Talk:TERF (acronym)/Archive 5

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Lede

Since the controversial move was instigated, the lede has been edited to explicitly render "gender-critical feminism" a synonym for TERF, in wikivoice.

The source used actually says:

First a word on terminology. I use 'TERF' as a representation of what might be called the original trans-exclusionary feminist view, which I outline in the following section, and "gender critical' to represent more contemporary presentations of feminist trans-exclusion. I use "trans-exclusionary feminism' as an umbrella term encompassing both. As will be discussed, the application of these terms is complex and political. They represent positions that are interconnected and often interchangeable, indistinguishable and/or contradictory. Acknowledging these enmeshments as I advance, there is enough of a separable figurative TERF position from that of a figurative gender critical one, at least in how they are presented, to be usefully employed.

I have removed this sentence. I don't believe this is a claim that can be made in wikivoice, and certainly not in the lede. Void if removed (talk) 21:46, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that that supports them being distinct movements; it's saying that they're different words that have been used by the same movement at different times, which (to an extent) reflect shifting positions but which are still the same ideology or movement. That said, it's easy enough to find more unequivocal sources, so I replaced it with two others. --Aquillion (talk) 21:55, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

The trouble is, that is the opposite of what this source says, so now we have conflicting sources and should not be saying this in wikivoice, least of all in the lede. This deserves its own section with for/against sourcing.

RE: the first of your new sources, I have no access to that, can you quote the relevant portion?

RE: the second, this gives a definition of TERF/gender-critical as:

A feminist who excludes the rights of transgender women from their advocacy of women's rights. They typically believe sex to be defined along biological lines and do not subscribe to the belief of gender as a social construct, which became a prominent school of thought in Second Wave feminism

This definition is nonsense, and if this the foundation of the paper, the paper is in conflict with other sources that are clear that the second-wave feminism/TERF/gender-critical feminism lineage is entirely predicated on the assertion that gender is a social construct, with gender abolition being a common theme.

The conflict is between effectively second-wave continuity feminists who maintain a sex/gender distinction, and the Butlerian theorisation of sex/gender as an indivisible continuum.

So for the lede to support the claim that TERF and gender-critical are the "same movement" we have a source saying TERF/gender-critical are related but not the same, one I cannot comment on, and one saying TERF/gender-critical means the precise opposite of what it does.

Cherry-picking lines from cherry-picked primary sources to assemble a contentious wikivoice statement in the lede like this is inappropriate.

This is poor. Please self-revert.

We already have a section on the gender-critical label where arguments for/against can be contained, there is insufficient sourcing to make this definitive claim in wikivoice. Void if removed (talk) 08:24, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't have access to those sources either. However I have a hard time imagining that any of these sources define TERF as "the term refers to an ideology or movement known variously as...ism or ....ism" Let's be quite clear. The word TERF refers to a person. The word TERFs refers to people. A ....ist, not a ....ism. And we all know that TERF has become somewhat divorced from its original meaning to often mean "someone perceived at transphobic, who I hate with a passion". It is used by people who haven't the first clue what radical feminism is and don't care in the slightest if the target is actually a feminist. It is for that very reason (that the acronym is now its own word) that some authors play with it to invent TERFism or TERFology because the word TERF isn't an ism or an ology. Sure, you can find some sources that talk about "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" but that's not what this article is about. It's about TERF. The article on trans-exclusionary radical feminism is over here. 99.9999% of uses of the word TERF is a label for a person, not an acronym for an ideology. Nobody talks about adherents of TERF or believers in TERF or followers of TERF. Those people are..... TERFs. This is as silly as having the lead of Christian claim the term means "a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ." Let's get this right. -- Colin°^Talk 08:37, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

RE: the second source, which I have now read. This is a commentary piece, so WP:RSOPINION. The relevant part says, with no citation:

the transatlantic movement against transgender rights made up of people variously identified as “gender-critical feminists” (in their own formulation) or “trans-exclusive radical feminists” (abbreviated TERFs, in the formulation of pro-trans advocates).

So, at best, this is one author's opinion and possibly usable as a direct quote if the author is notable enough to make this WP:DUE (which I don't think it is), but inappropriate for a definitive statement in wikivoice, especially when other sources disagree.

I note as well that is the only mention of "gender critical feminists/ism" in that paper. All other references are solely to "gender-critical", sans feminism. Eg.

“What is a woman?” has been a constant refrain among “gender criticals,” even becoming the title of a documentary by alt-right media figure Matt Walsh, released by American far-right media company The Daily Wire

The idea that a right-wing theocratic sexist like Matt Walsh is in any way a "gender critical feminist" is of course laughable. What this paper is about is what the author sees as a broad, coordinated, right-affiliated, transatlantic movement against transgender rights, which it dubs in every other instance "TERF" or "gender-critical" and arguing that all "gender-critical" positions are disinformation and propaganda. This lends weight to the broad usage of TERF simply as "anti-transgender" and not as a specific synonym for "gender-critical feminism"

I also note this piece's "gender-critical = disinformation" assertions rest entirely on a self citation:

Billard, T. J. (2022). The politics of transgender health misinformation [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Which as far as I can make out is nowhere to be found. Best I can find is a youtube with the same title by the author. Void if removed (talk) 11:58, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

I think also the discussion is incorrectly talking about "movements", as though there is a body of people all working together to achieve a common goal. It seems to me as much a myth as the "trans lobby". What we have here is one term "trans-exclusive radical feminists" that was one person's attempt to group and label people that they thought shared some common detestable values. And that got adopted and then used far beyond what the original criteria were, and then the acronym got adopted by people who just wanted a word to chant in hate and stick on a placard and had no connection whatsoever with the original meaning. And the united feature of people who use either the four words or four letters is that they hate these people. And then we have another term "gender-critical feminist" that is a self-appointed name used by some feminist activists and who have attempted to define what they believe as an -ism. And because the TERF word includes so many people, including anyone who isn't singing from the correct hymn sheet, there's a degree of overlap.

