wastle

> she has been funding hate groups and calling for trans people to be physically attacked

She has done neither of these things you claim. Please refrain from spreading misinformation.

> Are you seriously now claiming that TERFs aren't mostly found on the right? Ever heard of a left-wing TERF?

Yes of course, and I know several personally. It's a fairly common set of views in the UK.

Over here it's not like it is the US where there's such a strong party political divide over this issue and as a consequence feminist groups (like WoLF, mentioned in the Wikipedia citations of the section you linked) decided to appeal to politicians on the right because the left has been so captured by trans ideological beliefs. Though not all on the left. If you're interested, look up Kara Dansky, radical feminist and lifelong Democrat, who has been trying to convince her party for years of the case for women's sex-based rights.

You speak of "all these so-called TERFs", but the article you linked, in the very first sentence, qualifies this with "some":

"Some trans-exclusionary radical feminists have allied with conservative or far-right groups and politicians who oppose legislation that would expand transgender rights in the United States."

As for "TERFs are consistently found to be supporting right-wing candidates", which you claim, the two articles in the citations for the Wikipedia quote above talk about how right-wing groups in the US are listening to feminists on this specific issue. So really it's the opposite way around to what you're saying.

> JK Rowling accused Nigel Farage of being too "woke"

No she didn't.

What she actually said, in response to someone expressing surprise that Farage supports incarcerating males in the female prison estate, was this:

"Genuinely surprised anyone's shocked by this. Just because huge swathes of the left have revealed themselves to be dripping in misogyny doesn't mean a massive chunk of the right doesn't remain exactly as indifferent to women's rights and issues as it's always been."

She also wrote:

"All those people who tell me support for women's single sex spaces means I must support Reform (which I don't) appear to share exactly the same opinion on women's single-sex spaces as Reform."

Sorry but you've mischaracterised and misquoted her words, and used this to reach a false conclusion.

Hitler was a vegetarian. This does not imply that vegetarians in general are siding with Nazis. To assert that would be an error of logic.

You're making a similarly incorrect fallacy of association between TERFs and anti-feminist conservatives.

That's not true. JK Rowling is a good counterexample to your claim, as are the women who brought the FWS case to the UK's Supreme Court (and won), and as are so many other women whose feminist advocacy involves this topic.

> > The actual divisive issue is whether people who say they are the opposite sex to what they really are should be granted access to spaces that are designated for the sole use of the opposite sex.

> And of course that shouldn't matter for an online virtual space.

Depends on the space. It will matter sometimes. For instance: pregnancy forums, prostate cancer support groups.

But I agree this shouldn't be relevant for online spaces used to organise work on software development projects. These, almost always, are not intended as single-sex spaces, nor as venues for discussing people's differing views on this topic.

> It's not a "political stance" to say that people should call others by their preferred name and pronouns. It's just basic human decency to do that

I think that's more a philosophical stance. Appealing to "basic human decency" seems too subjective, both culturally and personally. There are many perspectives on what this might mean in practice.

Unfortunately the pronouns issue is difficult to avoid when communicating in English, because we have separate words to refer to female and male, and for most English speakers it's natural to use these to describe a person's sex. Overriding it because someone prefers (or demands) an opposite sex pronoun, or even some esoteric pronoun outside of the usual closed set, can be difficult even if that's something you've chosen to accede to. It's like a variation of the Stroop test but in everyday speech.

There are some reasonable arguments to be made for choosing otherwise too, though I expect you probably would not agree.

What do you see it as?

In the UK, where I am from, the counter to the trans ideological position tends to be from a feminist-influenced perspective, emphasising women's sex-based rights.

No, typically this issue is focused around spaces like female-only refuges and safe spaces, locker rooms and changing rooms, prisons, sports competitions, and so on. The divisive point being whether males who say they are female should be refused or granted access.

That you have chosen to characterise this with wording like "anti-human bias" and "demanding human rights apply" further illustrates my point.

The actual divisive issue is whether people who say they are the opposite sex to what they really are should be granted access to spaces that are designated for the sole use of the opposite sex.

This gets relabelled by activists for the trans ideological cause with phrases like "the right to participate in society" and even "the right to exist", but these are so far from what is actually being demanded that it's essentially just misinformation and false appeal to emotion.

