Content Warning for Transphobia, Nazism, genocide, just everything really<\/p>\n
The TERF movement represents a multi-pronged assault on the lives of trans people. This is being done via street-level fascism and more legitimated forms such as via charity status organisations like LGB Alliance influencing government policy. This has proved a successful strategy, as both major political party leaders, Keir Starmer and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak follow the TERF line on trans people. [1][2] This multi-pronged attack feeds straight back into the more mainstream, white nationalist, fascist movements, such as Patriotic Alternative, who have been focused recently on anti-refugee rhetoric and demonstrations. Once again, both major political parties seek to appease them and the Tory Government is currently trying to implement an even more murderous border policy to \u201cStop the Boats\u201d. This would, however, break international law such as the ECHR (European Convention of Human Rights). This has led to a campaign to leave the ECHR and reducing everyone\u2019s human rights in the UK.<\/p>\n
Combining these two points together, I argue that the TERF and mainstream fascist movements are one and the same. It\u2019s all one big movement. The differentiation between \u2018TERFs\u2019 and white nationalist fascists are effectively pointless and the muddying of the waters on this point has only served to help them spread their hatred. TERFs are simply a particular strategy or tactical wing, if you like, of the fascist movement. In this article I will be using separate terms for convenience, but I will ultimately argue that, in future, we should call TERFs by their real name: fascists. Over the past year or two, we have seen a marked increase in collaboration between TERFs and their fascist friends, particularly on a street level. This article aims to serve as a comprehensive demonstration of how and why TERFs are fascist, as well as highlight the increasing unity between anti-trans and open fascist movements in Britain and how we can respond as anarchists and anti-fascists.<\/p>\n
History And Context<\/b><\/p>\n
Terms like \u2018TERF\u2019 (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist) were popularised online in the late 2000\u2019s, but grew out of a desire for radical feminists to differentiate themselves from their anti-trans peers in the 1970\u2019s. This anti-trans sentiment was prevalent among academics and, in 1979, Professor Janice Raymond was already outlining the political goals and framework that TERFs follow today. She argued that \u201ctranssexualism\u201d should be morally mandated out of existence, mainly by restricting access to transition care.[3] This movement, named by Judith Butler and others as the \u2018anti-gender\u2019 movement, had the backing of the institutions in the academy and the legitimacy of being considered a \u2018rival\u2019 form of radical feminism (as the acronym TERF suggests) to trans inclusive feminism.[4] Therefore, opponent characterisations of the anti-gender movement as fascist<\/i> were laughed off and explained away as a mere difference of opinion to be debated in the free marketplace of ideas. But even today, in 2023, amongst increasing anti-trans rhetoric and its fascist justifications (and consequences), some cis anarchists and anti-fascists alike are not awake to this one simple fact: TERFs are fascists. So, I will take the time to prove it.<\/p>\n
TERFs Are Fascists, TERFism Is Fascism<\/b><\/p>\n
The first piece of the ideological puzzle I will point to is biological essentialism. This is the idea that the categories \u2018male\u2019 and \u2018female\u2019 are determined purely biologically, at birth, and that these categories are immutable. Some may point to chromosomal differences (XX vs XY) or the presence of particular sex characteristics. This is the easy to understand, primary school definition of man and woman. Never mind the fact that biology gets more complicated and nuanced as you go deeper into the field, or that intersex people exist. How about non-binary people, what biology should they have? Their answer, of course, is to deny the possibility of non-binary identity. They also deny the possibility that binary trans people who wish to transition to live as a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth are able to cross this, in their view, strictly biological boundary. We can see then, that TERFs have a strong interest in maintaining a strict gender binary and reducing the complex social phenomena of gender to an easily determined, essentialist view of sex. The gender binary, in essence, says that because we have one kind of genitalia or the other, then we must act a certain way, dress a certain way, think a certain way. It is this way of thinking that sees trans women characterised as \u2018men in a dress\u2019. These, ultimately arbitrary social distinctions, are the foundations of sexism and patriarchy. From this, patriarchy extrapolates to a view in which men are the superior sex and assigns gender roles accordingly. To exist outside this binary, or to subvert it, is a violation of the patriarchy (which is framed as \u2018natural law\u2019) and so must be punished.<\/p>\n