Sure, for some people's purpose, the label "gender critical feminist" and "trans-exclusive radical feminist" are synonyms. But that doesn't mean they are entirely equivalent, just close enough for the purpose under discussion. Usually with synonyms there is an important distinction. My dictionary says "shut" and "close" are synonyms but if I told you to "shut your mouth" you'd interpret that as a rude request to stop talking but if I told you to "close your mouth" you'd wonder quite something else. That these terms are used by entirely different sets of writers, often carelessly, sometimes in hate, should make us very wary of considering them identical, and perhaps question the motive of writers claiming they are identical. And of course, the TERF word is yet another thing, which, hey everybody, is the topic of this article. -- Colin°^Talk 13:26, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

The source by Thomas J Billard is unsuitable for use in an encyclopaedia – it is actually described at the top as ‘Conversation and Commentary: Anti-Terf’ ! As the other sources are also disputed, Aquillion should self-revert pending their attempt to gain consensus for their edits on 18 October . Sweet6970 (talk) 17:28, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Where are you accessing it that it says "Conversation and Commentary: Anti-Terf"? I'm looking at a PDF copy which just says "Conversation and Commentary". An earlier article in the same issue does have "anti-terf" as part of its title. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:17, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

The online version via the link provided in the article. It’s the small print at the top. Sweet6970 (talk) 21:52, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Ah yes I see what you mean. This appears to be the theme of the whole issue: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/uwsc20/46/2

"Conversation and Commentary: Anti-Terf: Trans Feminism Against White Nationalist Projects". Void if removed (talk) 22:31, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Slur

This edit changed the text from "In academic discourse, there is no clear consensus on whether TERF constitutes a slur." to "Linguists and philosophers of language, while acknowledging that it is often pejorative, are skeptical of the idea that TERF is a slur" (in other words, there is a consensus and the matter is settled). This cites three sources:

1. "The Epistemology of Propaganda" by Rachel McKinnon, an article from 2018. A five-years-old article on a topical internet phenomenon is useless wrt what the word is used for in 2023. Not only that but Rachel McKinnon is Veronica Ivy, who Wikipedia tells me is a Canadian competitive cyclist and transgender rights activist and previously an assistant professor of philosophy. Their works include "You Make Your Own Luck", "Lotteries, Knowledge, and Irrelevant Alternatives", "This Paper Took Too Long to Write: A New Puzzle About Overcoming Weakness of Will, Philosophical Psychology", "Irksome Assertions" and so on. Citing them weakens the case.
2. "The Instability of Slurs" from 2020. This is a linguistic paper. It proposes three criteria for being a slur. They argue TERF meets the first criteria (derogatory towards a group) but not their third which has a requirement that the group be "defined by an intrinsic property (e.g race / gender / sexuality / abledness)." Thus a group that chooses to follow an ideology cannot be slurred. Not sure how that works with religion and I grew up in a culture where there were plenty slur words about Catholics and protestants. For their second rule "the derogation of that group functions to subordinate them within some structure of power relations supported by an actualized flawed ideology" they do not conclude on. If one views trans people as the subordinated group, then they argue they are "punching up" but if one views women as the subordinated group, particularly I would suggest, women in a place of weakness (bathrooms, changing rooms, prison, refuge shelter, etc), then it meets the criteria. And whether the ideology behind labelling someone a TERF is flawed is something they regard as an ongoing debate. So to claim this source supports the idea that linguists are "skeptical of the idea that TERF is a slur" is plainly false. These linguists regard TERF as a complex problem with no apparent solution.
3. "Why the words we use matter when describing anti-trans activists" by Jennifer Saul, a professor of philosophy and author of books on feminism, philosophy of language, deception, and implicit bias. This does make the case that TERF is not a slur though accepts it is often combined with "angry, and even at times violent and abusive, rhetoric" but their main argument is that the term is misleading firstly that most of the people so-labelled are not radical feminists (with Rowling as their example) and secondly it falsely claims that "the people working to harm the interests of marginalized women [and here she means trans women] are radical feminists". She also notes that the recipients of the label reject it for reasons she finds slim but what's important is that both reject TERF because they reject "trans-exclusionary radical feminist": they are talking about the full four-word term and not the four letter word. IMO they miss the point but they are at least a valid source.

But what is critical is that these are primary sources for their authors individual opinions on the matter. None of these sources survey the literature or poll the opinions of "linguists and philosophers of language" to arrive at a conclusion as to whether there is a consensus or not. What we have here is a bit like citing two random scientist-with-opinions and one cyclist-with-opinions and claiming something about the consensus of scientists on global warming. The first source is junk. The opinion of a trans activist is the opinion of one trans activist and of no greater merit in basing our work than the opinions of any gender critical feminist or anti-trans activist. The two linguist primary sources could at most be cited with attribution but not as though they represent consensus or no-consensus. The middle source is probably the most representative of all, which is that whether TERF is a slur depends on your values and your point of view. The current text needs removed. -- Colin°^Talk 07:57, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

I have removed it. No objection to a lead summary of the "is it a slur" debate, but this needs sourced to.... a source that summarises the "is it a slur" debate, not to individual participants of that debate. -- Colin°^Talk 09:10, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

I've reverted your changes. For one, an academic paper is a professional opinion, not a personal opinion, and the first two of three sources are both academic papers. (The third source is also clearly intended as a professional opinion when it says "TERF is not a slur".)

