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The Addition of TEGA (Gay Men Against Transgender Influences In The Gay Community)

TEGA ("TAY-gah" like SEGA) Trans-Exclusionary Gay Activist* : Gay men that claim that trans men aren't really men. They will refuse to date or have sex with them, although many have been tricked into doing so as many lesbian and bisexual TERF women have experienced as well. Many express or hold views along the lines of "gender/sex is binary", "transgenderism is mental illness", "sex reassignment surgery is self mutilation", "hormone blockers are child abuse", "almost all trans kids and teens grow out of transgenderism by adulthood, becoming normal gay and lesbians", "transgenderism is gay / lesbian erasure", "trans people are stealing / transwashing gay history or culture", etc. These opinions can be held by anyone from the far left to the far right and anywhere inbetween as this is just one opinion on one issue of the hundreds of political issues people use to segregate themselves into parties. Many far leftists, liberals, and american democrats seem to have an issue with TEGA as many of these subgroups tend to support transgender people/rights and the "LGBT", while many other gays and lesbians want to #DROPTHET / #DROPTHETEA (from LGBT) as they feel the natural sexual orientation has nothing to do with gender (allies would say) or mental illness (anti-trans groups like TERFs, TEGAs, and most critical of the 'gender spectrum' / trans issues would say). *Activist does not designate a political affiliation or stance other than being a naturally born gay male / man. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tega The author R.A. Lopez (aka Rick Lopez) coined this term as a gay male alternative to TERF that did not include feminism as a core component but merely focused on rejection of transgender advocacy and abuse of gay men and male only spaces. Electronicoffee (talk) 17:23, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

This doesn't sound very promising. Are there any reliable sources for it? If there are then maybe it could have a passing mention as a related phrase but Urban Dictionary is no good at all. --DanielRigal (talk) 18:44, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Manufacturing consensus.

Are transwomen women? I would say yes. But does my saying so make it so? Obviously lots of other people must agree for that to be true. Common usage alone determines the meaning of "woman." This is the problem with dubiously asserting that feminists generally agree that transwomen are women: as though there were some weight given to the claim in so doing. We know that "women" is a common English noun that historically represented the class of humans described scientifically as female. Today, for many of us, the class of women is larger than the class of females. A person is a women if that is the general consensus. A person is declared female on a genetically determined set of criteria. This study indicates that 87.5% of the sample group (N = 958) would not choose to date a trans person. If the study is close to being accurate, one might suspect that transwomen are women in the ordinary sense for relatively few general population adults, many of whom, I should not be surprised to discover, are themselves feminists.Ariel31459 (talk) 22:00, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

The source you posted isn't really relevant to improving this article, as Wikipedia is not the place to publish your novel analysis of that study. The source itself does not say any of the various claims in your analysis of it, so it cannot be used to support the ideas that:
  • choosing to exclude trans women from one's dating pool means that trans women are not considered women;
  • therefore the majority of people do not consider trans women to be women;
  • that any percentage of respondents consider themselves feminists;
  • or that these feminists not dating trans women (and therefore not considering them women) represent a majority viewpoint within feminism.
Wikipedia only reflects what is stated by the reliable sources on the subject. Making extrapolations from sources is an example of inappropriate synthesis. Have you read the discussion above about the sources used to cite the claim? --Equivamp - talk 23:47, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

"A minority of feminists"

This claim is currently supported by a citation to an article in the "Medieval Feminist Forum" (an online journal about feminism in medieval times, apparently not well-recognized) and an opinion piece from the New Yorker. Neither are great sources. As I performed research on this topic, I could not find a reliable source that was stating this as a matter of fact rather than opinion. It does not appear that anyone has ever tried to determine how many feminists are "TERFs." I'd like to remove this language unless someone has a decent source for the assertion aside from bare claims of fact. May His Shadow Fall Upon You📧 20:54, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

It has been established in Reliable Sources that most feminist organizations are Trans-inclusionary; I would think that could represent the views of feminists in general. Newimpartial (talk) 21:05, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
Regarding your first sentence, which reliable sources and where in them? Regarding your second sentence, that is textbook WP:OR and should not be in the article. Crossroads -talk- 21:18, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
I agree with you that this phrase is not supported by sources that are reliable for this purpose, as I've said before. I believe you once described the Medieval Feminist Forum source as a bald assertion in furtherance of a political argument, not based on any empirical research, and that is indeed the case. Yes, it is a marginal journal. Regarding the New Yorker, that doesn't even support the claim per se; it says, There are young transgender-critical radical feminists, like Heath Atom Russell and Rachel Ivey, aged twenty-four, who was one of the organizers of Radfems Respond, but they are the first to admit that they’re a minority. “If I were to say in a typical women’s-studies class today, ‘Female people are oppressed on the basis of reproduction,’ I would get called out,” Ivey says. Other students, she adds, would ask, “What about women who are male?” This is clearly talking about a specific age group of feminists, and to extend that to feminists in general is WP:OR. Regarding opinion pieces, editors need to keep WP:RSOPINION in mind (emphasis added): Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements asserted as fact. For example, an inline qualifier might say "[Author XYZ] says....". A prime example of this is opinion pieces in sources recognized as reliable. When using them, it is best to clearly attribute the opinions in the text to the author and make it clear to the reader that they are reading an opinion. Crossroads -talk- 21:18, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
For the United States, this trans-positive statement is certainly signed by most major Feminist organizations. For Canada, this source clearly documents the preponderance of feminist organizations in support of trans-inclusionary legislation. How many countries to we need to document here? Or should we specify, "in the United States and Canada"? Newimpartial (talk) 21:52, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
Hard to say but perhaps we could somehow work in the relative strength of the views in question in the United Kingdom. Don't know if the geography belongs in the lead, though. Haukur (talk) 22:27, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
Specifying the US and Canada would certainly be a good start in the direction of WP:V, but it's not far enough. The first source only talks about feminist organizations, which is not the same thing as people who identify as feminists in general. It doesn't say it represents a majority of these organizations either - to say that is OR. It also doesn't talk about TERFs or 'trans-exclusionary feminists' at all, so its relevance is questionable on a WP:SYNTH basis. Your second source is an opinion piece, which runs afoul of WP:RSOPINION unless you use WP:In-text attribution. It generalizes about "Canadian feminists" on the basis of some organizations, but is not any kind of in-depth impartial analysis. Crossroads -talk- 22:38, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
It would be a misinterpretation of RSOPINION to be more skeptical of a commentary piece than one would be of a self-published work on the same topic by the same author or authors. The two authors of the piece in question are Kimberley Ens Manning, Director of the (Feminist, university based) Simone de Beauvoir Institute in Montreal and author of, among others Attached advocacy and the rights of the Trans child, published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science, a leading Canadian journal, and Julie Temple Newhook, the primary author of A critical commentary on follow-up studies and “desistance” theories about transgender and gender non-conforming children published in the International Journal of Transgenderism. Both are "recognized experts" on the topic of feminism and transgender politics, in the sense required by WP:RS for self-published sources, so the fact that their work has been published as "commentary" does not make it any less suitable a source for facts than it would have been if they had posted it to a blog, i.e., it is an acceptable source based on their expertise in the subject. Newimpartial (talk) 00:03, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
Interestingly, in the UK example we have sources stating that Virtually the entire feminist establishment has embraced transgenderism and The evidence is overwhelming. Transgenderism...has greater support from women than from men, and its success has depended on women in power who brandish their feminist credentials [1], though I suspect the influencers there are more evenly divided than in North America. Newimpartial (talk) 00:22, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
There are also plenty of publications willing to generalize on US feminist organizations. For example, this piece in City Journal states that When it comes to all things transgender that come at the expense of girls and women, America’s famously outspoken feminist organizations find themselves at a curious loss for words and that The fox (representing trans women has entered the henhouse, as the old saying goes, while women’s (feminist) organizations stick to the fiction that both species are hens. This doesn't really seem to be a controversial point concerning feminist organizations in the US, the UK or Canada. In fact, some might even call it a BLUESKY situation. Newimpartial (talk) 00:42, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) As useful as it is for the overall point, Quillette is absolutely not a reliable source. But we do have some better sources over on Feminist views on transgender topics. For example:
I feel these sources are both stronger than the Quillete source and the sources currently in the article (which are admittedly a bit weak). In particular, the Visions of Medieval Trans feminism source itself sources the claim out to another source (doi:10.23289252-3334127 if anyone wants to check it out). Loki (talk) 00:57, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
The relevant passage from Transgender Studies Quarterly (2016) 3 (1-2): 5–14) is as follows:
Rather than review or editorialize against Gender Hurts, the board suggested, we should instead publish a special issue on feminist transgender scholarship that recontextualizes and reframes the terms of the conflict. Rather than cede the label feminist to a minority of feminists who hold a particular set of negative opinions about trans people, and rather than reducing all transgender engagement with feminism to the strategy embraced by some trans people of vigorously challenging certain forms of antitransgender feminist speech, we should instead demonstrate the range and complexity of trans/feminist relationships. Newimpartial (talk) 01:15, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
Regarding Loki's sources, I explain the problem with the Daily Dot below. The Outline is clearly an opinion piece and is unusable per WP:RSOPINION, as I explained above. Regarding opinion pieces by subject-matter experts, there is no exception in RSOPINION regarding attribution for subject-matter experts. And WP:SPS urges caution about self-published sources by subject-matter experts, since if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources; those still are poor sources. Crossroads -talk- 02:44, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
Crossroads, your argument that op-eds by recognized subject-matter experts are poor sources is not supported by policy, nor by your own practice of including Andrew Sullivan commentary in WP articles. Maybe rethink? Newimpartial (talk) 11:05, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
Newimpartial, your assertion that WP:RSOPINION's in-text attribution requirement doesn't apply when the person is a subject-matter expert is not supported by policy. I do not have a practice of including Andrew Sullivan's commentary in articles (one incident where I supported someone else's proposal is not a "practice"), nor have I ever supported inclusion of such commentary as fact and without in-text attribution, as you are arguing for. Crossroads -talk- 16:53, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

RSOPINION applies to opinions, not to facts as reported by subject matter experts. Newimpartial (talk) 17:13, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Analysis of current sources for claim about feminist organizations

So I note there's also a claim made about "predominant in feminist organizations", but with sources that don't support it.

  • This source significantly says "subgroup", and says To some feminists, that notion is obvious: the experience of having lived as male for any period of time matters. It also quotes philosopher Kathleen Stock as saying, Beyond the academy, there’s a huge and impassioned discussion going on, around the apparent conflict between women-who-are-not-transwomen’s rights and interests, and transwomen’s rights and interests. And yet nearly all academic philosophers  -- including, surprisingly, feminist philosophers  --  are ignoring it, which contradicts the idea "TERF views" are definitely a minority among feminists. This source says nothing about feminist organizations, nor does it support "minority".
  • This source does not talk about feminist organizations either, nor does it purport to be a survey of feminists in general, nor comment on the relative proportion of "TERF views" among feminists in general. (And to be clear, this source's view of radical feminists is not the complete picture; see the sources at Radical feminism#Views on transgender topics.)
  • This source also does not talk at all about feminist organizations, so it does not support this claim as such. It does say that TERFs represent a minority of feminists, but note what WP:RSP states about the Daily Dot, The Daily Dot is considered generally reliable for Internet culture. This is not some sort of careful analysis by an expert; it is a bald assertion based on zero research by a "writer and zinester" with no relevant expertise in a publication that is not reliable for this topic.

So, something needs to be done about this. Crossroads -talk- 02:29, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Crossroads, I don't understand your reading of the Inside Higher Ed piece. Where does it contradict the idea that "TERF views" are definitely a minority among feminists? Newimpartial (talk) 11:01, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
Re-read what Kathleen Stock said. She says that academic feminist philosophers are largely ignoring the impassioned discussion regarding these matters. Yes, this is regarding philosophers, specifically, but it shows that it's not as simple as all feminists aside from "TERFs" being definitively against "TERF" ideas. Some are ignoring the debate. It also shows that the term "feminist" can be vague. Does that mean organizations? academics in feminist schools of thought? all people who say they are feminist when asked by a survey? It's better to be specific per the sources. Crossroads -talk- 16:49, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
"Feminist philosophers" is a vanishingly small group within "feminists" (and entirely orthogonal to "feminist organizations"), so I am still having trouble seeing the relevance of the piece. Newimpartial (talk) 17:16, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
Three comments: First, the claim about a minority of feminist organizations was originally proposed in support of a larger claim about a minority of feminists. Many of the sources I linked speak to the underlying claim directly instead of the claim about organizations. (If you want separate proof of that more specific claim, Newimpartial has linked to a statement by tons of major feminist organizations above.)
Second, by my reading, the Inside Higher Ed source is irrelevant to the claim either way, and the Cristan Williams source suggests something supportive but doesn't state it clearly enough to source the claim at issue. The Daily Dot source, on the other hand, is a green WP:RSP source asserting that TERFs are a minority in news voice. That the Daily Dot is written in an informal style or that its writers call themselves "zinesters" are totally unrelated to its editorial standards. And I don't know how a term that originated in a series of blogposts can be anything other than "internet culture".
And third, even though in my opinion the Daily Dot source is by far enough to source the claim on its own, there are also three other sources I've linked, and one that Newimpartial has, which all also support that TERFs are a minority of feminists. Loki (talk) 23:32, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
LokiTheLiar, I think it's a massive stretch to say that because the acronym "TERF" originated online, it falls under "internet culture" and therefore a blog article by a "zinester" on the Daily Dot is an authoritative source. Even the Daily Dot source disagrees with you, because they filed this under the "IRL" (in real life) category. I could go on and on with other examples of terms or things originating on the internet which are not "internet culture", but I won't belabor the point.
But this illustrates the problem in the first place. There is a strong desire to say that radical feminists are a minority, but no good sources for that assertion. Sure, there are plenty of opinionated articles that make that conclusory claim, but if this is so true then how come nobody can cite a poll or something of that nature?
It's not plausible to say "of course TERFs are a minority! No, I don't have any polling information or anything and it appears that nobody has ever actually done that, but what I do have are conclusory claims made in politically-motivated blog posts by zinesters, and that's good enough." Really, the language should be removed. May His Shadow Fall Upon You📧 11:05, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
But looking at this from the flip side, there is even less evidence subtracting suggesting that TERFs see are anything other than a minority. The best the contrary sources have to say is that TERF positions are "relatively strong in the UK". The US has precisely one trans-exclusionary feminist organization of any size/visibility, WoLF, which is allied with Christian conservatives and is widely regarded as an Astroturf effort (AstroTERF?). This really is a BLUESKY situation. The FALSEBALANCE implications if the article did not point out that TERF positions are minoritarian within feminism would be dramatic and far contrary to policy. Newimpartial (talk) 11:21, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Newimpartial, It seems just as hard to prove that "TERFs" are in the majority as it is to prove they are in the minority. This is because, apparently, nobody has ever done any real research on the topic. The only appropriate solution would be to omit any statements about whether it's a minority or a majority because neither assertions are adequately supported. I don't really understand the false balance problem; it seems like you're saying something to the effect of "it can't really be proven but it's the truth, so it needs to be in the article." That's really not okay. May His Shadow Fall Upon You📧 14:32, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Newimpartial, regarding there is even less evidence subtracting that TERFs see anything other than a minority, the WP:BURDEN of proof lies with the editors making the claim. It is not anyone else's burden of proof to disprove it before it gets removed. As for WP:BLUESKY, that is clearly not the case given the disputing that has occurred. One cannot use BLUESKY to justify a WP:V failure for any claim that one is personally convinced of. Crossroads -talk- 14:47, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
We have reliable sources stating that most feminist organizations include trans women, we have reliable sources stating that trans-exclusionary positions represent a minority of feminists, and we have trans-exclusionary sources themselves pointing out that they are opposed by most feminists. And then we have editors who question this reality on flimsy pretexts. It looks like the sky is blue, from here. Newimpartial (talk) 14:57, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Newimpartial, Right now, I'm focusing solely on the claim that TERFs are a minority opinion because that's what's in the article. That assertion is supported by an opinion column at the Daily Dot and an online-only fringe journal. Hardly what would be considered reliable for this kind of fact. Do you have any sources that actually conducted any surveys or anything of that nature, or is just politically-motivated opinion piece after opinion piece? May His Shadow Fall Upon You📧 16:05, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Very few surveys are done anywhere using "feminists" as a frame, so the evidence is going to be qualitative rather than quantitative as a rule. There is plenty of survey data showing that what 'Muricans call "progressives" are both feminist and trans-inclusuonary, but I am assuming that isn't what you want. Newimpartial (talk) 16:16, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Newimpartial, Right. When the only support for a claim about demographics is bare assertions made in politically-motivated columns, it casts doubt on the accuracy of the statement. Elsewhere on Wikipedia, we support claims about demographics with statistics. This statement is supported by an online fringe journal and an opinion column on the Daily Dot. This is why I'm skeptical. May His Shadow Fall Upon You📧 16:35, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

It would be a misconstrual to interpret this claim as being about "demographics". There is also no policy-based reason to prefer quantitative over qualitative evidence when experts make these judgements and we cite them. Newimpartial (talk) 16:37, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) May His Shadow Fall Upon You, that characterization of the sourcing is definitely not right. See the sources I linked in the section above as well as the sources Newimpartial linked in the same section. We have in addition to the Daily Dot article, several opinion pieces in places with strong editorial standards, plus a statement signed by tons of feminist organizations, plus several other sources as well. It's hard for me to imagine a more clearly sourced claim. Loki (talk) 16:51, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) We don't need someone to do "real research" on a topic as in an actual survey. That's never been the standard Wikipedia uses, otherwise we couldn't use any news source. If we had a news source that said said "Harlem is a majority-black neighborhood in New York City", we don't need to also have a survey of Harlem to be able to say most people who live there are black. The point of calling sources "reliable" is that we trust they've verified what they're reporting somehow, even if we can't independently verify it. Loki (talk) 16:51, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Opinion pieces no matter the outlet are not reliable for unattributed facts per WP:RSOPINION. As for hard for me to imagine a more clearly sourced claim, wow really? I can imagine a peer-reviewed paper that studies feminist opinions for starters. Or even a mainstream news report that isn't an opinion piece. Crossroads -talk- 03:11, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

You are still misreading RSOPINION. In the case of the Canadian piece, for example, it was self-published before it was op-ed, by recognized experts in feminism and transgender issues per WP:RS, and is therefore perfectly suited to describing reality accurately and reliably. Definitely a more authoritative source than a "mainstream news report", in that case. Newimpartial (talk) 12:12, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • This is just the same old arguments peddled by the same old participants. No one is convincing the other. Time for a RFC to bring some fresh eyes (were we not going in this direction before). AIRcorn (talk) 02:09, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Butler

In Fourth wave feminism there is a section on early instances of TERF in relation to Judith Butler in Latin America. I think this is quite significant in the development of this phenomenon and should be considered for inclusion in this page. Kats987124 dh74g3y (talk) 15:58, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Misquoting trans activist

I removed these sentences and I’ll explain why:

  • professor Rachel McKinnon has maintained the word is not a slur. She argues that merely being "a term used to denigrate women" does not make a word a slur, that being "an absurd, nonsensical view of the nature of slurs"

This is what the source, written by McKinnon, actually says:

  • many contemporary TERFs accuse trans women of coining the phrase/term—and, ludicrously, claim that ‘TERF’ is a misogynistic slur. ... The idea—it seems to be—is that ‘TERF’ is a term used to denigrate women, and so it is a slur. However, this is an absurd, nonsensical view of the nature of slurs.