Patriarchy is and has been at the foundation of our society for hundreds of years at this point and the gains made through feminism are met with a strong backlash by fascists. To fit human beings into perfect boxes where their behaviour and individuality is policed has always been part of fascist ideology. Patriarchy has always played a key role in fascism. This shows how TERFs are not really feminists at all, but are instead some of patriarchy\u2019s most ardent defenders. Under this view, women are objects, machines of sexual reproduction and, indeed, TERFs valourise motherhood and the act of childbirth, even going so far as to disqualify those who cannot give birth from the category of \u2018woman\u2019. This fits neatly into the fascist ideals of producing children for the state. In Nazi Germany, women received a bronze award known as the Cross of Honour of the German Mother for giving birth to four children, silver for six, and gold for eight or more.[5] Furthermore, the existing concepts around gender that currently dominate are the direct result of colonial white supremacy. Many cultures around the world have had different conceptions of gender, as well as non binary and third genders, such as Two-Spirit people in Indigenous American communities.[6] These different notions of gender were violently stamped out by colonial powers, who stripped them of their cultures, replacing them with the gender binary and gender roles of white Europeans. The work to decolonise gender is still ongoing today. \u201cHuman biology, constructed by those in power and used to advance oppression, views the colonized and the enslaved as subjects to study, deviations from a white, cisgender norm.\u201d[7]<\/p>\n
This brings us to the next element I wish to discuss which is their reactionary politics. The thing TERFs are most known for is their transphobia and, indeed, this is what they spend most of their time doing, even to their own personal detriment (e.g. Graham Linehan). Being trans in Britain is by no means perfect, far from it in fact. Transition related healthcare is denied to us, forcing us on years-long waiting lists and requiring the diagnosis of \u2018gender dysphoria\u2019, something only a doctor (most likely cis) can prescribe you with. This means that, for many, private healthcare is the only realistic option, but it is expensive and so poorer trans people are less able to receive healthcare. Trans people are considerably more likely to be poor and homeless than the rest of the population, which only increases if you\u2019re Black or a person of colour.[8] Trans people have high rates of suicide, largely as a result of transphobic violence and government policy resulting in lack of healthcare. Despite all this, trans people have been a more visible part of public life recently and understandings of gender and sexuality are changing. More and more people are identifying with a gender different from the one assigned to them at birth (or no gender at all). This follows a trend of growing acceptance in society, thanks to the victories of LGBT rights advocates and activists of the past. To fascists, this change is terrifying<\/i> and TERFs are no different.<\/p>\n
The current barrage of anti-trans hatred is a reaction to recent victories and growing acceptance of trans people. Trans liberation is a long way off, yet even the minimum level of acceptance is too far for them. Their goal is to push us back into the closet and return to their imagined \u2018natural order\u2019 of things. In this mythical past, trans people never existed. Women were women and men were men. But the truth is that trans people have always been here and we always will be too.[9] TERFs call this progressive trend \u2018the trans agenda\u2019, \u2018gender ideology\u2019, or \u2018transgenderism\u2019 and explicitly call for it to be stamped out. This characterises trans identity as an ideology that trans people spread. This means that being trans is a kind of \u2018social contagion\u2019 that must be fought against lest we lose our children to it, they would say. The level of suffering trans people endure at the hands of the state makes no difference to the virulence of their arguments, because for them even one trans person existing is too many.<\/p>\n
One of the first things the Nazi\u2019s did after taking power was burning the books and research of the Institute for Sexology headed by Magnus Hirschfeld. The institute was a pioneer in the research of gender, sexuality, and sex. Apart from researching matters regarding gay, transgender, and intersex people, it also provided treatment for alcoholism, gynaecological examinations, marital and sex counselling, treatment for venereal disease, and access to contraceptive treatment. [10][11] Hirschfeld, who was Jewish, was used by Nazi propagandists as a prime example of what they called \u2018degenerate Jewish sexuality\u2019. [11] Trans people and other Queer identities were criminalised and ultimately sent to concentration camps as part of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n
In the 21st century, this genocidal attitude is shared by neo-Nazis and TERFs alike, who decry \u2018Western degeneracy\u2019. Here\u2019s just one example of their genocidal rhetoric. In 2022, anti-trans activist Helen Joyce said, \u201cWhile we\u2019re trying to get through to the decision makers we have to try to limit the harm and that means reducing or keeping down the number of people who transition\u2026 every one of those people is basically\u2026 a huge problem to a sane world\u2026 whether they\u2019re\u2026 happily transitioned, whether they\u2019re unhappily transitioned, whether they\u2019re de-transitioned.