I had a lengthy conversation with a TERF in the comments of the thread.
And although I don’t agree with her conclusions, I can sympathize with how she got there.
Having to live under patriarchy can make you extremely sensitive to any male intrusion into the rare female-only safe spaces feminists have fought hard to create. I can understand after fighting patriarchy for so long, anything that seems like male colonization of female space sets off alarms. Which is what trans women looks like to them. Guys using their privilege to enter female spaces.
Of course, it necessarily ignores that trans women are generally and even more abused minority, and you would think that those feminists with their criticisms of hetro-normative patriarchy would find common cause with other victims of it.
To me, it’s very similar to how Zionists behave. Of course the Jewish people faced brutal discrimination and eradication, understandably desire a safe space free of that discrimination and you would think they would find common cause with other marginalized people like the Palestinians.
But to such closed hearts, the existence of Palestinians intrude into the ‘safe space’ , just as trans folk threaten female-only spaces. TERFs and Zionists both exclude other marginal communities under the justification of ‘protecting’ themselves, but in reality just promote discrimination against those marginalized communities, discrimination which often ends in violence and death.
But for both Zionists and TERFs, they are so inwardly concerned about their own in group they don’t seem able to feel compassion for anyone else.