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Not long ago, I posted a throwaway meme I created to mock the transgender mob on Twitter attempting to cancel the upcoming video game “Hogwarts Legacy.”

According to trans activists, the game’s success will only reward Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling for what they claim is her rabid transphobia and bigotry. The campaign to cancel the game has been met with intense backlash by a counter-movement looking to “buycott” the game purely out of spite.

(READ: Transgender Mob Takes Another Loss to J.K. Rowling Over ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ Game)

The meme I posted featured a transgender “ally” attempting to use trans mob logic on gamers just wanting to play a game and have fun. Within the meme, I used the term “TERF” which seemed to cause some confusion. Many people didn’t seem to understand what the phrase means.

#HogwartsLegacy pic.twitter.com/9cY5rurQIo

— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) January 6, 2023

I can tell you now that “TERF” is an acronym that stands for “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist.” This is the trans activist community’s Scarlett Letter. In their book, it’s one of the worst accusations they can thrust upon someone.

It’s especially used against women who speak out against the transgender community’s blitzkrieg into women’s spaces, whether it’s the bathroom or a specific sport. The word is meant to shame women into silence by making everyone else believe they’re intolerant and bigoted. However, as of late, women have begun proudly embracing the “TERF” label and openly rejecting transgenderism’s forced inclusion into their territory.

This attempt to make people feel guilt has really only led to more people feeling less and less of it, causing the transgender mob to lose more and more of its power.

The short shelf-life of “TERF” would usually lead to people ditching the term as it swiftly lost its effectiveness. However, they haven’t. It’s still in popular circulation among LGBT activists and likely won’t go away anytime soon. The point of a scarlet letter wasn’t just to instill guilt in the one that bore it but to help identify targets for shame to others, whether they’re actually guilty of the crime or not.

But, there’s a deeper reason they won’t let go of “TERF,” and it’s the main reason it will stick around for some time.

The term is also used as self-assurance that whoever they’re arguing against is evil and worthy of condemnation. Anyone who’s a TERF is automatically a closed-minded bigot who’s on the wrong side of history according to those who fling the term around.

And if someone is a bigoted and evil person worthy of only condemnation then there’s no reason to absorb or listen to any of their points. Even if the person they’re arguing against is perfectly respectable and making clear, factual points in a debate, all a trans activist or their allies have to do is toss out the “TERF” label and suddenly all those points mean nothing. The user of the word can go on living in their bubble without a second thought since they’ve convinced themselves the person they’re arguing against is guilty of — if not an enabler of — hate and violence.

In other words, the term “TERF” is a verbal teddy bear a member of the trans mob can hug and hide behind whenever someone begins pulling them out of their bubble and into reality. It’s the emergency eject button. An escape hatch they can run to when things aren’t going their way.

It’s another reason why the “TERF” label means nothing. They throw it out indiscriminately when they’re losing arguments…and they lose a lot of arguments.

But it’s not just “TERF.” A lot of terms have the same use behind them and you’ve seen them used a myriad of times before. That same strategy of convincing oneself that the other person is wrong morally and factually and not worth listening to is seen in accusations like “homophobe” and “racist.” Once someone says you’re guilty of those sins, you can be comfortably shunned and ignored no matter how right you are.

But the vast majority of the time, these words are just a way for someone to convince themselves they don’t have to lose an argument and that their beliefs are good and right.

Thing is, eventually, all bubbles burst.