for your business.”
When reflecting on this idea of social responsibility, Malek says it goes beyond writing a check. “To me, it’s looking into the core of your business and how you do business, breaking apart each of those components to figure out how you can use your business to make a difference in the world.”
She gives examples (and there are a lot) of Salt & Straw’s business practices that work toward this goal. “For instance, we buy a lot of ingredients,” she says. “The cost of entry today is that you would buy organic ingredients that don’t harm the environment. You would expect us to do that.”
Social responsibility, though, goes beyond meeting basic expectations. “Let’s go to a deeper level and ask, ‘can we buy from mostly minority or women-owned businesses so we can use our purchasing power to help a first-generation farmer in the Bay Area where we’re her largest customer? And then can we use our marketing power to promote her and make her known?’” The question, Malek continues is, “‘How can you take what you’re doing every day and use that to invest in the community in a unique way?’”
Kim and Tyler Malek work together to dream up unique flavors which benefit the community.
With over one thousand employees, Malek says hiring is a huge opportunity to make business more equitable and safe for all. “We ask ourselves, can we use that to offer first jobs to people and train them in unique ways? Can we use our hiring to offer jobs to people who are reentering the workforce? How can we format our training program so that we’re known as a company that, if you used to work there you have these incredible skills? And maybe we even hold job fairs with different industries at the end of the summer to say, ‘We have this incredible talent pool that we’ve just trained – hire them!’ It’s radical that you would do that because you want to hold onto your people (and we do, by the way), but at the same time, could we be a launching pad for employment in other places?”
“And while you’re here, look at our benefits!” she exclaims. “Since Day One, we’ve offered benefits for people who are transitioning and just making sure that, if we get complaints, we hold everyone accountable and we have a culture where that’s not swept under the rug. We investigate and take care of issues. We’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we’re on a journey to take the right next step each time.”
“Since Day One, we’ve offered benefits for people who are transitioning”
Supporting trans* individuals has been a “no brainer” since founding the company. Salt & Straw set up its benefits program in 2011, and Malek states, “Maybe it was a little newer to offer that benefit back then, but it was available, so it was like ‘of course we’re going to do that!’”
Beyond this financial assistance, she notes, “I think the challenge we’ve had over the years is making sure that we as a company are prepared and educated to support people who are transitioning. It’s one thing to give that benefit, but how does the company provide the right support? There’s a lot going on in your life when that’s happening, so what accommodations can we make more broadly so that you can be successful as you transition?”
The transgender community cites safety as its number one concern in the workplace (McKinsey), and these best practices along with Salt & Straw’s zero tolerance policy for any sort of safety concerns seek to mitigate this fear. Malek states, “We educate people about that on day one. Whether it’s from customers or coworkers or members of the community.”
Again, looking into the core of her business, Malek reflects, “We’ve done that successfully and I think sometimes we haven’t. Probably our biggest area of opportunity is to continue to make sure that it feels like a safe, supportive place as someone’s going through that.”
Malek’s response to this is training, focusing on the management, and ensuring that each level of the business reflects these values. She raises the question, “If you’re a manager at a Salt & Straw and you have a team member who’s transitioning, how do you talk to them or the rest of the team and explain what’s going on in a way that’s supportive? And even how do you handle customer conversations? Because that can be hard too!”
Malek continues to work directly with guests, even in her role as CEO.
She stresses the importance of having training around this and communicating a plan for employees should these situations take place. “You need to have a plan of what to do because otherwise, you don’t know what to do in the moment. You need to talk about it with your coworkers, with your manager, and then when it hits you, you’re like ‘oh yeah, I know what to do!’ Otherwise, in the moment it’s too hard to navigate.”
“I honestly believe that there are a good number of organizations out there that would advocate for their team members,” she continues, “I just honestly don’t know if they’re thinking about it. So we need to talk about it and get best practices out there. Because there’s no environment where someone working in the hospitality industry should be made to feel like they have to endure that kind of thing. And it’s serious. And it happens.”
“There’s no environment where someone working in the hospitality industry should be made to feel like they have to endure that”
Society as a whole might be slow to catch up, but Malek cites this as a reason to take swift action where necessary. “If there’s any whisper of a concern, then the management team will be willing to face that, get involved, and take action,” Malek says.
She adds, “This is really hard to do, and you hear companies all the time saying they don’t want to go through that. But you have to. Every single time. Every time.”
Malek says advocacy doesn’t stop at her business. Rather, her business is a form of advocacy. Salt & Straw has a number of exciting new programs and partnerships in the works, so stay posted and treat yourself to some ice cream – we all deserve to have moments of wonder.
In some of Cloud Dancers’ previous articles, we’ve used the term trans* to be inclusive of all identities along the gender spectrum. But what does it mean exactly? And why is it important?
The Oxford English Dictionary added the term in 2018, defining it as “originally used to include explicitly both transsexual and transgender, or (now usually) to indicate the inclusion of gender identities such as gender-fluid, agender, etc., alongside transsexual and transgender.”
Queer scholar Jack Halberstam expands on this, explaining that it is derived from the use of an asterisk in internet searches to account for all other terms associated with the word before it.
He says, “Rather than falling into the trap of replacing one system of classification with disciplinary effects with another vernacular but just as normalizing system, I prefer to use the term trans* and to leave the variability open as a question for any and all bodies.”
Helping people feel seen, represented, and comfortable can be as easy as using an asterisk.
