Trans-exclusionary radical feminism, also known as gender-critical feminism, is a subset of feminism that rejects transgender and non-binary identities. Trans-exclusionary radical feminists believe that womanhood is solely defined by sex and that sex is biological, immutable, and binary. They view trans women as men and trans men as women. They consider the concepts of gender identity and gender self-identification to be part of an inherently oppressive "gender ideology", a concept which is shared with the right-wing anti-gender movement.
Emerging from fringe movements within second-wave radical feminism mainly in the United States, trans-exclusionary radical feminism has achieved increasing global prominence in the 2010s and 2020s. It has been linked to promotion of disinformation and to the anti-gender movement. Anti-gender rhetoric has seen increasing circulation in trans-exclusionary radical feminist discourse since 2016, including the concept of "gender ideology". In several countries, trans-exclusionary radical feminist groups have formed alliances with right-wing, far-right, and anti-feminist organisations.
Trans-exclusionary radical feminism has been described as transphobic by feminist and scholarly critics. It is opposed by many feminist, LGBTQ rights, and human rights organizations. The Council of Europe has condemned trans-exclusionary radical feminist ideology, among other ideologies, and linked it to "virulent attacks on the rights of LGBTI people" in Hungary, Poland, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and other countries. UN Women has described the trans-exclusionary radical feminist movement, among other movements, as extreme anti-rights movements that employ hate propaganda and disinformation.
Terminology Trans-exclusionary radical feminism
Trans-inclusive radical feminist blogger Viv Smythe has been credited with popularizing the term "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" in 2008 as an online shorthand. It was used to describe a minority of feminists who espouse sentiments that other feminists consider transphobic, including the rejection of the mainstream feminist view that trans women are women, opposition to transgender rights, and the exclusion of trans women in women's spaces and organizations. Smythe has also been credited with having coined the acronym "TERF", due to a blog post she wrote reacting to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival's policy of denying admittance to trans women. Though it was created as a deliberately neutral descriptor, "TERF" is now often considered derogatory or dismissive, but may also be used as a self-description.
Serena Bassi and Greta LaFleur write that "the argument by trans-exclusionary radical feminists that the term TERF (an acronym for 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist') is a 'slur'— rather than a description of a particular approach to politics—leans on a 'politics of injury' that distances itself from the real and very harmful work trans-exclusionary radical feminism is doing in the world." Cristan Williams writes in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies that "the term has been rhetorically helpful in distinguishing TERF activism from the long-term radical feminist community members who are inclusive of trans women" and that the TERF label is useful, as terms like bigot are, in drawing a sharp distinction between core feminist views and exclusionary beliefs that many feminists find harmful.
Gender-critical feminism Since the 2010s, there has been a shift among proponents from 'TERF' to 'gender critical feminism', which reflects a shift towards language that obscures their trans-exclusionary focus. Proponents have claimed that despite its neutral origin, the term in practice had been used to "denigrate women's ideas". Because advocates of trans-exclusionary radical feminism advocate the exclusion of trans women from women's spaces, some academics have argued that this shift in language constitutes a problematic rebranding. This change in self-description was accompanied by other shifts in rhetoric, such as "anti-trans" becoming "pro-women" and "trans-exclusion" becoming the protection of "sex-based rights", aimed at cultivating mainstream support by appearing moderate to outsiders.
History
Early history (before 2000) Although trans people were active in feminist movements in the 1960s and earlier, the 1970s saw conflict among some early radical feminists over the inclusion of trans women in feminism.
In 1973, trans-exclusionary radical feminist activists from the Daughters of Bilitis voted to expel Beth Elliott, an out trans woman, from the organization. The same year, Elliott was scheduled to perform at the West Coast Lesbian Conference, which she had helped organize; a group of trans-exclusionary radical feminist activists calling themselves the Gutter Dykes leafletted the conference protesting her inclusion and keynote speaker Robin Morgan updated her speech to describe Elliott as "an opportunist, an infiltrator, and a destroyer – with the mentality of a rapist". An impromptu vote was held with the majority supporting her inclusion in the conference; when Elliott subsequently entered the stage to perform the Gutter Dykes rushed to the stage to attack her and attacked performers Robin Tyler and Patty Harrison who had stepped in to defend her.
At the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day rally, trans-exclusionary radical feminists tried to stop Sylvia Rivera from speaking. Jean O'Leary publicly denounced Sylvia Rivera as "parodying womanhood" and Lesbian Feminist Liberation distributed flyers seeking to keep "female impersonators" off the stage.