The first excerpt clearly tries to make it look like she doesn't think “denigrating women” is something serious enough to be considered insulting. As in "it is ok to insult women, it is no real biggie". But that is not the case. She doesn’t consider the term offensive towards women in the first place, and she explains why (among other things, it was a term coined by women themselves), and she also includes a footnote linking to an article written by Ernie Lepore and Luvell Anderson that further problematizes the concept and uses of slurs. This is just yet another attempt to demonize trans women by twisting their words and framing them in the worst possible light. No surprises coming from this encyclopedia and its usual anti-trans bias. - Daveout(talk) 02:58, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Pay special attention to this part, from the source, The idea — it seems to be — is that ‘TERF’ is a term used to denigrate women, she is putting herself in the shoes of those who criticize the term. She is talking about what THEY think about the term. "The idea" is actually "Their idea", this is very clear in the text. - Daveout(talk) 03:41, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

You didn't merely remove the sentences; you changed them to this, which has its own issues: "transphobic radical feminists" is an inappropriate use of WP:WIKIVOICE as determined by this RfC. Additionally, the different point you've made it say is one that's already made above, so it doesn't really add anything new.
I've now read McKinnon's paper. Our text says, She argues that merely being "a term used to denigrate women" does not make a word a slur, that being "an absurd, nonsensical view of the nature of slurs". In the paper, McKinnon doesn't deny that the term is used toward women primarily, nor that it is a negative (denigrating) term. This is because of her view that it based on an incorrect definition of slurs. Beyond that, she doesn't really explain why exactly it isn't a slur, instead just citing some papers about slurs. When she says, emphasis added, The idea—it seems to be—is that ‘TERF’ is a term used to denigrate women, and so it is a slur. However, this is an absurd, nonsensical view of the nature of slurs., she seems to be denying that it being a slur necessarily follows from its usage, rather than denying that it is being used in that way. If that were so, she would have said something like, "However, this is not how the term is used, and is an absurd, nonsensical view of the nature of slurs". Crossroads -talk- 03:44, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
The only misuse of wiki-voice here is using “merely” in that insanely tendentious way. As if she were downplaying actual verbal abuse directed towards women. Please re-write this using a neutral tone or put a direct quote. - Daveout(talk) 04:38, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
Like this? Transgender rights activist and philosophy of language professor Rachel McKinnon has maintained the word is not a slur, stating, "The idea—it seems to be—is that ‘TERF’ is a term used to denigrate women, and so it is a slur. However, this is an absurd, nonsensical view of the nature of slurs." Crossroads -talk- 05:12, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
Okay, I put the full quote there with no 'merely'. Haukur (talk) 10:03, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
I was thinking about something like this:
  • Transgender rights activist and philosophy of language professor Rachel McKinnon has maintained that equating TERF to misogynistic slurs is "ludicrous".
or
  • Transgender rights activist and philosophy of language professor Rachel McKinnon has maintained that equating TERF to misogynistic slurs is "ludicrous"; and that those who object to it think "that ‘TERF’ is a term used to denigrate women, and so it is a slur. However, this is an absurd, nonsensical view of the nature of slurs."
- Daveout(talk) 05:59, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
FWIW I prefer Daveout's original version, because I don't think mentioning this quote is WP:DUE at all. I think it's pretty clear in the original context that she is in fact denying that it's "a term used to denigrate women": rather, she's attributing that view to trans-exclusionary radical feminists themselves. Loki (talk) 07:24, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
Concur with Daveout and Loki. Rab V (talk) 18:00, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
I think McKinnon's key observation in this passage is that terms can be used in various ways, including gender-based denigration/insults, without necessarily being 'slurs'. Pretty much any version of the article text that reflects this insight is fine with me. Newimpartial (talk) 14:44, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
I broadly agree with Newimpartial. I don't think either the 'original' wording or the "it is a term coined by trans-accepting radical feminists aiming at differentiating themselves from transphobic radical feminists" wording captures the main point she's making; the current complete quote is an improvement over either of those wordings but I think it would be even better to reduce the length of the quote (trim the first sentence?), or summarize. -sche (talk) 00:01, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

APPG report

I recently removed a sentence in the paragraph about the APPG report which Haukurth recently put back. While I didn't explain my reasoning clearly at the time, I believe including it is a pretty strong WP:NPOV violation.

That quote we have is followed shortly afterwards by a parallel section describing trans-exclusionary feminist calls for violence against trans people, which we don't cover in the article as-is at all. Including only the quote we have now, but no quotes from the following sections, makes it seem like the APPG report is saying a one-sided thing when it's actually saying the calling-for-violence situation is balanced between both sides. Hence, my edit to cut the paragraph down to only the conclusion of the APPG report (essentially "the rhetoric in this contentious political debate is very caustic on both sides") rather than what we have now (essentially "trans activists are so mean to feminists, says official government body"). Loki (talk) 00:09, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

No it doesn't, the calls for violence are reported from one direction. The actual conclusion of the report is:
Both sides of the argument illustrate that intra-community tensions are running high around this topic and that there are some on both sides of the divide who are resorting to extreme measures and tactics. On one hand, there are clear examples of threats and calls to violence against women, whilst on the other vulnerable people are being made to feel unwelcome, that they are viewed as a threat and that their identity is invalid. It should be clear that neither is acceptable.
The reference to the term TERF being used (i.e the topic of the article) is They argue that women who object to the inclusion of trans women as female are attacked both online and, in the street, with the term ‘trans-exclusionary radical feminist’ (or TERF) being used as a term of abuse.. The article represents the source perfectly fine. AIRcorn (talk) 00:33, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
Precisely. The source (pp. 25-27) says nothing whatsoever about "trans-exclusionary feminist calls for violence against trans people" or that the "calling-for-violence situation is balanced between both sides." That is simply not the case, as reading the relevant pages of the report shows clearly. Crossroads -talk- 04:56, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
Not specifically, but it explicitly frames the two sides as parallel: Several of the submissions also included screenshots of social media posts (predominantly Twitter) that contained threats and encouragements of violence towards ‘TERFs’. ... On the other side of the divide, there are trans activists and their supporters who are reporting similar attacks.
Regardless of whether the calls for violence are parallel, the overall situation clearly is: Both sides of the argument illustrate that intra-community tensions are running high around this topic and that there are some on both sides of the divide who are resorting to extreme measures and tactics. On one hand, there are clear examples of threats and calls to violence against women, whilst on the other vulnerable people are being made to feel unwelcome, that they are viewed as a threat and that their identity is invalid. It should be clear that neither is acceptable.
To quote one side of that but not the other is an archetypal NPOV violation. It's cherry-picking an article that explicitly says "both sides are at fault" to say "this side is at fault". Loki (talk) 03:15, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
Our article here already says that "both sides [were] detailing incidents of extreme or abusive language". Beyond that, however, the report does not engage in the both-sides-ism you are implying, as the behavior detailed in the portion you (and Aircorn) quoted bears out. You are seizing on particular phrases out of context and arguing for that other archetypal NPOV violation, the WP:FALSEBALANCE. The report submissions talk about how the label TERF (the subject of this article) has been associated with threats of assault, rape, and death. Removing the report's quote overviewing the negative use of this term is what is POV. Crossroads -talk- 04:13, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
I think your reading of this report is so one-sided it's indefensible on the facts, but it seems I'm unlikely to convince you. I would normally go to an RFC at an impasse like this, but TBH if I was going to go to an RFC I'd rather do a broader one on whether the sources we have here (several opinion writers, a sociologist who is clearly on the trans-exclusionary side of the debate and who makes his claim without citations, and this report which is much more balanced and measured than you claim it is) that trans activists sometimes threaten trans-exclusionary feminists are sufficiently reliable and WP:DUE for an article about a term. Like, I don't think we would say "black people sometimes threaten white people while using the word 'racist'", and I don't think we'd say that even if we could source it.
Do other people here (not just Crossroads, everyone on this talk page) think that an RFC on this topic would be a good idea? Loki (talk) 03:08, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
Are you seriously saying that we should exclude a sociologist because you have put them clearly on the trans-exclusionary side of the debate. On that logic we should exclude Cristan Williams, Veronica Ivy, Andrea Long Chu and others as well. We don't write a balanced article using just the sources that agree with our perspective. As to the report there is not much more to say. This article is about the term and the actual mention of the term (i.e. the second sentence) is the relevant part. Sure, an opening sentence to put it in context of a wider conflict where both sides are being nasty is important. However the article to go into more detail on the trans activist / exclusionary feminist debate is Feminist views on transgender topics or a more dedicated article if anyone is mad enough to create it. AIRcorn (talk) 03:59, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
It's clear to me that your rejection, now, of all these high-quality sources (The Guardian twice, a peer-reviewed journal, the UK government, The Economist) that say it has been used in a context of violent threats can only result in an outcome of WP:CENSORSHIP, which would of course be a violation of WP:NPOV. Two of us have already rejected your claim, and none have supported it, and now you want sink time and energy into an RfC? I suggest not. Crossroads -talk- 04:17, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
That two of you are rejecting a claim I think is very obvious is exactly I would (and did) start an RfC: I do not believe that the local consensus on this talk page is very reflective of how the broader population of editors would view this issue. Loki (talk) 08:16, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

RFC: Do parts of this article have reliability and NPOV problems?

The page TERF, about the word "TERF" and not the people to whom the term is applied, currently contains three sections after the lede: "Coinage and usage", "Opposition to the word", and "Slur debate", which are each roughly the same length. "Opposition to the word" and "Slur debate" contain many quotes attributed to individuals, mostly opposing the word that the page is about.

Some of the editors on this talk page believe that there are several problems with these two sections (described below for the sake of keeping the RFC description as neutral as possible). Is there a problem with these sections, and if so, what should we do about it? Loki (talk) 08:12, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Survey

  • Yes, for the three reasons I explain in more detail below: the sections are overwhelmingly sourced to less reliable or unreliable sources, which give WP:UNDUE individual opinions that are primarily about a semi-related topic, and the representation of that overall position in the article compared to its presence in the universe of reliable sources is a violation of NPOV. My suggested solution to these problems is to remove the UNDUE quotes (and ideally consolidate the sections). Loki (talk) 08:12, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • No We are not a dictionary, and discussing usage and opposition to usage is useful and important. But I would say they could be merged and truncated here.Slatersteven (talk) 11:56, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes and No, due to variable controversy. This page tries to encapsulate the term, but ends up having to run full force into the ideology the term represents. In efforts of NPOV, the page includes both sides of the controversy, however it ends up ultimately (sometimes with more or less rhetorical nuance) taking either a pro-trans/anti-terf or pro-terf/anti-trans POV. Most sources are understandably individual-based as this term is on the edge of the mainstream and specific to a feminist/transgender controversy. Most pro-trans sources feel the term is descriptive for an ideological group which targets them, while most pro-terf sources feel the term is pejorative in the way it frames the ideology around trans-exclusivity (which is largely the point). Merge potential exists for a dedicated page toward this ideology (as controversial as it is) in general combining both aspects of this page and the Feminist views on transgender topics page Gwen Hope (talk) (contrib) 13:14, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
    FWIW I also agree that part of the source of the problem is that we don't have a dedicated page on the ideology, so that material often gets put here. Loki (talk) 15:25, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Procedural close – This Rfc is highly premature. I would love to vote on a tightly phrased Rfc that proposed a small number of alternative wordings for a concrete change to the article. The Rfc question, as stated, (...what shall we do about it?) is far too vague for an Rfc to find resolution on anything. What would the !votes even be: Do something, or, Do nothing, or a different idea for each respondent? No, that's silly, of course. This discussion is worth having, as a discussion; but as an Rfc, it's not going to help, and may not end up deciding anything, which is the whole point of having an Rfc. Please withdraw it, and either rewrite it (premature, imho), or just hold an open-ended discussion and not an Rfc, whose goal would be to gather the most popular suggestions for section changes as a prelude to an Rfc, then start another Rfc, listing the top suggestions coming out of that discussion, as options 1 to 5 (or whatever) as the Rfc survey choices to be voted on. That's my advice. You can see this starting to happen organically, in the Discussion section below. All you need to do, is undo the Rfc, and focus on that discussion; when it's done and some options have crystallized, *then* come back and do the Rfc. Mathglot (talk) 19:49, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
    The reason I wanted to have this as an RFC is that I literally want to request comments. We've had this discussion on this talk page before and it's gotten nowhere, so I want to bring in outside editors so that it gets somewhere. I acknowledge that it's broad, but there's nothing wrong by policy with a broad RFC. Loki (talk) 02:27, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
    Second. Y'all must keep in mind the meaning of the words, Request for comment; nothing in those words suggests a proposal for action is required, and are RFC's not typically the best way to bring in wider discussion when needed? Firejuggler86 (talk) 12:59, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Procedural close per Mathglot. This RfC question is vague and unactionable. But while we're in it, there is no problem with the material about how TERF is used. WP:NPOV#DUE requires that we fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. [Ftn.:] The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is not relevant and should not be considered. (Emphasis added.) Loki's only concrete proposal, seen above under #APPG report, amounts to WP:CENSORSHIP. This RfC question is exceedingly vague (see WP:RFCBRIEF), but it's clear that Loki thinks there are too many sources with a viewpoint they don't like. They can of course propose reliable sources with other viewpoints, but we will not censor views that are clearly are WP:DUE (as "due" is defined in policy) and from WP:Reliable sources.
    • Loki's claim that the existing material is overwhelmingly sourced to less reliable or unreliable sources is not true, and is as useless as it is vague. That the term TERF has been used in threatening violence is established by the UK government (pp. 25-27), an article in a peer-reviewed journal, The Economist, and seven philosophers.
    • It's also been mentioned two times in The Guardian; these two are opinion pieces, true, but they are used in accord with WP:RSOPINION, and if they are removed then, to be consistent, so must this "essay" in n+1 magazine, this in Socialist Worker, this in the New York Times, and more sources that are obviously opinion pieces. We cannot have a double standard where some opinion sources are treated as reliable and others not based on ideology. We do not judge inclusion of viewpoints based on whether we agree with them.

      More specifically regarding the All-party parliamentary group (APPG) report, below Loki takes one quote from the report out of context to make it seem like "both sides" of the use of the word are the same. Our article here does relay what both sides have in common when it says that both sides detail[ed] incidents of extreme or abusive language. Nonetheless, it is not the case that the two sides are symmetrical. The government report more fully states, Both sides of the argument illustrate that intra-community tensions are running high around this topic and that there are some on both sides of the divide who are resorting to extreme measures and tactics. On one hand, there are clear examples of threats and calls to violence against women, whilst on the other vulnerable people are being made to feel unwelcome, that they are viewed as a threat and that their identity is invalid. It should be clear that neither is acceptable. Anyone can check the report for themselves and see the details on pages 25-27. This latter aspect should also should be relayed; otherwise we are misrepresenting the source. Crossroads -talk- 20:10, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

      Briefly, my assertion is not that the publishing organizations are unreliable in general but that you cannot claim that an opinion is reliable for fact merely because it was published by a generally reliable organization. Many writers have published opinion pieces in major newspapers arguing for teaching creationism in schools but we don't cite those pieces in our article on evolution. But we're citing many sources stating that "TERF is associated with violent rhetoric" or "TERF is used to bully" as fact, when the only source we have for those claims that both makes them and would be reliable for them is the APPG report.

      WP:RSOPINION means that any opinion piece is reliable for the author's opinion but does not mean that opinion is WP:DUE; it doesn't mean that we have to have a section about opposition to the word that is full of the opinions of random opinion columnists. Sure, yes, the Economist's editorial board calling it a slur in their directions to other authors is probably DUE, and so is the APPG report, but most of the sources we cite are not those, they're just random opinion columnists whose opinion we have no reason to believe is particularly noteworthy. And including those sources means we should also include Vox casting doubt on the idea the term is a slur and NBC refusing to take a side. Loki (talk) 02:27, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

      Also, thank you for quoting the APPG report further and proving definitively it portrays both sides as symmetrical. I was just about to quote that section back at you, but I see you've already quoted it arguing the opposing position. I am still unsure what you are seeing that makes your reading of it even the least bit reasonable. Loki (talk) 02:30, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

      Your comparison is faulty. This is an article about the use of a word/acronym, not a well-supported scientific theory (as evolution is). Creationism is pseudoscience; the usage of a word is not pseudoscience. As for the quote of the report, again, criticizing both sides is not the same as saying they are symmetrical (equal) in behavior. "Threats of violence against women" are not the same thing as "being made to feel unwelcome [etc.]". Remember, we are talking specifically about the usage of the word, not about what these individuals on either side may be politically seeking more generally. Crossroads -talk- 19:35, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
  • No In as much as neutrality is not a fixed point, but an acceptable range. This falls within that, but doesn't mean it can't be improved upon further. It describes the term adequately, the uses if it and the debate around whether it is a descriptive term or a slur. For a recently coined word with limited scope there is not really much more we can do here source wise at this stage. I think the quotes could be reduced, but with controversial subjects it is often easier and more appropriate to directly quote what the source says than to guess what they are meaning. I guess this is a !vote for not tagging the article, as I don't really see what else can come out of such a broad RFC. AIRcorn (talk) 22:44, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes and no. The material (if cleaned up) is not WP:UNDUE in an encyclopedia, but the bulk of it probably belongs in a section at Feminist views on transgender topics, with just a WP:SUMMARY retained here. While WP is not a dictionary, and our articles on terms need to have social, etc., encyclopedic material about why the term is notable, and so on, we cannot WP:COATRACK the entire "pro- versus anti-transwomen views within and surrounding feminism" subject into an article on a politicized epithet acronym that one camp uses to label the other. I do not believe we need a separate article on "the TERF ideology", because it's not clear there really is any such thing. Virtually no one actually self-identifies with this term, and it is, rather, an overgeneralizing label for "those within feminism who do not seem to think about this exactly the way I and my friends do". Remember that we do refer to the "pro-life movement" as the "anti-abortion movement" just because their opponents like to. I also agree that just regurgitating a bunch of quotations that are making claims of alleged facts, from primary sources, without proper secondary-source material creating the context for them, is WP:OR; it is WP editors doing their own analysis, evaluation, interpretation, and synthesis to weave them into a binary "us vs. them" narrative, when the real truth is more complex, and even if it weren't, we are not permitted by policy to say so one way or the other in Wikipedia's own voice. WP doesn't declare what's true, it summarizes sources analyzing what seem to be true (and summarizing the conflict between these sources in a WP:DUE manner when apparently reliable sources are in sharp disagreement). We also need to be especially mindful about WP:CIRCULAR when it comes to a topic like this. There is an elevated risk that what WP says about it will become integrated into the public narrative and gestalt about it, reinforcing a particular viewpoint which we then "report" on further in a vicious cycle. We have to be more neutral than we have been, including in relevant BLPs (where we should not be treating "cancel culture" Twitter flaming as if it's encyclopedic history).  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  20:20, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
    • The way I see it, if we were improperly citing primary sources and thus committing OR, that would mean we were doing something like citing tweets where someone says something like "punch TERFs". The sources analyzing the societal phenomenon are the secondary sources, most prominently the APPG report. Crossroads -talk- 23:36, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes, because I do not believe that an article about the term TERF is an appropriate place to litigate the appropriateness of trans-exlusionary policies and opinions. I would propose condensing the opposition section drastically and combining it into the debate section, which I would rename to be "Debate on appropriateness of term" or something similar as the current title is not NPOV. Smith(talk) 22:17, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

