TERF Bangs

About

TERF Bangs refers to a hairstyle featuring a very short and blunt fringe on one's forehead. Also called "baby bangs" or "pixie bangs," the slang term "TERF bangs" is thought to have originated from discussions on Tumblr sometime in 2014. It is unclear why the haircut came to be associated with TERFS (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists), however, various celebrities including Grimes and Emma Watson have been described as donning "TERF bangs" in the 2010s.

Origin

An August 7th, 2018, article published by The Cut^[1] discusses the origins of the term "TERF bangs," citing various Tumblr users who recall encountering the term in 2014 on the platform. However, the earliest known instance of the term appearing online is a tweet by X / Twitter^[2] user @sensenotsense from November 21st, 2015, in which she asked, "What are TERF bangs?"

The earliest known use of the phrase "TERF Bangs" on Tumblr is a June 3rd, 2016, reply to a Tumblr^[3] post featuring a dog wearing a wig with short and blunt black bangs. Tumblr user @powerjock responded to the post writing, "this dog has terf bangs stop," gathering over 92,000 notes in eight years (seen below).

Spread

On June 25th, 2016, Redditor^[4] /u/justokaytoday posted a query about the origins of the term TERF bangs in /r/asktransgender. The post gathered over 50 upvotes in eight years (seen below, left). On June 22nd, Tumblr^[5] user @greggaraki posted an image of Spock from Star Trek in response to the question, "What are TERF bangs?" (seen below, right), gathering over 4,500 notes in six years.

On March 14th, 2018, X^[7] user @OfficialBrohoss posted a joke about TERF bangs, gathering over 8,000 likes in six years (seen below).

On August 22nd, 2018, the Instagram^[6] page @bluekanto reposted a since-deleted Tumblr post, gathering over 10,000 likes in six years (seen below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References