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The Annals of the TERF-Wars and Other Writing

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The Annals of the Terf Wars brings together essays, speeches, Twitter threads, poetry, and one Star Wars inspired satirical play, written by the feminist philosopher Jane Clare Jones over the course of her many-year involvement in the gender wars. She is the director of The Centre for Feminist Thought, and the editor of the feminist journal The Radical Notion.

368 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2022

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Jane Clare Jones

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5 stars
29 (72%)
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5 (12%)
3 stars
1 (2%)
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2 (5%)
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3 (7%)
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
2 reviews1 follower
May 29, 2022
I was lucky enough to get an early copy of this book and to read it over the last few days. In a series of essays, and pieces, it traces the origin of the current ideas about gender identity we are seeing in the mainstream as well as the work of the global grassroots women’s movement which rejects both the sex denialism and misogyny defining these conversations.

For anyone who doesn’t know why women around the world are gathering together to talk about this issue, this is a vital book. For those of us who do know, it is an immensely encouraging one.

I very much wish that the people yelling that women are fascists for speaking up would have the grace to read this because if anything could get them to the point of acknowledging that dissenting women are not cruel women this book might be it.
Profile Image for Muriel (The Purple Bookwyrm).
428 reviews104 followers
May 31, 2023
More accurate rating: 9-9.5/10.

Jane Clare Jones' book is a collection of elaborated upon tweets, essays, academic presentations and one... satirical play is it? About, well, gender-critical/radical/socialist feminism, its theoretical underpinnings and activist ramifications... and the misogynistic, homophobic and authoritarian alt-left clusterfuck we're in right now with regards to gender identity ideology. This clusterfuck has been developing over the past... 10 years or so-ish (with roots extending further back) and Jones goes into the history and whys of this development as well.

I loved the way Jones presented her, and a lot of fellow gender-critical feminists', arguments and really vibed with her style and sense of humour. She is intellectually rigorous throughout, but makes all of her points accessible. She is certainly pissed, and flabbergasted, like so many of us, but still manages to inject a lot of dark humour in her writing.

Jones is specifically trained/educated in French post-structuralist feminism and goes into what that means exactly, and how this relates to other branches of the post-modern philosophical tradition. This was absolutely fascinating, not to mention enlightening, to me. A lot of stuff makes a lot more sense to me now with regards to contemporary queer theory and academic "fuck-wittery". Judith Butler, the "empress" of queer theorists and gender identity ideologues, is torn to shreds – or rather her philosophical twaddle is torn to shreds – by Jones, but justifiably so as far as I'm concerned.

This was very nearly a 10/10 slam dunk read for me, so what's that -0.5 to -1 about you may ask? Eh, nothing that major ultimately, just slight divergences of thought and a desire for nuance, on my part, I felt was lacking from the overall analysis. To wit:

- I just think the Humanities and STEM need to cross-pollinate a bit more. Not that Jones displayed a truly bothersome lack of familiarity with the finer points of biology, mind you, but there were just a couple of specks here and there where I thought to myself "well, but ackshually...". Like the fact isogamous sexual reproduction is a thing; that sex hormones really shouldn't be bandied about the way they are by most people, it seems, because endocrinology really do be complex. Or that whilst yes, there does seem to have been a correlation between the emergence of agriculture and that of patriarchy, I believe the evidence points to a "necessary but not sufficient condition" type of deal for the relation (okay, that stuff is more anthropology I guess, so not the hardest of STEMy stuff either, fine).

- I really can't with the French philosophers, generally, for the simple reason 'them bishes got really drunk on psychoanalytic bullshit, and I'm not about that. And Jones identifies, somewhat, with that specific tradition, and thus adhere to what she calls "difference feminism", if I understood that correctly. Now, this does not, in fact, entail gender essentialism, which she articulates very clearly herself in a few of her essays or developed Twitter posts, but there was a certain point where I was nonetheless bothered by the naming of it. Because we all know people run away with the word difference to mean "Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus". Though admittedly, this is more a PR problem than anything else. I'm also not quite fully on board with the idea that Patriarchy actually posits women... don't exist. I'm, once gain, pretty sure I understood what Jones actually meant when she developed that concept – extrapolated from French post-structuralist feminism – but it nonetheless sounds freaking off to me. There surely must be a better way of conveying the idea behind that jank-as-fuck phrasing.