I believe the sections in question have three problems:
1. Reliability: Almost all the sections in question are quotes from opinion pieces opposing the word, and often trans activism in general. Most make some kind of factual claim (such as that it's often used alongside violent rhetoric) without any further sourcing whatsoever. We clearly have some doubts as to their reliability already, because we attribute almost all these views to the authors in question.
I expect people to bring up WP:BIASEDSOURCES here, but my complaint about their reliability is distinct from my complaint about DUEness or NPOV. WP:BIASEDSOURCES does not mean that individual opinion columnists are reliable sources for an article that's supposed to be linguistic in nature (nor does it mean we have to ignore the fact that opinion sections in most newspapers are less rigorously verified than the news sections of that same paper). We wouldn't source 2/3 of an article about any other word to opinion columnists either, no matter how politically contentious.
2. DUEness: This is supposed to be a page about the term "TERF", but 2/3 of it is in fact a broader critique of trans activists that is clearly not WP:DUE in an article about a word. We would never in a million years allow a page about the word "asshole" to be taken over by opinion columnists complaining about having been called an asshole.
This also starts to get into WP:BLPGROUP problems: even though trans activists are a broad political group and therefore at the edge of relevance for WP:BLPGROUP, accusing them of threatening people based on opinion columnists who don't explain where they got their information threatens the kind of real-world harm that the BLP policy exists to prevent.
3. NPOV: The sections in question drastically over-represent a particular position on the term, sometimes to the point of seriously misrepresenting neutral sources as oppositional ones. For example, the conclusion of the APPG report we quote in the article as opposing the term is actually Both sides of the argument illustrate that intra-community tensions are running high around this topic and that there are some on both sides of the divide who are resorting to extreme measures and tactics. Or in other words, though we represent it as having a highly tendentious position on the topic, it in fact reaches a very balanced "both sides" conclusion.
Plus, of course, it's not hard to find the opposing position on the term, we just don't include it in the article to any significant degree. Part of this is for the relatively good reason that many sources arguing that "TERF" is not a slur are self-published, such as Julia Serano's argument on her website, or Contrapoints' argument in one of her videos. But it's not that hard to find, for example, Vox publishing explainers that are highly skeptical of the idea the term is a slur, or NBC News describing the argument used by supporters of the term. We don't include these, while we do include tons of individual people's opinions. Loki (talk) 08:12, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
I'm not really sure about reliability and NPOV, but the argument made about DUEness sounds off to me. Looking through the article, there is only one part that doesn't seem to fit in a discussion about TERF as a term and that's the last paragraph of the "opposition to the word" section, though the quote about using TERF as a term of abuse tells me that it's possible to refactor this paragraph and its quote/citation in a manner that is more consistent with discussing TERF as a term.
There's really no way of talking about a term relating to a political issue, particularly a term that is as controversial as this one, without addressing the political controversy itself. Doing otherwise would be a disservice to our readers, especially given how we barely have any content covering what the term itself refers to. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 15:53, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
While to some degree that's true, the way this page goes about it is less "TERF is politically controversial" and more "look at all these people complaining about trans activists calling them TERFs". See for example the page on the word "gay", which does talk about the pejorative usage but is not full of quotes from individual opinion columnists complaining about being called "gay".
Like, while I think there are significant problems with both sections, I think "Slur debate" does a clearly better job of covering the controversy surrounding the term than the "Opposition to the word" section does. Loki (talk) 16:47, 30 October 2020 ()
'gay' is a faulty comparison: it is a label that people do self identify as, and the negative usage is not usually even targeted at those individuals. As for the comparison to 'asshole' - which marginalised group of people is the word 'asshole' used to drum up anger and violence against? I fail to see any similarities between TERF and asshole in a sociological context.
A better comparison would be the word 'nigger' (which for the record, was originally nothing more than another variant derived form of the Latin word 'niger' (pronounced like English 'nigger') meaning 'black'). i don't think many would think discussion of lynchings of blacks in the South and other forms of violence in the article about that word would be UNDUE. A somewhat extreme comparison, i know, but the basic idea is the same... Firejuggler86 (talk) 13:41, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
The word gay is an interesting comparison but with 'TERF' we have far less material to draw upon. As for 'trans activists', the article uses that word only once and I don't think all the people using TERF as a term of abuse are necessarily trans activists. As for improving the article, I think you and I agree that it's a bit scattershot and not all of it flows very well. That's probably emblematic of the whole thing being so controversial that we have difficulty even agreeing on what particular sources are trying to say so we end up with a lot of direct quotes. Haukur (talk) 17:09, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
Our article only uses the actual phrase once, but if you read the sources that's clearly what most of them are complaining about, and so our use of so many of those sources ends up litigating that same dispute. I continue to believe that most of these sources are simply not WP:DUE: they are random people complaining about the use of a term without qualifications. We have no reason to believe their opinions are worth including in the article by themselves.
The APPG report certainly is WP:DUE, as are probably the Economist's instructions, but most of these opinion sources are primary sources of the sort Wikipedia generally avoids. Overall, I think we should rely much less on this sort of primary opinion source and pivot towards secondary sources describing the dispute. Loki (talk) 02:36, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
What about combining and refactoring it back into the paragraph above it which already talks about the term being used in a similar light. AIRcorn (talk) 22:32, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
(Summoned by bot) I think Opposition to the term and Slur debate should be merged. I think these sections should be restructured. Right now it mainly list quotes from both sides of the debate. They are confusing. Reading it, my takeaway was that people have opinions. It doesent serve to give an overview on where the lines are. We should focus on secondary sources and describing the structure of the dispute. Asmodea Oaktree (talk) 14:59, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

New source

The Atlantic recently published a new article on the subject of this article. I'm not sure it affects anything but in view of the past sourcing issues on this page I'd like to put it here anyway. Loki (talk) 20:47, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Disputing a revert

Recently, I made an edit that Crossroads partially reverted. Whether that revert is justified basically boils down to a factual question. Here's the paragraph in question:

Writing in The New York Times in 2019, feminist theorist Sophie Lewis noted that the term TERF had become "a catchall for all anti-transgender feminists, regardless of whether they are radical". Edie Miller, writing in The Outline, said that the term was applied to "most people espousing trans-exclusionary politics that follow a particular 'TERF logic', regardless of their involvement with radical feminism".

Does this say that "TERF" is sometimes used for anti-transgender feminists who are not necessarily radical feminists, or does it say that "TERF" is sometimes used for anti-transgender people in general who are not feminists at all? Loki (talk) 08:57, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

The first quote (Lewis) is definitely the first of those two things. It discusses the application of the term to feminists who are not radical feminists.
The second quote (Miller) is ambiguous. It discusses the application of the term to people who are not radical feminists but does not say whether or not they are feminists of any other sort. It is consistent with both positions but only explicitly supports the first. It is not clear from the quote what Miller's line on the second position would be.
So, what we lack in these particular quotes is support for discussing non-feminists adopting TERF talking points in order to advance transphobia, and getting described as TERFs for doing so, even though this is technically an incorrect use of the term. Of course, this does happen from time to time. Far-right people and organisations sometimes adopt TERF rhetoric as it is offers a ready made set of transphobic talking points which sound more respectable and are less obviously fashy than their own ranting about "degeneracy", can play better to a "normie" audience and are more likely to start arguments among feminists, liberals and leftists than to blow up in their own faces. I'm sure sources discussing this can be found but these quotes are not helpful for that specific task.
I don't see anything wrong with the quotes in themselves. We just need additional sources before we can say "TERF is sometimes used for anti-transgender people in general who are not feminists at all" or perhaps more something more specific like "TERF is sometimes also used for anti-transgender people who who advance the same set of arguments but are not radical feminists, or feminists at all". --DanielRigal (talk) 13:42, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
To make the reason I'm asking a little more clear: I removed the quotes and paraphrased them with Today, the term is sometimes used to refer to anti-transgender feminists in general, not anti-transgender radical feminists in particular. Crossroads reverted this edit, saying that it was "Very important to mention that the term is applied to non-feminists too." I don't think those sources say that (whether or not it's true), which is why rather than simply paraphrase them differently, I came here to ask what other people think they mean. Loki (talk) 21:16, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
For one thing, we already had an RfC that rejected failure to use WP:In-text attribution, as your proposal does. And the quote about how it has been applied to "most people [not "feminists"] espousing trans-exclusionary politics that follow a particular 'TERF logic', regardless of their involvement with radical feminism" is very clear that it is not limited to feminists. So is this source, where it states that "“TERF” is widely used across online platforms as a way to denigrate and dismiss the women (and some men) who disagree with the dominant narrative on trans issues." That source is opinionated, but so are all the other sources. See WP:BIASEDSOURCES. We therefore cannot present it as though it's applied only to certain feminists. Crossroads -talk- 21:27, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
The Miller quote is ambiguous. It could well mean what you say but it is not certain. I can see why Loki is questioning it. The value in the Miller quote is that it ties the term to the TERF ideology rather than to a specific group of people and that does seem worthy of inclusion. We see TERF rhetoric increasingly being taken up by many non-feminists (including some far-right, anti-feminist organisations) and becoming more and more detached from its roots in radical feminism, where it was never universally accepted anyway. The Miller quote is a step towards supporting a statement about its broader use but I don't think it gets us all the way there. While I don't agree with the reason you gave to revert in the edit summary, I am not against keeping the quotes in the article precisely because they openly show the ambiguity and diversity of opinions over how far the term extends. That might be the best we can do for the time being. I suspect that the use of the term is going to change further over time anyway. --DanielRigal (talk) 23:10, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
Ambiguity is a great reason to quote it and attribute it. That means that readers end up making up their own minds based on what sources actually said (possibly ambiguously), rather than getting an impression of what they said filtered through the (possibly ambiguous, possibly biased, possibly OR) views of Wikipedia editors. Life is ambiguous. Mathglot (talk) 02:53, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
I concur with preferring quoting ambiguous statements/writings for NPOV and NOR issues as Mathglot has said. Gwen Hope (talk) (contrib) 04:40, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Coinage of the term

Currently, the article lead says the term TERF was coined in 2008. However, the source referenced doesn't support this. The source indicates the term could have been used before 2008:

"Due to a short series of blogposts from 2008, I have retrospectively been credited as the coiner of the acronym "Terf" ... . I suspect I'm merely the first person who wrote it on a website that still exists – I wonder how many Elizabethans already used words now attributed to Shakespeare long before he ... incorporated them in a play?"

Later, in the Coinage and usage section of the article, there is more nuance when it says Trans-inclusive cisgender radical feminist blogger Viv Smythe has been credited with popularizing the term in 2008 as an online shorthand. The Wiktionary entry for TERF puts it clearly: "The earliest recorded use is from 2008 by cisgender radical feminist Viv Smythe". I propose the lead be changed to say something like, "Coined by 2008". --Woofboy (talk) 13:11, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

What's important is the first time it's used in print and can be verified. Unrecorded speech is not reliable. There's no reason to use the word 'coined' at all, we an just say 'first appearance in print' or the way wiktionary does it (though it's not to be considered a reliable source, of course) and if we do use it, we can just quote Smythe in-line and use in-text attribution and let the reader make up their own mind. Mathglot (talk) 18:22, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
I've changed the lead to "Its ealiest extant use from 2008...", which I think reflects the source's words concisely. --Woofboy (talk) 12:12, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Frequency of occurrence

The opening paragraph says “... the term originally applied to the minority of feminists ...” - where is the citation for using the word “minority” rather than “subset”? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 22:17, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Noting here that nobody should have reverted the original comment claiming that it was a suspected sock. [2] Vague suspicions (sock of who?) are not grounds for removal of good faith questions. Crossroads -talk- 06:42, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
This has been covered in this archived talk page discussion. (And in fact several times before it, but I think that discussion lays out the sources most clearly.) Loki (talk) 18:14, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 25 March 2021

The pronunciation guide uses the wrong vowel. It should be a schwa in order to be a homophone of “turf”. 147.222.204.247 (talk) 23:29, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

The hover over makes it clear it's the ur from fur which would make it turf. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:19, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Alleged terfs

I think this article should mention or list individuals who have been accused of being TERFs.

It would just make sense. CycoMa (talk) 00:18, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

No... just no. This would be a BLP nightmare, especially given the disagreement over whether the term is a slur or not and the broadness of its scope. Aircorn (talk) 00:32, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Agree with Aircorn. Mathglot (talk) 02:56, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
Mathglot but I have seen some activists call them a hate group.CycoMa (talk) 03:00, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
No doubt they do, but I don't see how that's relevant here, other than it falls right into the bucket that Aircorn is calling out as a no-fly zone, and I agree. Mathglot (talk) 03:50, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
TERFs are not a coherent, organised hate group. They are people, some in various groups and some not, who share (or purport to share) a single (highly regrettable) view of the world. Not everybody who says something that sounds vaguely TERFy is actually a TERF. Many are just uninformed people repeating things that they have heard which sound vaguely plausible to them. Others are troublemakers seeking to stir up animosity and division for tactical reasons. (There is a reason why they get louder during Pride month.) If we were to list individual alleged TERFs in the article we would have to make decisions about exactly what the criteria for being called a TERF were and then decide who fits it or has be accused in a notable way of fitting it. That would be a whole heap of original research and a massive BLP problem. That would be bad for Wikipedia and also, because it would stir up drama around this topic, it would serve the purposes of transphobes who want as much heat and as little light as possible on this issue. So, yeah, I guess this is just my roundabout way of saying that Aircorn is right. Nothing good can come from this. --DanielRigal (talk) 11:38, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Usage of 'TERFy' in Slate article

Per my most recent edits - an opinion piece in Slate that states usage of the term 'TERFy' in common enough colloquial use to describe things such as 'having bangs' and 'adverts for tampons' is a claim that needs more than one source, especially since that one source claims this usage stems from Twitter and Tumblr, and cites nothing else.

It's true that the term is probably used in a variety of flippant contexts outside of the roughly academic, including in various jokes. But inclusion of this last paragraph, stating that 'TERFy' is commonly used in contexts that do not describe feminist of socio-political views, instead using the term to describe things such as 'having bangs' and 'adverts for tampons' is a WP:FRINGE view expressed in seemingly only this one article.

I've no wish to start an edit war. Slate is a reliable source. But, if we don't look at the content of this article and what it claims, we aren't doing our job as Wikipedians. It's an opinion pieces that claims colloquial usage based on hitherto-uncited sources of, drumroll please, Twitter and Tumblr. I don't think that's nearly as reliable and watertight as Wikipedia standards would expect for claiming another usage of the term 'TERFy' notable enough to warrant inclusion on this article. --Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 15:34, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

I definitely agree, Ineffablebookkeeper, more and better sources are always better for the project. (Personally I would've just tagged the section with a maintenance tag instead of remove it, in the spirit of WP:PRESERVE, but that's neither here nor there.)
"TERF bangs" is a thing, but my experience with the meme doesn't make it notable for inclusion. However, here's some sources regarding them:
It is pretty common useage of Terf [3] and we don't need more than one source to include information if that source is reliable. In fact one reliable source is preferable to many unreliable ones Aircorn (talk) 17:10, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
It's only a passing mention in the Slate source, and we have to be cautious about the wording (the writer doesn't imply that it's a significant or common usage, just that she saw it once.) Additionally, the Slate article contradicts the other two (the Slate article just says it's because they're uncool; the other two say that there's a style of bangs associated with anti-trans activists.) I have the same problem with your search - "TERFy is a term for things millenials think is uncool" is what you're trying to cite, and I'm not seeing anything but a single mention in a single source (which I would read as WP:RSOPINION based on its tone). If that's all we have then the current wording is definitely undue. --Aquillion (talk) 17:23, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Aircorn - if it's a pretty common usage, but all we have is a single reliable source (which even that I'd deem contentious) and a number of unreliable ones, then that raises questions about how notable it even is. The one reliable source we have, that just says "I saw it on Twitter and Tumblr" - not exactly a stellar review of notoriety.
Aquillion I would agree with - the usage isn't 'anti-trans activists are frequently associated with [X]', it's 'millenials think [X] is uncool, and have made some jokes about TERFs in connection with said uncool thing'. Everyone loves to write a thinkpiece about what millenials do or don't like, doesn't require a lick of solid referencing, which that article definitely doesn't have.
If the only sources we have are unreliable, and if the one reliable source we have gives it passing mention only, then it's undue to include it. WP:OVERCITE is a thing, but it's not the issue here, as we're not trimming down unreliable citations already included, we're asking if more reliable citations even exist. We do need more than one passing mention with no notation on prominence in a Slate opinion piece to include it. (And it is an opinion piece.) If all it is is a meme, then it definitely needs more than one citation. --Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 17:38, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
@Aquillion: I think in this instance, it's important instead of speaking in a global wiki-voice that we attribute the statements in different perspectives to different sources. It's okay for sources to vary and let's allow them to. This is a complicated fact just on the inside border of notability, after all. ~Gwennie🐈💬 📋18:50, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
@Gwennie-nyan: - this is a complex article that requires a number of different perspectives from different sources, but I have to point out that "I've seen 'TERFy' used to describe a hairstyle and adverts for tampons on Twitter and Tumblr" seems more a statement of fact, rather than a perspective on a situation. Sources should vary, but they should be describing concepts of notability well-suited to the article. Attributing statements to different perspectives from different sources in this instance might come as something like "In [year], [author/feminist writer/etc] [name] stated that she had seen usage of the term 'TERFy' used to describe [descriptions from article] on various social media platforms", which does not seem typical for usage of terms sections; it might be more suited to the 'opposition to the term' section? --Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 21:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Undue is the only possible reason to remove it. We are just talking about one small sentence under usage so the due weight it is given is low in the first place. It is relevant as this article is about the term “terf” and this sentence directly relates to use of the term terf. Aircorn (talk) 00:19, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
@Aircorn: - alright, but I will be rewriting it to reflect that it's the experience of one author. -- Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 10:47, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Judith Butler interview

There's been some hullabaloo going around about this Judith Butler interview in the US version of the Guardian where she said some very harsh things about TERFs, which have since been removed by (apparently) the UK main office.