\u201d This hearkens back to Prof. Raymond in 1979 talking about limiting the number of people who transition. When it comes to transition, most trans people will want to transition in some way and being unable to do so is a major source of depression and poor mental health, which can often lead to suicide. This policy of minimal transition is, sadly, effectively already government policy by either maliciousness or incompetence on the part of the NHS. This means we already know the results of such a policy, which is high rates of suicide. In this regard, the NHS has blood on its hands, but TERFs want even fewer<\/i> people to transition and are currently spreading a narrative that says that young people are being forced to transition at high rates. They say young people are too young to know that they\u2019re trans and then vilify adult trans people for transitioning. They want to restrict trans women\u2019s access to women\u2019s spaces, such as those for domestic violence survivors. All of this culminates into a policy which would see trans people\u2019s exclusion and eventual eradication from society, in a word: genocide. This is why they target trans affirming charities like Mermaids, who recently had to close their phone lines due to repeated and constant harassment by TERFs.[12]<\/p>\n
The language of genocide, however, is hidden behind word play and plausible deniability. TERFs also have a large number of dog whistle phrases that only TERFs, or those unfortunate to have to interact with them, understand. I will now go through some of the rhetoric they use and link it to its fascist and Nazi origins. One word that TERFs love to throw around when talking about trans people is \u2018groomer\u2019. They even have a hashtag #OKGroomer. Hilarious. Tim Squirrel is an expert on right-wing extremism and explained that the groomer panic (which is prevalent in both US and UK contexts) is tied to explicitly neo-Nazi ideology. He explains, \u201cNeo-Nazis believe that Jews are destroying the white race. One way they are doing this is to encourage a single global culture which erases the distinctions between ethnic groups & cultures. This is global homogenisation, or \u2018globohomo\u2019\u2026 Globohomo also includes the belief that Jews are encouraging white people to adopt queer identities as a way of reducing the white birth rate and encouraging \u201cdegenerate\u201d behaviour that will undermine civilisation. A crucial element of this is the belief that queer identities can be \u201cencouraged\u201d, or that people can be manipulated into becoming gay or trans. In other words, that they can be \u201cgroomed\u201d. The expansion of the definition of \u2018grooming\u2019 is also not an accident. It conflates the attempts by actual paedophiles to abuse children with the mere existence of queer people in public spaces.\u201d[13] In 1935, the Nazi\u2019s also conflated being queer\/trans with pedophilia to justify their genocidal policies in which it became illegal to \u2018act queer\u2019, all in the name of protecting Aryan children.<\/p>\n
Moreover, in an attempt to stoke fear surrounding trans women, TERFs focus on arguing for \u2018single-sex spaces\u2019. Combined with the biological essentialism I explained earlier, the aim is to deny trans women access to explicitly women\u2019s-only spaces. They make this argument by painting all trans women as, essentially and intrinsically, predatory men who want to gain access to women\u2019s spaces so they can more easily commit sexual assault. This appeals to strong emotional reactions around fear, fear that your safe spaces aren\u2019t safe if they have trans people in. Coupled with this is the idea that trans women are inherently being duplicitous with their feminine presentation, concealing the \u2018truth\u2019. This is an attempt to incite a moral panic around trans existence, which aims to legitimise discussions around trans existence as a \u2018debate\u2019, an \u2018issue\u2019 that must be dealt with. Of course, we already know what their \u2018solution\u2019 to this problem is: elimination, eradication, and exclusion. Such appeals to emotion and accusations of grooming are strong indicators of TERF\u2019s fascism. We can see similar rhetoric at play focusing on the protection of white women peddled by modern fascists like Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson) who talks of grooming gangs in Telford. The far-right recently whipped up fervour surrounding hotels housing asylum seekers by claiming that they were involved in propositioning underage white women on the streets of Liverpool, leading to a far-right riot that ended with a burning police van. [14]<\/p>\n
This ties into TERFs\u2019 white supremacy and the concept of \u2018white women\u2019s tears\u2019 as justification for violence. William Lau writes, \u201cThe most famous illustration of white women\u2019s tears and the violence they inspire was the killing of Emmet Till, a 14-year-old African American boy who in 1955 was lynched by white men for allegedly flirting with a white woman, Carolyn Bryant\u2026 years later, she admitted that he had never grabbed her waist or said obscene things to her. Regardless, Bryant\u2019s claims had the power to kill a Black boy. White women have always been able to use their perceived victimhood to instigate violence against anyone already hated and feared\u201d[7]. Whilst this is in relation to violence against Black men, Lau argues that white women\u2019s tears are effectively used against trans women too. He points out that, in the US, the victims of most transphobic hate crimes are Black trans women[7]. TERFs\u2019 appeal to victimhood is indeed undeniable and they frequently start fights at demonstrations, then cry about \u2018male violence\u2019 from the people who dare to defend themselves, as is what happened in Manchester last year. A quick scan of any TERF protest in Britain will show a severe lack of diversity and this is because TERFism is a white supremacist ideology.<\/p>\n