And then for two, the professional opinion of relevant academics (and yes, Ivy absolutely is a philosopher of language, at the time of that paper she was employed by the College of Charleston which explicitly says "Her areas of specialization are epistemology, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and feminist philosophy") on a topic is sufficient to source that as a fact, in the absence of contradictory sourcing. So we could simply say "TERF is not a slur" sourced to those sources in Wikivoice, and the phrasing outside of Wikivoice is actually somewhat weasely.

Heck, we could source the claim in Wikivoice simply to Ivy alone, because her one academic paper on the topic is stronger sourcing than any number of opinion columns. But we don't need to, because we have two other academic sources which agree with her. Academically, this is not a debate: academics who have opined on the topic simply agree that TERF is not a slur. Loki (talk) 20:22, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Loki, I think you misunderstand how Wikipedia goes about claiming consensus on opinions. And these are opinions. Determining if a word is a slur isn't amenable to the scientific method or measuring with a ruler.

The first source remains junk regardless of the link you found. That's the university's own profile of their staff, as claimed by that staff. It's like a LinkedIn page. Not a reliable source wrt what that academic is notable or considered expert it. That an academic claims to specialise in X doesn't make them an authority in X unless they publish in X and other people agree they are an authority in X. Ivy sole publication on linguistics appears to be this "book symposium" piece where they disagree with a previous publication/academic and state their personal arguments. That they are a trans activist offering their opinions on trans matters further lowers their authority because they are plainly not neutral. The piece is full of "I think" language. It's a personal opinion piece and doesn't count any higher than Suzanne Moore's opinion piece in the Telegraph.

The middle source is an interesting analysis but obviously flawed in that their third "rule" appears to have forgotten entirely about religious slurs. Even accepting this flawed approach, describing their conclusions as being in favour of your opinion is untruthful. They make no conclusion.

The Saul piece appeared in a magazine, not a scholarly journal, and although they state their belief that "TERF is not a slur" they make no attempt to explain why. Thus it is the weakest source for personal opinions as they don't feel any need to justify them. This is because they say "Using TERF leads to misguided battles over what counts as a slur, and, more importantly, obscures the truth about the nature of the real battle at hand". That article actually makes my case that "using TERF" is problematic.

You restored a number of sentences that were unsourced and made general remarks about what "Linguists and philosophers of language" and "Transgender rights activists" believe. None of our sources describe what these groups believe. As a tertiary source, it is original research to cherry pick a couple of opinion articles and claim there is or isn't a consensus. See WP:RS/AC, which I'll quote here:

"A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view. Otherwise, individual opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources. Editors should avoid original research especially with regard to making blanket statements based on novel syntheses of disparate material. Stated simply, any statement in Wikipedia that academic consensus exists on a topic must be sourced rather than being based on the opinion or assessment of editors. Review articles, especially those printed in academic review journals that survey the literature, can help clarify academic consensus."

I urge you to revert you change and work towards finding sources that support an opinion we can state with confidence. Editors cannot just make stuff up, particularly the stuff being made up aligns exactly with claims those editors have made personally on talk pages and which other editors have disputed (e.g. the discussion at Gender-critical feminism). We must be extremely careful to avoid POV pushing and take care that if Wikipedia claims something, it is well sourced. Otherwise we should not make those claims. Note that by reverting those changes, you become responsible for the text that was restored. I'm challenging you to find sources for these claims, and if you can't find them, policy expects you to remove them again or agree to their removal. -- Colin°^Talk 08:46, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Determining if a word is a slur isn't amenable to the scientific method

Why not? Linguistics is a science. McKinnon even cites several other papers in the topic when she argues that TERF isn't a slur (e.g. [1], [2], [3], and [4]). The only reason we don't cite those papers here is that none of them directly mention "TERF".

Ivy sole publication on linguistics appears to be this "book symposium" piece where they disagree with a previous publication/academic and state their personal arguments

BS. Here's a list of Ivy's publications. Of them, the following ones are about philosophy of language: Irksome assertions, Propaganda, Lies, and Bullshit in BioShock's Rapture, Reasonable Assertions: On Norms of Assertion and Why You Don't Need to Know What You're Talking About, Sure the Emperor Has No Clothes, but You Shouldn’t Say That, The Epistemology of Propaganda (i.e. the paper we cite here), Epistemic Injustice, Lotteries, Knowledge, and Irrelevant Alternatives, The Supportive Reasons Norm of Assertion, Norms of Assertion: Truth, Lies, and Warrant, What I Learned in the Lunch Room about Assertion and Practical Reasoning, and How do you know that 'how do you know?' Challenges a speaker's knowledge?.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is easily the largest single topic in Ivy's publication history. Nearly half of the papers she publishes are on this topic, with the rest mostly being in the closely related field of epistemology. If you're really claiming she's not a philosopher of language you simply have no idea what you're talking about.

The middle source is an interesting analysis but obviously flawed

With all due respect, you are so blatantly engaging in WP:OR when you call their work "obviously flawed" I don't feel any need to listen to you. They're the experts with the published paper, not you.

although [Saul] state[s] their belief that "TERF is not a slur" they make no attempt to explain why

We're not in the business of cherrypicking a source's sources. It's her professional opinion as an expert, that's all we need to know.

---

I confess that I'm sort of at the point where I have to just say, you are clearly incorrect about basic facts about the sources and Wikipedia policy, and given that I don't feel any need to WP:SATISFY you. Loki (talk) 19:28, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Have you looked at any of these papers? They are into philosophy, for sure. But not linguistics. Arguing about what someone wrote in a book isn't linguistics. And a serious academic doesn't write "X is ludicrous". That would get a red pen through it by their tutor. An academic would explain why X is flawed in a way that convinced the reader for themselves and perhaps the reader would conclude it is ludicrous because of the excellent explanation. Show, don't tell. Same goes for the third paper where the author just asserts "TERF is not a slur" but doesn't give their reason. That's not academic writing and fair enough it is in a magazine. This weak stuff. -- Colin°^Talk 18:26, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Philosophy of linguistics is technically not linguistics, sure, but it's very closely related the same way historiography is very closely related to history. A philosopher of linguistics is still a relevant expert here.