So far I haven't been able to find a better source about the removal than a journalist's personal newsblog, and the situation appears to still be moving anyway, so I think we should wait on covering it until it's settled down and we have some better sources. Loki (talk) 16:28, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I saw this last night. It seems like something that might be worth including if secondary RS pick it up EvergreenFir (talk) 16:31, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
We have Vice now. Newimpartial (talk) 16:36, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
We now also have HuffPo, Pink News, and a UK source I'm not familiar with called the Press Gazette. Loki (talk) 20:11, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Oh and Daily Dot and Autostraddle, frankly just googling "judith butler guardian" now gives a ton of news sources. I think we can reasonably include this in the article at this point. Loki (talk) 20:13, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
These are all 'meh' sources, certainly less reliable than the Guardian itself. Having more of them does not change that or make it any less a NOTNEWS problem. And above all, this isn't about the term "TERF", so it is not relevant here. Crossroads -talk- 04:17, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
This has also brought to my attention this prior interview from a few months ago, which I think we can include right now. Loki (talk) 17:32, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
Including this was fine since Butler is talking about the term TERF there, but since this article is about the term, it would be WP:UNDUE and a WP:COATRACK to add this other stuff about what Butler thinks of the group of people's viewpoint and the whole tangent about how The Guardian removed it, and people criticized that, etc. etc. Just the sort of ephemeral drama that WP:NOTNEWS says to avoid. We should also respect the editorial decisions of higher quality RS like The Guardian even though lower quality sources like Vice second-guess them. If they had made that edit before publishing the article, no one would be talking about this. Crossroads -talk- 04:45, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Removal of relevant categories

The addition of the categories "Discrimination against transgender people" and "Transphobia" to this article has been reverted with an edit summary to the effect that their inclusion would somehow constitute a violation of NPOV, and that "this article is about the word, not the ideology". I do not understand the latter point, as the term "TERF" in my mind refers directly to the ideology (and its proponents), so this would appear to be a distinction without a difference. The principle of least astonishment would suggest to me that, in line with the commonsense and common-use connotations of the term "TERF", most of our readers would expect these associations. Moreover, since the term commonly appears in discussions of transphobia and anti-trans discrimination, the inclusion of this article in these categories seems warranted. Archon 2488 (talk) 13:01, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The term TERF is not itself transphobia or discrimination against transgender people. This article is clear that it is specifically about the term. And category guidelines are clear that they a category is making a claim about the topic of the article. WP:CATPOV states, "Categorization must also maintain a neutral point of view. Categorizations appear on article pages without annotations or referencing to justify or explain their addition; editors should be conscious of the need to maintain a neutral point of view when creating categories or adding them to articles. Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial..." And CATDEF, right below that, states that "A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently define the subject as having". That just isn't the case here. Also, per this Request for Comment, a statement about transphobia must have WP:In-text attribution, which as noted, a category cannot have. Crossroads -talk- 05:27, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
The article for ideology is Feminist views on transgender topics Aircorn (talk) 06:51, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
I agree. Although I initially came to the page looking for a discussion of TERF ideology, I believe it is better if this site stays specifically about the term while Feminist views on transgender topics goes into more detail on it. Evasilako (talk) 04:04, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 21 October 2021

The words "the minority of" in the second sentence of this article are not supported by a citation - how do we know if 'terfs' are 'the minority of' feminists? The phrase "the minority of" should be removed from sentence and the word "some" inserted before "other feminists": "First recorded in 2008,[1] the term originally applied to the minority of feminists espousing sentiments that other feminists considered transphobic..." 141.243.9.171 (talk) 04:20, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: The statement is sourced in the body of the article (citation #10). It does not need one both in the lead and in the body. --Equivamp - talk 04:24, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Summary

Wikipedia guidelines on introductions indicate they should avoid difficult to understand terminology. The introduction to this article is difficult to understand. https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Provide_an_accessible_overview — Preceding unsigned comment added by Idontusenumbers (talkcontribs) 22:43, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this. I had to read the summary 4x and I can still barely understand it. --EdHayes3 (talk) 22:51, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
This is extremely vague. What specifically is confusing about the lede, and how specifically would you propose to improve it? From my perspective, it's a succinct and accurate explanation of what the term means, with an appropriate summary of its history. In other words, it gives readers a quick understanding of the term's use and context, which is what the introductory section is meant to do. Archon 2488 (talk) 10:01, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
The current version is almost a bit of a run-on sentence and has some fairly difficult to understand terminology for someone not deeply involved with the subject mater. It's highly likely that the current summary is written by a scholar that has written about this term and or feminist movement for a good part of their career. They are well familiar with many of these terms and ideas. But most people coming to this page may not have that understanding. It's OK to move this more complicated context and nuances later in the article, but they should not be in the summary as right now there's difficult to understand terminology.
A quick example/idea: "TERF, an acronym for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism, is the belief that Trans-women should not be included in the feminist movement as they are not natural born women." Something easy to read and understand like that. The summary need not include all the nuances for the movement. It's a summary for those that have no idea what the term is, and wand a Quick and easy definition or summary. --EdHayes3 (talk) 02:35, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
I agree completely, but practically all WP feminism articles are full of fashionable pseudo-academic jargon incomprehensible to ordinary people. LGBT theory and politics is a bit of an inward looking echo chamber. --Ef80 (talk) 17:24, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

'First recorded in 2008' is incorrect.

WP:DENY. Obvious troll attempt.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

This citation is not correct. It's from the 1980s. This needs a better citation; I personally used it in a public speech in 1998. 107.3.170.62 (talk) 06:08, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Is TERF (as a slur) misogynistic?

The radical feminists who coined the term TERF were adamant that only women could be radical feminists. Men could be allies, but by definition could not be radical feminists themselves. Some feminists have therefore noted that, when used as a slur, the term TERF is actually misogynistic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nero Calatrava (talkcontribs) 10:09, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

The radical feminists [Viv Smythe et al.] who coined the term TERF were adamant that only women could be radical feminists.[citation needed] [...] Some feminists[who?] have therefore noted that, when used as a slur, the term TERF is actually misogynistic.[citation needed]
Do you have reliable sources for this claim? Is this notable? Where would you add it in the article, considering that people can't even agree on whether 'TERF' is a slur? TucanHolmes (talk) 09:01, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
Also, minor nitpick, your original section title (§ Can men be TERFS?) and the content of your comment didn't match. I've changed the title to match. TucanHolmes (talk) 09:06, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Dave Chappelle statements

According to google trends and what's going on in the news it might be relevant to include a reference or section about Dave Chappelle's Netflix special. His special I think has had some clear affect on the usage and popularization of this term. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=terf&geo=US — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:7080:FF42:A00:F4DC:D29:6EB9:FFEE (talk) 04:04, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Unless reliable sources have commented on Chappelle's effect on the usage and popularization to a sufficient extent to make it worthwhile including, we can't be among the first to do so. Wikipedia follows general usage, it does not lead. Mathglot (talk) 07:04, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
See also: The Closer (2021 film) § Reception. TucanHolmes (talk) 09:24, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Veronica Ivy / Rachel McKinnon

This person is referred to in this article by both of the above names. Isn't that against "deadname" policy etc. At the very least it's confusing! The current article on the person is called Veronica Ivy. 2A00:23C5:FE18:2700:705F:E765:DEF5:73A6 (talk) 05:03, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

No, it's not a WP:DEADNAME issue, since that is not her deadname; she transitioned early enough that she was never notable under her deadname and few sources therefore even mention it. Though it would probably be fine to use her current name to reduce confusion (and particularly to avoid readers thinking the comments were by different people, even if they're in separate parts of the article.) --Aquillion (talk) 09:28, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Gender and Technoculture

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 January 2022 and 13 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): AvalancheValley (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Victoriaemoran. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ACHorwitz (talkcontribs) 18:34, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Elin McCready is mentioned in the fourth paragraph of the "Slur debate" section of this article. She now has a Wikipedia page (a stub, but it's a start), so it would be appropriate to turn the first mention of her name from "Elin McCready" into "Elin McCready". --MalignantMouse (talk) 21:09, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Done. The linked article is rather confusing. I'll see if I can help a bit. --DanielRigal (talk) 21:20, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Recommend against doing this, until notability of the subject has been established. Mathglot (talk) 21:22, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Now in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary)

They note that it is "typically regarded as derogatory". Equinox 13:40, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Definitely worth adding. Crossroads -talk- 00:25, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind, as various dictionaries exist, if we take the main ones and list their definitions of the term. ~Gwennie🐈💬 📋00:57, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
But if you say "let's include all the newspapers" on a political topic, people will say NO, we only include the ones that meet policy X. This is just a topic that people hover around with a strong agenda. Anyway, what other dictionary includes "TERF"? I think OED is the first. Equinox 21:41, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
Per my !vote in the RfC below, Collins, Merriam-Webster, and Chambers do not contain a definition for TERF. I couldn't search Macquarie due to a paywall. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:47, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
For reference, the OED's definition of TERF reads:

A feminist whose advocacy of women’s rights excludes (or is thought to exclude) the rights of transgender women. Also more generally: a person whose views on gender identity are (or are considered) hostile to transgender people, or who opposes social and political policies designed to be inclusive of transgender people. Originally used within the radical feminist movement. Although the author of quot. 2008 (a trans-inclusive feminist) has stated that the term was intended as a neutral description, TERF is now typically regarded as derogatory.

RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 02:26, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
This removal should be reverted. First off, there is no basis for the assertion that as of June 2022, there is any controversy in reliable sources that the term is typically considered derogatory. And secondly, there is no basis in WP:PSTS that a tertiary source is bad for this sort of thing - rather, they are good for evaluating due weight. And this is arguably a secondary source anyway. Excluding a highest-quality RS like the Oxford English Dictionary is POV. Crossroads -talk- 17:29, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
Dictionaries are definitionally tertiary sources. The wording "typically regarded as derogatory" is vague and passive, begging the question how they define the typical regarder. WP:PSTS states that we are to primarily use secondary sources and the topic is controversial enough I'd prefer a secondary source that isn't as vague. Also there is controversy over whether the word is typically considered a slur, most of the current wikipedia article is about that debate. Rab V (talk) 09:15, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
Tertiary sources are still high-quality sources, and we don't exclude them because of personal dissatisfaction with what they say or what you "prefer". That the wording is not as specific as you would prefer is not relevant because that matches the source, and we would treat a top-quality historical dictionary as authoritative on the use of words. Finally, "slur" is not the same as "derogatory", and the source is newer than all the slur-debate-related sources anyway. I find it rather curious to contrast the opposition to including the literal Oxford English Dictionary with the eagerness to include what was at the time a literal preprint. Crossroads -talk- 00:39, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
I'm unclear on the relevance of an RFC from years ago, it does not seem I took part in it. The OED is a well regarded dictionary but it is still a dictionary. Quality secondary sources are better for controversial topics since they can give more detail and nuance. That's partly why WP:PSTS says we are to primarily use them. WP:PSTS says tertiary sources can be useful for broad summaries and sometimes to determine due weight but I don't see the statement added as falling under either case. Rab V (talk) 11:51, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
Where does PSTS say secondary sources are better than tertiary in controversial topics? The fact that tertiary is good for due weight implies the opposite - and tertiary is good for when other types contradict each other. Yet, the whole argument to exclude is based on cherry-picking favored primary sources because one believes they are correct.
Guess I'm going to have to RfC to break the filibuster... Crossroads -talk- 17:48, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Or you could provide a secondary source. A tertiary source can help for assessing weight, but they don't always (particularly in the case of dictionaries) explain why a term or phrase is used in a certain way. For this article, the OED says the term TERF is now typically regarded as derogatory but it does not explain why it is or to whom the group of people who typically consider it derogatory are. Do only TERFs consider it derogatory? Do non-TERFs consider it derogatory? As Rab V said, we don't get that level of nuance or specificity from a dictionary.
Also this does not appear to be a filibuster, but so far a discussion that has not reached a consensus. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:57, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
@Crossroads: would you please remove the RfC you have unilaterally started below? It fails WP:RFCBEFORE as discussion here is far from exhausted. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:00, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
No. This discussion is clearly going in circles and clearly needs outside input.
And it does not matter that RS don't personally satisfy editors with specificity. Does anyone really deny that both "TERFs" consider it negative and "non-TERFs" who use it consider it to be a negative characterization? The OED clearly means that it is derogatory in the language in general, just as other definitional material applies to all language users. Crossroads -talk- 18:04, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Going in circles? Bar the initial three comments, in depth discussion only began four days ago (8 July), and between that time and your snap RfC there was only 6 comments. That is hardly going in circles. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:07, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Oxford English Dictionary

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.



Should the statement by the Oxford English Dictionary that the term is "typically considered derogatory" be in the article? And in the lead? Crossroads -talk- 17:50, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Source: "TERF, n.", OED Online, Oxford University Press, retrieved 2022-07-06, Originally used within the radical feminist movement. Although the author of quot. 2008 (a trans-inclusive feminist) has stated that the term was intended as a neutral description, TERF is now typically regarded as derogatory.