Trans-exclusionary radical feminist activists protested Sandy Stone's position at Olivia Records, a trans-inclusive lesbian separatist music collective. In 1977 The Gorgons, a trans-exclusionary lesbian separatist paramilitary group, issued a death threat to Stone and came to the event armed though were intercepted by security. Escalating threats against the collective motivated Stone to leave the group.
Janice Raymond's The Transsexual Empire, published in 1979, examined what she considered to be the role of transgender identity in reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes, in particular the ways in which the "medical-psychiatric complex" was medicalizing gender identity, and the social and political context that contributed to the image of gender-affirming treatment and surgery as therapeutic medicine. Raymond maintained that this was based in the "patriarchal myths" of "male mothering", and "making of woman according to man's image", and that transgender identity aimed "to colonize feminist identification, culture, politics and sexuality". The book goes on to say that "All transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact" and that "the problem of transsexualism would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence".Raymond, Janice. (1994). The Transsexual Empire, p. 104, 178 Several authors have since characterized this work as transphobic and constituting hate speech, as well as lacking any serious intellectual basis.
In 1991 Nancy Burkholder, a trans woman, was ejected from the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (MWMF), after refusing to answer when another woman asked her whether or not she was transgender. This removal was justified by the retroactive instatement of a womyn-born womyn policy by the MWMF organisers. For both the 1992 and 1993 MWMF events, Janis Walworth, a cisgender lesbian feminist, organised an educational and outreach program at the MWMF distributing pamphlets titled "Gender Myths". During the 1993 MWMF event, Walworth was told by event security that she and any trans women in their group would be required to leave the event "for their own safety". Although an offer of bodyguard protection was provided by a group of leather lesbians attending the festival, Walworth's group decided instead to set up an outreach camp outside the festival gates. This camp, later known as Camp Trans, continued to provide education and outreach attempts while protesting the festival's trans exclusionary practices until the festival's final event in 2015.
By country
Europe
France
Germany
United Kingdom
Updated Equality and Human Rights Commission guidance stating that single-sex spaces open to the public should be organised based on biological sex and that trans people should use either gender-neutral facilities or the ones that match their biological sex, came into force in August 2026.
Asia
China
Japan
Turkey
Views
Sex and gender
Trans-exclusionary radical feminists equate "women" with what they consider to be a "female sex class", and view historical and contemporary oppression of women as being rooted in their being female, while "gender" is a system of social norms which functions to oppress women on the basis of their sex. They believe sex is biological and cannot be changed, and that equity legislation protecting against discrimination based on sex should be interpreted as solely referring to biological sex. Furthermore, trans-exclusionary radical feminist beliefs emphasise the view that sex is binary, as opposed to a continuous spectrum, and that the two sexes have an objective, material basis as opposed to being socially constructed.
Trans-exclusionary radical feminists promote the idea that sex is important. In Material Girls, Kathleen Stock discusses four areas in which she expresses the view that sex-associated differences are important, regardless of gender: medicine, sport, sexual orientation, and the social effects of heterosexuality (such as gender pay gaps and sexual assault). Holly Lawford-Smith states: "Gender critical feminism is not 'about' trans. It is about sex." Lawford-Smith said of gender-critical feminism: "It is about being critical of gender, and this has implications for a wide range of feminist issues, not just gender identity." Writing of her view of a "gender-critical feminist utopia", she said: "While there will still be the same people who think of themselves as 'transmen', 'transwomen' or 'non-binary' today, they will not use those labels, because 'feminine' will be a way that males can be, 'masculine' will be a way that women can be, and 'androgynous' will be a way that anyone can be."
In trans-exclusionary radical feminist discourse, the terms man and woman are used as sex-terms, assigned no more meaning than adult human male and adult human female respectively, in contrast to feminist theorists who argue these terms embody a social category distinct from matters of biology (usually referred to as gender). The phrase adult human female has become a slogan in trans-exclusionary radical feminist politics, and has been described as transphobic.
"Sex-based rights"
Trans-exclusionary radical feminists advocate what they call "sex-based rights", arguing that "women's human rights are based upon sex" and that "these rights are being eroded by the promotion of 'gender identity. They commonly position "sex-based rights" as under attack and something that needs defense, arguing that allowing trans women to use women's spaces is a threat to cisgender women.