- Finally, I thought Jones' very last essay was the weakest of the collection. I mostly agree with its general idea: that trans-humanism, aka mind-body dualism on steroids and crack combined, as an answer to humans raping the Earth (and thus nuking our own likelihood of surviving on it in the long-term), is pretty fucked in the head, let's be real. Especially given most of it is being pushed by techbros (and we all know how dodgy they can be). But the oh-so-slightly generationally-slanted mild Internet-bashing was a tad meh, and a smidge ironic given the author's own usage of Twitter. Yes yes, we're all familiar with the "touch grass" meme, alright? We get it. But the Internet can also, actually, foster human connection, especially for people like me so... Ease up aight? Just because I meet friends and/or partners online doesn't mean I, or anyone else, is on board with becoming a cyborg. I've read, watched, and played enough science-fiction to find the idea of a singularity-embracing cyberpunk dystopia thoroughly off-putting. And one can in fact be authentic on the Internet as well. Last I checked, not everyone uses filters on Instagram or YouTube – in fact my own video quality is pretty freaking basic and I'm perfectly content with that.

Additionally, the author's own take on metaphysics and sharply dualistic religion and/or philosophy is, well, her own, and tangential to broader gender-critical feminism in my opinion. I think a lot of that stuff is a lot more relevant when considering the later Greco-Roman world and Christendom, specifically, but not necessarily other pagan traditions, male-dominated or not. I'm not a transcendence junkie myself but I still find value in the mystical traditions of several religions that aren't exclusively rooted in a purely materialistic appreciation of existence. But, of course, to each their own there.
We want real rooms filled with real human laughter and the buzz of real human energy. We want to hear each other’s voices and look each other in the eye. We want to touch each other.

Well, I'm autistic... so no I don't need to hang out in rooms full of people and make eye contact with a lot of humans to be happy. In fact, that's pretty much my idea of Hell, sue me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But yeah, this was otherwise a stellar read I would highly recommend!
Profile Image for Francesca Strada.
191 reviews53 followers
June 26, 2022
Jane Clare Jones with her wit and clear way explains the most important points and contradictions of an ideology that has taken over the world.
She points out the absurdities of the arguments trans activists use.
I would recommend it as a companion of Helen Joyce's book.
Profile Image for Arwen Greenwood.
7 reviews2 followers
August 8, 2022
BEWARE TW: Transphobia.

this book is by a TERF for TERFs. ‘The trans rights movement consists… of the effort to erase the class of female people’. This author does not speak for me, or my feminist community.
72 reviews7 followers
August 21, 2022
Insightful, funny, inspiring and an important piece of history all in one. I think I'll have to read it again for my small brain to really process all of the philosophy, but it has already helped me see much of this in more detail, and reading it again will absolutely not be a chore. Highly recommended.
21 reviews
February 17, 2024
"I wanted to capture a small slice of what we have experienced over the last several years. It’s become something of a Terven commonplace to note that none of us really believe any of this is happening and suspect we will get to the end of our days without really believing any of it happened at all."

This collection of essays/tweet threads is brilliant. Not only is it full of feminist analysis, with lots of points to jump off into further reading (the author's writing and otherwise), the backdrop of twitter threads create this time capsule of (frustrating, maddening) WORK by women of unpicking and understanding institutional capture.
1 review
May 31, 2022
I remember as this started as a blog post on JCJ's site a few years ago. I love her writing. Everyone, even those on "the other side" should read this to at least understand the feminists' point of view.
Profile Image for Genevieve.
482 reviews14 followers
June 2, 2025
I found this book because a so-called “friend” called me transphobic, then another, then a third told me to stop “clutching my pearls” when my transphobia/misogyny is called out.

