cumaeansibyl:

probablyasocialecologist:

One need not weep for the original-flavour TERFs, whose intentions towards trans women, in particular, were always genocidal; Raymond, explicitly, said that her goal was for trans people to no longer exist. Yet, in 1979, that hatred was much less potent than it is today. TERFism was one pocket of a relatively powerless movement which did not have the reach nor backing of the broader right wing. Yet, as a pre-existing hate group “on the left,” TERFs were incredibly easy for fascists to infiltrate and absorb.

A 2020 article from Radix Journal, a far-right publication founded by the neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, lays out a strategy for doing just that. In the article, entitled “The TERF to Dissident Right Pipeline,” author Kat S. notes that TERFs’ insistence on “biological sex” as an immutable binary—all “men” depraved and violent, all “women” fragile victims—may make it easier to convince them of other biological hierarchies. Their insistence on seeing trans women as “violent men,” in particular, can be weaponized against men of colour and turned into overt white supremacy. “It doesn’t take any thinking woman long to see exactly which men are committing violent crime and the majority of partner violence, and race realism is a natural next step.”

Ultimately, the article reasons, it should be easy to convince TERFs that supporting the rights of “biological women” means rejecting “the mid-to-late 20th century Jewish-led feminist theory,” particularly the “corporate slavery” of work outside the home, in favour of accepting their biologically ordained role as wives and mothers. “A pro family, pro natalist movement requires some degree of female participation,” Kat S. writes, “and reframing the patriarchy paradigm is essential.” Ultimately, TERFs must be led to see patriarchy as “a system where men’s urges and strengths are allowed to flourish and channeled into healthy outlets, and women are protected and respected for their material reality and the gifts our unique biology affords.”

It’s a grim irony that, by insisting on a “feminism” without any trans women in it, TERFs have wound up constructing the tool by which fascists aim to destroy feminism altogether.

In the 1980s, radical feminists pushed to outlaw pornography, hand in hand with the Christian right. History doesn’t repeat itself but sometimes it rhymes. How’d it work out for you last time, ladies?

We’ve been saying, and this article gathers good facts in support of the things we saw happening with our own eyes.

In 2017, scientists at a Swedish university created an energy system that makes it possible to capture and store solar energy for up to 18 years, releasing it as heat when needed.

Now the researchers have succeeded in getting the system to produce electricity by connecting it to a thermoelectric generator. Though still in its early stages, the concept developed at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenberg could pave the way for self-charging electronics that use stored solar energy on demand.

“This is a radically new way of generating electricity from solar energy. It means that we can use solar energy to produce electricity regardless of weather, time of day, season, or geographical location,” explains research leader Kasper Moth-Poulsen, Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers.