Nonsense. this is exactly what TERFs wanted and I've seen them celebrating on Twitter. We were rapidly heading towards acceptance for trans people a decade ago when i decided to transition. This whole hate movement, as we see it now, was booted up by the TERF/GC movement by influencing the media, flooding the discourse with fake information and straight up lies + providing the academic underpinning so that they may appear respectable; influencing bodies like the Charities Commission, The Equality and Human Rights Commission, founding any number of organisations/charities designed to water down or over turn good practice that had been long established, flooding schools with advice designed to isolate and cut off support for young trans people and to challenge anti bullying initiatives that were becoming common in primary schools a decade ago, trying to destroy Mermaids and Stonewall, two organisations that have been instrumental in improving conditions for trans people in the UK, creating the appalling LGB Alliance which only ever attacks trans people, attacking and forcing resignations of high profile trans women, influencing government - and we see now the prime minster repeating TERF dog whistles; joining up with the far right, particularly in the US. I will never forget and i will never be gaslighted into believing otherwise, i saw it all with my own eyes.
Most of those articles mentioned earlier, that appeared in the media were written by TERFs/GCs directly or inspired by previous articles that had been written by TERFs in the media. Have you seen the attacks that occur on any organisation or media that is anything less than utterly abhorrent to trans women? They're made potential trans allies scared to speak up. There are now so many fake facts and made up stats out there about trans people i don't think we'll be getting back to where we were for a couple of generations if at all.
I pressed like on the post in question because I do think its important to acknowledge the broader culture of violence stuff, and rampant sexism in all its forms.
But I do think it tries much too hard to diminish the role that TERF stuff has played in poisoning the well, and I should maybe unlike it for that reason.
I suppose if the sexism and violent culture stuff has been eradicated or very much diminished on every front over decades then the TERF stuff wouldnt have had the necessary fuel with which to gain any traction in the first place. One of the hideously unfair and dangerous facets of the whole political mess is that trans people are being forced to suffer the consequences of stuff thats been caused by failures in other domains, stuff which they are victims of too, not perpetrators. They are being asked to pay the price for others failures that have never been resolved, shit that has been casting a long shadow over a very long period of time.
But then there are other sorts of victims too. And some issues with the limitations of identity politics, its flaws that can lead to political dead-ends, some of which it has been possible to acknowledge and discuss here over the years.
All of that and more has been exploited to set people who should be on the same side against each other, and to impose barriers that enable certain forms of privilege and power to be retained unchallenged, to restrict progress to a narrower slice of the big picture that doesnt actually threaten the status quo in every key area. This doesnt make all the victories for progress totally superficial, but it does limit the gains that are on offer, and leaves some people dangerously exposed and vulnerable.
And there are other sorts of opportunists out there too, such as the socially conservative who've suffered many defeats, who have seen the territory that they can possibly claim is not bigoted and unacceptable to the mainstream shrink. With the trans issues they think there is still room left to play their old games, to indulge in a form of narrow hate that has not yet been fully expunged from acceptable mainstream discourse. Much of the right wing press are doing a similar thing in this country - the powers they serve are still entrenched, but some forms of mainstream progress and the evolution of values over the decades has left them shorter on ideological props with which to motivate their base. They cannot be quite so overt with some forms of their sexism these days, so they've had to get slightly more sneaky about it, and they've seized on the 'trans debate' as a useful wedge, and as if it were one of the last few dog whistles they can resort to without excessive risk of it instantly blowing up in their face.
www.vice.com
I'm seeing very moving tributes at vigils on my feeds. 