Also, serious experts write "X is ludicrous" all the time! Look, here's over 20 pages of Google Scholar results of experts calling things "ludicrous". (And that's even excluding cases where they used the word in the title, because it appears to also be some sort of jargon term in some cases.) Like, have you not ever met an expert? I have! They are often very opinionated people, especially around things close to their field!

As for your critique of the third paper: again, we're not in the business of nitpicking a source's sources. If a biologist said "creationism is false" (or even something less charged, like "whales are not fish"), we'd just accept that as their professional opinion. Trying to nitpick experts who don't want to explain the entire history of their field is a recipe for WP:PROFRINGE editing. Loki (talk) 02:15, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

• In some contexts what people mean by "slur" is synonymous with "pejorative" and in others it is not. McKinnon, like some other sources, appear to be saying TERF isn't a "misogynistic slur" (i.e. a slur against women), which is presumably mostly academically uncontroversial. Davis and McCready are presenting a novel and interesting definition of a "slur", arguing that TERFs (rather than women as McKinnon was discussing) aren't a group to which a slur could apply. But novel primary sources are certainly not something we can quote as true in Wikipedia's voice, and the same would go for an article in The Conversation. Broadly, I don't really think we can summarise these sources outside of the context of the meaning of the terms they are using. But as Colin mentioned, this is all secondary to the fact that talk of academic consensus obviously requires stronger sourcing than this. Endwise (talk) 09:37, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  Labelling it a "misogynistic slur" is an interesting line of attack and I note that currently this article doesn't mention that at all (other than in a quote in the references). It seems odd that we neglect to mention a fairly major viewpoint among gender-critical feminists, that part of the problem with TERF is that it is almost exclusively used to attack women, rather than just any old anti-trans writer. There is something specifically female-recipient about it. ‘Terf’ is the ultimate slur against women argues it "is a projection of hatred onto women, and usually older women. It drips with gleeful misogyny." I think what we as editors must do is impartially curate these views, present them with appropriate weight and balance, rather than personally argue that one side or the other is correct or has won the debate. It seems to me patently obvious that this dispute is not settled either among academics or journalists or feminists or the general public. I wish there was a secondary source with an impartial author doing exactly that kind of survey and then we could quote them or use them as a source for such a statement. But without that, I can't add my personal summary of the debate to the article any more than any other editor can add theirs. That's a bit frustrating but probably unsurprising with such a polarising topic. (as an aside, I'm actually surprised that this week's Tory conference didn't announce they were banning the word TERF, as they seemed determined to ban anything else involving "gender ideology" from schools, academia and healthcare.) -- Colin°^Talk 10:23, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  I think this article should probably mention it, as it is a large part of the "slur debate", but I think I would describe the view that TERF is a misogynistic slur as a very marginal one. Some typically older sources seem to describe there being a debate in more banal terms about TERF being a slur (i.e. about it being derogatory) without picking sides. But I don't really think you'd find anyone outside of the community the term applies to entertaining the idea that the term TERF is generally derogatory toward women. Endwise (talk) 11:16, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  While I don't agree with Endwise about the academic consensus, I do agree that the view that TERF is a misogynistic slur as a very marginal one. Loki (talk) 19:30, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  From "Hags" by Victoria Smith:

  In her dissertation on the use of the term, Anna-Louise Adams found TERF to be 'a gendered label, which is utilised by men to legitimise misogynistic language and behaviour': "TERF in itself is used as a word to describe women alongside violent rhetoric such as: punch a TERF, rape a TERF, kill a TERF, highlighting its dehumanising nature. Further, a number of participants reported that they had seen TERF used alongside words which represent uncleanliness, filth, or disease." Adams tells me the women she interviewed felt it was also conflated with 'old' and 'lesbian'.

  Adams' dissertation is here and concludes:

  This research focused on a qualitative description of women’s experiences of being labelled as TERFs. It has also delivered an account of gender-critical feminism; the branch of feminism which is typically afforded the status of TERF. It has explored the way that TERF is deployed, highlighting its presence within misogynistic e-bile. Furthermore, it has argued that TERF functions to legitimise homophobia towards lesbians, enabling the perpetuation of rape culture. The accuracy of the term has been discredited; the heterogeneity of women labelled as TERFs highlights that the term does not accurately describe the ideologies of all the women that are labelled. This is further supported by the usage of the term to conflate gender-critical feminism with far-right politics – two polarised ideologies. This conflation perpetuates e-bile and renders TERF esoteric. My data show the duality of usage present within TERF; many users of the term use it in the knowledge that it legitimises misogyny and violent threats towards women. Others are unfamiliar with this dichotomy and thus use the term as a descriptor, despite the fact that this thesis has shown that it is inaccurate.

  Of course, this is not a great source as it is only a dissertation, by someone regularly called a TERF, referred to in a book by someone also regularly called a TERF, but it is supported somewhat by Finn Mackay in "Female Masculinities and the Gender Wars", who states the usage is so wide as to be meaningless beyond a shorthand for transphobia, and also that it is biased towards women:

  The acronym has become so widely shared in social media activism and mainstream journalism that it has become almost a void, as it is applied to anyone expressing transphobic, prejudiced, bigoted or otherwise exclusionary views about trans men, trans women and all transgender and trans people. It is applied to those who are not feminist activists and would never identify themselves as feminists; it is put onto those who may be feminists but are certainly not Radical Feminists; it has become a shorthand for transphobic, and mostly applied to women

  Either way I think the two books could be enough for direct quotes to lay out the competing viewpoints, even if it can't be wikivoice?

  But the larger problem is that expecting neutral sources on this point is nigh-on impossible since in general defending TERFs makes you a TERF. Void if removed (talk) 13:34, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

I think the last sentence of the lead from this version should be restored as a fair summary of the body and as the status quo. Crossroads ^-talk- 18:44, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't like that version because it's WP:FALSEBALANCE. We're putting a bunch of opinion columns on one side versus academic papers on the other. Loki (talk) 21:21, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

The ludicrous and quite fringe idea that TERF is somehow a "slur" is only promoted by (some) TERFs themselves, i.e. adherents of a fringe ideology. It should certainly not be presented as a mainstream idea. Numerous TERFs have used the term themselves, so the claim is more a rhetorical device intended to attack supporters of equality and human rights for LGBT+ people. The closest analogy would be if racists claimed that "racist" and "racism" are "slurs" when scholars and activists wrote about or criticized their racist ideology. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 09:18, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

The text that got added before fails WP:RS/AC very explicitly. It isn't helpful for editors to say stuff like "you are clearly incorrect about basic facts about the sources and Wikipedia policy" when I've had to copy/paste that policy onto this page to point out to editors that what there were doing and saying is just plain very clearly wrong. If folk want to make claims about our sources or about policy then evidence please. It is an easy mistake to make, to put what you or I think about a subject, based on our own readings and experience, and write as though it was the kind of fact we can claim in a wikipedia article. So things like "the view that TERF is a misogynistic slur as a very marginal one" needs a source with a neutral author saying exactly that. (i.e. not some activity saying it is "ludicrous"). The so called "academic papers" that Loki mention includes a magazine article and a "paper" written by a cyclist. There was only one academic paper worthy of the name, and it didn't actually reach a conclusion. As the guideline says "Review articles, especially those printed in academic review journals that survey the literature, can help clarify academic consensus." If we don't have a review of the literature or a review of society then none of us here can claim in the article that X is a minority opinion or Y is the consensus or that there is no consensus.

But more importantly, on a topic of social beliefs and attitudes, the beliefs of a tiny handful of academics is not any more weighty that the beliefs of society. Does anyone here seriously think the world asked some academics to analyse the examples List of religious slurs or List of ethnic slurs before folk decided they were bad and polite people stopped using them? That isn't how this works. Rather, the academics write historically about how a word has fallen out of use or has become regarded as distasteful or hateful. No linguist can possibly explain why shortening Pakistani creates an ethnic slur but shortening Australian does not, without referring to British history and noting that society has determined this, not some algorithm or scientific method. Linguists are not referees in a culture war and we shouldn't expect them to be.

As for the claim that being gender critical is a "fringe ideology" and not "mainstream", well I've already quoted the polling on that. There are gender critical beliefs that are utterly mainstream in the UK and US (e.g. that you are born a man and cannot become a woman). There's no winning ideology on that in the UK or US any more than conservatism and socialism have a winner. We need to stop making claims here that just reflect the hopes and dreams of liberals. If you want to make a claim about what society thinks (i.e. that X is a slur) then quote a source that claims what society thinks, not an opinion piece about what the author thinks. -- Colin°^Talk 18:21, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

WP:RS/AC is a decent argument about the exact wording but it doesn't really say anything about simply citing those sources for facts. Since the sources against are academic, and therefore quite strong, and the sources for are WP:RSOPINION which are explicitly not reliable for facts, WP:NPOV demands that we don't present them as equal to each other.

The rest of your argument is IMO incoherent. Of course academic linguistics papers are reliable for linguistic information. Loki (talk) 02:18, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

I think we've got some really wrongheaded ideas about what academic sources are for. A good academic source would survey or cite a survey of public opinion about whether TERF is considered a slur. That an academic might write a paper stating their own belief that TERF is or is not a slur is of no higher regard to Wikipedia, from that source alone, than that academic, Brian, declaring what their favourite colour is, or football team. Now, if independent secondary sources writing about academic's favourite colours discuss that Brian's views on colour and football teams were revelatory and hugely influenced future writers, artists and sports, then we might be getting somewhere. But similarly it is equally possible that Jeff's views on colour and football teams, written in the New York Times, or written in a surprise best seller by an obscure non-academic publishing house, were also revelatory and influential and get written about by such sources.

We are currently dealing with the opinions of a handful of people. In a world of several billion. That they think "X" is wonderful for them but of no interest to us unless secondary sources say their thinking about X important. Writers here have googled and inserted what they found and previously they also did original research on that findings. I get that some editors want to rubbish certain sources because it happens to be, absolutely by chance, that those sources don't agree with them. But both the academic papers and the magazine or newspaper articles are perfectly reliable sources on a person's own opinion.

We simply don't have good secondary sources or population reviews on what society thinks about "TERF". In their absence, we've ended up with this crazy situation where one dreadful academic paper, one fairly decent paper (that has no conclusion, Loki how many times do I have to point that out) and one magazine article are put on a pedestal as though those few author's opinions can represent "society". They can't.

Please go look at our other articles on religious or ethnic slurs. They do not depend on cyclists who once did a bit of philosophy. -- Colin°^Talk 15:16, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

That an academic might write a paper stating their own belief that TERF is or is not a slur is of no higher regard to Wikipedia, from that source alone, than that academic, Brian, declaring what their favourite colour is, or football team.

This is not true. It might be a WP:PRIMARY source and therefore have to be treated carefully, but it's still definitely a reliable source. In fact, professional opinion is one of the few ways we can use an WP:SPS. (And professional opinion is not always a WP:PRIMARY source. In fact, per WP:USEPRIMARY, both the McKinnon and Saul sources are secondary, since they're both professional opinions based on other research. McKinnon even cites her own sources. This means that the only academic source under discussion that's even primary is David and McCready, since they're advancing a novel theory of slurs in their paper.)

