TERFLandia How the Global Terven Will Win the Gender Wars

Just over a decade ago, and gaining steam thereafter, a massive debate began raging about what a woman is, whether or not sex is real, and if it is, whether it matters less than claimed ‘gender identities’. This debate has been raging globally. It has been raging loudly for those of us in the middle of it, but much more quietly for the multitudes who do not yet quite understand it. As the contributors from around the world explain, the debate started in the 1990s, but it took some time to erupt in the mainstream. These are the ‘gender wars’, or, if you like, the ‘trans wars’. The ‘gender wars’ arose because women and men who call themselves ‘transgender’ started to impose their beliefs on others. Men who call themselves women (‘transgender women’) demanded that women and girls agree with them. They demanded access to female-only spaces such as toilets, locker rooms, and changing rooms. They demanded access to lesbian spaces such as clubs and dating apps. They demanded to be permitted to participate and compete in women’s sports. They wanted access to everything that is meant to be exclusively for women and girls. And so, out of the wilderness grew a community of women labeled ‘TERFs’. The acronym originally stood for ‘trans exclusionary radical feminist’. It was meant to refer to the radical feminists who, early on, fought the idea that some men could be women if they put on a dress, or if they had their penises removed, or even if they just said they were women (self-ID). Many women would go on to reclaim the acronym for ourselves. We are the TERFS, or its plural, Terven. We are all over the world, and we are the women winning the gender wars on behalf of women and girls as a sex class and on behalf of the material reality of sex.