TERF Hate in the Global South

(image courtesy: Titi Nicola/CC B-SA 4.0) 

By Carolina Rodriguez Mayo

Presenting gender as a scientific fact is a racist legacy of colonialism…

TERF is an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminists, those who exclude trans people from their collective fight for gender equality. Trans-exclusionary people and groups are spreading hatred through institutions and communities across the global south. Because transphobia has roots in racist and colonialist conceptions about human beings, the discussion of gender cannot be separated from racism.

A current report published by Volcánicas called out TERFs like Yan María Yaoyólotl Castro. Castro is a Mexican philosopher from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and co-founder of the Lesbos Organization. She believes the current feminist movement is letting down cisgender women because it no longer puts them in the center of conversations. 

Carolina Sanín is a Colombian writer and proud TERF. She uses her large social media following to say things like, “In a not-so-distant future, as soon as uterus transplants for men are perfected, the extermination of women (meaning human females born with a vagina and a uterus) will be carried out. It will be the next holocaust; I know this for a fact, and I do not care if anyone thinks I´m crazy.”

Lugones explains that white cisgender men exploit others, separating them from the communities they oppress. It also gave them the authority to wield ultimate power in race and gender dynamics. Therefore, those who believe that womanhood is a “biological” trait also uphold oppressive class and race structures. Especially cisgender TERFs…

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Carolina Rodríguez Mayo is an avid traveler, educator, and writer. She has experience as a teacher, translator, editor and writer.