Oxfam has backtracked and apologised after posting a controversial Pride cartoon across its social media platforms.
The international charity faced backlash online after using “offensive” term Terf in the advert, which said that “a more equal future is possible” when “all gender identities and expressions have agency over their lives”.
The advert posted the words alongside a cartoon clip, in which a voice is heard asking: “How are you marking Pride Month this year, while LGBTQIA+ people around the world are deprived of basic safety?
“Not protected by laws, preyed on by hate groups online and offline, discriminated against at work, deprived of opportunities and pushed to the margins.”
Social media users slammed the advert and said that the woman demonised in the clip, a redhead wearing a badge that said “TERF”, looked similar to Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who has been outspoken on trans issues in the past.
As others have noted - is the image a coincidence? pic.twitter.com/yzYwPkydO0
— Ｐｅｔｅｒ Ｌｙｎａｓ (@peterlynas) June 6, 2023
The organisation was forced to come out and refute that the character was based on the author, saying there was “no intention by Oxfam or the film-makers… to have portrayed any particular person or people.”
But what does the term Terf mean and why has it provoked so much controversy?
What is a Terf?
The terminology appears in the dictionary and is described as “a person whose views on gender identity are considered hostile to transgender people, or who opposes social and political policies designed to be inclusive of transgender people.
It is an acronym that stands for a ‘Transgender Exclusionary Radical Feminist’.
It is believed it was initially made up by a feminist blogger named Viv Smythe, who spoke to the Guardian about the term in 2018.
She used the phrase to describe a subgroup of radical feminists that didn’t view trans women’s rights equally to the rest of women’s rights in the feminist movement and said: “I have no control over how others use a word (as it has now become) that came about simply to save typing a longer phrase out over and over again — a shorthand to describe one cohort of feminists who self-identify as radical and are unwilling to recognise trans women as sisters, unlike those of us who do.”
The word ‘Terf’ is commonly now used to describe any person who believes that trans women’s rights should not be counted towards feminist movements or who believe that trans women’s rights are not as valid as those of ‘cis’ women.
Why is Terf a controversial word?
The word is commonly seen as a slur or a disgraceful or aggressive word to use as an insult nowadays.
Chair of the Social and Political Philosophy of Language at the University of Waterloo Jennifer Saul told The Conversation how historically the word was used as an adjective but now can be considered derogatory because it is “typically combined with anger and retaliation”.
The scholar wrote: “An argument turns on the fact that some of the people using the term Terf combine it with angry, and even at times violent and abusive, rhetoric. But many terms are regularly combined with angry, or even violent or abusive rhetoric: Murderer, fascist, racist, Democrat, Republican, Brexiter, Remainer, Tory. That doesn’t make them slurs.
“Terf is not a slur. Nonetheless, I don’t use the word because it’s inaccurate and misleading.”
What do Terfs believe?
A Terf believes that what defines a woman is mostly biology. Someone born with female genitalia who later menstruates is considered to grow up as a woman in their ideology, and they go against the fact that those born with male genitalia can later identify as a biological woman.
Terfs tend to view trans women as a separate group with needs different from ‘cis’ women because they weren’t “born into the same struggles as women” and believe that even a biological male who identifies as a woman will still continue to have some form of male privilege, even beyond a gender transition.
Many believe Terfs should be referred to as an Adult Human Female, in reference to the documentary of the same name.
Other Terfs believe feminism should include all, whether they are born a biological female or not, support trans rights, but are against radical trans ideology and its impact on girls’ and women’s rights.