My internal dialogue:
“Huh? I just said transwomen shouldn’t play in female sports.
How is it even remotely coherent to say, “Transwomen are women”?
How does it make sense that saying “transwomen are men” is an example of misogyny?
Do I not know what misogyny is?
…finds dictionary…I DO know what misogyny is.
Have I entered an alternate universe?
Men can get pregnant?
Pregnant people is a thing? Not women and not mothers anymore?
Birthing people?
Have I missed a medical/magical breakthrough where DNA manipulation and surgeries have made this possible?
What is going on?”

I started surfing X to find people to “fight with” because that’s the best way for me to get the latest information on politics. Stepping into the filth and extremist opinions is always fun. I make a lot of noise, subtly call people intellectually inferior, state an inflammatory opinion, or ask dumb questions to get an unleashing of rage, explanations, and interesting knowledge. I was then called a “TERF sock puppet”.

My internal dialogue: “TERF? Is that related to NERF guns?”

Nope. lol

A search on my kindle for TERF offered just one book- this one. (Trans-exclusionary radical feminist)
Yep, that sounds like me.

I read the first chapter and was crying from laughing so hard. So I searched for the author on X to thank her for writing the book. She’s @janeclarejones if you’re interested in reading her latest posts. They are fantastic. Especially since the UK Supreme Court ruled in April of 2025 that the definition of woman IS an adult human female and not a TIM (trans identifying male). TIM is taken as a very unfavorable term for a transwoman or a person who was AMAB (assigned male at birth.)

{I’m giving some of the lingo because it was a lot of new vocabulary for me to sort out as it is pure nonsense. It’s like trying to make sense of the jobberwocky poem in Alice in Wonderland.}

This book is SO eye opening and explains why it seems like feminists are being silent about transwomen (biological males) erasing women’s and girl’s records in sports and invading women’s spaces such as locker rooms, women’s prisons, bathrooms, rape crisis centers, breastfeeding classes, lesbian groups…it’s pure madness.

(Seriously, transwomen are identifying as lesbians and calling lesbians transphobic. Lesbians don’t want to date them or take them to bed. This exclusion means they are transphobic. Women can have penises. What?!?!)

I was so afraid that I was some kind of awful prude and hateful person making the same mistake of homophobia.

(In reality, trans ideology is deeply homophobic. Parents are transitioning their children because they see their girls acting “like boys” and their boys “playing with dolls and wanting to wear pink dresses”. So these kids are put on puberty blockers and pumped full of cross sex hormones. Now they will be “normal” because obviously they were born in the wrong body.
Gay men and lesbians are detransitioning because they discovered they weren’t born in the wrong body, they were duped and wanted to look like a “normal heterosexual”, but didn’t understand that was it. Now they have no breasts, no penis, no chance for a sex life or a family. Damaged beyond repair. Sick, sick, evil, and more sick.)

My internal dialogue:
“I’m a new christian, do I really hate women and am some kind of patriarchal monster now?
Does a belief in the Bible skew the way I am interpreting this?
Am I a hateful bigot that wants to see every transperson wiped off the face of the earth? Transphobia doesn’t seem like homophobia.
Homophobia is hatred to the point of actual physical violence against gay men and lesbians.
I don’t feel that.
I feel afraid of men. Especially if they are in spaces where I’m going to be nude. If a transwoman looks like a woman and may or may not still have his “male appendages”, I certainly do NOT want to be in a vulnerable space with that body.
I’m totally fine with undressing in front of my lesbian friends. I have swam on teams and shared pool locker rooms with those girls for decades.
Am I out of line to want transwomen out of female spaces because I have been raped and sexually assaulted by men multiple times in the past?
Am I “weaponizing” my trauma?
Am I overreacting?
What was the #metoo movement about?
What is happening??!!”

