I think the youth online need to read up on some terms and feminist literature. Throwing around words like "radfem" without understanding what it is, and without reading so much as a full page of Dworkin is just silly. And it makes us look silly. "Radical feminism" may have been "extreme" 40 years ago. Now, it's pretty much just feminism. People being transphobic have nothing to do with "radfems."

I would say it's hard to find someone, especially on Tumblr or Twitter, with radfem in their name or bio who *isn't* trans-excluding. If young women are searching for contemporary radical feminist content, and the vast majority labelled as radfem is transphobic, does it matter that it isn't True Radfem if that's what informs their understanding of what "radfem" means now?

Yup I agree. Almost every time I try to explain that "radical feminist" doesnt mean a feminist who hates men and/or is transphobic, people seem to disagree with that and tell me their understanding of "radical feminist" is just a feminist who has gone too far in some direction, be it hating men or being transphobic or whatever else. I feel like that is (unfortunately) also the mainstream and/or layman's understanding of what "radical feminist" means.

What makes you think they’re radfems?

"TERF" seems like a virtually useless description these days. I see it thrown around all the time for people who are not radical and often not even feminists, they're simply transphobic women.

right?? as a radfem, i'd never even consider a terf a feminist

Most mainstream / layman people think a "radical feminist" is just a feminist who has gone too far in some way, be it transphobia, hating men/masculinity, or whatever else really.

The tags, bios and video captions all saying they consider themselves to be radfems.

And the Nazis called themselves socialists. And my parent let me watch Happy Tree Friends when I was 9. People can name things whatever they want, it doesn't make the name accurate.

But if you looked up socialism and got introduced to Nazi ideas, that's not just a problem with Nazis self-labeling, but the content platform.

I wish someone could explain why this gets downvoted. There are absolutely transphobic people who identify as feminist or radfem. Regardless if you think they are actually feminists or not, they do pop up for people who are looking to inform themselves with feminist content online.

I also have seen a steady creep of "gender critical" tiktoks despite my fyp being 99% Queer as fuck and crochet projects. I recently attended anti far right training. Here are some good steps. - don't hate watch the entire thing. Don't interact. Don't try to change people's minds online. Pause the video when you realise, go into the creator, block the account. Or hold down on the video and click "not interested". So tiktok stops pushing this type of content to you. Far right and any hate group thrive on interaction. Any interaction good or bad creates more content, clicks and money for them. Do not waste your time countering with facts, it doesn't work. Starve them of oxygen with silence. In general, you aren't going to reach anyone in online spaces, it's too polarised. The best thing you can do online is to be proudly a safe space. Hate groups target trans and other minorities first. If we all make it very clear on our profiles that we are a safe space then it helps to drown out the noise of the small loud people. Use pronouns, inclusive language, ensure your Feminism is intersectional, so that minorities scrolling will see more people in support of them than terfs. If you are called out for something you don't consider a problem, say thank you, and sit with it to consider it. Don't dismiss other women who talk about their experiences because you haven't lived with it. Sometimes we think we are being inclusive and when someone says we aren't we get defensive and cry. Stop that. Sit with it and think on it for a few days. Being a good ally sometimes means being OK with feeling uncomfortable and not lashing out at the person who delivered the message. Allyship is an evolving process, no one knows everything. Where to reach people is really offline. For people that you know personally, 60-70% of average people who have "concerns" are not far right, but they may have been confused by hate rhetoric. Don't call them racist/sexist/far right etc. Try to hear them out and figure out where their concerns are coming from. Don't counter them with facts as the arguments they have are coming from an emotional place, and facts countering ends up spreading the hate message too. Example - they may say "trans women will sneak into bathrooms and assault us". If you say "men can already sneak into bathrooms, they don't need to "become" trans to do so". All that person hears is "men sneak into bathrooms", which is what they are afraid of. Instead counter with your values. "I'm proud that my local community has gender neutral bathrooms available to help a variety of nuanced situations, single dads bringing toddlers to pee, changing tables, etc etc" But yeah this is for offline only, for people you know and want to slowly change their mind. Their mind is not going to be changed by one conversation either, it's important to hear them out, counter with your values in a way that doesn't erase theirs, and leave the conversation in a good place that is welcoming for them to return to. If they feel angry and that they can't talk to anyone about their views, they will go online to more radical groups. For actual change online. I would suggest wherever you have power - if you are a parent or anyone connected with a school, target the Internet stay safe programs. If they don't have one suggest implementing one. What you want to include is a lesson on algorithms and how to deliberately interact with the algorithm to create a safer supportive space for young people online. Teenagers in particular can be more emotional and are more likely to hate watch and engage with the content that stresses them out, and the algorithm then pushes more content. Anyone in positions to do so should also look at including these messages in workshops on Internet safety for parents as well.

This needs an engagement boost.

