By David Futrelle
So yesterday, I was poking around in the Braincels subreddit, Reddit’s main hangout for incels, and was struck by how often the regulars there discuss trans women.
Some incels like to fantasize about solving their particular difficulty — their “involuntary” celibacy — by hooking up with “traps” (their favorite transphobic term for young trans hotties). But most of the time they’re as straightfowardly hateful towards trans women as any TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist).
Indeed, I was struck by how remarkably similar incels and TERFs sound when they talk about trans women (both generally ignore trans men). So much so that I decided to make this quiz.
[os-widget path=”/davidfutrelle/who-said-it-incel-or-terf”]
I don’t know about you, but I found these very hard to distinguish from one another, to the point that I had to check and doublecheck each quote to make sure which subreddit it came from, even though I was the one choosing the quotes.
So what does this mean? Partly, the quotes sound similar because, well, this is what transphobic hate sounds like. But in other cases it seems as though the incels have picked up certain TERF talking points from reading, or reading about, TERFs.
If you consider yourself a feminist, but your thoughts on trans women are virtually identical to the raging misogynists and ignorant anti-feminists who make up the incel movement, well, maybe you’re not as much of a feminist as you think.
Sources for quotes: Question 1: GenderCritical, Braincels. Question 2: GC, Braincels. Question 3: Braincels, GC. Question 4: Braincels, GC.
H/T — Reddit’s Advanced Search
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“2/4 Correct answers!”
I’m proud of myself. :3
0/4 correct answers… I don’t know if I should be pleased or disappointed with myself. But seriously, as far as I can tell, there’s absolutely no difference between these quotes.
i got 4 right but only because i thought i was choosing the terf answers, not the braincel ones so
According to a political magazine I read (Private Eye), “terf” has been designated a misogynist slur by twitter. Is that true? The writer didn’t seem to understand it’s an acronym nor what it stands for.
TERFs argue that “TERF” is a slur for the same reason racists argue that calling someone racist is worse than being racist: They want to silence people calling them on their shit.
I scored the same as Nina. Now according to “Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse” the only way to get a 0 on a binary test is to actually know all the correct answers… I feel in this case I just couldn’t tell, though.
I’ve heard cis people say that cis is a slur.
They can kiss my agender ass.
1 out of 4. And that “constant dilation” shit is so exaggerated. I get away with the occasional shag and its been nearly 20 years, no sign of it closing up. And for an “open wound” it looks an awful lot like a vagina to me and everyone else who’s seen it. Transphobia is gaslighting on such an epic scale. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
I ran into something the other day saying that hetero/heterosexual should be considered a slur.
Much of the “X is slur” talk seems to boil down to “I’m not hetero/cis/allistic, I’m NORMAL!”
They’re pissed at not being treated as the default that all others deviate from.
Except for the TERFs. Like I said above, that’s just bigots not wanting to be called out as bigots.
It’s the same as the “pointing out racism is the real racism” talking point. It’s meant to shut trans people up by making the discussion about how mean they are for pushing back against anti-trans rhetoric and oppression.
I also scored 2/4, and felt rather bewildered about every quote.
I’m ashamed to say that I got 3/4.
Oh yeah, and I got a 2/4.
Those quotes are basically indistinguishable.
I have had it with TERFs/SWERFs/BERFs. TSWBERFs? Reminds me of the Cream song SWLABR.
Woo! 5 right!
Cheater!
1/4. I’m not really surprised that the two groups are hard to distinguish, as haters tend to sound alike. Sort of like that Reddit vs Stormfront Quiz a while ago.
As well, has anyone else noticed TERFs becoming more prominent as of late? I seem to be hearing about and seeing them more often (the JK Rowling thing, Kamala Harris, etc) and it is a worrying trend to say the least.
@Yutolia
What is a BERF?
@Naglfar:
Bisexual exclusionary radical feminist. I just learned about it yesterday. I mean, it totally makes sense that they would also support bi and pan erasure. I wasn’t at all surprised.
I am bi myself. I have also been a sex worker. These people are nightmares.
@Yutolia
I hadn’t heard about bi exclusionary radical feminists before, but now that you mention them I’m not surprised they exist either.
I’m guessing a lot of the various kinds of ERFs consist of the same people. All of the TERFs I’ve had the misfortune to meet were also SWERFs, and vice versa.
IIRC, David coined a term for these kinds of people. I think it was phlegmanist, but I might be remembering wrong.
1/4
@varalys the dark
Yeah, they’ve started banning people for saying TERF.
https://www.thewrap.com/teen-vogue-contributor-suspended-from-twitter-after-comments-about-trans-exclusionary-radical-feminists/
2/4. Yay me?
@Malitia
If you’re still using my WHTM Quote Helper, I’ve since updated it to add a function that speeds up searching for a user’s posts on the site (basically it searches using Google for occurrences of the username on this site; useful for “bringing the receipts” on suspected trolls, I’ve found).
Also Greasyfork has stopped allowing my userscript to be accessed unless you create an account there (due to “adult content” on this site, which, fair enough). So there’s that.
Link to userscript:
https://greasyfork.org/scripts/377808-whtm-quote-helper/code/WHTM%20Quote%20Helper.user.js
Link to bookmarklet: https://pastebin.com/raw/UKfSjDSf
I got 3/4. The only one I missed was the last one, and that’s the only one which I wasn’t sure of. Instead of focusing on what they were saying, I looked at subtle word usage and phrasing differences. Apparently I’m familiar enough with both incel writings and TERF writings to easily make that distinction in the first three… which might not be the best thing for my mental health.
Never heard of BERFs either, but it does make a twisted sort of sense. Some “political lesbians”, regardless of their actual orientation, don’t like it when women who are into women are also willingly involved with men, so erasing them or hating on them might be a very common reaction.
Didn’t take the quiz… they’re all fucking trumplings, nowadays, anyway.
Got a new fone, as my old one went completely unhinged… Verizon techie couldn’t figure it out, tech supervisor couldn’t figure it out, so (insurance) gave me a brand new fone to replace my 4-year old one. Gotta tell ya I felt guilty till they told me to get over it!
I think I hold the world’s record for breaking electronics so NOBODY can figure out what’s wrong!
re: Twitter n TERF… the media moguls wanna make it about descriptive terminology and not about attacks or oppression
It was mooted, but only for TERFs.
I’ve seen “Feminism-Appropriating Reactionary Transphobes” (i.e. FARTs) elsewhere, but no similar umbrella term for all bigots appropriating the discourse of feminism in bad faith. (Is there an acronym somewhere in there? BADFIB, maybe?)
I’m an Incel Whisperer? Oh Noes!!!