Hate in two languages: Trans activists in France and Spain have been openly calling for the mass murder of women.

FR; ES. 2020 has seen a sharp rise in violent public threats from transgender activists aimed at women who advocate for women’s human rights.

In France and Spain, transgender activists have been openly displaying messages calling for the mass murder of “TERFs” and particular groups of feminist activists, at times suggesting specific methods of execution. The threats came to life in Spain when crowds of transgender activists violently attacked women who were peacefully demonstrating during International Women’s Day.

France

In the summer of 2019, French FEMEN activist Marguerite Stern launched Collages Feminicides, a movement that has French women take to the streets to create canvas art in protest of and to raise awareness about France’s position as a nation with one of the highest rates of women murdered by intimate partners.

Collages Feminicides

“In Paris, when I welcomed hundreds of women into my home at the very beginning of the movement, I had made it clear that I wanted us to be united, beyond our disagreements, to fight against domestic violence,” the activist tweeted.

The collage movement quickly took on a life of its own, evolving to address issues beyond femicide that are important to women’s lives, which the activist celebrated.

However, on January 22, 2020, Ms Stern announced her dismay that the movement that she had created to advocate for women had been weaponized against women: “Universalist feminists tell me that they have been excluded from branches where activists position themselves as intersectional, and make collages on divisive subjects while using the label (to my great regret, it has become a label) ‘collages féminicides’.” (Feminist author Nathalie Heinich views universalist feminism as a counterpoint to theories of postmodernism, postcolonialism and gender studies, defining it as a call for women to put aside differences “within the civic framework of citizenship” and focus on what they have in common.)

Bref. Aujourd'hui, j'ai découvert ce collage sur le compte instagram "Collages féminicides Montpellier". Et ça n'est pas le premier. J'ai donc décidé d'écrire ce thread pour dire ce que j'en pense. pic.twitter.com/gctb7YP4fK — Marguerite Stern (@Margueritestern) January 22, 2020

« TERF » IS THE NEW « WITCH ». pic.twitter.com/WN1SNhqHAU — Marguerite Stern (@Margueritestern) January 26, 2020

Ms Stern revealed that transgender activists had written “Des sisters pas de cisterfs” (“Sisters not CisTERFs”) on a building, and posed intimidatingly before the scrawled slogan. Worse yet, she said, transgender activists put on the outside of a building a call for “TERFs” to be burnt at the stake: “Les terfs au bucher.” (TERF is a slur used primarily against women who express doubts or disbelief about the ideology that a human being can be born in the body of the wrong sex, or transition from one sex to the other.)

“TERF IS THE NEW WITCH,” Ms Stern tweeted. Feminist Stephanie Lamy agreed, “Unacceptable. Advocating feminicide when it was initially a campaign against feminicides.”

Those were far from the only hateful expressions from transgender activists toward women that she had seen displayed on buildings in the name of the movement she had started, the Collages Feminicides creator explained.

Ms Stern issued a strong statement on Twitter in which she indicated that transgender activism is functioning as a Trojan Horse that deliberately destroys feminism from the inside, silences women and reinforces stereotypes and dehumanizing language about women:

The first thing is that I find that debates on transactivism are taking up more and more space in feminism, and even crystallize all the attention. I interpret this as a new male attempt to prevent women from expressing themselves. Men have always tried to silence women by silencing their revolts. Today, they do it from the inside by infiltrating our struggles and by taking center stage.

The second thing is that I find it hateful that a tool as important as inclusive writing, and which is supposed to serve the interests of women, is now used to make them invisible. in feminist debates on Instagram (and I realize that perhaps these are niche debates), we no longer use the words ‘women’ and ‘men’ to talk about specific subjects such as rules for example. We now speak of ‘people with vulva’. Well I consider that it makes me invisible.

No, I am not a ‘vulva person’, I am a woman. I was born a woman, and before I was born, in my mother’s womb, I suffered discrimination because of this. I have suffered things that a man who wants to become a woman can never apprehend.

Third, I am in favor of deconstructing gender stereotypes, and I believe that transactivism only reinforces them. I observe that men who want to be women, suddenly start to wear make-up, to wear dresses and heels. And I consider it an insult to women to consider that it is the tools invented by patriarchy that make us women. We are women because we have vulvae. It is a biological fact.

Wear dresses, heels and wigs, make up, if you want. I won’t go screaming cultural appropriation, but don’t come out and say you’re women. Just as I would never have the indecency to brown my skin and declare that I’m black.

Ms Stern was demonized on social media for speaking out.

A petition appeared defending her which then the French Huffington Post, buckling under pressure, **unpublished**. Marianne magazine has now posted la tribune and the signatures, which include Christine Delphy's https://t.co/41nAxtfdWD — Lydia Perović (@LyyPerr) February 17, 2020

A letter – in which 60 signatories publicly stood with Marguerite Stern in her condemnation of transgender activists in the Collages Feminicides movement – was published in the Le Huffington Post, a French language version of a popular news and opinion website, but was yanked following backlash from transgender activists.

Lauren Provost, Managing Editor, wrote in a conciliatory statement:

It was an op-ed and not an editorial, but it had no place on our site. It was a mistake to have published it. The transphobic comments inside go against the values that Le HuffPost has promoted since its creation. Trans women are women. We sincerely apologize for the publication of this text.

Marianne, a weekly current affairs magazine based in Paris, later published the letter, noting that “the debate is essential.” The number of signatories had by then jumped to almost 140.

Spain

In Spain on March 8, millions of women walked out of jobs, and hundreds of thousands demonstrated in the streets of Madrid and Barcelona in an organized strike in honor of International Women’s Day.

The intent of the strike was to let the country experience what society would be like if women’s valuable labor across sectors were withdrawn.

The strike was organized by Comisión 8M (March 8 Commission), a coalition of feminist assemblies throughout the country. According to 8M, there is a “salary gap of 23%” for “the same work under the same conditions”; greater job insecurity for women; the feminization of cleaning, commerce and administration jobs that causes such positions to be of low status and low paid; bureaucratic obstacles to maternity benefits; rogue employers who fire women for being pregnant, despite the illegality; and “immense value of care for people and the home, which is ignored by the patriarchy.”

On that day, according to militant journalist publication El Común (The Common), there was a “tension never before seen in the calls for the 8M in our country.”

Clockwise from top left: Punk aesthetic man in Barcelona carries a sign threatening violence against “TERFs” and affirming that “Trans women are women”; transactivists display a sign that translates to: “There are girls with penises and boys with vaginas, and transphobes without teeth”; transgender activists slice a feminist banner; transgender person wears “KILL THE TERF” shirt. (Courtesy: El Común)

Feminists advocating the abolition of prostitution participated in the demonstrations. (Abolitionist feminists view prostitution not as “an abstract symbol of empowerment or exercise in intersectional feminism,” but something women “need to do to survive or to support their families,” noting that 89% would like to exit. These feminists advocate decriminalizing the women, and criminalizing the johns and pimps “who exploit this desperation” and make rape and murder standard industry risks.)

Así sacan los transactivistas a la fuerza a las compañeras de @J_Feministas de la manifestación en Madrid #8M pic.twitter.com/lQE5ERae9C — SuperVioletas (@SuperVioletas) March 8, 2020

In what was “clearly an organized action, groups of transactivists attacked and insulted” abolitionist feminists:

Banners slashed with razors, shoving, attempted expulsion from the demonstration, and even physical assaults (many of which were carried out by men) joined in shouts such as Kill the TERF! (Assassinate the TERF) which were staged by a minority group in order to intimidate feminists. […] Some trans activists had already warned in the previous days that they would not hesitate to resort to violence by launching continuous messages of threats that have become public even on television. And so, without prior provocation, dozens of women have had to be protected by the police to avoid being expelled from a space that claimed the struggle of women.

El Común

An abolitionist feminist tweeted, “It is unfortunate, fighting against male violence and receiving violence at the demonstration itself.”

“Feminists would never do that. Let the trans come to throw us out of our demonstration,” another woman remarked on Twitter. “Can you imagine if we did the same with them on pride day?”

Left, trans activists wrote a warning on the wall at the Complutense University of Madrid that no abolitionist feminist will be left with a head, as “We’re coming for you”; right, a well-known trans activist brags about having assaulted abolitionist feminists. (Courtesy: El Común)

Emotional Blackmail?

As women on Twitter discussed transgender activists’ violent uprisings against women – including the recent smoke bombings at a meeting of the Labour Women’s Declaration in the UK – a transgender activist tweeted in response, “We understand. We do not want anyone killed. Some of us are growing desperate. I know that also holds true for you. Please help everyone deescalate, even when out of breath. It will save lives, and writing this is breaking my heart.”

We understand. We do not want anyone killed. Some of us are growing desperate. I know that also holds true for you. Please help everyone deescalate, even when out of breath. It will save lives, and writing this is breaking my heart. — Em (@e_kunst) March 10, 2020

Many women on Twitter condemned the tweet as emotional blackmail amounting to, “Give us what we want or we’ll be violent.”

One woman pointed out, “Women (natal women) have BEEN desperate for the end of male violence/rape put upon us…for CENTURIES. But you don’t see US smoke bombing /terrorizing people. Trans identifying males are TERRORIZING females for not wanting to give our safe spaces to them. How is that OK?”

“Saying NO is a basic and fundamental human right,” commented another. “Women don’t have to stop saying NO coz it makes men and misogynistic kids mad and bad. We’re not here to do as we are told under threat of violent reaction.”