At a recent TERF rally in Newcastle, speaker Elizabeth \u2018Lisa\u2019 Morgan (head of the UK Guild of Hypnosis Practitioners) renewed Hitler\u2019s Big Lie conspiracy theory, quoting directly from \u2018Mein Kampf\u2019. In her rant, she said, \u201cThe Big Lie now is Trans Women Are Women. And we know they are men.\u201d[15] TERFs online attempted to explain how their citing of this source was different and not actually Nazi rhetoric\u2026 by repeating the Nazi rhetoric verbatim. Trans Safety Network commented on the incident, \u201cResponding to criticism about the speech, Morgan took to twitter to link the Wikipedia page for The Big Lie by way of explanation. The first two paragraphs of this article at the time of her posting it explain in plain English that Hitler used this idea and slogan, of a minority group lying so brazenly that noone would imagine they had made it up, to specifically demonise Jews and to turn already existing long-standing antisemitism in Europe into mass murder\u201d[16]. Relatedly, TERFs also talk about a powerful \u2018trans lobby\u2019 that holds power over government policy. Some TERFs will also implicitly link this \u2018trans lobby\u2019 to antisemitic conspiracy theories. This rhetoric, then, strays close to the Nazi\u2019s accusations surrounding Magnus Hirschfeld.<\/p>\n
But the best way to judge someone is by their actions. What sort of things do TERFs actually do? Well, firstly, they spend a ridiculous amount of time ranting about trans people existing online, often to the exclusion of all else. It\u2019s been said that once someone posts transphobia on the timeline, they\u2019ll never post about anything else again. A lot of this involves working each other up over images of visibly queer people existing, pride flags, and defending JK Rowling from criticism. Trans Safety Network wrote an article on how TERFs exploit the twitter algorithm to make their hashtags get on the trending tab and successfully repeated it with #ThisIsAnExploit to raise awareness of the issue [17].<\/p>\n
Caelan Conrad explained in their three part series on YouTube, how a lot of this inter-community sharing is about feeling disgust for trans bodies and thus refuelling their anger and hatred. This manifests in strongly misogynistic and transmisogynistic comments, with some cis women caught in the crossfire of their vitriol for looking \u201ctoo manly\u201d [18]. This is often mixed in with anti-black misogynoir as well, with their bigotry spilling out into other areas, including homophobia. As previously discussed, they also spend their time harassing trans affirming charities such as Mermaids.<\/p>\n
They hold conferences and launch charities with the aim of influencing government policy and legitimise their views, such as with LGB Alliance. But they also form political organisations like \u2018Standing for Women\u2019 (founded by Posie Parker, who we will talk more about later), who take part in street-level fascism. They hold rallies and speaking events, distributing leaflets to amplify their eliminationist rhetoric. They show documentary screenings like Matt Walsh\u2019s \u2018What is a Woman?\u2019 and, recently, \u2018Adult Human Female\u2019.<\/p>\n
University venues have often been happy to provide a space for them to screen these hateful documentaries. These tactics closely mirror that of other fascist movements around at the moment. Patriotic Alternative leafleted areas in Liverpool in the days prior to the riot in Knowsley. They post callouts to rally their base and Tommy Robinson puts on Islamophobic screenings of documentaries on \u2018Muslim grooming gangs\u2019. TERFs also have a presence in academic settings, publishing their anti-trans rhetoric as if it were legitimate philosophy. They publish columns and news articles from the Daily Mail to The Guardian and the New York Times with the aim of inciting a moral panic around women\u2019s sports, single sex prisons, and bathrooms.<\/p>\n
Finally, as Caelan Conrad explores in their video on the topic, many TERFs, being parents of trans children, are actively engaged in practising conversion therapy on their children. These Facebook groups attract parents who may be looking for help and advice on what to do after their trans child came out to them, but get pulled into a cult-like setting in which they can become convinced that their trans child is deliberately hurting them<\/i>. The Facebook groups purposely name themselves things like \u2018support group\u2019, before bombarding parents with anti-trans rhetoric and advocating conversion therapy practices.[19] This is causing untold harm to trans kids and is part of why youth liberation is essential to trans liberation as a whole, as we must destroy the patriarchal nuclear family structure.<\/p>\n
Prominent TERFs And Their Far-Right Friends<\/b><\/p>\n
Well, I hope after reading all that you can agree with me that TERFs are indeed fascists ideologically, but let\u2019s take a closer look at some of the personalities involved in TERF activism and how their work on the ground has recently been converging and merging with other fascist groups and personalities. In 2020, Posie Parker (AKA Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull) founded the organisation \u2018Standing for Women\u2019 and since then has been going round Britain and America organising demonstrations under the slogan, \u2018Let Women Speak\u2019. These events are punctuated by long, often rambling rants by TERFs as well as the selling of Parker\u2019s own \u2018Adult Human Female\u2019 t-shirts. There\u2019s always a grift.<\/p>\n
