Today I Built a TERF Annihilation App Because Apparently I Needed a Hobby
Dear readers, I do apologise. You must be sick to the back teeth of my little inbox emails by now, but this one is too funny not to send.
Over the last few days, my essay “Why You Can’t Win an Argument With a TERF” has travelled rather further than I expected. It has been shared around, muttered over, objected to, dissected, and, most pleasingly of all, complained about at some length by exactly the sort of people it was describing
There is apparently a whole sprawling thread on Mumsnet about me. Multiple pages. Many opinions. Several amateur biologists. Quite a lot of people very confidently explaining what I am, what I am not, where I may pee, where I may not change, and why civilisation will collapse if I stand too near a locker.
Naturally, I was delighted.
Not because I enjoy being insulted, although at this point I do seem to have developed the emotional hide of a council bollard, but because the replies did exactly what the essay said they would do.
The argument in the essay was simple: a lot of anti-trans debate does not answer the question being asked. It quietly switches to a different, easier question.
So you ask:
“Why should I be excluded from the women’s changing room?”
And back comes:
“Because you’re a man.”
Which is not evidence.
It is not a risk assessment.
It is not a policy argument.
It is not proportionality.
It is not even particularly original.
It is just the switcheroo.
I did reply to a few comments. I really did try. I put on my serious face, sharpened my little argument pencil, and attempted to explain that “because I say so” is not quite the same thing as a coherent public policy framework.
But then I got bored.
There are only so many times a woman can type “that does not answer the question” before she starts to wonder whether there might be a more efficient way to annoy people.
So I built one.
Introducing the Fast Track Femme TERF Annihilation Machine
Yes, that is what it is called.
No, I will not be taking notes on restraint at this time.
The idea is simple. Instead of me patiently answering the same circular arguments over and over again, the machine lets people test their own objections.
You pick a statement you disagree with.
You type your best argument.
Then the machine checks whether you actually answered the statement, or whether you quietly ran away to a slogan cupboard and came back wearing “adult human female” as a hat.
Step one: pick something you disagree with
The app gives you a set of statements, such as:
“Trans women should be allowed to use women’s changing rooms.”
Or:
“Repeating ‘adult human female’ does not answer a policy question.”
Or:
“If evidence cannot change your mind, this is not an evidence argument.”
Pick one. Be brave. Feel the fear and define “woman” anyway.
Step two: give your honest objection
This is the important bit. The app does not ask you to pick from a list of pre-written objections. That would be unfair, and, frankly, a bit boring.
You write what you actually think.
If your concern is specific, proportionate, evidence-based, and connected to the question, the machine can say so. It is not just a giant red button that screams “TERF!” at everything, tempting though that was.
But if your objection is just “you are not a woman” with a slightly different hat on, the machine will notice.
Step three: watch the switcheroo get caught
Once you submit your answer, the machine analyses the structure of the argument.
Did you answer the question?
Did you provide evidence?
Did you explain the risk?
Did you consider proportionality?
Did you address the human being in front of you, or did you sprint back to a dictionary definition and hide under it?
The machine then gives a diagnosis. Sometimes it identifies a full switcheroo. Sometimes it spots safeguarding laundering. Sometimes it finds a lab-coat argument, where something sounds scientific but is really just prejudice wearing a clipboard.
And sometimes, if the argument is actually honest, it gives it a fair hearing.
Because this is the point: the app is funny, but the underlying issue is serious. We cannot have a meaningful debate if one side keeps refusing to answer the actual question.
Why I built it
I built it because the pattern is so predictable.
Ask about bathrooms, and they answer biology.
Ask about evidence, and they answer fear.
Ask about proportionality, and they answer slogans.
Ask about the actual person standing in front of them, and they answer an imaginary predator they have assembled from newspaper headlines and unresolved discomfort.
That is not debate. That is not safeguarding. That is not feminism.
It is attribute substitution.
It is answering the easier question because the real one is harder.
And now there is a little machine that points at it and says, “There. You did it again.”
Have a play
The app is here:
[APP LINK] TERF Annihilation Machine
The original essay is here:
Why You Can't Win an Argument With a TERF
This week: the Nobel-winning psychology of why you've never once won an argument about trans people, and never will. Featuring Daniel Kahneman, Richard Dawkins, and the man down the flat-roof pub
Play with it. Send it to your friends. Send it to your enemies if you are feeling theatrical. Put in the strongest anti-trans argument you can think of and see what happens.
If it is a real argument, it will get a real answer.
If it is just a slogan in sensible shoes, well, the machine is rather good at spotting those.
You have been warned.
With love,
Stevie
Fast Track Femme