So, could we just change words?

What a shame I can't say "if you're a woman who likes women and men sexually then you're bisexual" any more

So it seems I have accepted that those words no longer have any meaning

Wow fuck

Oh I see

They've already got a name though if you're a woman who likes both dick and cunt then you're bisexual and if you only like dick your heterosexual.

I suppose you could have new terms to take into account that some dick owners think they are of the female sex (!) but this a. rubber stamps the idea that humans can literally change sex and b. they don't want a new term they want lesbian so it won't work

Sorry, probably didn't explain very well.
Homosexual females retain the word lesbian.
Everyone else, including lesbians (bisexuals?) who enjoy a bit of girk-* and the the owners of said appendage find a new word?
Surely it is the only answer if homosexuality is going to be able to exist in the future?
Lesbians could have lesbian only groups and the rest can have groups.
It is surely the only answer?

I think Midge is suggesting that gender critical women rebrand themselves as trans non binary, (seeing as we fit the Stonewall definition). Having done so we then demand the "protection" of Stonewall.

Basically, the ongoing redefining of normal human behaviours and relationships as queer speshul means we can ALL be "queer".

Courday that redefines the word lesbian though, as well.

As people who may or may not be sexually interested in a bit of cock.

So it doesn't work.

Perhaps you like computers or have short hair or wear trousers or are lesbian. Perhaps you think that gender binaries are a concept you reject altogether?
That makes you trans non binary.

No, it makes us human, this is totally normal human behaviour, nobody fits perfectly into boxes.

I do think that alot of hostilities regarding the AGP males claiming to be lesbians could be avoided if there was a new term.

Some lesbians say they are happy with the idea of a woman with a girk- (but many/most? are not) so it would make things alot less homophobic/generally problematic if there was a differentiation made.
My online dating matches were over half transwomen, a new term would allow me to only match with people I might be interested in.
Lesbians who don't care would not need to be so restrictive. It is a no brainer really but we run into the validation issue so it will never happen.

@MIdgebabe

I've read that three times and still have no idea what you're getting at. Particularly the last paragraph.

We don’t change the words, we claim words as our own.

I think a significant majority of women here have aspects of their characters that are masculine. Perhaps you like computers or have short hair or wear trousers or are lesbian. Perhaps you think that gender binaries are a concept you reject altogether? That makes you trans non binary.

So anyone discrim8nating agaisnt you is transphobic. ANyone taking away your rights is transphobic. We can rebrand mysogeny as transphobia.

THen we move into intersectionality, since as a trans non binary natal female person I am doubling discrim8nated agaianst, stonewall need o centre me . Me me . My physical slight of build and weak voice is used agaianst me, and when I try to break gender norms I suffer additionally.

CAN I apologise to the transwomen who stonewall should be looking out for, the ones who know and respect our differences and exhibit female socialisation in doing so. I am not wanting to belittle your experiance or drown out your voice by this approbation of trans non binary labels. Others have done that already.

Although, 'They is a vet,' to me reads like it should be followed by 'innit'.

Absolutely. I'm sure if we all gave up and accepted the (horrible, insulting) term 'cis' it wouldn't be long before we heard 'I've finished transitioning, so I'm 'cis' now too...'

That already happened a couple of years ago.

No because I am a historian and it would render the past incomprehensible.

As well as what everyone else said.

No, we can't just change the meaning of words so that they become meaningless.

Women are women.
Men are not women.

And women can generally spot men, whatever they call themselves.

It is not just the visuals - e.g. clothes or makeup or hairstyle or shoes.

We can see, and we can hear, and also we have a sense of smell.

Opps

ImFineThankYouSusan

What was even worse for me with that tweat was that it put (what they consider natal) women second, and as a subset of (trans) women!

“I support both women and cis women” [mad]

Both Shakespeare and Chaucer used "they" as a 3rd person singular pronoun in circumstances where sex was unknown or irrelevant. That's not a usage that bothers me. (Though I fundamentally disagree with the idea that having a personality capable of being covered by more than one sex stereotype at once makes you a different sort of person from the rest of us).

Zie, xir, etc on the other hand - anyone who wants me to remember that alphabetti-spaghetti nonsense can fuck right off.

Having a penis or vagina doesn't separate males from females as there have been men and woman born without and in rare cases both.

A man is a person with the potential to create sperm.

A woman is a person with the potential to create an egg.

The word potential is important to exempt those without the ability to do either of those.

Every single person on the planet falls into one of these two categories bar none so separating them shouldn't be difficult.

"They" singular seems relatively normal to me, as it's commonly used when you don't know the sex of the person being referred to, either because it's ambiguous or you just can't really see them.
"Can you see that person on top of the hill, they're so far ahead of us"
"did you see that person who walked past? What on earth were they wearing?"
etc. Using it to talk more closely is clunky I agree, but not incorrect. You still use "they are" even if it's singular (unless you also use the word innit )

The next tweet agreed and stated that the idea of men and women =babies and heterosexuality as the most common orientation started in the 19 century. Someone needs to update the animal kingdom that they are bang out of date and Poss transphobic

They would have difficulties even outside the UK and US. I lived in Germany for over 40 years and such language gymnastics would be hard to imagine in that country, where even things have strict "genders". As for any country with a non-white majority -- impossible to imagine. This is an entirely anglo-echo-chamber.

I have a Facebook friends who is a very popular non-fiction US author. She has a huge friends community who are always quick to applaud anything she says. She is extremely "progressive" like almost all of this community.
Recently this woman spoke of her 11 year old daughter who now refuses to use the pronouns she and he and substitutes "they" for everyone until she knows their "preferred gender". She (the duaghter) apparently expressed sympathy for all the millions of people in the past who ave been misgendered. She mentioned Abraham Lincoln -- "what if they were really a woman"?
She had hundreds of comments congratulating her on raising such a woke daughter.

Nothingontellyagain, they tie themselves in knots don't they. The harmful construct is gender - the idea the men and women are expected to do/think/feel x.y.z. in accordance with gender norms. Sex is something that just... is. Heterosexuality and homosexuality are colonial constructs in terms of those categories of human not being thought of as distinct groupings in the past until one group wished to medicalise or problematise the other. But pretty much all species have pairings of all kinds between the sexes (note not between the genders... because gender is an oppressive and culturally mediated construct).

'Definitely the idea of the cishet (unlabeled of course) is a western colonial construct enforced on the world. It's why responses to LGBTQI+ people are so violent.'

I am utterly perplexed by statements of this sort.

The next tweet agreed and stated that the idea of men and women =babies and heterosexuality as the most common orientation started in the 19 century. Someone needs to update the animal kingdom that they are bang out of date and Poss transphobic

Notmysquirrel, you get used to it when most people you know are 'they singular'. I have a lot of complicated thoughts about non-binary as a distinct "gender" category, but getting my head round simply the word usage has been easy with practice.

Barracker hits the nail on the head

And man, that Twitter thread!! I'd actually like to thank you mad vipers who are on Twitter and share links with those of us who are too scared to go on it aren't. Your blood pressure must suffer.

Change words? Absolutely. Fucking. Not.