It was meant to be a deliberately technically neutral description of an activist grouping. In a 2014 interview with The TransAdvocate, Smythe said: She wrote that she rejected the alignment of all radical feminists with 'trans-exclusionary radfem (TERF) activists'. Smythe has been credited with having coined the term TERF, due to a blog post she wrote reacting to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival's policy of denying admittance to trans women.
It was used to describe a minority of feminists who espouse sentiments that other feminists consider transphobic, including the rejection of the view, predominant in feminist organizations, that trans women are women, opposition to transgender rights, and the exclusion of trans women in women's spaces and organizations.
Trans-inclusive cisgender radical feminist blogger Viv Smythe has been credited with popularizing the term in 2008 as an online shorthand.
