Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Are the old meanings of the words woman and man redundant?

135 replies

Thadthimes · 13/08/2025 06:15

Various dictionary definitions seem
to have made the words woman and man redundant.

In short.

woman = XX chromosomes, adult human female (including extremely rare cases of other chromosomal configurations but always without the SRY genes)

woman = XY chromosomes, adult human male (including extremely rare cases of other chromosomal configurations but always with the SRY gene) but believe and feels they are XX and all the associated characteristics of an adult human female.

man = XY chromosomes, adult human male (including extremely rare cases of other chromosomal configurations but always with the SRY gene)

man = XX chromosomes, adult human female (including extremely rare cases of other chromosomal configurations but always without the SRY genes) but believe and feel they are XY.

If this was a venn diagram I’m not sure it would work.

AIBU to think we just need new words for the old biological meanings of these categories to save confusion?

OP posts:
Original poster
Thadthimes · 13/08/2025 06:34

Cambridge dictionary

  1. adult human female
an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been considered to have a different sex at birth: Mary is a woman who was assigned maleat birth. transgender woman Marie is a transgender woman (= she was considered to be male at birth). 1.

considered

1. an opinion or decision that someone has reached after a lot of thought: 2…

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/considered

OP posts:
OxfordInkling · 13/08/2025 06:33

Various dictionaries jumped on the trans train a while back. They now give out nonsense definitions that don’t work, because they are nonsense.

DabOfPistachio · 13/08/2025 06:33

Everyone knows what 'man' and 'woman' mean, even those who pretend that they don't, so no.

NebulouslyContemporaneous · 13/08/2025 06:33

I think we need new words to define biology

No, we just need the fad of enforcing novel definitions of 'man' and 'woman' to peter out.

Comtesse · 13/08/2025 06:31

Which dictionary is that from?

Original poster
Thadthimes · 13/08/2025 06:31

Butchyrestingface · 13/08/2025 06:29

AIBU to think we just need new words for the old biological meanings of these categories to save confusion?

Women and men still work fine. Smile

But if trans identifying men are woman then they don’t work fine.
I think we need new words to define biology

OP posts:
NebulouslyContemporaneous · 13/08/2025 06:30

What dictionaries are you reading?

Butchyrestingface · 13/08/2025 06:29

AIBU to think we just need new words for the old biological meanings of these categories to save confusion?

Women and men still work fine. Smile

MinnieMountain · 13/08/2025 06:28

No. Those dictionaries are wrong.

Summerhillsquare · 13/08/2025 06:27

No, everyone understands man and woman just fine. Likewise mother and father, sister and brother etc.