Yes and gave a prestigious award, that was intended to honour women, to a man who calls himself a woman: https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/09/28/the-lib-dems-pratfa...

> In particular, there is no major political party in the UK that supports trans rights, which is devastating to that community there.

I believe this is incorrect. No party has said they have any intention of removing "gender reassignment" as a protected characteristic from the Equality Act. This law provides protection and offers legal recourse from being discriminated against by employers, service providers, and so on. Which, to cover those individuals with this characteristic, is the most reasonable consensus interpretation of "trans rights".

I disagree with your first and third bullet points, as explained in my previous comment.

> If I call you a fucking asshole

Well. Aren't neopronouns getting a bit extreme these days.

Oh so it does make a difference now?

Well then, consider that it really is not my problem if these males are offended by the simple word "he".

Have you heard of the Stroop effect?

More to the point, I've no interest whatsoever in encouraging a man's fantasy "woman" identity, quite the opposite in fact.

Perhaps these men would consider giving women and girls the basic decency and respect of refraining from such misogynistic appropriation.

They could even pick another word to describe themselves, given that "woman" is already taken. What's so hard about using a different word?

If it's just a word and makes no difference then there should be no issue with using "he" to refer to any and all individuals of the male sex.

> If you keep repeating this, maybe you'll convince some people

I have helped some people understand the full impact of such policy, yes.

In my experience, it depends on whether the person I'm talking to has an interest in the wellbeing of women and girls, and is even slightly open to challenging their current understanding with new information.

> dishonest and intellectually bankrupt

Evidence-based and built upon feminist principles, actually.

> In the sense that the vast majority of all feminists of any kind are on the left? Is there such a thing as a rightwing feminist? JK Rowling?

There are some feminists who reject the left-right divide and don't place themselves anywhere on it, as a response to the male-dominated political system. It's not a very popular view but it exists.

JK Rowling isn't one of them, she has left-wing views and describes herself as such.

> instead of talking about the person in the article's very real concern about being discriminated against while working or even being attacked while socializing, we're talking about some extreme hypothetical about women's prisons.

Sadly it is not hypothetical.

If you believe that supporting gender self-id positively addresses the concerns of males like the blog author, then you should also be willing to consider the documented and evidenced harms to women and girls.

And certainly if you wish to understand why there is such significant opposition to policy that prioritizes gender identity over sex.

> Also, it's weird how often people are completely silent about the treatment of female prisoners... until it's related to transgender issues. Or female athletes for that matter. If you were actually worried about it, there are probably bigger fish to fry.

One might also wonder why policymakers haven't fried these bigger fish that would improve conditions for female prisoners and female athletes, and instead have chosen to introduce gender self-id policy which demonstrably harms women and girls while privileging males.

It's not a left versus right issue, not really. Most of the feminists arguing against gender self-id are on the left.

This isn't a gotcha either. When the horrific outcomes of males being transferred into women's prisons is brought up, it's typically being done to explain why gender self-id policy is so harmful to women.

Often, the person advocating for gender self-id hasn't spent any time considering this impact at all. The detriment to women and girls isn't even on their radar. So it's worth explaining.

It changes views, too. I've personally witnessed several people rapidly undoing their support for gender self-id when they see evidence of the deleterious consequences. Though more in real life than online.

Conversations like those are the reason why support for policy that prioritizes gender identity over sex is dropping like a stone.

This is also worth reading:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170124

In summary, Conway and others conducted a years-long campaign of harassment against psychology professor J. Michael Bailey. This included several attempts to get him fired from his job, a series of vexatious complaints to his licensing board, and - most infamously of all - posting photos online of his children suggesting that he had raped them and asking if his young daughter was "a cock-starved exhibitionist".

It was highly vindictive, highly unhinged behavior. They disagreed with his published work and rather than attempt to refute it, attacked him personally and extensively.

Yes, there's room for people with all sorts of beliefs in a tolerant society.

The problem is in trying to force others to kneel to their beliefs and, worst of all, trying to take rights away from others - women and girls especially.

Yours is a very typically male point of view.

Female athletes having to complete against trans-identifying males tend to disagree that this is frivolous issue. As do many others.