7
votes
Margaret Atwood TERF Twitter controversy
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- Title
- Margaret Atwood shares TERF article talking about "banning the word woman", denies it's written by a TERF, is going down the J.K. rabbit hole
- Published
- Oct 19 2021
- Word count
- 898 words
Honestly, as a lot of the comments on Reddit are pointing out, I don't see Atwood's sharing of an article as a big problem. I mean, first of all, sharing an article is not an evil act - spreading TERFy views is bad, but it's not that bad to share one article.
The problem is that this is almost certain to be the beginning of a Rowling-like spiral. Atwood promoting this kind of rhetoric will lead to a bunch of people saying, "Why, Ms. Atwood, are you promoting hateful rhetoric? Do not do that." The terven will then point fingers and say, "Look at these awful trans activists trying to stifle and silence the voices of women." It will become a flashpoint for all the anti-trans rhetoric we already see, and whether she wants to or not, Atwood will become a symbol of terfery, unless she speaks up very strongly against it.
I get that this is just an obvious counterpoint to tear down a bad argument, but if a trans person doesn't want bottom surgery for whatever reason (and there are good reasons: surgery is not risk-free; outcomes vary in, erm, quality; and infertility is a guaranteed outcome), that also doesn't make them not trans.
Those types of respectability, "anti-toxic" articles are so hard to fight. It sucks. As soon as you try to refute them, or get a little angry because you're being attacked and/or misrepresented, woops! You've "proved" them right! You're just an angry activist who shouldn't be listened to, like the article says.
Totally different topic, but I see it after publication of articles about my chronic illness. (Some doctors who think it is psychogenic call patients "militant activists" for disagreeing.) And after all this time, I don't know how you fight it effectively without getting your words twisted to prove their point. Bad policy and bad science need correcting, but if you're labeled as "bad" for trying to do so, those corrections get dismissed.
Yeah, these kind of assimilationist white trans woman who equate surgeries with seriousness are the worst.
TL;DR: Margaret Atwood shared a TERF-y Toronto Star opinion piece. Many people are very upset and wondering why and if it is indicative of deeper views.
This comment on Reddit was intriguing:
The article in the Toronto Star seems to be paywalled. I wonder how many have read it?
I've read the DiManno article and it's not particularly coherent in my opinion. I posted an article written by a trans person which pretty well rebuts the whole thing, but in short, she's complaining about not being allowed to call herself a woman, but has essentially no evidence to show that this is something that's actually happening. And then she blames this non-phenomenon on trans people.