We simply don't have good secondary sources or population reviews on what society thinks about "TERF". In their absence, we've ended up with this crazy situation where one dreadful academic paper, one fairly decent paper (that has no conclusion, Loki how many times do I have to point that out) and one magazine article are put on a pedestal as though those few author's opinions can represent "society". They can't.

They do not have to represent society. If it was the opinion of everyone who hadn't studied the topic that God created the world in seven days, it would not mean that Wikipedia could ignore the professional opinions of everyone that actually has studied the topic that that's not true, or even that those two opinions would have to be given equivalent weight to each other.

You are treating the question here as if it's somehow subjective, but it's simply not. Whether TERF is a slur is based on objective properties of language that can be studied just like anything else in linguistics. Even if there was more ambiguity in the answer than there seems to be, it wouldn't make it just a matter of opinion.

Please go look at our other articles on religious or ethnic slurs. They do not depend on cyclists who once did a bit of philosophy.

Calling Ivy, a professional philosopher, a "cyclist who once did a bit of philosophy" is IMO offensive to the point of defamation. Our other articles on religious or ethnic slurs mostly source the fact that they're slurs to academics just like MacKinnon. So for instance, our article on the n-word heavily relies on this paper to cite the fact that it's a slur. A lot of other articles on slurs don't say that they're slurs explicitly (which surprised me): so for instance we just call "faggot" pejorative in the text, although it's included in a category of LGBT-related slurs. Loki (talk) 23:10, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Loki, I think you are falling into the trap of thinking a source (the entire piece of writing, say) is primary or secondary. Most sources are a mixture of primary and secondary material. A writer quite naturally mixes their own thoughts with comments based on others or as you say perhaps even cite their own previous publications on some matter. But there's a difference between source Colin 2023 writing "I believed in 2005 that the moon landing was faked (citing Colin 2005)" (a secondary source on Colin's opinion in 2005) and a source Colin 2023 writing "I believe the moon landing was faked (citing Colin 2005)" (a primary source on Colin's opinion in 2023 which happens to cite their earlier work either because it goes into more detail on the matter, it demonstrates how long I've held that opinion or because citations are good).

McKinnon does several times cite their own work, typically as it expands on the opinion they just gave, but that doesn't make it a secondary source for what McKinnon believes in March 2018 when they wrote that paper. And furthermore they do not do that when they write "and, ludicrously, claim that ‘TERF’ is a misogynistic slur". This is not quality academic writing, Loki. Such comments earn no points in your essay at university, as they haven't argued why.

Saul is also a mix. When they write "They object strenuously to this, saying that TERF is a slur." they are a secondary source for what "some feminists" think. But when they write "TERF is not a slur. Nonetheless, I don’t use the word because it’s inaccurate and misleading." this magazine article is a primary source for their own personal opinion.

McKinnon hasn't "studied the topic" the way that someone who was an academic in ancient Egyptian religion might study the topic. I have no doubt at all they were asked to contribute to the "Book symposium on Jason Stanley’s (2015) How Propaganda Works" because they are a known activist who probably has an opinion or two on the big culture war over whether TERF is a slur. I see you edited their Wikipedia article to claim "McKinnon's primary research focus is the philosophy of language". But the source doesn't say that. It doesn't mention language at all. It says "My primary research focuses on the relationship between knowledge and action. Specifically, much of my research currently focuses on the norms of assertion." This is philosophy, not linguistics or the philosophy of language.

You write "our article on the n-word heavily relies on this paper to cite the fact that it's a slur" I think you are mistaking "happens to cite one of a nearly infinite array of possible sources" for "heavily relies on". This article is the one desperately relying on the opinions of three or four people and making out, totally against policy, that this somehow represents an academic consensus never mind a societal one. -- Colin°^Talk 13:54, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Here's a review of McKinnon's book Now I admit this is well outside of my knowledge-zone but this is about what people know or believe, what they say or claim, and the connection between those. Any suggestion that this abstract philosophical work makes one an expert in judging whether a word is a slur is, to use a word in their paper, "ludicrous". The elephant in the room is McKinnon is transgender and is a transgender an activist, writing a paper about a word used by transgender activists to label and disparage women who hold hostile views about her very identity. McKinnon could be a nuclear physicist for all that matters here. They have expressed a personal opinion and their paper appears to have been cited merely 10 times, once by themselves. -- Colin°^Talk 14:21, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

McKinnon does several times cite their own work, typically as it expands on the opinion they just gave, but that doesn't make it a secondary source for what McKinnon believes in March 2018 when they wrote that paper

That's not what I meant and I feel like this is a sign you're taking my argument in bad faith. I mean that McKinnon cites the academic literature regarding slurs to support her point. Not herself. Other people.

I see you edited their Wikipedia article to claim "McKinnon's primary research focus is the philosophy of language". But the source doesn't say that. It doesn't mention language at all. It says "My primary research focuses on the relationship between knowledge and action. Specifically, much of my research currently focuses on the norms of assertion."

Aaaand this one shows your ignorance of the topic area. Norms of assertion are a topic within philosophy of language. What you're claiming is like looking at a researcher who says their primary topic area is zebras and claiming that doesn't mean they're a zoologist because they never used the word "animal".

Any suggestion that this abstract philosophical work makes one an expert in judging whether a word is a slur is, to use a word in their paper, "ludicrous".

Why? As someone who actually does understand enough about linguistics to get the gist of that paper: it's about speech acts, and slurring is a speech act. Are you really objecting to academic work because it seems dense and you don't understand it?

The elephant in the room is McKinnon is transgender and is a transgender activist, writing a paper about a word used by transgender activists to label and disparage women who hold hostile views about her very identity.

I don't mean to cast aspersions here, but are you aware that trying to argue that someone is biased because of innate identities (like being transgender) can and has been interpreted as a personal attack under WP:NPA? And enforced as such?