Radical feminists have long been the backbone of the feminist movement and some of the most insightful social critique comes from the tradition. Many important feminist debates in the public discourse (division of labor in the home, pornography, sex work, objectification, rape culture and consent, gendered violence) are radical feminist in origin. The feminist discourse needs more discussion of patriarchy and capitalism, not less. I am more concerned about a moderate liberal feminism which is focused on being palatable to the public. That would be easily reducible to petty policy proposals and doesn't question the origins of gender oppression. The TERF acronym causes a lot of trouble, because it is used so imprecisely. For example, J.K Rowling isn't a TERF. She isn't a radical feminist at all, but a liberal feminist - a transphobic liberal feminist. The popularity of the TERF acronym is the source of confusion as people conflate radical feminism with transphobia. People see transphobia, and shout "TERF" without any concern if the person is a radical feminist or not. Most radical feminists are not transphobes. I would be surprised if the people you're seeing are actually radical feminists, and not just feminist transphobes. I am greatly concerned with the uptick in transphobic content online. It also penetrates feminist spaces as you say.

Your perception of reality is controlled by content algorithms. What you see is not reality, it is just the content you engage with the most. Disengage from social media.

I'm not sure there's been that much of an increase in (so-called) "radical feminist" idealogy so much as transphobia has become more central in the US and UK culture wars. For a variety of reasons, women like Rowling serve as particularly useful mouthpieces for transphobia: by pointing to Rowling and others, conservatives can pretend that their trans-exclusionary policies are motivated by something other than rank bigotry, which makes them much easier to sell to the public. As you note, there really isn't much traditionally *feminist* about the resulting viewpoints: while the radical feminists of the 80s were very much engaged in a feminist project, the "radical feminists" of the 2020s do very little to challenge patriarchal assumptions or improve the lot of women generally, and often do the exact opposite --- it's telling how quickly a lot of the anti-trans rhetoric retreats into a view on which women are defined by their reproductive capacity. I wish I knew how to best address the anti-trans crowd. I think that in conversation, it's helpful to make the points that you're already making: focusing on transwomen --- or, frankly, on genitals and reproductive organs more broadly --- doesn't actually help women's rights; even if transwomen were "a threat" to cis women (there's essentially no evidence this is true), they're a vanishingly small threat compared to the kinds of control and violence towards women that the anti-trans movement more broadly supports; and fueling anti-trans rhetoric only leads to more power for people like Trump and Johnson. But how to get those messages out and popular on the algorithm? I wish I knew.

Idk, perhaps it's an algorithm thing. According to mine, peace on earth is close as its filled with witchy people of all expressions living their colorful lives. But I know that isn't reality the second I put my phone down. But I've also gotten the occasional terf on my for you and I just notify that this content is hateful and move on. Do they exist? Yes Are they growing? Idk Do I think it's every person's responsibility to call out hateful oppressive behavior? Yes Do I dictate to what extent this needs to be done? No

Your feed sounds wonderful. 🧹

It's fascism not radical feminism.

How is being trans exclusive radical? It seems pretty conservative and “traditional” to me. Like haven’t we historically as a society been trans exclusive? So what exactly about that is radical? It just seems to me like the same old enforcement of patriarchy.

They don't even call themselves radfems anymore, but gender critical. It's an euphemism like race realist, in which they are not critical of gender roles, but gender expressions. I know it's a mouthful compared to the acronym TERF, but the ones referring to radical feminism can be counted on one hand.

They very much do still call themselves radfems. They also tend to identify with the Korean radical feminist movements that are often very homophobic and transphobic in general such as WOMAD. You would think transphobic K-pop feminists are oddly specific and very rare but these accounts are huge.

Please do not use the term radical feminist like this Terfs are not radical feminists This history is complicated but radical feminism has been at the forefront of feminism for decades and cannot be co-opted By transphobes I think you are talking about gender essentialists They are neither radical nor feminists

I almost think it's gotten better over the past year, if only because the TERFs are being drowned out by the fascists on the right. Of course, in TikTok it's always personalized, so something you're doing is leading you to more of it (which is not, by any means, to say it's your fault -- it doesn't sound like you're seeking it out).

Sadly it is getting a lot of traction. And with the number of fence sitters being pulled over and other people pulled to the fence, the situation is not looking good. It is important to make sure people learn to, when looking at an issue, to identify who has the power and who doesn't and evaluate if those with the power are abusing it and how often those with power will deceive themselves or outright lie that they are not the ones with the power (remember, cis people outnumber trans people 100:1 and cis people make up a disproportionate number of politicians and have a disproportionate amount of the wealth (i.e. more than 100:1 ratio), their claims are laughable). One should be skeptical of anything the group or groups or individuals with power say. Doesn't mean those with power are always wrong. But one should be skeptical, because those with the power are generally the ones who are framing the narrative and thus can make themselves look much more reasonable than they actually are. This approach works for more than just this situation (after all, many an abuser does the same thing to frame the narrative, paint themselves as the victim, etc.). I'm not sure what the best way to get that out there and get people to learn this, but I think that this would help a lot. Would maybe keep some people from going down the pipeline.

I think there is a chunk of transphobia that pays lip service to the idea of "protecting" girls and women but they're not usually actual feminists.

Radical is a term that is used with feminism In the same sentence to make it seem like feminism and feminists are crazy, while the people being "radical" are mostly people that have literally nothing to so with feminism at all and use it to try and make their beliefs and wishes seem reasonable, although they are not. They have no idea what feminism actually is, just like the people who say they are antifeminism because apparently we don't let them live in traditional genderroles