Queeriods. "How to talk inclusively about periods."

So then 'dickheads' might actually be a perfectly reasonable term to use? 😀

@nauticant Quollocks(!) Stealing that, right now...

The one bright spot I see in all this is that teachers now have a rich source of imaginative kennings to share - judiciously - with children: Now, Year 5, who do you think the writer means by "Birth-givers" and "Chest-feeders"? Yes, Sophie, it's those people we used to call (whispers) "women" but can't any more. Now, let's think of some kennings we could use for men if we wanted to banish the word we use for them . Don't worry, Freddie, that will never happen. Stop snivelling, Sophie!

The equivalent @KentuckyBlueberry would be talking about prostate havers in articles for prostate cancer checks. Or testicular cancer posters talking about testicle owners.

I’m going in Superdrug later, if I see a men’s aisle and no women’s aisle, I’ll be asking lots of awkward questions. And then flounce right out, thrusting my full to the brim basket of items I now no longer wish to spend my money on, on the poor unsuspecting penishaverager

IMO it undermines credibility and perceived impartiality when it comes to the areas where women’s rights are materially threatened, such as the proposed removal of legally recognised sex-based protections.

Women's rights have already been, not merely materially threatened, but effectively nullified even though in law there are still meant to be sex based protections. And a lot of this is down to the abuse of language. The often repeated untruths,'transwomen are women, transmen are men' gets blindly translated into practice, sanctioned by unelected pressure groups such as stonewall. A boy says he's a girl and is allowed to beat girls in their races, use their changing rooms etc and woe betide them if they dare to dissent.

Language matters.

I have never seen a web page about prostate cancer which talks about "prostate havers". I have never seen a web page about men's sexual health or about men's rights to paternity leave which talks about "ejaculators." I have never seen heterosexual men described as "vagina fetishists" or gay men described as "penis fetishists."

However women are meant to be happy with being referred to as "menstruators" despite the fact that in some parts of the world women die of exposure in menstruation huts. Women are meant to be happy to be referred to as "birthing people" despite the fact that pregnant women still routinely lose their jobs for being pregnant - something done to them because they are women in a sexist society, not because they are "pregnant people."

The US elected a president who talked gleefully about "grabbing women by the pussy" and one of whose first acts on becoming president was to strip funding from overseas aid agencies which provided abortion support. When women took to the streets wearing "pussy hats" as an ironic protest, some TRAs decided to take them to task for centring biology and thereby excluding transwomen... at a protest about electing a president who celebrated male on female sexual violence, and who is pandering to the anti-abortion wing of his party.

None of these demands about linguistic contortion are being aimed at men. None. NONE. They're all being aimed at women. Any single one individually, you could possibly just go "meh." But connect the dots, watch it happening over and over again.

And isn't it interesting that in a left wing culture where the oppressed person's experience is meant to be primary, and they're meant to be the one who gets to dictate what's acceptable language and what isn't, the one group not allowed to choose our own names is women? We're "cis-women" whether we like it or not, we're "cervix-havers", "uterus-bearers", "birthing people", "menstruators", "chest-feeders" whether we like it or not.

It's deeply inaccurate language.

Beginning periods is neither ‘becoming a woman’ nor ‘starting puberty’. It is just one step in both those processes.

Women’s health is not ‘reproductive health’. It is health specific to women’s biology. It does not include testicles and prostates, for example, because they are irrelevant to women’s health. It does include breasts, despite them being irrelevant to reproduction. (Check any prostate cancer website for the language they use. No erasure of men there.)

Even in developed countries that should say

I dont think there is an equivalent for men really.

Men arent dying in childbirth are they. Yet women of colour are 5 times more likely to die even.

Men arent dying in menstruation huts.

Menstruation is a huge event in a girls life globally. It has so many dangerous connotations there is nothing I can think of that could be removed from men that would hide the pain and suffering from the world the way that women and girls being written out of their own suffering with periods does.

@SarahTancredi

Fully prepared to change my thinking on this. What would be the equivalent example in the case of men?

I don’t think that using the terms suggested (e.g. start puberty, parents and children, etc.) takes anything away from women, or stops women from naming themselves

They arent doing it to men though. So its alot more sinister than you seem to think. Some of us have been watching this play out for years.

@LillianBland

I understand where you’re coming from, and I’m not saying those things aren’t happening.

I just don’t find the replacement terminology they’ve suggested threatening in that sense, and don’t have a problem with it.

I don’t think that using the terms suggested (e.g. start puberty, parents and children, etc.) takes anything away from women, or stops women from naming themselves.

That’s not to say I support this organisation or their wider agenda (I’m not familiar with them).

I think one of the dangers of this debate is actually conflating all of the different issues involved as us vs. them. IMO it undermines credibility and perceived impartiality when it comes to the areas where women’s rights are materially threatened, such as the proposed removal of legally recognised sex-based protections.

Believe me, when I hear them whining about how long they have to wait for their none essential operations, I don’t waste any sympathy on them. Maybe if I had said I was a man, all the symptoms would have went away, cause science

Waiting for healthcare and/or surgery is normal these days for everyone. I too am.sick.of hearing about it because as much as i dont feel anyone should have to wait long periods of time for treatment, they are hardly singled out are they. Operations are cancelled all the sodding time. MN is dull of people who have waited years for their kid to get an echp.

Just stop it. You are not the victim you seem to think you are everyone has to wait you arent special.

That sounds truly dreadful Lillian I'm.sorry you were left in that state

Does that mean Mother’s Day will change to menstruators with children’s day?!

I'd love for them to try that one, we don't actually have 'mother's day,' we have 'mothing Sunday' which, although repurposed as 'mother's day' actually refers to attending the 'mother church'.

*not

There are lots of issues thrown up by the tension between TG & women’s rights which are concerning and need careful consideration, however for me this is not one of them. The replacement terms they’ve suggested seem fine to me.

Just in case it's not obvious, you have my huge sympathies for having had to go through such agonies because of your woman's biology, compounded by the misogyny of having your woman's biology completely discounted by those in a position to help you.

That’s horrendous Lillian🙁

Shit, LillianBland, why didn't you just identify as a man? They'd have whipped your inconvenient women's bits out double-quick-time.

Even with all thatI still had to argue with them in order to have a hysterectomy. I had endometriosis, that had leaked out of my womb and attached itself to by bowel, which had to be ‘lifted out’ for want of a better description and the endometriosis scrapped off. They also discovered I had a polyp the size of a kiwi on one of my ovaries.

These are symptoms ONLY experienced by women, and to call women menstruaters in order to appease some stupid woke crowd is incredibly cruel, selfish and insulting to every woman, but especially to those who have suffered as a result of their female anatomy. But apparently the women/girls who are sexually harassed, raped, murdered, killed at birth, ignored, spoken over, patronised or simply just ‘offered’ because of their female anatomy can have their feelings ignored, because trans rights (Feelings) are the only rights that matter.

Neither does it fit the narrative they’re pushing. They understand how hard it is to get some countries to give a shit about girls, but what about the young trans people there who menstruate.

Or don’t they exist? 🤔

That statement does come across as “foreign people are too stoopid to understand” doesn’t it?