Plus, like, it's such a ridiculous argument too. Julia Serano is heavily cited on some pages related to transgender people, most notably Blanchard's typology... because she is an academic expert who's published peer-reviewed papers on the topic. The fact that she's also trans and a trans activist is irrelevant. We wouldn't cite just any trans woman or just any trans activist, but we do cite Serano because she's a published expert in the topic area. Loki (talk) 22:34, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Loki, I can only go with what you write. The words "both the McKinnon and Saul sources are secondary, since they're both professional opinions based on other research. McKinnon even cites her own sources. This means that the only academic source under discussion that's even primary is David and McCready, since they're advancing a novel theory of slurs in their paper" are entirely wrong. And your new claim that "McKinnon cites the academic literature regarding slurs to support her point" does not make her a secondary source on the view that TERF is a slur. None of their sources, not a single one, mentions TERF. McKinnon uses those little ³ things to indicate they are citing something. There are not little ³ anywhere near their words "and, ludicrously, claim that ‘TERF’ is a misogynistic slur.". That comes entirely from their own head. Later she goes on to say "The idea—it seems to be—is that ‘TERF’ is a term used to denigrate women, and so it is a slur. However, this is an absurd, nonsensical view of the nature of slurs." This final sentence does have a ¹² after it, citing no less than five sources. Let's examine this claim. Firstly, her own words "it seems to be" indicates that this is her own speculation, "that ‘TERF’ is a term used to denigrate women" and that this and this alone is the reason anyone might consider it a slur. Then she goes on to say "this is an absurd, nonsensical view of the nature of slurs" which has the citations. The conclusion I make of this is that these sources will back up the claim that "a term used to denigrate women => slur" is "an absurd, nonsensical view of the nature of slurs". So you could argue this specific part of their argument is secondary (that a term used to denigrate women is a slur) but not that TERF is such a term or that this is the only accusation about TERF that might qualify it for being a slur. That's McKinnon's invention here. (It is interesting that the "The Instability of Slurs" paper would in fact count this as a component of a slur, so maybe not so absurd and nonsensical after all). Let's examine the four sources:

• Slurring Words by Luvell Anderson & Ernie Lepore. I'm guessing this one as McKinnon doesn't list it in the references. Did anyone actually review McKinnon's paper? The Luvell paper from 2011 does not mention TERF. It opens with "These are expressions that target groups on the basis of race (‘nigger’), nationality (‘kraut’), religion (‘kike’), gender (‘bitch’), sexual orientation (‘fag’), immigrant status (‘wetback’) and sundry other demographics". Hmm, a term used to denigrate women vs targeting groups on the basis of gender. That's a tick for that one. They go on to say "The consensus answer to the first question [Why are some confrontations with slurs offensive?] is that slurs, as a matter of convention, carry negative attitudes towards targeted groups." That's another tick. When they ask "How can words fluctuate both in their status as slurs and in their power to offend? and go on to say "Our positive proposal, in brief, is that slurs are prohibited words not on account of any content they get across, but rather because of relevant edicts surrounding their prohibition. In other words, one can't really analyse the term itself to determine it is a slur, it is determined to be slur (prohibited) by society, and our views on whether a word is or isn't prohibited can change. Another big tick. They say {{tq|"A relatively wide-spread (though not universal; see Williamson) assumption about slurs is that each has a neutral co-extensive partner." From the examples they give, we can clearly say that "TERF" has alternatives that do not cause offence (gender critical) or are more specific (Alison, who opposes gender self-ID, wrote...). Another tick. They say "Slurs target classes; pejoratives can be more individualized" again another tick in that TERF targets that person's membership of an ideology rather than that they have specific failings (e.g. if someone directly attacked a transgender person, say). In their conclusion they argue that the may widespread views on how to determine whether a word is a slur have their limitations (though they aren't "absurd, nonsensical", just incomplete) and they prefer their proposal that society itself determines if a word is a slur and there ain't nothing a linguist or philosopher of language or nuclear physicist can write to argue otherwise: "slurs are prohibited words; and as such, their uses are offensive to whomever these prohibitions matter". This paper does not "support" Mckinnon's argument. It demolishes it.
• Derogatory Terms: Racism, Sexism and the Inferential Role Theory of Meaning by Lynne Tirrell. This paper, from 1999, cannot be a primary source for any claim about TERF since the word wasn't invented for nearly another decade. The paper is about "derogatory terms" and as far as I can see does not mention the word slur. Some of the derogatory terms they discuss are slurs and some are just low-grade personal insults (e.g. "Jerk") though the ones they focus on are "deeply derogatory". They again reject deep analysis as unsatisfactory and propose simply that these words are wrong because "the harm they cause" and that they "reflect the hate and the prejudice of the speaker", their use of stereotypes that infer things without legitimate grounds. They are "bully words".
• The Semantics of Racial Epithets. Christopher Hom. 2008. Again I'm guessing this paper as it isn't in the references in the PDF I have. Well it can't be discussing TERF either because of the date and because it covers racial epithets.
• Slurring Perspectives by Elisabeth Camp 2013.
• Jeshion, Robin. 2013. Slurs and stereotypes. Analytic Philosophy 54(3), pp. 314–329.

I can't read more than the introduction of these. But they basically to take the view that society determines X is a slur, let's analyse why that might be. And since all the papers I've seen so far start with "Well, the other guys say this, but they are wrong or at most incomplete, I think that..." one could safely assume there is no accepted algorithm for taking a word and computing whether it is a slur. It is in a way a bit like trying to analyse why a person is beautiful or ugly. No doubt there are papers on that. Just as this is determined by the eye of the beholder, so a slur is entirely and only determined by society. If society forbids a derogatory term and views its use as harmful towards its target, it is a slur. That's really all there is to it.