Posie Parker has undoubtedly become one of the most prominent faces of the TERF movement as its chief organiser of street-level events. In October 2019, Parker appeared on far-right YouTuber Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Gari\u00e9py\u2019s channel. Gari\u00e9py has previously called for the creation of a white ethno-state. Some of his other guests include neo-Nazi\u2019s Richard Spencer and Mark Collett, as well as former KKK (Ku Klux Klan) leader David Duke. Gari\u00e9py also stands accused of \u201cattempting to lure and impregnate a developmentally disabled Hispanic teenager.\u201d[20] (what was that thing about grooming again?) Here\u2019s what one Mumsnet user had to say about the video, \u201c\u2018Far-right\u2019 always gets thrown around as an insult, where are the left on this issue? Throwing women and children under the bus is where\u201d[21].<\/p>\n
Parker has also written for the far-right Spectator magazine, criticising a John Lewis advert featuring a young boy playing with makeup and high heels. She claims the advert is part of a \u2018harmful agenda\u2019. Parker also tweeted strongly Islamophobic, now deleted, tweets calling areas of Bradford an \u201cawful place for women\u201d especially around one school that was \u201c99.9.% Pakistani Muslim\u201d as well as calling it \u201cdisgusting\u201d that in a class of young children \u201c2\/15 weren\u2019t wearing a hijab\u201d. She also tweeted that the term \u2018Islamophobia\u2019 itself was a \u201cbullshit meaningless word to silence critics of Islam.\u201d Appearing on the podcast \u2018Feminist Current\u2019 in 2019, she praised Tommy Robinson and repeated his Islamophobic conspiracy theory about Telford grooming gangs on her livestreams, with people chanting \u2018OH TOMMY TOMMY\u2019 in her chat.[22] She has also take selfies with Norwegian, Holocaust denying, neo-Nazi Hans J\u00f8rgen Lysglimt Johansen and appeared in another interview conducted by the far-right network \u2018Soldiers of Christ Online\u2019. Parker is also an \u2018advisor\u2019 to the Women\u2019s Liberation Front (WoLF), in this case a literal wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing, considering they have accepted funding from \u2018Alliance Defending Freedom\u2019, a group which organises campaigns against abortion and LGBT rights[20]. Not all TERFs claim her as one of their champions, but you will find far more praise than criticism. We can see, then, that Parker places herself within the wider context of far-right activism globally and is perhaps one of the main drivers of the increasing convergence between mainstream, white nationalist fascists, and TERFs.<\/p>\n
In 2021 and 2022, Trans Safety Network (TSN) were already highlighting this increasing convergence. In \u2018Gender Critical and Fascist social media increasingly promoting each other\u2019, Mallory Moore and Meryl Links explore the links between the two, saying, \u201cThis growing accord between the far right and the gender critical movement over their anti-trans stances is a worrying trend that suggests both a mainstreaming of the far right, using transphobia as a ticket into other spaces, as well as a radicalisation of people who would otherwise not praise open fascists.\u201d They highlight the sharing of a video featuring far-right commentator and Daily-Wire contributor Matt Walsh. Walsh appeared in American TV talk show \u2018Dr Phil\u2019 to push his anti-trans narrative which was gleefully shared by TERFs. Following his \u2018What is a Woman?\u2019 documentary, Matt Walsh has leaned in to this TERF audience. The Daily Wire is a right wing conservative paper that publishes anti-abortion and anti-LBGT articles, views shared by Walsh and he makes no secret of his sexist, misogynist, and anti-feminist opinions. Pointing out the social media crossover, TSN explain how Walsh\u2019s appearance on TV was shared on far-right Telegram channels, including by Tommy Robinson, who linked to the anti-trans \u2018Trans Widows\u2019 group. This group frequently shares graphic violence and murder. Further social media links show Helen Blackmoore of the \u2018For Britain Movement\u2019 praising Posie Parker, as well as Patriotic Alternative\u2019s sharing TERF content in the wake of the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform protests outside Scottish Parliament.[22]<\/p>\n
In the following article, TSN offers an even more thorough breakdown on the convergence, which I will quickly go over. Prominent anti-trans journalist Julie Burchill had her book published by Stirling Press, which is owned by neo-Nazi Tabatha Stirling. In a leaked voice note, Stirling talks about the \u2018JQ\u2019, code for the \u2018Jewish Question\u2019. Burchill later cut ties. Stirling also claims allegiance to the anti-trans hate group LGB Alliance. Another link is between far-right arsonist Lee Harrison, who was jailed for setting fire to a flat housing a trans woman, and Posie Parker with Harrison sharing content from Parker prior to the attack. On TikTok, a 16 year old boy started the #SuperStraight meme which was shared rapidly among TERFs and Posie Parker had a t-shirt with the phrase up on her website. Days later, Tommy Robinson was advertising the meme on his Telegram.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Bilek has been a popular figure in the TERF movement for years and was previously a member of transphobic eco-fascist group \u2018Deep Green Resistance\u2019, which played a key role in the Hands Across the Aisle alliance between Radical Feminists and US Christian Conservatives in the form of previously mentioned WoLF. Research by Christa Peterson reveals Bilek\u2019s antisemitic conspiracy theories, which involves \u201ca secret plan by Jewish billionaires to use \u201ctransgenderism\u201d as a plot to bring about a transhumanist immortality project and enslave humanity through technocapital.\u201d Similar conspiracy theories fixate on wealthy Jewish trans woman Martine Rothblatt by British TERF Jane Clare Jones. Bilek\u2019s work is cited by neo-Nazis, including a conspiracy book advertised by former BNP (British National Party) leader Nick Griffin.<\/p>\n