Survey

  • Yes to both. The Oxford English Dictionary is a historical dictionary and a high-quality authoritative reliable source on the meaning and connotations of words, and this article is about a word. Certainly it is more authoritative than any of the ones currently included. As such, the presumption is to include. Per WP:NPOV policy, we should include all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. This is a significant view by a reliable source, and the term's connotations make up a big part of the article and the lead. The argument to exclude appears to be based entirely in cherry-picking particular opinions present in the article based on POV and saying that their view is the correct one and hence this one should not be included, even though this one is newer than them all, and this behavior contradicts WP:PSTS: Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other. Additionally, whether something is as serious as a slur is a separate issue from whether it is merely derogatory. Yet, in this case, it is being argued to throw out a tertiary source based on a subset of the lesser supposedly contradictory sources, which is clearly wrong. Crossroads -talk- 17:50, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both - very clearly the case. Johnbod (talk) 18:12, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Question: Are there any other (well regarded) dictionaries that define the term in a significantly different way - and especially are there any that say the term is not derogatory? Blueboar (talk) 18:25, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • No to both/Wrong question The RfC is asking the wrong question. Dictionaries give us a definition, but don't explain the definition. As a tertiary source they can be useful for assessing weight of secondary sources (per the policy point at WP:TERTIARY). A better, if not the correct question, would involve the use of secondary sources explaining why the term is considered derogatory, and whether that consideration is universal or only to those for whom it applies. Also if one were to do a brief survey of the other major dictionaries; Collins does not contain the definition, Merriam-Webster does not contain the definition, Chambers does not contain the definition, and I can't search Macquarie due to a paywall. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:45, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
    I want to expand on my reasoning, based on a comment I've written below in the discussion. Adding "typically considered derogatory" to the lead is problematic because right now it is unsupported in the body. Per WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY we should be writing body content first, and then summarising in the lead if it is an important part of the body. As several editors, including the RfC proposer have pointed out, a word or phrase being derogatory is not the same as it being a slur. The current article body fairly well summarises why there is no consensus on whether or not TERF is a slur, it does not do this at all for derogatory. A simple search for the word itself confirms this, as the word appears only twice in the current article, both times as part of the slur debate.
    While we can add that content in order to support the OED definition, this too is problematic as it is upending our usual method of content creation. Instead of writing content based on our sources, we are now searching for sources that fit the content that has been suggested by this RfC. This has inherent WP:NPOV issues, because we are pre-supposing that, based on the OED definition, that such sources must exist. By coming at it with that pre-conceived notion, we run the risk of cherrypicking our sources in order to fit the content decided by this RfC. This is however fallacious; argumentum-ad-dictionarium which is a form of argument from authority. It is fallacious because we are pre-supposing that the OED is correct. Without the breadth of secondary sources, we cannot know if the OED are correct in their definition, or if their definition is actually supported in daily use of the term.
    WP:PSTS, a part of the WP:NOR policy, tell us that Wikipedia articles should be primarily based on reliable secondary sources. It also tells us that tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight. This is further supported by the Dictionaries as sources essay which details the limitations on the utility of dictionary definitions along those lines. Per policy, we should be using a dictionary definition to help assess due weight of our pre-existing secondary sources. We should not be using a dictionary definition to drive our search to find sources, to support the content from it within the article lead and body. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:20, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both. I don't see any problem with adding dictionary definitions or the judgments of the editors of that publication. It's a really weird one this, I don't think anybody actually disagrees with the idea that TERF is a derogatory term. People who use it generally readily admit they really don't like "TERFS". The general rule is, if a member of a group says "I really don't like that word, don't call me it" it's derogatory. Note that this is different from the "don't call me a fascist" argument, because the people who say that are not denying that fascism exists, or saying that "fascist" is a derogatory term, they are claiming that they are not fascists. Boynamedsue (talk) 19:23, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both. The statement is from an excellent source; moreover, it also summarizes the main body of the article, from which it's abundantly clear that TERF as typically used is derogatory. NightHeron (talk) 19:58, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both. Source is high-quality, agrees with the rest of our article. PS: To do more dictionary searches, see Wikipedia:WikiProject English Language#Online tools.  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  20:04, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both BTW the other deprecating term "minority" (view) is essentially unsourced for such a strong claim about the targeted persons. The given source merely says that a different party used the term in in statement of rationale. North8000 (talk) 20:20, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Cautious yes to inclusion in the body but we should be very careful to reflect the whole of what it says in that definition, not to just pluck out the word "derogatory" and use that out of context. We should cover the shift from a specific and neutral description of the trans exclusive strand within radical feminism to a generally derogatory term for anybody transphobic.
    Very cautious neutral to inclusion in the introduction. I think the introduction egregiously over-covers the claims that it is a "slur" so I'd only be OK with a mention in the introduction if the "slur" stuff got cut down to size. If the words "slur" and "derogatory" were to appear once each in the introduction, contextualised properly, then I think that might be acceptable. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:25, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • No to lead. The fact that TERF is typically regarded[by whom?] as derogatory is a true statement and an accurate summary "in the sense that all bywords for bigots are intended to be defamatory". Our existing text, that Those referred to with the word TERF typically reject the term or consider it a slur, already explains this in proper detail. We generally shouldn't overstate the value of historical dictionaries in summarizing controversy about extremely recent internet words. The OED in particular has never been an exceptionally up-to-date or balanced authority on feminist or transgender topics. It gives useful etymologies for transwoman, transgenderist, transgenderal where other dictionaries do not, but does not note that each of these terms is ostensibly deprecated. The article text seems to get along just fine without unnecessarily invoking a WP:TERTIARY source. RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 20:38, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
This is where we get an WP:NPOV problem, I'm fairly sure that wikipedia shouldn't be taking a position on the question of whether TERFs are bigots or not. And I would suggest that very few people say "racist is a derogatory term" or "fascist is a derogatory term", they say "calling me a racist is derogatory". So even if we accept them to be bigots, the fact the name is derogatory, when non-derogatory names exist ("gender critical feminists" for example), is notable and should be included in the introduction. Boynamedsue (talk) 21:05, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Per Template:By whom, Do not use this tag for material that is already supported by an inline citation. If you want to know who holds that view, all you have to do is look at the source named at the end of the sentence or paragraph. It is not necessary to inquire "By whom?" in that circumstance. And this is based on WP:WEASEL which notes that if a source says it that way, WEASEL does not mean such a wording cannot be used. Crossroads -talk- 21:46, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
“Typically regarded” implies an opinion held by someone besides the OED, so who? All English speakers? All users of the term? People in the UK? Secondary sources answer that question readily: TERF as typically regarded as derogatory by the anti-trans self-described radical feminists it describes, because it is frequently associated with derogatory rhetoric. RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 22:21, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Actually RoxySaunders raises a valid point. As I said in my comment in the previous section, the OED source doesn't actually tell us who typically regards it as derogatory. The use of {{by whom}} would be supported here because of this. If OED had included the demographics of whom were in the typical cohort then it could be acceptable, assuming other issues like weight and balance were adressed.
Also this invocation of WEASEL is odd, given that you and I have been in several discussions where you've used WEASEL to exclude a source or sometimes many sources in the exact way you wish to include it here. Are you sure you've invoked the right shortcut for that? Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:23, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
'Whom' = all English speakers. If it was only or mainly a subset of English speakers, the dictionary would say so.  Tewdar  10:03, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, I spend a lot of times dealing with "by whom" tags, if we are talking about general English usage, there is rarely need for an agent in the sentence. By whom tags are necessary when we talk about opinions, in this case the only agent possible would be the OED. Boynamedsue (talk) 14:46, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
  • No to both per Sideswipe9th. Also, as noted above, the phrase is vague and not clearly supported by secondary sources. Secondary sources are clear that certain groups consider this term a slur but not that they are majority or 'typical' and note major disagreement from major figures in feminism and gender theory on whether it is a slur. Rab V (talk) 21:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both The OED is one of the best sources for what words mean and how they are used. If the use of a term is derogatory, that should be pointed out ASAP. TFD (talk) 21:28, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both - Source is highly reliable. GoodDay (talk) 21:41, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both I understand being cautious about using normal dictionary definitions for specialist words. However, that doesn't appear to be the case here. For mainstream usage I can't see why we wouldn't invoke a dictionary definition and qualification for an article about a term. Springee (talk) 23:17, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • No to both per Sideswipe9th and RoxySaunders. The second paragraph of the lead already covers whether TERF is considered derogatory. GreenComputer (talk) 23:22, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Mixed It's worth inclusion in the body, provided it is included neutrally. However, given the controversial nature of the term, I would suggest it not be declared X just because one, albeit notable and important, dictionary has said such. In the lead, no. The lead should just cover a general aspect of the controversy with the term, some considering it derogatory. ~Gwennie🐈💬 📋23:49, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to inclusion and neutral to lead inclusion. Regardless of the source's strength I don't see how this is anything but a consensus view academically, in contrast to the slur debate? Kate Manne for instance wrote in 2019 that the term is derogatory but not a slur. Seven feminist philosophers wrote in 2018 that it was "at worst a slur and at best derogatory". Two linguists wrote in a 2020 paper that it met conditions to be considered a term "derogatory towards a particular group" but failed conditions to be considered a slur. I am not seeing how this is controversial to call it derogatory. However I would echo what DanielRigal had to say and add there is commentary by the OED team supporting that: [Fiona McPherson, a lexicographer at the dictionary] explained this decision: “We weighed it up, and because of the intentions of the coiner and the fact that there is a little bit more nuance behind its usage – it’s not always just a straight-out insult – we took the approach that we would explain that in a note. We felt it was a bit more nuanced than just slapping on derogatory or chiefly derogatory.” --Chillabit (talk) 23:56, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • No to lede I don't think it serves our readers very well to overload the introduction with material that sounds authoritative (it's the OED!) whilst also being rather vague ("considered" by whom?). Indeed, the source provided just above indicates that the people who wrote that definition are aware of the thorniness. If we provide an oversimplified, sound-byte account, we're not doing their work justice. The lede is the wrong place for the kind of nuance we need to provide in order to reflect the sources accurately. Wouldn't be the first time that happened. XOR'easter (talk) 00:04, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
    Agreed; my main concern is with the soundbite-ification of ".... derogatory ...". The full thrust of the OED's entry is that (1) a cisgender radical feminist originated the term as a neutral descriptor for anti-trans feminists, but (2) it has since become diluted to broadly include all reactionary transphobes, and (3) that the label is commonly perceived as an insult. And guess what? The existing lede fully captures all of that nuance already, beat for beat, using a diverse and balanced selection of reliable secondary sources. I'm fine with referencing the OED to support the "Coinage and usage" section, especially as an attributed statement, but the result of adding it here is just to throw more logs onto the "Slur debate" fire. RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 17:38, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Include in article, weak include for lead. It’s only weasel-y if we don’t source it; if a high quality source doesn’t list examples to substantiate its claim, that’s not to say it’s not true. I don’t have strong opinions for the lead, but it does seem relevant for a reader to fully understand the term, though I respect arguments based on WP:UNDUE. — HTGS (talk) 00:09, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to article and Yes to lead. Let's see ...
    The lead states: "Those referred to with the word TERF typically reject the term or consider it a slur; some identify themselves as gender critical.[5][6]"
    Oxford Dictionary defines TERF as "A feminist whose advocacy of women’s rights excludes (or is thought to exclude) the rights of transgender women. Also more generally: a person whose views on gender identity are (or are considered) hostile to transgender people, or who opposes social and political policies designed to be inclusive of transgender people. Originally used within the radical feminist movement. Although the author of quot. 2008 (a trans-inclusive feminist) has stated that the term was intended as a neutral description, TERF is now typically regarded as derogatory."
    Oxford is a diachronic dictionary and according to Harvard Library, it "is widely accepted as the most complete record of the English language ever assembled." The Oxford Dictionary is used in other articles to support the definition of words. I don't see a reason why this article should be an exception. So, yes ... Oxford's "typically considered derogatory" should be included. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 05:42, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
  • No to both per Wikipedia:Dictionaries as sources's discussion on the limitations of dictionaries; general dictionaries such as this one are not precise and are therefore inappropriate to use in an attempt to respond or rebut more in-depth analysis from high-quality scholarly sources, which have discussed this specific aspect at much greater length. --Aquillion (talk) 06:01, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both. It does not need in-text attribution to the OED, but both the lead and the body should explain that the term is usually considered derogatory. The OED is a high-quality source for this information. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 21:02, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
    • But the OED doesn't say the term is considered derogatory; it says that the term is "typically regarded as" derogatory. According to reliable, secondary sources, this was carefully considered by OED editors so as not to claim the term as "derogatory" in their own editorial voice. My main concern about this discussion, and attempts to cite the dictionary, is the tendency to erase these carefully documented nuances. This is already true of Crossroads' proposed edit to replace "regarded as" with "considered", and would be even more so in this next stage of telephone, "usually considered". A number of Yes !voters seem inclined to draw even less careful conclusions. Newimpartial (talk) 21:12, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both, if we also remove the overcoverage of the "slur debate" in the lead. The OED is a lot better of a source on this than all the random opinion columns we currently have, and so its lack of mention of the word "slur" in favor of the word "derogatory" suggests we should prefer the word "derogatory" over the word "slur". (Otherwise: we already have basically the same information in the lead and we shouldn't put too much WP:WEIGHT on it.) Loki (talk) 00:26, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
"slur" isn't a term the OED would ever use (or any other dictionary, I would have thought). Johnbod (talk) 01:28, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
I agree that the "slur debate" should be de-emphasized in the lead. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 09:35, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to body, yes to the lead but as part of an already present sentence on the debate to avoid undue. Aircorn (talk) 02:14, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both especially with Aircorn's suggestion. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 04:30, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both. WP:TERTIARY sources are great at helping us assess WP:DUE weight. When what we're talking about is a word, a dictionary would be the go-to source, and the OED is as authoritative a source as you can get for dictionaries. Whether or not a term is derogatory is a highly relevant aspect for an encyclopedia entry about that term, as it defines a lot about the context of its use, so it should be placed in the lead. Note that this would be a separate topic than public debate about whether the term is a "slur", whatever it is people mean by that. Endwise (talk) 08:57, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both - the current lede, that there is 'no consensus' on whether this term is a slur, is flatly contradicted by the OED entry. The expert lexicographers at the OED are much better at determining 'consensus' on word usage than we poor humble Wikipedia editors with our home-brewed statistical analysis of a handful of sources. They also seem to have taken great care to arrive at their current description of "typically considered derogatory", a phrase which can certainly be included as-is in the lede with no further nuance.  Tewdar  09:10, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
    • Strongly disagree that typically regarded as derogatory (a phrase explicitly intended to be less harsh and more nuanced than chiefly derogatory) is a "flat contradiction" of the fact that academics generally cannot agree whether TERF should be categorized as a slur. Derogatory means "intended to belittle", whereas slur implies not just a stronger belittling, but also some dimension of social injustice or power imbalance. It is very easy to find examples of derogatory words which would not be considered slurs. Hopefully we can agree on this, without needing to invoke any kind of arcane Derridaean postmodern Anglo-Marxo-transfeminist pseudolinguistics. The two sentences can absolutely co-exist. RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 02:19, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both it can quite reasonably be argued that the term has in recent years been weaponized and employed as a form of discrimination, and most certainly in the UK. The view in the US, among a particular faction, is that the UK is a backward place where second wave feminists continue to exist in a state of false consciousness and are as such dismissed as TERF's (owing to their allegedly counter-progressive tendencies). It's a form of othering, nothing more. Acousmana 11:04, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
  • No to inclusion in the lead at this time due to LEADFOLLOWSBODY. I'm not certain where I'm at on general inclusion in the article - I'm generally not a fan of using dictionaries as sources. --Equivamp - talk 11:50, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
    The whole RFC is about including it in the body and the lead so lead follows body doesn't apply. Aircorn (talk) 17:30, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
    Lead follows body does apply here. At present there is no content in the article that supports adding "typically considered derogatroy" to the lead. There is a brief mention of it as an aside in the "Usage as a slur" section, but that mention does not go demonstrate the breadth required by "typically considered". Even with the much extended paragraph proposed in the discussion section by RoxySaunders, a sole paragraph would not ordinarily merit an inclusion in the lead on an article of this length. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:41, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
    No one is saying add to the lead but not to the body. The whole RFC is whether to add it to the body and then also the lead. Hence the yes to both, no to both and yes to body boldings. It is quite possible that Equivamp simply misread the RFC question, we have all been there. Aircorn (talk) 00:53, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both, though perhaps there can also be some mention of the fact that it is sometimes used as a "reclaimed slur", with people declaring themselves "proudly team Terf" (especially after Dave Chappelle used this terminology for himself during one of his comedy specials). *Dan T.* (talk) 17:19, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to body, probably no to the lead, and the statement must be attributed. The OED is a fine source for English usage, even for fairly controversial statements as this one. I actually think it's probably more neutral and accurate than the average journal source, which is more likely to have individual biases. Even if you're hesitant to use a tertiary source as a source of fact (which is totally fair), with attribution it's really using the OED as a primary source, anyway. It's a major dictionary, often considered definitive, and readers can decide for themselves how much weight that really carries. Ovinus (talk) 17:26, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to body, as the proposed body paragraphs seem to cover everything about the hows and the whys (with the interview, it feels like there's more context than we'd typically get if we used a tertiary source). Also generally supportive of the broader reorganisation proposed by DanielRigal, it really seems to me that we have failed to summarise the relevant secondary sources, instead merely providing a listing of X says A, Y says B. Due weight would seem to support coverage in lede roughly in the same proportion as in the body — for example, there would be relatively more weight given to the OED if the rest is cut down due to summarisation, relatively less if it is merely added as a single body paragraph out of the currently many on this — though I am, as some other participants are, inclined to highlight that additional caution required to avoid losing the context as included in the body paragraph. Alpha3031 (tc) 10:19, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both. A strong yes to body and a normal yes to lead. SWinxy (talk) 04:25, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Neutral as per DanielRigal. While potentially appropriate, I'm hesitant to support outright without more concrete elaboration on intended use. BIG BURLEY 17:07, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes to both, good sources and relevant information on this now being seen as derogatory. --Gilgul Kaful (talk) 08:25, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
  • No to lead - as incorrect - it is not always derogatory - and per WP:LEAD as this is not a significant part in the body and it is only one RS saying that. There is a section on when it has been used as a slur, but that’s over highlighting sensationalism and not giving the full view of other RS. Dictionary.com says it is used dismissively, Urban dictionary has no weighting, Cosmo has it is euphemism (too soft), usa today says only “some” people who are called it consider it an insult, and The Guardian says it is sometimes weaponised. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 12:44, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

If you have not already done so, I think notifying them would be a good idea. All three have a legitimate interest in this question. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:25, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Actually, why be lazy? I've notified them myself. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:42, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
I notified the other three too. I would have done all six had you not gotten the first three already per the request. I also think the Linguistics WikiProject should probably be listed with the others at the top of this page; I'm surprised it's not even though we have Politics. I certainly didn't mean anything by not getting all the projects right away since anything anyone feels is missing can be notified at any time and I'm surprised to see official noticeboards characterized as biased. Crossroads -talk- 21:44, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
What particular crowd hangs out at WP:NPOVN, WP:RSN, and WikiProject Linguistics that you are taking exception to here? --Boynamedsue (talk) 20:27, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
By "a particular crowd", I mean "a non-representative sample of all the Wikipedians who might possibly have an opinion about this". Didn't intend to make any generalization about the fine pedantry-loving, CN-tagging, dictionary-thumping clientele of those particular noticeboards. RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 20:53, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Fine pedantry-loving, CN-tagging, dictionary-thumping clientele of those particular noticeboards - as opposed to the fine detail-phobic and citation-averse clientele from the now notified WikiProjects mentioned above... and who needs dictionaries anyway, eh? One sign leads to another and so on indefinitely, right?  Tewdar  09:45, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Well I'm certainly a detail-phobic and citation-averse POV-pushing blue-haired harpy, but I'd never dream of casting such an aspersion on any of my excellent colleagues. :-) RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 19:33, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
The statement "there is no consensus on whether or not TERF constitutes a slur" is misleading. Consensus does not mean every single person agrees, but that the extent of agreement is so great, it is treated as fact in tertiary sources, such as the OED. You can't just find one paper, in this case a paper that has yet to be presented and say there is disagreement. That is called a manufactured controversy. TFD (talk) 21:34, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Who are you quoting? I can't find that statement anywhere on this talk page. Rab V (talk) 21:40, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
It's from the last sentence of the current lead.[4] TFD (talk) 22:53, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
If you are interested in rewording that sentence, may be better to discuss outside this RFC. Rab V (talk) 23:27, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
The wording of that sentence is the topic of the RfC. What did you think we are discussing? And why wouldn't you read the lead before joining a discussion on how it should be worded? TFD (talk) 00:29, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
Please be a bit more civil. Just because I've read this article doesn't mean I've memorized it. The RFC does not explicitly mention that sentence so I thought this was a separate issue you are bringing up. If you want to try to add something about changing that sentence to this RFC, feel free. Rab V (talk) 01:06, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
At least before discussing the description of the term TERF as derogatory in an RfC, you might have determined what the article currently says about it. The statement in the OED and the current wording cannot both be true. Therefore, if we agree the OED is right, we will have to change the current wording. The purpose of talk page discussions is to determine article content after all. TFD (talk) 01:33, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
Once again, please be civil and stop your personal attacks and assumptions per WP:CIVIL. I've been editing this article for quite a while longer than you so I don't know why you keep assuming I haven't read it. If the RFC is going to change this sentence, it should be mentioned in the RFC statement is all I'm saying. Rab V (talk) 02:11, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
The sources provided in Chillabit's !vote are the most helpful here at the outset, particularly the commentary from Fiona McPherson; We weighed it up, and because of the intentions of the coiner and the fact that there is a little bit more nuance behind its usage – it’s not always just a straight-out insult – we took the approach that we would explain that in a note.
The current version of the lead I think reflects that nuance reasonably well, and is also quite specific about the lack of consensus surrounding its use in academic discourse. That could be stronger of course, as the current lead focuses on slur whereas the OED uses derogatory. The issue though is that while the intent of the team at OED may have been to reflect nuance in the terms use, for our use on wiki it is decidedly non-nuanced. As I've said above twice now, it doesn't give any detail on those who consider it derogatory versus those who do not. The way that the OED source is being proposed for inclusion likewise ignores any nuance, and as RoxySaunders has demonstrated is ripe for a swift {{by whom}} tagging because it lacks that detail.
While this source is useful in determining weight, it is not helpful for verifying the nuance. We need to use secondary sources to support this claim that it is typically derogatory, because while the OED have clearly done such an analysis to determine whether or not they should include that recent addition (it was only added 21 days ago at time of writing this reply) they did not include that analysis in their dictionary. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:03, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
(ec)Nuance is exactly what is missing in most uses of the term, at least outside academic writing, but perhaps in that too. Johnbod (talk) 02:11, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
Well, a "by whom" tag would be clearly wrong here as the whom the OED refers to is "most English speakers", meaning the agent is evident from the context. If necessary the claim could be attributed to the OED, that would resolve a potential "by whom" tag. I'm not aware of any serious source which doesn't consider TERF derogatory, tbh. The question of whether it is a "slur" is much more open, but nobody who uses TERF likes the people they direct it at and everybody who uses TERF knows that "TERFS" don't like being called that. Therefore, it is clearly derogatory. --Boynamedsue (talk) 21:17, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @The Four Deuces: I think your "universal agreement" (para) goggles might be on a little tight. The relevant section on the article cites eight (!) examples of prominent feminist academics debating or qualifying the characterization of TERF as a slur. In academic discourse, there is no consensus is a correctly weighed (actually somewhat generous) summary of that section as it stands. The OED doesn't say "is a slur", the OED says typically regarded as derogatory. It is a long step from there to is derogatory, and a titanic leap from derogatory to slur. I recommend reading the quote from the OED editors which Chillabit posted, which clarifies their intent somewhat. They're not attempting to debunk or take a hard-line stance on this discourse. And even if they were, the OED is an academic publication like any other. That means WP:DUEWEIGHT, not WP:DROPSECONDARYSOURCESANDFOLLOWDICTIONARY. RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 02:09, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
Since I did not use the term "universal agreement," why are you attributing it to me? Per manufactured controversy, the fact that you can find sources for both sides says nothing about the degree of acceptance of either. One way to determine relative acceptance is by consulting a tertiary source, such as the OED. Another is to use a source that explains relative weight. The only source presented in this discussion is the OED. I started to read the first few sources in the article and none of them say there is a serious dispute about whether the term is generally considered to be a slur. This is the same argument that leads to pages of discussion on climate change. TFD (talk) 02:45, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
Forgive my sloppy use of scare quotes—I was referring to your saying the extent of agreement is so great, it is treated as fact in tertiary sources. No, sources do not overwhelmingly agree on TERF being a slur. Nearly a third of this article is dedicated to the extant controversy: Sophie et al. wrote a letter calling TERF a slur. We then cite Ivy, McKinnon, Sosa, Davis & McCready, Saul, and the venerable Butler, who acknowledge that the term can be derogatory, but do not consider it a slur. The OED also does not categorize TERF as a slur, so its opinion is moot on the issue. If you perceive "extensive agreement" (para) on the matter, I'm not sure where. Likewise, your perception that the disagreement is exaggerated does not override WP:NPOV or WP:SUMMARY. If you don't like the there is no consensus... sentence, you should discuss it in a new section, and preferably bring along some other sources. This RfC is about whether it would be appropriate to add Oxford says TERF is typically regarded as derogatory, or a similar sentence. RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 03:31, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
The OED says, "TERF is now typically regarded as derogatory." I suppose that does not go as far as saying it is a slur, but we should at least say that. Do you have sources that make a different claim? From my understanding, the term is usually seen as derogatory, but some writers say it isn't. I wonder how many TERFs are actual radical feminists, rather than conservatives who call themselves feminists, IOW "conservative feminists." TFD (talk) 03:50, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Dang, how many acronyms have been created in the last 15-20 years, concerning this general topic? GoodDay (talk) 21:46, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Well seeing as how on social media there is a not insignificant swing towards "gender-critical is a slur" in the last five or six months, I suspect we'll be seeing another term arise in the next year or so. No reliable sources on this as of yet, so obviously we can't cite it in article space, but it's still an interesting thing to note here regardless. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:28, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
See euphemism treadmill... AnonMoos (talk) 01:55, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