I think therefore we can conclude both that McKinnon's own idea that "a term used to denigrate women" is the only criteria one might consider for "is TERF a slur" is primary and that their sources do not support her further claim that this is an absurd, nonsensical view of the nature of slurs". The sources demonstrate all sorts of things are part of the nature of slurs but they are in themselves incomplete and not entirely satisfactory.

I think McKinnon, like our article text, is trying too hard to claim things the writers want to be true. -- Colin°^Talk 18:30, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Wrt the elephant in the room. I'm not quite sure why you cited WP:NPA unless you happen to be McKinnon? That's a guideline about editors. As for bias, well all of us have biases and potential to manifest those biases, so what matters is whether we try to compensate for them and how well we do. Some of our biases come from innate things like, you know, Gender bias on Wikipedia, Racial bias on Wikipedia. Have a look at McKinnon's academic work in this list. Do you spot someone who is an expert, who has "studied", slurs and hate speech? Nope. Compare that to Lynne Tirrell or Luvell Anderson or Ernie Lepore or Elisabeth Camp or Robin Jeshion to pick the authors of the sources I looked at above and that McKinnon cites apparently in support of their argument. The only link I'm seeing is that they previously wrote about propaganda in, em, a video game? And this book symposium was on Jason Stanley's book "How Propaganda Works" and McKinnon uses the example of TERF propaganda. Their article says, for example, "First, Stanley’s account of propaganda usefully illuminates how the ‘arguments’ of TERFs constitute propaganda,crucially based on a flawed ideology. McKinnon's trans status doesn't mean they are hopelessly biased, any more than a man is hopelessly destined to be sexist. But this is an activist utterly comfortable with using the word TERFs to describe a group they detest and also consider a bit thick (with 'arguments' being in scare quotes because they are ridiculous). I don't know, this is a bit like reading an academic paper where the author calls black people the N word and then goes on to argue that the N word isn't a slur. The words "Well, you would say that, wouldn't you" come to mind. -- Colin°^Talk 19:46, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Just to let you and anyone else who's involved know, I've gone to AE largely over you doubling down on asserting that Ivy is not reliable because she's trans. Loki (talk) 07:23, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

FWIW, I've struck the reference to them being trans, which was a mistake. It is entirely sufficient that they are an activist who throws about the word TERF with abandon at people she describes as "assholes" who "hate trans people". I have never once said they should be excluded as a source. Their academic work is a "reliable source" in so far as we use it as a source for their attributed opinion. Are you seriously telling me that WP:PARTISAN does not apply to McKinnon. -- Colin°^Talk 11:57, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

I've just watched Dr. Rachel McKinnon: TERF 101. In some ways it is better than their academic paper in that they do attempt an argument. They do admit there are lots of competing theories on what makes a slur but then wave their hands around a bit with a trust me they all back up my case claim. What they don't mention is that the clever folk realise they are trying to tease out common features of a slur but admit that there's no way of coming up with definitive algorithm for determining if a word is a slur: a slur is a slur because people who matter say it is and enough of society agree. But anyway, they mention one rule that a slur has a non-pejorative correlate. And, chuckle to themselves, the non-pejorative correlate of TERF is trans-exclusionary radical feminist. Which they claim is itself. Except it isn't. Nobody (much) is saying "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" is a slur. So next they mention another rule is that it is a really bad derogatory word. But again say it can't be derogatory because derogatory words are always mean whereas .... trans-exclusionary radical feminist isn't mean and hateful. And anyway, since trans people are suffering so much bad stuff, being a TERF is as bad as being a racist, and racist isn't derogatory, it's accurate. So having concluded that TERF can't be a slur because "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" isn't a slur they then close with a comment that sadly a number of their fellow activists are using the word TERF as an umbrella term for people who don't like trans women or people who want to exclude them from women's spaces, even if they aren't feminists or are even anti-feminist. They say no, we shouldn't use TERF like that, we should continue to use it only for radical feminists who exclude trans women from the politics. Well the ship sailed on that one. But hold on, let's rewind to the start of the video. "what is this term TERF, what does it mean, and importantly is it a slur? One reason I want to do this video is that there's this group of people loosely associated who take it upon themselves to focus on hating trans women...." Ok, so right at the start of the video, McKinnon is equating TERF with a group of people who hate trans women. Or assholes as she later calls them. -- Colin°^Talk 16:52, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree that TERF 101 is a more explicit laying out of her argument, but I also think that you are pretty clearly nitpicking an expert source. Loki (talk) 18:58, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Or I guess, let me be a little clearer:

IMO the paper where Ivy just says that TERF is not a slur is a much stronger source by ordinary Wikipedia policy than her Youtube video. The Youtube video could arguably be called reliable because it's an expert giving her opinion, but I don't think that it would really be enough absent the published paper. But the reverse is not true: the published paper is a very strong source even absent the video, because there's no policy that says we get to nitpick the opinions of an otherwise reliable source just because the source hasn't provided its internal reasoning. Loki (talk) 07:25, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Stop using policy and guideline arguments about article-text-sourcing. We aren't having that discussion. This is a discussion about page moves and wikivoice. Wikipedians, for example, frequently at MOS have decided that "commit suicide" is just fine, despite zero sources supporting that and countless sources opposing it. Some things we get to decide and can cite sources supporting our arguments how we like. And we can tear apart those sources if we want to or offer opinions from our own hearts and knowledge and experience. For example, it is a frequent refrain at MOS that when sources people cite are written by "activists" they should be dismissed. I don't share that view, but when you have activists of various flavours with competing views, Loki, it isn't appropriate for you to try to wikilawyer your way into demanding that only your choice of activist voice should win. -- Colin°^Talk 12:17, 20 October 2023 (UTC)