A reproductive justice advocate?

It’s not just a Twitter thread, it’s also an article at Rewire News.

At Rewire News Group, we hope you’re able to safely enjoy the holiday away from toxic relatives, but we also know that might not be possible. Toxic relatives come in many forms: the Trump supporter, the devil’s advocate, the COVID-19 denier.

There’s also the TERF: the trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

Let’s back up. Let’s think about this unargued assertion that Trump supporters and devil’s advocates and COVID-19 deniers are “toxic.” Let’s think about it and decide that it’s self-righteous adolescent garbage, and that it is, ironically, dehumanizing in just the way much of Trump’s rhetoric is. The views of the listed groups may or may not be toxic, figuratively speaking, but that doesn’t make the people who hold the views toxic. Calling people “toxic” is itself very trumpish.

The author of this venomous article and the venomous tweets is Caroline Reilly.

Caroline Reilly is a legal fellow with Rewire News Group. She is a writer and a reproductive justice advocate. She holds a JD from Boston College Law school. 

You’d think she’d be adult enough to eschew the flippant “throw a turkey at the woman” pseudo-jokes, but apparently not.

Back to her “throw a turkey” article:

TERFs are transphobes who wrongly believe transgender women are not women, and they think feminists shouldn’t include trans women in their advocacy. But the reality is that trans women are women, and you cannot separate feminism from advocacy for trans rights. Feminism that does not include trans people is just bigotry dressed up to look like something else.

No, the reality is that trans women are men who say they are women, men who identify as women, men who explain that they “feel like” women, men who claim that they have a woman’s brain in a male body. None of that changes the physical reality that they are men. That’s what “trans woman” means – a man who identifies as a woman.

So it’s not truthful or fair or reasonable to say that “TERFs are transphobes who wrongly believe transgender women are not women,” because they believe that rightly, not wrongly.

Sometimes TERFyness is loud and obnoxious in its bigotry, tweeting away about how trans women are dangerous and letting them privately pee in a stall next to a cis women is akin to letting Ted Bundy into a women’s locker room—truly unhinged stuff. You’ll often find TERFs on Twitter yelling about young people’s genitals or some other completely invasive and inappropriate thing that would have them banished from Earth if it was about young cis people.

Speaking of loud and obnoxious, and truly unhinged stuff – that’s not a very careful or fair description.

Sometimes, though, TERFs are a little more insidious in their approach, as they scaremonger about women’s rights and children’s safety—cloaking obviously bigoted viewpoints in false concerns about the welfare of women and children.

And why are the concerns false? What makes the viewpoints so obviously bigoted? Why is it insidious to talk about women’s rights? The lawyer doesn’t explain or elaborate, she just asserts.

But make no mistake. A TERF is a TERF is a TERF—whether they’re transparent about their motives and bigotry, or whether they’re stoking fears about violence and discrimination to make their overt hatred for trans people seem well intentioned. It is not.

Again – it’s just assertion. There’s not a trace of argument anywhere to be seen. All this is in aid of advocating violence against female relatives who have a political view the lawyer dislikes.

And then she gets to the remedies.

Throw the turkey at them. If you do not have the upper-body strength to throw the turkey, you can opt for something slightly easier to lift like a handful of mashed potatoes or some stuffing. A pie also works, and offers an added comedic effect.

If you do not want to turn your Thanksgiving dinner into a food fight, you can consider a more passive (or passive agressive) approach. Ignoring them works; so does repeating everything they say back to them in a mocking tone. Think: What would your most annoying little cousin do?

You need not feel obligated to entertain a bigot with reasoned debate, but if you want to, it helps to have some talking points handy. Like—the gender binary isn’t real. And violent men can actually just walk into women’s bathrooms whenever they want, irrespective of whether we allow trans women to pee in peace there. You can also talk about how gender-affirming care is necessary and lifesaving treatment, and trans people should be entitled to it the same way you’re entitled to your colonoscopy, Aunt Karen. And you can explain to your relatives that whether or not someone has medically transitioned, and regardless of how they look, their gender is still valid.

Aunt Karen. Cue Jolyon Maugham telling us how much wiser the younger generation is than all those millions of evil feminist Aunt Karens.

If you’ve got a TERF in your holiday midst, you have a couple options. You can engage; you can ignore; or you can, as we’ve stated, launch assorted foods across the table until they retreat. What you do not have to do is make yourself feel unsafe or uncomfortable in order to entertain their bigotry. You also bear no obligation to sit quietly and politely as someone spews hatred simply because it’s the holidays and you’re supposed to get along like family—whatever that means.

It’s funny because right under that (the end of the article) is the box with the explanation of why we should support Rewire News:

We’re glad you’re here! Our work is written for readers like you—folks who care about reproductive and sexual health, rights, and justice, and understand how critical independent media is to a democratic society.

Ah yes reproductive rights and justice…except for TERFs and Karens.

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