TERF wars: feminism and the fight for transgender futures

The introduction to this special edition of the Sociological Review, which has also been published as a monograph by Sage, starts by explaining the need to understand the struggle between feminism and trans studies. This is a struggle that most trans* academics will find familiar but breaking it down to provide a foundational understanding of the conflict is essential. It also shows the complexities of being a feminist scholar whilst being transgender. The term TERF refers to trans exclusionary radical feminists, a group of people who do not believe that trans women are legitimately women. The introduction sets the scene of past and present trans issues and the renewed rise of anti-trans rhetoric. This context is important and adds an additional layer to the anthology and sets the tone of the writing. Sally Hines’s article follows the introduction well as it details the UK backdrop of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA, 2004) and the problems with this piece of legislation. Hines also points to the irony of feminist discourse focusing on essentialist biological terms and aligning itself with US right-wing Christian movements. This highlights the problematic rhetoric around feminists reducing women, particularly trans women, to the sum of their parts. Williams’s article delves into the imagery which is used within feminism to describe different categories of women and systematically goes through the anti-trans rhetoric, breaking down and explaining how these examples of anti-trans rhetoric are problematic not only in terms of trans* issues but also feminism. Koyama’s article addresses the parallel whiteness of both the women’s movement and trans* movement. In addition, this article focuses on the Michigan womyn’s festival, the site of an argument over a decision that only trans women who had been through gender reassignment surgery could participate within the woman’s event, thus once again reducing trans women to a sum of their parts.