It goes further than just sharing memes though. TSN point out the material alliances formed, looking particularly at a submission to the UN by WoLF in collaboration with the Christian Right anti-LGBT organisation \u201cUnited Families International\u201d. Signatories include Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, Graham Linehan, Harry Miller for \u201cWe Are Fair Cop\u201d, and Heather Brunskell-Evans, \u201ccofounder of the Women\u2019s Human Rights Campaign, who\u2019s submission to the GRA inquiry last year [2022] called for the elimination of \u201ctransgenderism\u201d as a form of [classification] of women.\u201d Next to them on the list are Evangelical Christian organisations the Heritage Foundation (tied to the Trump campaign), American College of Pediatricians (who produce pseudo-scientific studies claiming teaching children about LGBT issues is harmful), and Partners for Ethical Care who were involved in a project mapping trans health clinics which has inspired targeted harassment and anti-trans protests outside these locations. Finally, TSN points to the Women\u2019s Human Rights Campaign (WHRC) as a key point of convergence. The WHRC has called for the end of trans healthcare provisions and legal protections for trans people. Their links to the right are obvious, WHRC leader Sheila Jeffery\u2019s has called for closer collaboration between feminists and the right. In the US, Kara Dansky, a joint member of WHRC, WoLF, and DGR, is a regular guest on Fox News talk show \u2018Tucker Carlson Tonight\u2019.[23] All of this demonstrates the close ties between TERFs and other fascists. It also demonstrates that trans anarchists and anti-fascists have been raising the alarm about this for years at this point, with little uptake among leftists generally.<\/p>\n
A Multi-Pronged Assault<\/b><\/p>\n
As I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, the TERF movement is engaged in an all out assault on trans people, using a multitude of methods. Firstly, there is the street-level. This includes holding rallies and protesting, such as \u2018Let Women Speak\u2019 protests (of which Posie Parker organises about two a month). One very recent development on this front is that more openly fascist elements are attending TERF protests than ever before. TERFs have had time to learn about Parker\u2019s fascist tendencies and consciously decided to keep supporting her anyway. Things like the recent quoting of \u2018Mein Kampf\u2019 at one of her events only show the slipping of a mask that wasn\u2019t very tightly held on to begin with. Whilst being seen protesting alongside open Nazis and fascists was previously seen as an optics loss, recently TERFs have been open to direct collaboration and merging of numbers, having made the calculation that this will win them more support than they\u2019ll lose.<\/p>\n
The TERF movement styled itself to have the look of a legitimate protest movement, similar to actually progressive social movements. Part of this is the co-optation and appropriation of the Suffragette flag. They have also been spotted making their own \u2018Legal Observer\u2019 vests to look like the ones Green and Black Cross use.[24] These are not real Legal Observers and Green and Black Cross is a trans inclusive organisation. Despite being called \u2018Let Women Speak\u2019, when one cis woman dared to speak in favour of trans people at one of these events, she had the microphone taken away from her. At a recent event in London, (February 26th 2023) one man, fairly drunk by the looks of it, loudly exclaimed that he was indeed a Nazi [25]. At the same time, Posie Parker was on her livestream asking where the Nazis were.[26] Looking at this clip, she does seem genuinely upset that there weren\u2019t enough fascists on her side to match the anti-fascists countering her.<\/p>\n
Similarly, another Posie Parker rally saw the far-right turn out in force to support it. Holding a sign that said \u2018Defy the Gaystapo\u2019 was Max Dunbar and Joseph Finnie, both former BNP members with their colleague Alistair McConnachie, who was suspended from UKIP for Holocaust denial. Far-right groups in attendance included \u2018UK: A Force For Good\u2019, the \u2018British Freedom Party\u2019, the \u2018National Housing Party\u2019, the \u2018Scottish Family Party\u2019, \u2018Alliance Defending Freedom\u2019, and \u2018Hearts of Oak\u2019. There was also American far-right journalist Andy Ngo who has a history of filming and doxxing anti-fascists.[27] This is what anti-fascists are seeing on the ground right now and it represents a serious escalation in street-level fascism around trans existence.<\/p>\n
Working in tandem with Posie Parker and street fascists (though never officially<\/i> endorsing them) are organisations like LGB Alliance and Women\u2019s Place UK. These organisations are legitimised in a way that TERFs ranting about transhumanism at Speaker\u2019s Corner isn\u2019t, with the LGB Alliance being given charity status by the Charity Commission. The aim of organisations like this is primarily to influence government policy through their legitimated roles as \u2018advisors\u2019 and otherwise being groups the government can point to as part of the consultation process for legislation. This includes legislation around gender recognition reform, single-sex prisons, and trans healthcare, either working to strip away trans rights legislation or slow its implementation. Therefore, these groups can, to a certain extent, resist being called \u2018fascist\u2019 because of their legitimised status. But my argument is that these groups are just as fascist as Posie Parker, not just because they are run by TERFs (who are fascists ideologically) but also because their goals align, forming a second point of attack.<\/p>\n
On the 21st of October 2021 we saw the first LGB Alliance Conference at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London. Attending the conference was Andy Ngo, showing that the explicit fascist links already existed by this point in time. In \u2018Uncovered: LBG Alliance\u2019, TSN points out that LGB Alliance had connections to the US religious right from an early stage. Conservative activist Gary Powell bragged about having attended their first pre-launch meeting, \u201cGary Powell has a long track record writing for (American conservative anti-same-sex-parenting) Witherspoon Institute as well as part of a closely-connected bioethics group Center for Bioethics and Culture which was founded by Jennifer Lahl (an outspoken critic of same-sex marriage as supposedly being a threat to women).\u201d[28] \u2018LGB\u2019 may be their name, but there\u2019s a strong emphasis on the absent T. Meanwhile, LGB Alliance does precisely nothing to improve the lives of any LGB person and work with people actively campaigning against LGB rights. Their areas of interest in terms of campaigning include: opposition to relationship and sex education in schools, opposition to reforming the gender recognition act, calling for the withdrawal of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill, targeting resources on sexual violence, and campaigning for the exclusion of trans people from anti-conversion therapy legislation.[28]<\/p>\n
On a government level, the Conservative Party has embraced TERFism as an ideology within its ranks. LGB Alliance attended the last Conservative conference and leadership hopefuls Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak both pandered to TERFs and right wingers on gender, hoping these \u2018culture war\u2019 issues would be a vote winner among their membership, as well as among the public going into the next election. On the other side of the aisle, the Labour Party are at best fence sitters and at worst TERF sympathisers. Labour MP Rosie Duffield is one of Parliament\u2019s most outspoken TERFs. They can be found as well in the SNP (Joanna Cherry) and the Green Party (Shahrar Ali). Policy-wise, the bill that sought to make all forms of conversion therapy illegal was amended to exclude trans people, at the advice of groups like LGB Alliance. The state is the most capable of all the entities I\u2019ve mentioned so far of doing material harm to trans people, as it does on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
What Is To Be Done?<\/b><\/p>\n
Recognising TERFs as part of a wider fascist movement is a good first step that necessarily implies the need for an anti-fascist response. This has already been happening among anarchists and anti-fascists for years, though not without its fair share of criticism among some corners of anarchism.<\/p>\n
Not to bring up a sore point, but the London Anarchist Bookfair 2017 and its subsequent fallout displayed the mismatch in thinking between these different corners. To sum it up simply, TERFs attempted to leaflet the bookfair and were met with a hostile response by those who already understood and internalised that TERFs are fascists, those who did not have this same analysis did not like the escalatory response of a militant anti-fascism to the leafleters. This caused a rift within British anarchism that remains today, although it is not as relevant anymore with the majority of anarchists today seeing the TERF threat for what it really is. I point this out to show what can happen when there is a vastly different level of understanding. Without context, the anarchists who wished to confront the TERFs may have looked like needless aggressors attacking their own. Within anarchism, it is best to have constructive debate on points of disagreement rather than outright confrontation. But what needs to be understood is that this is not a disagreement requiring a debate, it is a creeping fascism that managed to find its way into even anarchist spaces. If you didn\u2019t see it for what it was then, I hope you can now. Therefore, what is required is a militant anti-fascism.<\/p>\n
We need more people in the street taking a stand (who aren\u2019t the SWP). Based on my own experiences, the anti-fascist movements of the recent past appear to be missing in action, meaning a new generation has had to take up the reins with little guidance. Many don\u2019t know what anti-fascism is and what it really involves beyond standing in a location with a banner. With time, however, comes experience, but also burnout. As mentioned previously, TERF rallies happen multiple times a month. We need networks of support and community, particularly from cis allies.<\/p>\n
