So ... Does this indicate that you CAN be 'born the wrong gender'?

It is hugely frustrating that females as well as dealing with all the other patriarchal shit have also got to stop and waste time trying to defend the right to make a bloody cup cake in the shape of a vagina! And try and stop the total erasure of our name and identity for the sake of a tiny part of the population, who, even if our name is erased will still not be able to be female!

This young woman had to look on the internet to see if trans women could actually have a period!

Meanwhile many, many girls and women the world over have their education harmed because they cannot go to school while their period is happening, or maybe even the arrival of their period signals the end of schooling for some.

We should be supporting such women and not being forced into arguing about and defending the terms used for our bodies and identities. It is total crap.

lunapads.com/pads4girls?geoip_country=US

Of course trans women deserve the protection and care in law we all expect and they deserve to be safe, and not to be discriminated about in the work process.

But they do not get to define female or tell us how to speak. I hope they must realise that telling females what they can can't say is something men have been doing for millennia. I would have thought they would want to distance themselves from anything that smacked of trying to control women!

Sorry. I'm getting a bit pissy and sarcy.

I think I'll go to bed now

Oh. So I'm trans then?

I expected to feel angrier, somehow.

I guess I need to join the ranks of trans people who also think a lot of this is a load of old shit, and misogynist shit at that, and get called a terf on twitter and all the rest of it.

Although I don't have twitter either. I'm not doing very well at this so far.

demented it makes people like many on this thread agender or genderqueer I think.

It incidentally means that many posting on this thread are not women. And they weren't girls growing up. So any of the things that happened to us that we thought were down to us being female, actually weren't, or something.

So as I have no internal gender, I have no sex. I am neither male nor female. Thus, when a man shouted "show us your tits" at me out of a van when I was 14, this was not a result of sexism / misogyny / or an example of how women and girls in the UK are treated to street harassment by men. As I am not female, and I have no way of telling what his sex was as I didn't stop to ask him.

Not that it matters though, probably. I guess "some people harrass other people on the street" covers it all off nicely and there is no need to even try to understand whether there are any underlying patterns of who is doing what to who and why.

Dementor, yes, agender is under the trans umbrella, so women who say they don't have a gender identity are trans. Not all agender women choose to identify as trans.

"I wouldn't be at all surprised if in thirty years time pregnant women are called pregnant individuals."

Where are you from, WhenShe? I'm just wondering the name of the planet you are broadcasting from because it really doesn't sound like ours.

There is a massive shitstorm going on right now because a women's festival wanted to do a vagina cupcakes workshop, in order to reduce the stigma around vulvas/vaginas. Making cupcakes where the icing is representative of a human vulva is supposedly transphobic. Because.... not all women have vulvas.

One of the posts slagging off the women's festival organisers says that transwomen are apparently biologically female. People have agreed with that statement.

But there's nothing to see here.

The divorce from reality is very sad.

Where have you seen transmen up in arms for these terms to be changed? [puzzled]

"This is a world where women are still to all intents and purposes chattels."

This should say in some parts of the world.

Women are being bought and sold as we speak. Or should that be "people", yes that's better, that'll make it way easier to address the problem.

It's not "annoying".

If you can't see the problem with removing all reference to women and girls in anything that is specific to women and girls, around the world, because of their biology, then I'm not sure there's anything else to say.

There have been complaints about charities sending sanitary protection to girls who don't have any. That sort of thing. I get that you don't get why this is a problem, but please do us a favour and give this perspective some thought, rather than saying oh yeah that's a bit annoying and anyway what's the problem.

You think that in 30 years time every country in the world will refer to "pregnant individuals" because it really won't matter to anyone who has what reproductive system? Come off it. This is a world where women are still to all intents and purposes chattels. You have a very optimistic view of what is going to happen in the next 30 years.

I thought it was mainly transwomen doing the campaigning? Or have I got that wrong?

If ciswomen are women whose gender identity aligns with their born sex, and transwomen are women and always have been, does that mean transwomen are cis? And seeing as a lot of born-women say they don't have a gender identity or are unhappy with gender, does that make them transgender?

So transmen are actively removing (or campaigning for it removal and achieving it) the word women and replacing it with pregnant individuals.

They feel they are being excluded because they are pregnant men.

If I'm honest I wouldn't be at all surprised if in thirty years time pregnant women are called pregnant individuals.
I can see why someone would find it annoying though.

Societies or cultures with a third gender generally place women in a low status. The third gender is for men who are gender non-conforming, not for women who are non-conforming.

0.1% of women who are transwoman

These people are not women. Intersex and trans are completely separate issues.

The don't say vagina thing is here:

slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/08/21/everything-is-transphobic-but-gay-men-draw-vaginas-isnt

Googling is probably your friend here whenshewas.

I found this interesting as representing some of the things that have been discussed on here.

But yes as per cote says that vast majority of people are not confused when someone says "this is a boy" or "women need to go in that queue".

However the changes to language are happening. And it's only things that affect women. Does anyone know of anything that affects men that has been rewritten to exclude the references to men? I've not heard of any lobbying in that direction. Might have a google.

midwives letter

If you google abortion clinic trans you will find plenty of conversations putting various viewpoints forward.

There is at least one abortion provider in the US that has removed references to women / female / girl in all it's literature / website.

The midwifery body in the US has been sent an open letter signed by a whole bunch of midwives as they have also worked to remove all references to women from their guidance around childbirth etc.

There have been examples from (hopefully more extreme people) on the net wanting to change FGM to a less "cis-sexist" term, and also trouble around terms like vagina.

So yes there are some. I'll find the letter in a minute.

"do you have an example of where the language of what impacts women/girls has changed?"

No, because your Newspeak has thankfully not been adopted by the rest of the world, where girl means what it has always meant and woman means what it has always meant.

I get pissed off when the language used to talk about the things impacting women and girls around the world is removed, and therefore the ability to discuss them

Sorry but do you have an example of where the language of what impacts women/girls has changed?

I don't know enough about intersex people to know what is in the best interests of intersex babies.

Adults who have the same specific condition are the best people to advise.

Sorry whirlpool

I think the example I gave was of someone telling someone to stop campaigning for breast cancer and give the money to heart disease.

So not saying that you mind trans issues being discussed - but if it took focus off other women's issues I can see how that would be annoying.

But we've been through all the reasons that some people have difficulties when it comes to accepting trans people as literally the sex that they identify as, and that they have always been that sex.

Things like statistics, single sex spaces, sports, identifying at risk groups and so on. I don't think we need to talk about them all again.

Erm I don't get pissed off when trans people want to fight for issues that affect them - why would I?

A person who raises money for breast cancer doesn't get angry with people who raise money for MIND.

I get pissed off when the language used to talk about the things impacting women and girls around the world is removed, and therefore the ability to discuss them.

Things are already being reframed as "people" issues rather than women's issues, which kind of changes the focus. Things like abortion.

If you can't say who is doing what to who and why then you're not going to win the fight, are you.

jenny

I am certainly not going to advocate for intersex people to be legally made into a third gender group because it is up to intersex people to decide what they want their legal rights

That's absolutely not what I meant. A third gender might be useful for some intersex babies where it is hard to know which sex is the most appropriate.
The third option could be used as a short term option until the child was old enough to say what they felt their gender was (or they may want to continue as the third sex).
The idea of reassigning all intersex people fills me with horror.