As I started reading this book, I came to realize that I am not out of line, a Nazi, or a hater. I have more in common with second wave feminism than I thought. Trans ideology is “patriarchy on stilts” (as Jane Clare Jones recently posted on her X feed). It leans into gender stereotypes by saying that womanhood is a feeling that resides between your ears. A woman is someone who likes to clean, paint her nails, wear girly clothes and makeup, and acts feminine. Pure sexist bologna!!! Just as I suspected.

The more I read, the more intensely furious I became. Thankfully, Jones dissipates that rage with humor. Who knew that the word “batshittery” existed and that it so accurately describes this cultural nightmare while making me laugh to near hysterics. I love this author.

The most enraging essay in the book was explaining that trans ideology and TRAs (trans rights activists) use the same rape culture mentality that women have been subjected to for… how long? Millennia?

Rape culture is especially clear in interviews done after the UK Supreme Court’s ruling. Female only spaces and sports must be honored again with biological women only. The women who fought for the ruling (many of them lesbians) are being asked, “How do you think transwomen feel about this? Do you feel responsible for their pain and emotional suffering?”
Are you kidding me??!?!!!

I didn’t notice that it was rape culture until Jones pointed it out. I grew up in a time where I had to be sure I wasn’t “being a tease”. If I was sexually assaulted, it was my fault for being in that place and dressing in a way to deserve it. I had to “consider his feelings” and “give him what he needs”.

Same thing now. The male’s feelings are taking the forefront when a woman enacts a boundary and says no. “Be compassionate.” “Be kind.”
No.
No means no. It is completely reasonable for a woman to say no.

This has absolutely zero to do with my convictions regarding Jesus Christ and a biblical worldview. In fact, Jones writes in the last essay of the book that religions with a belief in resurrection are death cults in the same vein as trans ideology. (Which is a strawman of Christianity, but whatever, she’d been speaking my language up until that moment.) This woman is no fan of religion.

I do not consent to having a male body in a female only space with me or competing in sports with me. Even when I don’t know he’s there: as in someone who “passes”.

It is no different than raping a woman when she is under chemical submission.

Have you heard about Gisele Pelicot? She said, “Shame must change sides,” after her husband of nearly 50 years was convicted of drugging her unconscious to have 70+ strangers rape her over a period of 10 years!!! She had no clue. None. It began when she was in her 60s. She was 72 years old he was brought to trial and she didn’t want to remain anonymous. She wanted to speak.

How does this case relate?

Because I have been so brainwashed by this rape culture, that my brain wants to justify that what happened to her is not a big deal. She didn’t know. If her husband hadn’t have been arrested for taking pictures up women’s skirts, no one would have found the 20,000 pictures and videos of her being raped while unconscious.

How sick is that? Is it some kind of survival mechanism for someone who has been a victim of rape and part of that second class citizenship of humanity which is woman?

And so when I think about how this world will look for my daughters as they grow…I start to rationalize away my fears for them.

Boys are having their birth certificates changed to female. Boys will be able to compete against my girls and change in dressing rooms with them. These boys will be undetected. It’s fine because my daughters won’t know it.

No, it isn’t fine.
This is not okay.
None of it is.

And we are in a time where telling the truth about biology and male violence against women shames me and women who think like me.
That is wrong.

#ShameMustChangeSides
#IStandWithKaren
2 reviews
February 5, 2024
Worth reading

I don’t agree with the author’s philosophical approach, although the central argument about the immutable nature of sex and importance for understanding and changing society is correct (the ‘gender-critical approach). I also got tired of the sweary words, which would only add something if they were not overused. It does however make interesting and correct arguments in addition to the other books with a similar task of debunking gender identity ideology and is recommended on this count
Profile Image for Faye.
129 reviews5 followers
May 28, 2025
Good lord, this book was laughably bad. It was in my local "little free library" and after a skim. Most of the points are not agreed with by actual professionals. The scenarios are a gross oversimplification of feminism.
As someone who's currently going to school to study this sort of thing, I couldn't help but be intrigued. Glad I didn't have to spend money on it, though.
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