Up till now, it has been trans people fighting this fight with little support. Monitoring far-right and TERF activity can be triggering and upsetting. In \u2018Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex\u2019, Indigenous American activists make a compelling point about the need for accomplices rather than the vague notion of an \u2018ally\u2019 (speaking within their own specific context) which could mean virtually anything. Businesses can call themselves LGBT \u2018allies\u2019 and put pride flags in their windows during pride month, but it provides no material benefit. [29] Within our context, I am also calling for accomplices in defying cissexist society, but I think we need a bit of both. Those who are willing to directly fight alongside us and those who will support us emotionally. Some will find one easier than the other, some will do both. Community and mutual aid allows us to build ties with each other and other struggles (for example, the refugee struggle). It also helps us survive the multiple axes of oppression we face, after all, the TERFs are but one angle of attack.<\/p>\n
Recent times have seen an increase in fascist activity around hotels housing asylum seekers, whilst the government has announced its heinous \u2018Stop the Boats\u2019 policy. There needs to be a greater focus on the state when it comes to our anti-fascism. We also need greater international solidarity, because the backlash against gender and queer rights is everywhere, from Russia (used as part of the justification for war with Ukraine), to Poland, to Brazil and the United States. We need to defend ourselves. Self-defence is community defence and community building is an essential part of that. Last month in Colchester, Essex, a drag queen story hour was due to be targeted by far-right conspiracy theorists. Whilst groups like East Anglia Anarchist Federation, Trans Activism UK, and Colchester Pride all made public callouts on social media for numbers to counter-protest this threat, it was primarily the pre-established personal connections the LGBTQ+ community had that allowed people to come out in such large numbers on such short notice. With Twitter going the way of the dodo, and otherwise becoming a more hostile place for anarchists and trans people alike since Elon Musk\u2019s takeover, it is our more traditional, interpersonal ties to each other that are more important than ever before.[30] This means anti-fascism has several different elements needed to counter the different areas of attack. The confrontation and the community building. You cannot have one without the other and be successful.<\/p>\n
Solidarity is our greatest weapon. See you on the street.<\/p>\n
Lewis<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bibliography<\/p>\n
[1] https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6i17fFctlfM<\/p>\n
[2] https:\/\/gcn.ie\/rishi-sunak-trans-rights\/<\/p>\n
[3] https:\/\/www.vox.com\/identities\/2019\/9\/5\/20840101\/terfs-radical-feminists-gender-critical<\/p>\n
[4] https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/commentisfree\/2021\/oct\/23\/judith-butler-gender-ideology-backlash<\/p>\n
[5] https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cross_of_Honour_of_the_German_Mother<\/p>\n
[6] https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Two-spirit<\/p>\n
[7] https:\/\/roarmag.org\/essays\/the-racist-roots-of-transgender-exclusion\/<\/p>\n
[8] https:\/\/anarchasteminist.wordpress.com\/2017\/12\/17\/transphobia-is-a-class-issue\/<\/p>\n
[9] https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=58O0WrATyiw<\/p>\n
[10] https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissenschaft<\/p>\n
[11] https:\/\/encyclopedia.ushmm.org\/content\/en\/article\/magnus-hirschfeld-2<\/p>\n
[12] https:\/\/twitter.com\/Mermaids_Gender\/status\/1578009104425140225<\/p>\n
[13] https:\/\/twitter.com\/timsquirrell\/status\/1552564732061749248<\/p>\n
[14] https:\/\/organisemagazine.org.uk\/2023\/02\/11\/eyewitness-report-fascist-riot-in-liverpool\/<\/p>\n
[15] https:\/\/twitter.com\/NorthumbriaIWW\/status\/1614690987145576453<\/p>\n
[16] https:\/\/transsafety.network\/posts\/the-big-lie\/<\/p>\n
[17] https:\/\/transsafety.network\/posts\/this-is-an-exploit\/<\/p>\n
[18] https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pwI6py78gsI<\/p>\n
[19] https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nBbOw_K6K5Q<\/p>\n
[20] https:\/\/www.thenational.scot\/news\/23299549.posie-parker-anti-trans-founder-standing-women\/<\/p>\n
[21] https:\/\/www.thepinknews.com\/2019\/10\/15\/gender-critical-posie-parker-interview-jean-francois-gariepy-mumsnet\/<\/p>\n
[22] https:\/\/transsafety.network\/posts\/far-right-converge\/<\/p>\n
[23] https:\/\/transsafety.network\/posts\/gcs-and-the-right\/<\/p>\n
[24] https:\/\/twitter.com\/WikiHowToLogout\/status\/1538483033564712961<\/p>\n
[25] https:\/\/twitter.com\/WasARiot\/status\/1631066024178057223<\/p>\n
[26] https:\/\/twitter.com\/WasARiot\/status\/1631644494528495618<\/p>\n
[27] https:\/\/transsafety.network\/posts\/glasgow-far-right-standing-for-women\/<\/p>\n
[28] https:\/\/transsafety.network\/posts\/profiled-lgb-alliance\/<\/p>\n
[29] https:\/\/www.indigenousaction.org\/accomplices-not-allies-abolishing-the-ally-industrial-complex\/<\/p>\n
[30] https:\/\/eastangliaafed.noblogs.org\/en-GB\/post\/2023\/02\/13\/conspiracy-cranks-have-terrible-day-out-in-colchester\/<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Content Warning for Transphobia, Nazism, genocide, just everything really The TERF movement represents a multi-pronged assault on the lives of trans people. This is being done via street-level fascism and more legitimated forms such as via charity status organisations like LGB Alliance influencing government policy. This has proved a successful strategy, as both major political … <\/p>\n