BTW - I'm pleased to see that editors aren't bludgeoning those editors, who've taken a position in the 'survey'. GoodDay (talk) 22:56, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Still plenty of time for that... Tewdar  09:11, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
@Tewdar:, I see what you mean. GoodDay (talk) 13:18, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
  • When we (hopefully) add back the OED citation, I suggest including the publication date, which is not necessarily required, but it might aid the reader to know that this is a recently published definition; thus, Chicago citation style: OED Online, s.v. "TERF(n.)", Oxford University Press, June 2022, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/98002894 (accessed July 13, 2022). Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 04:43, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
    Good idea. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 09:37, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Proposed body paragraph, to be inserted at the end of the "Coinage and usage" section:

    TERF was added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in June 2022. The entry notes that although Smythe intended the term as a neutral descriptor, it is "now typically regarded as derogatory."[1] Fiona McPherson, a senior editor for the OED, explained, “We weighed it up, and because of the intentions of the coiner and the fact that there is a little bit more nuance behind its usage—it’s not always just a straight-out insult—we took the approach that we would explain that in a note. We felt it was a bit more nuanced than just slapping on derogatory or chiefly derogatory."[2]

    RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 03:18, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
This article is not about the OED. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 10:44, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
This article is about a word, its usage, and notable opinions thereof. Based on the current survey results, we clearly find the OED’s opinion about words to be fairly important and worthy of note, so it seems worthwhile to exposit in some amount of detail. The amount can be pared down, if that’s the issue. RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 11:46, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
It's not, but if the OED definition is going to feature prominently in the lead, per WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY it has to be supported by text in the body. At present, there is no supporting text in the body with respect to the OED definition. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:09, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
I like this. Loki (talk) 14:19, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
This seems reasonable to me, an appropriate level of detail for the body. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 23:45, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
That somewhat works for me. It addresses some of the WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY concerns for simply inserting it into the lead. I still think however that in order for this to have the weight to be in the lead, we need to explain further in the body who typically regard the term as derogatory and why. We know from the OED's perspective and the words of McPherson that such sources exist, so it should in theory be a simple matter of finding them. At present I don't think we have enough, if any, supporting sources and text explaining the who and why for derogatory. We do have a substantial section on the slur debate, but a word or phrase being a slur is not the same as it being derogatory.
However adding this content in this way is also an issue. We're reversing the normal way of writing an article, where instead of using sources to inform article content (ie, here's a selection of sources that support TERF being derogatory), we would be using article content decided by RfC to filter the sources we want to use (ie, we've decided to add content that says TERF is derogatory, what sources support this?). That is an incredibly risky thing to do per WP:NPOV as we would be actively skirting the edges where it comes to cherrypicking. No matter how respectable the OED, or any dictionary is, I am very concerned that we are going about this entirely the wrong way. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:41, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
I'm confident that I recall correctly that at least one of McKinnon's papers "concedes" that the term is derogatory but that it doesn't meet two other criteria necessary to be a "slur". I believe the paper in question to be peer-reviewed, but in any case it provides some potentially useful context about this issue. Newimpartial (talk) 00:55, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
@Newimpartial: I believe you're thinking of Davis & McCready, cited in the middle of "Slur Debate", and yes, peer-reviewed. D&C declare:

An expression e is a slur if (i) e semantically invokes a complex which can be used to derogate a particular group; (ii) the derogation of that group functions to subordinate them within some structure of power relations supported by an actualized flawed ideology; (iii) the group is one defined by an intrinsic property (e.g race / gender / sexuality / abled-ness).

Under this framework, they deny that TERF meets (iii) as TERFdom is in no way an "inherent property". They concede that (ii) is debatable and likely intractible, as reactionary transphobes and trans-rights activists both perceive themselves to be "punching up" against ideologically oppressive power structures.[3] RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 01:22, 16 July 2022 (UTC) RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 01:22, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
The one paper by McKinnon that is currently in the article does not support the term being derogatory. In fact that paper only uses the word derogatory once, in its own list of citations. According to the seven philosopher response to that paper, McKinnon even tweeted several months later (August 2018) that she did not believe it to be derogatory. I would be interested to read this other paper by McKinnon, as I cannot find it via a quick Google Scholar search.
Based on the sources that are currently in the article, only two actually support it being derogatory. The aforementioned seven philosopher response which was not peer-reviewed or published in a journal, and the Davis & McCready paper. Right now at best we could say that Davis and McCready define TERF as derogatory, but we simply do not have the breadth of secondary sources to support "typically regarded as derogatory" as per the OED definition. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:33, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
Clearly I was confusing the D&C paper with one of McKinnon's; my memory is not what I remember it as being. :p
My other point would be that my recent searches found many, many RS stating that the term TERF is regarded as derogatory by a significant fraction of people, either in general or specifically by those to whom the term is applied. On the other hand, very few RS that I saw state that the term is derogatory; in fact D&C is quite possibly the best among them. Newimpartial (talk) 01:44, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
Those sources are what we need here. We have a substantial section on whether or not TERF is a slur, but that is a separate academic debate to whether or not the term is derogatory. We have no substantial content on whether or not TERF is derogatory, only a single peer reviewed source, and yet this RfC is proposing that we add it to the lead and body based on a single source; the OED.
The sources that state whether or not is is derogatory, and who consider it to be derogatory can then be assessed for weight by the OED source while writing a new section on the debate for whether or not the term is derogatory. That way we can properly figure out whether or not the OED definition is due for the lead, as well as who are the people who "typically consider [it] derogatory". Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:10, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
Let me lower the curtain for a moment: I looked for RS in the hope of finding meaningful debate about whether or not the term is derogatory, or regarded as derogatory, or contested. I found almost exclusively sources stating that the term is considered derogatory, with varying qualifiers about who considers it so. I entirely lack the attention/motivation to repeat my search, because my intention was not to develop this section of the article, which I don't find especially interesting (which isn't a !vote for or against inclusion; it is a "yawn" vote). But I have most certainly seen a number of sources, and they disconfirmed my prior assumption (which was that the valence of the term would be contested). Only a few RSOPINION sources maintained the view that the term is not considered derogatory by anyone that matters. Newimpartial (talk) 02:24, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
Based on the quotes in the article, plus the few sources I was able to skim, Newimpartial's assessment of "derogatory" in secondary sources seems basically accurate. Honestly, I've softened a bit on including "regarded as derogatory" in the lede (preferably succeeded by, if not following, a balanced summary of the "is a slur" discourse), although I think Sideswipe is right that this RfC was (i) highly premature, and (ii) intent on cherrypicking the OED entry and parading it as unambiguous confirmation of a controversial and disputed viewpoint. The latter remains my primary concern.
The more often I do it, the more convinced I become that the single most effective way of resolving disputes about DUEWEIGHT is to compile enormous lists of RS's and their opinions (ala Talk:Trans woman/Definitions). At the very least, that makes it much easier to pick out the handful of favorable sources, and make sweeping statements about the illusory "consensus of reliable sources". RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk · contribs) 03:00, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
If those sources were to be provided, and supporting content derived from them to be added to the article body, I would be more than happy to change my !vote in the survey. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:17, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
Too much overquoting. You don't need to quote the OED for example and can paraphrase the rest better. Aircorn (talk) 05:30, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
@Aircorn: Yes, the quote could probably be paraphrased. You're welcome to take a stab at doing so. – RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 04:42, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
How about:

TERF was added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in June 2022. The entry notes that although Smythe intended the term as a neutral descriptor, it is "now typically regarded as derogatory." The editors of the OED noted that there was more nuance to that description than the more commonly used descriptions of "derogatory" or "chiefly derogatory", because "TERF" was not originally intended to be derogatory and is not always used as an insult today.

Loki (talk) 18:21, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
@Aircorn, Pyxis Solitary, and LokiTheLiar: Tried splitting the difference between too much and too little quote:
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) added an entry for TERF in June 2022. The definition notes that although the term was first intended as a neutral descriptor, it is "now typically regarded as derogatory".[1] OED editor Fiona McPherson explained that because “there is a little bit more nuance behind its usage—it’s not always just a straight-out insult", the dictionary's editors opted to explain this rather than simply label the term "derogatory" or "chiefly derogatory".[4]
All happy? – RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 03:21, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
I don't think that there's such a thing as "too little quote". I think your version has an acceptable amount of quote though. Loki (talk) 03:37, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
"now typically regarded as derogatory" = derogatory. Whatever was going on behind the scenes to make McPherson bend over backwards to provide an explanation for those five words is probably bollocks. But if the confusionary explicandum is going to be included in the article, it should be as a footnote. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 09:25, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
This sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory. Do you have any reason the believe that there was anything untoward "going on behind the scenes" or is that just a personal suspicion? I don't think we can give this line of argument any weight unless there is some demonstrable basis in fact for it. Of course, there might be other reasons to argue for using a footnote which you could make but assuming a conspiracy without evidence that one has even been alleged off-wiki is inviting us to participate in WP:OR. I also disagree that the clarification is confusing so there is no reason to suspect that it is intentionally "confusionary". The thought that a reputable and well respected dictionary would intentionally seek to hide or obscure the meaning of a term it lists is an extraordinary claim that would require extraordinary evidence before we can entertain it. DanielRigal (talk) 15:30, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The survey does not show consensus for treating those two phrases as equivalent, especially in light of an RS which explicitly states they weren’t intended to be. You’re free to interpret that RS’s statement as probably bollocks, but as encyclopedia editors we have little justification for ignoring it based on your personal interpretation.
This isn’t a paper encyclopedia, so we aren’t at risk of running out of space. There’s no good reason to put the latter sentence in a {{efn}}, except to minimize a perspective you disagree with. We both know hardly anyone reads footnotes.
In a contentious article about a contentious term, our goal is to wholly and accurately exposit the opinion of the sources involved. That is DUEWEIGHT. Cherry-picking single words context-free out of a dictionary (itself already a hyper-simplified account of nuanced discourse) in order to unequivocally declare is derogatory in WikiVoice, would be a blatant misuse of a WP:TERTIARY source. – RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 15:51, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
I'd be opposed to putting it in a footnote. No sources have been provided to support the claim that McPherson's comments on the nuance of usage is untoward or the result of external pressures. DanielRigal has surmised the rest of my thoughts on this pretty succinctly. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:15, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
It's an improvement over the proposed straight addition by Crossroads in the RfC question. I still have concerns over who typically regard the term as derogatory, as that is not reflected in any way in the article text, though those concerns are lessened by making it clear that it is the OED who is saying this and not ourselves in Wikivoice.
And as I said previously, if those sources which presumably formed a part of the OED's research were provided, and content was to be written around them I would be happy to revisit putting "typically regarded as derogatory" into Wikivoice if it does represent the balance of the sources on this issue. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:20, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Moving toward closure

Discussion has slowed, so I think it's time to WP:RFCEND and continue to work on local consensus-building through BRD. Unless I've gravely misjudged things, my understanding of the consensus here is that yes, we should reference the OED somewhere in the article, and that it would be acceptable to summarize that reference in the lead. That's the survey question itself asked and answered, so I think we can close the RfC and work towards solving the actual implementation of that result through local discussion or subsequent RfC as needed. Three editors (myself included) stipulated in their !votes that it would be preferable to attribute the OED in-text, rather than declare its opinion in Wikivoice. In discussion, I proposed a body paragraph which explains the OED quote as an attributed statement, which seems generally accepted by those who commented on it. Only one editor specifically opposed attribution in their !vote, so I think the following can be added to the article and then improved through BRD:

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) added an entry for TERF in June 2022. The definition notes that although the term was first intended as a neutral descriptor, it is "now typically regarded as derogatory".[1] OED editor Fiona McPherson explained that because “there is a little bit more nuance behind its usage—it’s not always just a straight-out insult", the dictionary's editors opted to explain this rather than simply label the term "derogatory" or "chiefly derogatory".[5]

The remaining issue is whether the addition to the lede should replace or occlude our existing summary of the "TERF is a slur" content. Opinions are divided over this, with editors citing WP:TERTIARY both for and against it. I have strong feelings on this matter ("derogatory" and "considered a slur in academic discourse" strike me as quite distinct concepts), but I don't see a strong consensus here, which makes me think we should leave that sentence alone for now. The most widely acceptable solution, in my view, is just to add the OED's statement into that paragraph somewhere, probably at either the start or the end:

The Oxford English Dictionary notes that TERF is typically considered derogatory.

I believe I'm allowed to close this myself and BOLDly make the proposed changes (barring further discussion), but given my level of involvement and the strong feelings all around, I'd like to leave that specific task to someone else. I'm relatively inexperienced with the more bureaucratic Wikipedia procedures, so I tend to approach these things with some trepidation and fear of misstep. Your thoughts? –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 07:21, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

It is a controversial subject so I would suggest just waiting six more days for it to reach 30 days and let someone uninvolved close it. Aircorn (talk) 17:22, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I would prefer a solid, official closure to forestall future disputes. From there, we can decide how exactly to put it in the body, though I doubt that will be too controversial. For the lead, though, I don't think we need in-text attribution, as no equivalent RS disagree that it is typically derogatory (which is distinct from the "slur" debate). Crossroads -talk- 05:59, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
Agree about the lead. The referencing is strong enough to use wikivoice for this. Aircorn (talk) 18:21, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
I disagree that we don't need in-text attribution in the lead. Strong referencing notwithstanding, the information is clearly controversial enough to warrant attribution. Better have it, than to not and cause a bunch more debate. I would also prefer states instead of notes. Ovinus (talk) 22:19, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
I don’t know. We don’t decide on attribution due to contents controversial nature (I.e we don’t attribute homeopathy as pseudoscience). All that really matters is the strength of the sources. Aircorn (talk) 07:33, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b c "TERF". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. June 2022. Retrieved 14 July 2022. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  2. ^ ""Terf", "pangender" and "vaxxer" included in the OED new words list". New Statesman. 2022-06-22. Retrieved 2022-07-15.
  3. ^ Davis, Christopher; McCready, Elin (4 March 2020). "The Instability of Slurs". Grazer Philosophische Studien. 97. Brill Publishers: 63–85. doi:10.1163/18756735-09701005. S2CID 216218536.
  4. ^ ""Terf", "pangender" and "vaxxer" included in the OED new words list". New Statesman. 2022-06-22. Retrieved 2022-07-15.
  5. ^ ""Terf", "pangender" and "vaxxer" included in the OED new words list". New Statesman. 2022-06-22. Retrieved 2022-07-15.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"A minority of radical feminists"

From the lead:

The term was originally coined in 2008 to describe a minority of radical feminists ...

There is no support for "minority" in the source cited, which refers to a "cohort" and "some". Suggest either:

  1. using "cohort" in line with the source; or
  2. providing quantitative evidence to substantiate "minority".

Utilisateur19911 (talk) 14:55, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Davis and McCready quote

The current text now reads:

Linguists Christopher Davis and Elin McCready view gender critical feminist's support of transgender men as a denial of trans men's agency and self-determination, and suggest it is trans-exclusionary "because it excludes the very category of 'trans man'.

The original quote from Davis and McCready comes from an unsourced footnote that reads:

Note that some subscribing to this ideology would say they are not trans-exclusionary, because (for example) they, as feminists, support trans men because of their assigned gender. We take it that this purported support is in fact a denial of the agency and self-determined identity of trans men, and that it therefore doesn’t count as genuine support, perhaps because it excludes the very category of ‘trans man’.

First, one may note that Davis and McCready did not discuss "gender critical feminists," only those referred to as TERFs (not all people labeled TERFs critique gender categories per se and some may even essentialize gender with "women" perceived as better than "men"; a whole spectrum exists).

Second, Davis and McCready wrote "assignd gender" where I think they meant "assigned sex at birth". Some gender critical feminists clearly believe in sex differences while working against patriarchy and gender oppression. This can, however, lead them to seemingly conflate sex and gender stating that they "think men are men and women are women!" see: https://gcritical.org/gender-critical-or-terf/ ).

Third, the actual implication of the original quote (supporting a person based on their assigned sex) would contradict a basic principle of any radical gender critique that seeks to abolish gender roles altogether.

Fourth, Davis and McCready did not quote or cite any supposed TERF in order to clarify whom they discussed, so sourcing them here seems weak.

Fifth, the original Davis and MCready quote (and susbequently the current Wikipedia summary) does not seem super clear: they seem to mean that some feminists define "trans men" as "women" and therefore claim to "support" them (because they support all people ever defined as "women") but that this supposed support clashes with trans men's self-description. One could say this more clearly than they (or I) did.

Finally, it seems that, even if one keeps this sentence, one would at least need to qualify the current version by writing "some" rather putting words in their mouths. Davis and McCready did not write or imply "all"; they wrote "some".

AnthonyTF (talk) 17:31, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm not entirely grokking your line of reasoning. What exactly would you like changed?
I've made this edit, which hopefully at least clears up that Cava, Dennis & McCready are talking specifically about the cohort of self-proclaimed radical feminists described as trans-exclusionary, and particularly those who claim not to be trans-exclusionary because they supposedly support trans men, who they misgender and slur as trans-identifying females. If only there were a short acronym for referring to them...
(Pinging Acousmana, who had a hand in editing this sentence.)RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 00:38, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed edit request on 2 September 2022

In Viv Smythe's interview with TransAdvocate, link the term trans* to its Wiktionary page for clarification:

[...] from other RadFems with whom we engaged who were trans*-positive/neutral, because we had several years of history of engaging [...]
+
[...] from other RadFems with whom we engaged who were [[wikt:trans*|trans*]]-positive/neutral, because we had several years of history of engaging [...]

