TERFs Are A Satire Of Themselves: Responding To The New Worst Article I’ve Ever Read

One of the defining features of the TERF movement is its ability to constantly attempt to conflate the most reactionary sexist ideology with even the most basic support for transgender rights. It was through this very tactic I first discovered Pamela Paul, who has since become a regular target of mine. More recently, J.K. Rowling compared a meme of an anime girl telling TERFs to “shut the fuck up” to a comic making fun of supporters of women’s suffrage. (Side note: I find this especially ironic given I’ve had multiple TERFs tell me exactly that, one even said I should have my Medium blog shut down because of my criticism of transphobia.)

I mention this because on 1/28/2023 a woman named Catherine Bennett published an article in The Guardian with the headline “Forget Andrew Tate — what about the host of misogynists in Labour’s ranks?” Of course, Andrew Tate is an active misogynist who is currently in prison for sex trafficking — something which the article itself notes — something which the article notes, as it does talk at length about Tate’s words against women.

The specific incident that caused Bennett to write this article was a comment Matthew Doyle — the head of communications for the Labor Party — made about MP Rosie Duffield:

Or as the Labour party’s director of communications, Matthew Doyle, was heard saying last week, after a woman MP started playing up, spend more time in your constituency rather than “hanging out with JK Rowling”.

I think it’s fair to say that most people understood Doyle was calling Duffield out of touch with the people she’s supposed to represent, not that talking to women is bad. Looking through Duffield’s Wikipedia page — I know that’s not the best source, but I’m on short notice here — it seems clear that most of what she’s known for is criticizing transgender people and their rights as opposed to actually helping the people of her area. However, I guess this idea that politicians in a represented democracy should — you know — represent the interests of their people and not go along with the whims of a popular fantasy author is sexism now:

If Labour’s responses to its woman problem (as Duffield rightly calls it) can never compete with Tate’s videos, its progressive approach to misogyny is arguably more instructive for men who would like to shut women up but cannot afford a Romania-based chick compound. Men who…