LightNightLights (talk) 10:22, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

 Done in this edit with notes: Typically the WP MOS prefers links outside of quotes whenever possible. In this case, the quoted term isn't used nearby in an unquoted format and it seems to be clear that the link is accurately reflecting the meaning of the author quoted. If an opportunity for a nearby link outside the quote becomes available in the future it would probably be preferable.
Extra special thanks to LightNightLights for using incredibly helpful {{td}} in request! --N8wilson 🔔 15:42, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
Undone. This was a good-faith request by requester, and a good faith implementation, so no problems with the bold attempt. And I have nothing against the use of wiktionary interwikis; much to the contrary: I happen to be in favor of interwiki links to wiktionary in general, much more so I'd say, than the average editor, so no problem with it in theory. However, in this case, it is a quotation, and we don't know what they meant. N8wilson quoted the appropriate MOS entry and gave a reasonable account of agreeing to insert the link anyway, which I respect. If it were a less controversial article, maybe I would even go along with it. However, this is surely right up there among the most controversial articles at Wikipedia, and not the place to push the envelope. If we don't have a definition of "trans*" given by the author of this quotation that substantially agrees with wiktionary's definition, then I'm not comfortable including it as an interwiki link. (Then again, if we had such a definition by the author, we could just add it as an explanatory footnote, and we wouldn't need Wiktionary.) If either of you feel strongly enough about this, please start a discussion about it, either here, or in a new section. As a compromise solution, if the term comes up in a non-quotation context, that *might* work (case-by-case analysis would be required, and no pointy edits, please). Maybe other editors will agree with your take on this. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 01:00, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
Putting it another way: do not mind-read the author of the "trans*" quotation by providing a wiktionary definition (created by an editor there, and considered not a reliable source), and assuming that is an accurate representation of what the author of the quotation had in mind. That is original research on the part of editors here; we do not know for sure what they meant by it, and it's not up to editors here to imagine what they meant, and put it in the article. Mathglot (talk) 01:07, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
I notice that the link has been reinserted again, and I believe this is not valid here, and should be discussed to see if there is consensus for it. Mathglot (talk) 01:10, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
The definition on Wikitionary corresponds with the definition of trans* provided by the OED, and when taken with the context of the original interview seems to match up with the author's use of the word, at least by a plain reading. Do you believe trans* has another definition, different from that at Wikitionary and the OED? As it stands right now, I'm not seeing any compelling reason to not use the interwiki link to Wikitionary for this case, and it seems somewhat of a contrivance to try and shoehorn a use of trans* elsewhere in the article so that we don't need to link in the quotation. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:20, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Sideswipe9th. When it comes to formatting, while we could omit the asterisk by paraphrasing the quotation and using square brackets, that might similarly delve in mind-reading.
I wanted to link trans* in that I thought its meaning is obvious enough that it has an consistent definition but not obvious enough that (1) it doesn't need to be defined in order to be understood by a usual reader and (2) readers won't think it's a typo, which could be the case here because of the asterisk. I think this might be similar to linking the term RadFem to Radical feminism (assuming MOS:LINKQUOTE would be fulfilled). All that said, I don't necessarily have a strong opinion on this matter. LightNightLights (talk) 02:25, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
Mathglot, I think that your objection is extremely nitpicky to the point of obstructionism. The Wikitionary definition is a pretty standard definition of the word "trans": Non-cisgender; an umbrella term encompassing transgender, transsexual, and often also genderqueer/nonbinary, genderfluid, third-gender, etc — all gender identities other than cisgender. It's absolutely clear from context that the usage of "trans" in that interview is the same as the sense meant in the Wikitionary entry. I don't think that we need any additional confirmation from Viv Smythe confirming she meant the obvious plain meaning of what she said, and I'm frankly confused why we're even having this conversation about it. Loki (talk) 05:47, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
"Nitpicky"? "Obstructionism"? Loki, you're aware that including the link in a quotation is contrary to the the MOS guideline, right? That is why I removed it, because that's what the guideline recommends. The link is back now only because it was inserted again claiming WP:IAR, which is a pretty weak reason when a guideline appears to be against you. "Being conservative", as the guideline recommends, at one of the most controversial articles argues for not including it, which is what I did. Your quibble is not with me, perhaps, but with MOS; the proper place to dispute it is Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, and language like you used is inappropriate. It doesn't surprise me that even something as seemingly anodyne as removing a link per MOS causes tempers to flare at this article; there seems to be no item too small to argue about here. All the more reason to be conservative. Mathglot (talk) 17:45, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
The relevant part of MOS:LINKQUOTE states Where possible, link from text outside of the quotation instead – either before it or soon after. Unfortunately this is a situation where this is not possible. There are no other instances of the word trans* elsewhere in the text of the article.
As for IAR, again the text is pretty self explanatory; If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. In this circumstance, I believe an overly strict application of LINKQUOTE is a detriment to this article. The original intent of the person quoted is crystal clear from the original context, and the word itself is defined by a major dictionary (OED) whose definition matches Wikitionary's, so the conservative argument falls flat. If there was another instance of trans* elsewhere in the article text (not a quotation), I'd have no issue at all using a Wikitionary link for that usage. However we do not have that, and as I said above, it seems like a contrivance to try and shoehorn a usage of trans* elsewhere in the article to achieve the same goal. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:55, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
Technical note: With access to the original interview provided (thanks Sideswipe9th), it appears this may actually be quoted hypertext rather than a vocal/audio interview that was conducted. I could be wrong but I’ll note that the interview exclusively attributes the blogger handle “TigTog” rather than Viv directly. I’d also imagine the use of trans* itself is more suggestive of text than speech given that a valid pronunciation of trans* is simply to mimic that of trans. If this is quoted hypertext, MOS:LINKQUOTE indicates that [link added] should also be included to indicate the absence of the link in the original interview. --N8wilson 🔔 19:36, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
That's a very interesting point (added simultaneously to my comment below, so hadn't seen it in time to respond). If the consensus here turns out to be to retain the link, then I would agree with N8wilson that the bracketed "link" comment should be included as well. Mathglot (talk) 19:43, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
TigTog appears to be one of the handles Viv uses on online. I wouldn't read too much into it, it's usage is akin to my usage of Sideswipe, and I think the usage I think stems from Viv at the time having pseudo-anonymity, as if you check the rest of the text of the interview, her name does not appear.
Going off memory and this source, sadly I can't find a better source for this and Google ngram won't plot trans* even in square brackets, I recall trans* being the in vogue term to use circa 2014 when the original interview was published, with it being pronounced as "trans-star" in speech. With regards to LINKQUOTE, we aren't quoting hypertext here, and I suspect this interview may have taken place over instant messaging or email, so I don't think including [link added] is strictly necessary. However I wouldn't have too much of an issue adding it, if it is ultimately felt as if it's necessary by others. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:57, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) That's right, in this case it isn't possible to link another example outside the quotation because there isn't one. The alternative isn't to shoehorn another usage of trans*—nobody thinks that would be a good solution, here—the alternative is to simply leave it undefined in the article, as it previously was. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It is not up to us, as Wikipedia editors, to tell readers what the words in somebody's quotation mean; that is a type of original research. For general content, our role is to summarize the sense of reliable sources without including our own biases and opinions. In the case of a direct quotation within double quotes, we don't summarize, we include it word-for-word with attribution, but we still don't, or at least shouldn't, include our own thoughts about what it means. Choosing a definition, in my opinion, regardless how esteemed the source of that definition might be, is a way of saying, "This is what I, Wikipedia editor, say that this means; you can't be trusted to look it up or form your own opinion about it." If the quotation is in English, we should allow our readers to draw their own conclusions about what the writer means by their words, and not pick a definition for them. Mathglot (talk) 19:41, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

"Gender critical" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Gender critical and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 September 14#Gender critical until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 23:34, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

For observers, this RfD (now closed) was in response to this edit which redirected Gender critical from its current target (Feminist views... § TERF) to TERF. The change was reverted, and the discussion was speedy-closed roughly an hour later. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 00:53, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 21 September 2022

I want add USA IPA from /tərf/ to /tɛrf/ I am a Leaf (talk) 00:00, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

 Done Loki (talk) 01:03, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
TERF is pronounced like "turf", so the previous IPA ("ər" as in "letter") seems correct (compared to "ɛr" as in "merry"). I've undone this change for now. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 01:32, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
Oh, yeah, you're right. Sorry! Loki (talk) 01:51, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
Leaf, did you mean /ɜr/, not /ɛr/? /ɜr/ is the NURSE vowel (also used, as that article notes, in term—and nerf). Conventionally, it is the vowel this word would be considered to use (and was the vowel given before September 2nd), as it is the vowel the NURSE lexical set uses in British English, and the vowel is not conventionally considered to be different between the US and UK AFAIK (only the rhoticity/r-colouring is different, and vowel length is not contrastive in the US). I have recently seen users change US transcriptions from /ɜr/ to /ər/, as the distinction between the NURSE vowel +r and schwa +r is academic in US English, but my initial thought would be that we should either list /tɜrf/ (as the diaphonemic representation), or if we're going to have /tərf/, label it as American and add the British pronunciation, /tɜːf/. But if the OED has decided not to distinguish /ɜ/ from /ə/ even in British English, that's interesting. Are they only using a schwa in this word, or also for other words in the NURSE set? It seems like an odd choice, because it means there'd be a stressed schwa in e.g. TERFism, something English has conventionally been considered not to have. -sche (talk) 06:38, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
Agree with -sche. Mathglot (talk) 07:56, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
I agree with -sche's first suggestion; we should go with just /tɜːrf/, with the implication that /ɜːr/ ("as in fur") is pronounced /əː/ in RP, and /ər/ in GenAm. If we do give regional pronunciations, then agree with using those suggested: /tɜːf/ and /tərf/.
For the interested, Oxford does indeed notate the vowel in nurse et al. as /əː/ and /ər/, though this is technically non-standard (as explained at Help:IPA/English#cite_note-35). Template:IPAc-en will alias ⟨əː⟩ to ⟨ɜ:⟩. Collins gives turf as /tɜːf/ and /tɜrf/ (Brit. and American respectively), while Merriam-Webster gives /'tərf/RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 20:50, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 4 December 2022

Change "British clinical psychologist and medical sociologist David Pilgrim argued that" to "British clinical psychologist and medical sociologist David Pilgrim says that", as Pilgrim is making a factual, not an argumentative claim LarstonMarston (talk) 20:38, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

 Done Pizzaplayer219TalkContribs 19:15, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal for content going into this page at Talk:Feminist views on transgender topics#Merger proposal

Please view Talk:Feminist views on transgender topics#Merger proposal for further discussion. XTheBedrockX (talk) 16:46, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Survey

I suggest a split of the material from both this article and the Feminist views on transgender topics article into a new article, Gender critical movement, as a distinct movement has now coalesced under the "gender critical" concept that far removed from its original radical feminist origins, including support from very distictly non-feminist elements such as the far-right and Christian evangelical movements. — The Anome (talk) 11:35, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
I'm confused as to what you want. You listed this as a merger proposal in the title, but as a split in the explanation. Also, I can't parse your section header, and maybe that's what's causing my confusion. Mathglot (talk) 06:41, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
I think you may be mistaken? I was the one who suggested the merger, not The Anome. XTheBedrockX (talk) 22:29, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes, you're right; I was confused by the lack of an initial proposal statement. Normally, the OP gives some reasoning to support the merge proposal (whether in the template, or as an initial comment) and I read the first comment as your proposal, whereas in reality it was Anome's, as you pointed out. At this point, it would be good if you could add the reasoning behind your proposal, either at the top under your 16:46 OP (but in that case, please observe WP:REDACT style), or in a new message below (which doesn't have to be a "reply" to me, so you can start over flush left). Thanks for pointing this out. Mathglot (talk) 22:45, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
No problem XTheBedrockX (talk) 23:59, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

There may be a procedural problem with this merger. You appear to have listed this discussion in two places: here, in this discussion, and at Talk:Feminist views on transgender topics#Merger proposal, where discucssion is also going on, but without the Merger template header as you have here. This tends to fragment the discussion, and may make it more difficult to reach consensus. Mathglot (talk) 23:11, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I think I'm starting to see what happened; you meant to list this article, and point it to a discussion on the Talk page of the other article, and have the discussion there. On the article page, you actually did do that, which would've been sufficient, but by duplicating the template here as well, it left the discussion open on both Talk pages. Probably this discussion should be closed, and any unaware participators informed, so that they can port their messages over, if they wish to, to the other discussion. Mathglot (talk) 00:09, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Fascism, SWERFism etc.

I feel like this page doesn't contain a lot of information about how some other aspects, such as fascism or swerfism (sex worker exclusive radical feminist), are connected to terfism. Not all terfs are fascists or swerfs, but there is an undeniable link. I would write this myself however I do not know all the history nor possess the writing prowess to do so to wikipedia's standards. Examples included can be helen staniland advocating for genocide ([5]https://twitter.com/joss_prior/status/1532511819583062025), a speaker at a terf rally quoting adolf hitler ([6]https://twitter.com/NorthumbriaIWW/status/1614690987145576453), the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention's statement on terfs ([7]https://www.lemkininstitute.com/statements-new-page/statement-on-the-genocidal-nature-of-the-gender-critical-movement%E2%80%99s-ideology-and-practice), this thread ([8]https://twitter.com/NorthumbriaIWW/status/1618267770835333120), etc. etc.

There are lots of proof of the connection between terfs and fascism, as well as swerfism, anti-semitism etc. that I feel should be included in the wikipedia page on terfs. For a neutral point of view, it should be pointed out that of course, not all terfs are fascists, swerfs, anti-semitic etc., but the basis of their beliefs is intrinsic with fascism, and there's a big overlap between the two. 86.133.82.31 (talk) 20:57, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

It's difficult because this is a woefully under-researched topic in formal academia and tweets are not WP:RS for use in Wikipedia even if we might, as individuals, find the arguments they make compelling. The Lemkin Institute is not a high profile source (It doesn't have its own article) but I can see it being used to reference some other articles so there might be some limited utility in that. Anyway, I don't think this is the best article to suggest such coverage on as this article is mostly about TERF as a term, not as an ideology or movement. DanielRigal (talk) 23:55, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
While I recognize there are undeniable links in my experience, I heavily agree with Daniel regarding the lack of RS in this matter. ~Gwennie🐈💬 📋03:47, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

freud

"Some people who have been called trans-exclusionary radical feminists say that trans-exclusionary is an inaccurate label, as they are inclusive of transgender men, who have a female sex assignment. Peter Cava notes that when these feminists are inclusive of trans men, they often gender them as women. Linguists Christopher Davis and Elin McCready view this "purported support" of trans men as a denial of their agency and self-determination, and suggest it is trans-exclusionary "because it excludes the very category of 'trans man'"."

i think that this section is getting at something, in that terfs are generally only critical of transwomen and are overwhelmingly supportive of transmen as having liberated themselves from the oppression of patriarchy. what that actually demonstrates is a deep level of misogyny in the terf community that is rooted in level of self-loathing. freud had a famous theory that homophobia is rooted in feelings of repressed same-sex attraction; that is probably not extendable to transphobia and trans hate in general, but the outcome of every discussion i've had with a terf is the conclusion that a very high percentage of them wish they were men and that their hatred of transwomen is in truth a hatred of themselves, and deep-rooted sense of misogyny in general. somebody should look into that. 107.179.229.68 (talk) 01:27, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Changes to the lead

The part of the lead that ends with the sentence "In academic discourse, there is no consensus on whether TERF constitutes a slur" (a fair summary) has been stable for around three years, since 2019. In recent days some editors have attempted to add a new biased sentence that claims that TERF is a "bullying tool" (a fringe POV only held by TERFs themselves), without any kind of discussion or consensus. Particularly given the controversial nature of the article and the fact that this part of the lead has been stable for around three years, highly controversial changes to the lead should be discussed, rather than simply edit-warred into the article without meaningful dialogue, per WP:BRD. After the initial bold edit was reverted, those seeking to include this new sentence should have explained their reasons here on the talk page. The onus for obtaining consensus for inclusion of contested content, and particularly contested content that is also, in the context of this article, new, is on those who seek to include it. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 16:10, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

It looks like that particular quote is pulled from only the first Guardian ref. I don't see anyone else than that one writer calling it a "bullying tool" in particular and the sentence already mentions more broadly abusive rhetoric so I don't see why it couldn't be trimmed.
Otherwise in that sentence, "Critics of the word have pointed to its usage alongside insulting or abusive rhetoric" - there is no issue, this is well-cited and written as a critics' view, not wikivoice. Chillabit (talk) 18:57, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
I only object to the "bullying tool" part of the sentence. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 19:28, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
Does the specific phrase "bullying tool" have wide traction or is it just one person's preferred description? If it is just Bennett then we should not be attributing it to "critics" (plural). If it does not have wide traction among those who dislike the description TERF then it does not belong in the lead. Taking it out does not detract from the sentence. It still explains their objections perfectly clearly without it. DanielRigal (talk) 21:27, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
FWIW I don't think quotes belong in the lead unless there are exceptional circumstances. The lead is supposed to summerise. Quotes by definition do not. Aircorn (talk) 21:45, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Well then lets go back to the "Critics of the word TERF say that it has been used in an overly-broad fashion and in an insulting manner, alongside violent rhetoric." which is how it was presented for years (as long as the no consensus sentence cited above). Deleting the whole sentence outright and claiming ONUS was highly inappropriate. Aircorn (talk) 21:30, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
For reference, the "bullying tool" wording appears to be fairly new, dating to this diff just about a month ago: [9]. The older version is, IMO, better as a single sentence, but this version includes a more comprehensive surrounding paragraph. Loki (talk) 01:49, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
There is an issue; WP:SAY. Pointed to (in the essentially identical form of "pointed out") is specifically spelled out in that part of the MOS as a wording to avoid when discussing controversial topics. --Aquillion (talk) 05:23, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
One original thought can be added to this discussion. Radical shortened as R in TERF has obviously a negative conotation. Is there any prove that all Trans-Exclusive Feminists (TEFs) are TERFs? I could find 17 papers using TEF instread of TERF. There are surely self-labelling radical people like there are self-labeling utopists, even self-labeling fascists. However, such epithet would be of pejorative nature for people not identifying as radical. Geysirhead (talk) 18:47, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
The radical is certainly not a negative term per se. It was a self descriptor and still used today in feminist circles. EvergreenFir (talk) 18:53, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the particial rewording of the thought. As already writen, self-insult does not deprive a pejorative term of its pejorative nature. Geysirhead (talk) 19:29, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
Here is an experpt from professor emeritus Sheila Jeffreys, who is neither a foreign-labeled nor a self-insulted radical: "The fact that men can be more ardent exponents of the practice of femininity than women has become clearer in recent decades as the medical profession, pornography and the Internet have spawned a massive cult of femininity among men in the form of transsexualism, transgenderism, transvestism. Femininity is sexually exciting to the men who seek it because it represents subordinate status and thus satisfies masochistic sexual interests. Men's femininity is very different from the femininity that is a requirement of women's subordinate status, because women do not choose femininity but have it thrust upon them. Femininity is not a form of sexual fantasy for women but the hard and often resented work required of those who occupy subordinate social status. However the forms that the outward appearance of femininity takes are quite similar in both cases, and the beauty practices are identical. Looking at what men make of it will show that femininity, rather than having any connection with biology, is socially constructed as the behaviour of subordination." source
Prof. Jeffreys basically shifts transexuality into the domain of cultural appropriation. Geysirhead (talk) 19:45, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
I understand Jeffreys' views, but I don't see how that's related to this. "Radical", as used here, is not a self-insult nor an exonym. Radical (as in root) reflects the ontological stance that patriarchy are the root cause of gendered oppression. This is in contrast to "liberal" feminist who view gendered oppression as largely an issue of restricted opportunity and differential treatment. It does not mean "extreme" or anything negative. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:59, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Radical feminism essentially disregards issues of class or capitalism, focusing instead on male power and male-dominated culture as a source of women's oppression. Radical feminists attack patriarchy, especially the patriarchal family, as the sole system of domination. Unlike liberal feminism, radical feminism rejects the male-centered family as oppressive in its own terms. Radical feminists view men and women as classes, or sex classes (Firestone 1970), fundamentally opposed in common interests.

— England, Paula. 1993. Theory on Gender. New York: A. de Gruyter. p. 28

Whereas liberal feminists want a piece of the pie,... radical feminists... want a whole new pie. Radical feminists recognize the oppression of women as a fundamental political oppression wherein women are categorized as inferior based upon their gender. It is not enough to remove barriers to equality; rather, deeper, more transformational changes need to be made in societal institutions (like the government or media) as well as in people's heads. ... Radical feminists assert that reformist solutions like those liberal feminism would enact are problematic because they work to maintain rather than undermine the system.

— Shaw, S. M., & Lee, J. (2014). Women’s voices, feminist visions: Classic and contemporary readings (6th ed.). McGraw-Hill Professional.
EvergreenFir (talk) 20:16, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
I have 4 Yes/No-questions:
* Are all trans-inclusive feminisms not radical?
* Are all trans-exclusive feminisms radical?
* Are all radical feminisms trans-exclusive?
* Are all non-radical feminisms trans-inclusive? Geysirhead (talk) 11:38, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
Part of the misunderstanding is that you're seeing R as separate from F in the acronym. Instead R and F should be read together, as part of one name; radical feminist. Radical is not a descriptor for the word feminist. TERFs are not "trans exclusionary feminists who are radicals". TERFs are instead "trans exclusionary radical feminists".
Your questions are unfortunately more nuanced than straight yes/no answers allow.
  • Most trans-inclusive feminists are not radical feminists. Most trans-inclusive feminists tend to be third wave or fourth wave. That said, there is a small subset of trans inclusive radical feminists.
  • Most trans-exclusive feminists are RadFems. That said, there is a small subset of third and fourth wave feminists that are trans-exclusive.
  • No, as I said in my answer to point 1, not all RadFems are trans-exclusive. There are also SWERFs (Sex Worker-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) who may or may not also be trans-exclusive.
  • No, as I said in my answer to question 2, not all non-RadFems are trans-inclusive.
Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:37, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
The idea that radical in the expression is in any way negative is incorrect and represents a lack of knowledge of the history of feminism, and in particular radical feminism. The term was created by radical feminists in the 1960s as a self-appellation as standard English usage, neither ironic, nor a reappropriation; it's merely descriptive, without a whiff of anything pejorative about it. Mathglot (talk) 05:02, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
Nobody needs deep knowledge of slaughter houses to understand that calling a surgeon a butcher is an insult. Geysirhead (talk) 12:50, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
...but not calling a butcher a butcher. Radical feminists call themselves that. It's a completely neutral descriptor in this context. Loki (talk) 17:18, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
What an odd analogy and way off the mark. EvergreenFir (talk) 20:46, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
It is evident to me that "TERF" is a pejorative, the article has a whole segment where it delves into how perceived "TERFs" object to the term, and instead prefer the term "gender critical feminist." Since the term itself was coined by a woman who is a self-described "trans-ally", it would make sense that perceived "TERFs" wouldn't use this term to describe themselves. The key factors in what makes a word a "slur" or pejorative are, to quote Deborah Cameron, a feminist linguist and professor in language and communication at Oxford, the following:
  • Has the term been imposed or has it been adopted voluntarily by the group the term has been applied to?
  • Is the word commonly understood to convey hatred or contempt?
  • Does the word have a neutral counterpart which denotes the same group without conveying hatred/contempt?
  • Do the people the word is applied to regard it as a slur?
To answer the text above: It has been imposed as perceived "TERFs" do not label themselves that, it is commonly understood to convey contempt, the neutral counterpart would be "gender critical feminist", and the people who the word is applied to do seem to regard it as a slur, and from what I have seen, quite intensely I may add. Additionally, I must say that I agree with Geysirhead to some extent, even a self-insult does not deprive a pejorative term of its pejorative nature, as with the word "nigger" and its derivative "nigga".
Sprucecopse (talk) 23:23, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
To ensure this comment goes addressed please see WP:Notaforum. RS does not indicate this is a slur. FRINGE should be applied to trans exclusionary radical feminism, including Cameron's views on transgender people. Filiforme1312 (talk) 07:10, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Getting back to the OP placed by Amanda A. Brant: it does seem questionable whether "bullying tool" should remain in the lead. Actually, I think that understates the case, and it's questionable whether it should remain in the article at all, and afaict per policy, it should not.

For starters, the body of the article mentions it in only one place, based on comments by Catherine Bennett (journalist), not exactly a major spokeswoman of feminism (of any type). But even so, if the term were exemplary of majority or minority opinion, then it could be included, but is it? I would say that per WP:DUE WEIGHT, it should not. Compare the results in Scholar for "bullying tool" with the results for "violent rhetoric", "pejorative", or "slur". This makes it clear that "bullying tool" represents "only a tiny minority" of reliable sources on the topic, and therefore is highly UNDUE and the Bennett quote should be removed from the article body. Given that, it would be completely unacceptable to keep it in the lead of the article. Mathglot (talk) 07:09, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this assessment. Would it be relevant to state that the word is generally considered to be a pejorative in the first lead? Sprucecopse (talk) 20:22, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
  • It's obviously WP:UNDUE, since it's placing excessive focus on one person's point of view. I've removed it from the lead, since there seems a clear consensus for at least that much above (which wasn't implemented until now); we can discuss what to do with the ref in the body, since due weight for an article's body is lower. --Aquillion (talk) 05:18, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

TERF partnering with right wing extremism and Neo Nazi White Supremacy.

Below you will find a fraction of the articles tying trans exclusionary radical feminists, far right conservative hate groups and white supremacy. Thoughts on including a section the controversy ties of hate groups to radical feminism.

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/conservative-group-hosts-anti-transgender-panel-feminists-left-n964246

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/the-recast/2022/03/08/politics-transgender-health-care-feminists-religious-conservatives-00015307

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/transphobia-white-supremacy/

https://www.losangelesblade.com/2022/12/16/the-federalist-heritage-foundation-using-anti-lgbtq-alarmism/

https://www.dukeupress.edu/trans-exclusionary-feminisms-and-the-global-new-right

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/02/07/radical-feminists-conservatives-transgender-rights/

https://jezebel.com/of-course-terfs-have-found-common-cause-with-white-nati-1839129243

https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/5/20840101/terfs-radical-feminists-gender-critical

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/06/26/white-nationalist-threats-against-transgender-people-are-escalating

104.34.202.79 (talk) 17:15, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

So, birds of a feather ally with each other. What else is new? Dimadick (talk) 09:44, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
Those are good sources but unfortunately this is the wrong article for them. This is the article about the term "TERF". You want Feminist views on transgender topics. Loki (talk) 21:02, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Is this the same as gender-critical feminism, or should we create a separate article for that? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 05:44, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

This article is for the term "TERF", not the people it describes, so, no it's not. Loki (talk) 07:29, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 30 June 2023

Add Gender-critical feminism under "see also" section. Don'taskwhyImadethis (talk) 17:32, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: already in hat and lead Hyphenation Expert (talk) 17:41, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Inclusions in the "TERF Island" section

I don't have the rights to edit this page, so I'm writing a request of sorts here.

I'm somewhat surprised to not see JK Rowling and Graham Linehan mentioned amongst the "gender criticals" listed in the TERF Island section. While Linehan is Irish (as in, RoI, not NI), I've generally seen the term used to refer to the British Isles. I personally disagree with that usage myself, as it ignores a lot of nuance, but oh well...

So for those not in the loop, I'll explain.

Graham Linehan has practically formed an entire identity around being a TERF, even having his own substack page dedicated to it, and launching various events around it. It's been enough for him to completely corrode his livelihood; these days he's constantly complaining about losing his wife, career, and so on, strictly attributing it to backlash for his TERF views. I think this makes him a prime mention at least somewhere on the page - when people think of TERFs, people think of Linehan. https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/a-transwoman-a-transman-and-a-non https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/broke-shunned-and-cancelled-father-ted-creator-graham-linehan-and-the-trans-debate-cgv8gqpjk https://thepostmillennial.com/graham-linehan-launches-gender-critical-coming-out-day-for-dec-19

As for JK Rowling, I think she's one of the biggest reasons people call the UK "TERF Island" in the first place. While a contested topic, I think it's very hard to ignore her public statements and the backlash she receives. Even a paragraph going "oh Rowling is often called this and is known for numerous public statements but some people contest her" would feel right. I don't have the greatest of sources on me - I'm sure there's better stuff out there - but it should be a start. She is absolutely the face of the gender critical movement at this point and not giving her even a passing mention feels like an oversight. https://thepostmillennial.com/london-pride-parade-takes-aim-at-terfs-and-jk-rowling https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/arts/Jk-Rowling-controversy.html https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2020/06/25/j-k-rowling-and-the-terf-wars/

These two feel far more prominent than the names mentioned right now, at least from a 2023 perspective. I think these mentions would make it more complete.

Thank you for your time! Plague von Karma (talk) 19:42, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree that JK Rowling definitely should be included in the "TERF island" section; as you say, she is one of the main reasons people use the term and make that connection to the UK. But I suppose we need to find a reliable source that explicitly makes the connection between Rowling and the "TERF Island" epithet, which may be difficult. If we can't find a reason to add her to this section, the sources you provide (and others) are enough to warrant a mention in this article.
I don't think Linehan should be included in that section, as it currently makes it clear this is a term for the UK, and I've never seen the term used to refer to the British Isles (besides the fact that many Irish people dislike the term "British Isles", if the term did refer to the whole British Isles, then wouldn't the term be "TERF Isles"?). I am surprised he isn't mentioned in the article, but I'm not sure where would be a natural fit. GnocchiFan (talk) 20:55, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 31 August 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved According to the consensus below, the resulting redirect (after the move) "TERF" needs to be redirected to "Gender-critical feminism". Currently "TERF" has around 570 incoming links from mainspace, which need to be updated to "Trans-exclusionary radical feminist". I will perform the page moves after updating the links, which will need some time. I request other editors to not move page, I will do it once all the links are updated accordingly. —usernamekiran (talk) 02:54, 9 September 2023 (UTC)


TERFTERF (acronym) – It's hard to argue that when people mention the word "TERF", they're usually thinking of the acronym itself rather than the people they're describing. I propose moving "TERF" to "TERF (acronym)" and redirecting the existing title (and the longer-form redirect "Trans-exclusionary radical feminist") to "gender-critical feminism". PBZE (talk) 16:09, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

IS there some other use of it? Slatersteven (talk) 16:22, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
No reason to do this. Dawnbails (talk) 00:21, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
The reason to do it is for WP:PRIMARYTOPIC reasons. We have a bunch of convoluted scenarios where, for example, one sentence in Anti-gender movement is "Anti-gender rhetoric has seen increasing circulation in trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) discourse since 2016." and the link "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" needs to be piped to refer to the article about the movement itself rather than the acronym. A simple search on Google Scholar and Google itself also shows that "TERF" usually refers to the movement, not the acronym. PBZE (talk) 03:43, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
So do we have any other articles on titles TERF? Slatersteven (talk) 09:35, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
Yes, since this summer we do have an article on the ideology or movement itself, which is titled Gender-critical feminism and where TERF is one of several equal/alternative titles (in fact, TERF is the most widely used name of the ideology or movement, as discussed on that article's talk page, but we opted for the "Gender-critical feminism" article title because some sources appear to be moving in that direction, and because it was less contentious) --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 20:31, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

TERF move

Hello. I closed the RM discussion a few minutes ago at Talk:TERF, but I got confused regarding updating the links. Do we need to update all the current links that lead to "TERF" to "TERF (acronym)"? Because there is also consensus to retarget "TERF" to "gender-critical feminism". That means, if we only perform the move without updating the links, the instance of "TERF" in J. K. Rowling article will lead to gender-critical feminism. So, from that example Rowling article, do we need to update "TERF" to "TERF (acronym)"? —usernamekiran (talk) 03:22, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: I think it would be correct to update most of the existing links from [[TERF]] to [[TERF (acronym)|TERF]] and from [[TERF| to [[TERF (acronym)| with AWB, since the way it would be used in an article is in reference to people being called the term. It isn't particularly urgent though, given that in the meantime it would just be linking to another article related to the meaning of the term. SilverLocust 💬 03:50, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
(Well, obviously don't use AWB controversially.) SilverLocust 💬 04:37, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
While a few of the links may be used primarily in reference to the acronym and its history, I believe most of them are more likely to refer to the ideology, the primary meaning of the term. I can't think of a case where the article on the ideology wouldn't be a valid or suitable target. These two articles cover facets of the same topic, one main article on the ideology that also more briefly addresses terminology, and one in-depth article elaborating on the history of the acronym. So a link to the main article would never really be "incorrect". Hence, I think we should just go ahead and move it now. Editors can adjust the links in the (relatively few?) articles that refer specifically to the history of the word itself rather than the ideology, but I don't consider that very urgent. I don't think it's necessary to change all those links en masse, and I believe it's more likely that the main article on the ideology is a more suitable target in most cases anyway. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 04:08, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Based on the discussion here, I think it is safe to move the pages. I have already edited the templates to update "TERF" to "TERF (acronym)|TERF". Thank you everybody. —usernamekiran (talk) 06:23, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
late response-- wasn't awake. after reading through the discussion, I'm fine with the move. didn't really see the discussion until after the close. I'd say that it'd make more sense to switch redirects from TERF to TERF (acronym) instead of TERF to gender-critical feminism. Dawnbails (talk) 14:44, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Not sure why this whole thing is taking place on my talk page but I'm not complaining. The reason TERF can't redirect to TERF (acronym) is WP:MISPLACED--basically, we never ever redirect from X to X (thing). A move from X to X (thing) is implicitly (or explicitly) with the goal to redirect X elsewhere. Red Slash 15:25, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
A very good point, page moves can't be discussed on user talk pages. Slatersteven (talk) 17:30, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Updating the links is something that people will do as needed. Most of the time when TERF is linked, it's about the ideology instead of the acronym, anyway. I wouldn't worry about it Red Slash 15:28, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Page moves should not be discussed on a users talk pages. Slatersteven (talk) 13:32, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
    • In this case it was not a discussion of the page move itself, but an editor asking for advice on how to implement the outcome that had already been decided in the above consensus here. That discussion could have taken place here as well, but since they posted a note here about the discussion I don't really see a huge problem. (I agree that it was appropriate to move the discussion here.) --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 14:11, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Note, this move is being discussed (and criticised) at Talk:Gender-critical feminism/Archive 3#TERF redirect. Please comment there. -- Colin°Talk 12:26, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

ill consensus?

It appears that the current "consensus" regarding the renaming of "TERF" to "TERF (acronym)" and redirection of "TERF" to "Gender-critical feminism" is unstable, even causing issues because it is unclear whether existing links to TERF should link to the term or the ideology. The ongoing, active, controversial and highly distributed (three pages, now down to two again) discussions suggest to me that in fact no consensus exists, and that the initial actions (move, redirect) should never have been performed in the first place.

Additionally, the fact that the ramifications of what to do with existing links to TERF are being discussed after the action has already been performed suggests to me that this is a procedural failure, that the discussion has been closed prematurely and that the only way to address the issues caused by it (and prevent this discussion going in circles forever) is to do a clean revert and bring the discussion(s) back to this page, "TERF".

Last but not least, it is my interpretation of the things I have observed so far that this in attempt to solve an intra-article (topical) discussion on an administrative level, which cannot and will not work and only kicks the can down the road. To me, it appears that what occurred here is an unintended (lite) content forking as a way to resolve a longstanding and apparently unresolvable dispute, which is understandable but nevertheless against our guidelines. It should be remedied as soon as possible. TucanHolmes (talk) 10:49, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

As I noted elsewhere, the main article on the ideology and movement covers the topic in its entirety. That includes terminology, which is briefly summarized per WP:SUMMARY style and elaborated on in an in-depth article on the history of the acronym. In this sense, the articles can be compared to Donald Trump and Personal and business legal affairs of Donald Trump (or any other article on an aspect/facet of Trump's life). Therefore, the main article can never be wrong as a target, but if a source/article is specifically addressing TERF as a word, then the acronym article might be a more relevant target. But in most cases sources are primarily referring to the ideology or movement itself (including adherents of the ideology, that may include groups, people or events), not to the history of the word. My guess is that most links now point to the most relevant article, but editors can change them to the acronym article on a case by case basis if that article is the more relevant target. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 16:16, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
TERF does not mean "Gender critical feminism". It is not exclusively used for "gender critical feminists".
A page for the term "TERF" that explained the dispute and gave people the option to go to a separate article about gender-critical feminism was fine. When crowds of masked men chant "shut your stupid f***ing mouth you stupid f***ing TERF" as they seem to do fairly regularly these days they are not offering a reasoned critique of a specific feminist ideology.
The OED Definition which you keep disregarding gives two, equally weighted definitions, one technically explaining the acronym refers specifically to radical feminists, and one generally about hostility to trans people. Neither of these support your contention because "Gender critical feminists" are not de facto radical feminists, and "hostility to trans people" is not an ideology.
Google returns only the general sense as a definition.
a person whose views on gender identity are considered hostile to transgender people, or who opposes social and political policies designed to be inclusive of transgender people.
In common usage, TERF is a derogatory synonym for transphobe, directed mostly at women. The other dictionary definitions that come back either have narrow definitions that are not synonymous with "gender critical feminism":
an advocate of radical feminism who does not believe that transgender people's gender identities are legitimate, and who is hostile to the inclusion of trans women in the feminist movement.
Or have woolly definitions that don't support your contention:
A shorthand to describe one cohort of feminists who self-identify as radical and are unwilling to recognize trans women as sisters, unlike other feminists who do
Or this:
The term describes feminists who are transphobic
Wiktionary says:
a radical feminist who does not consider trans women to be women, or thinks they should not be included in female spaces or organisations, and who considers trans men to be women; a transphobic person.
Neither of these support your position.
You're taking a derogatory term that simply means "transphobic" and directing it at a tiny group of people (gender-critical feminists) who regard it as a slur, and in so doing you have sidelined the article which explained the contested nature of the term and the entire debate over whether it is or isn't a slur.
The evidence supplied to support any of this was not forthcoming before the move, the target page was never notified, and what's been offered after the fact has invariably been inadequate or wrong.
You keep referring to "the ideology" as the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC but the primary topic is that this is a derogatory word used to call people transphobic, and that isn't an ideology.
If you wanted to redirect "TERF Ideology" or "TERFism" to GCF, like "trans exclusionary radical feminism" does, it would possibly make some sense. But TERF should go back to its own page.
A clean revert is needed. Void if removed (talk) 22:19, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
Adding: the very first citation on this page states:
Moreover, once the term was popularized, being trans-exclusionary and therefore liable to being labelled a TERF did not necessitate being a feminist at all, with the term also being used to describe trans-exclusionary positions from right-wing or religious perspectives.
Which undermines the claim that the term can be directed anywhere but here, since its usage is broad these days.
It also says:
First a word on terminology. I use 'TERF' as a representation of what might be called the original trans-exclusionary feminist view, which I outline in the following section, and "gender critical' to represent more contemporary presentations of feminist trans-exclusion. I use "trans-exclusionary feminism' as an umbrella term encompassing both. As will be discussed, the application of these terms is complex and political. They represent positions that are interconnected and often interchangeable, indistinguishable and/or contradictory. Acknowledging these enmeshments as I advance, there is enough of a separable figurative TERF position from that of a figurative gender critical one, at least in how they are presented, to be usefully employed.
Again, the very first citation on this page draws a distinction between TERF and gender-critical, while acknowledging they are complex and interrelated.
Directing TERF to gender-critical as if it means the same thing is wrong. As Thurlow points out, even if gender-critical is an evolution of earlier trans-exclusionary feminisms, they are still not the same, and it is beholden on this page to explain what trans-exclusionary radical feminism is rather than force the two together like this. She is mostly saying that gender-critical sounds more reasonable but also highlights instances where the groups are critical of each other. Even to a source that is critical of both the terms are recognised as not synonymous. Void if removed (talk) 14:31, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
Please, as I've already stated, this is not the appropriate place to discuss this. TucanHolmes (talk) 17:42, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
Yes, apologies for continuing.
I am curious though what you would suggest as a way forward. You allude to a clean revert but I don't see a procedural route there? Void if removed (talk) 08:39, 18 October 2023 (UTC)