One in 10 women and other people with a uterus of reproductive age have the disease.

Exactly, jcurve!

I’m still stewing on this, apologies for the multi posts.

In that article, when it explores general endo topics, stats etc, it goes for the “inclusive” language, so women+. But when it’s talking about the shitty attractiveness study, it only refers to women who were part of it.

So endo can affect all genders, but a shitty study that looked at attractiveness somehow managed only to evaluate women?

Huh.

Having thought some more about this - because I do like to compromise if I can - I think I could live with 'Women (which includes transmen)'.

Yes it's clunky and would probably annoy everyone but it's the best I can do. I think that, unlike 'women and transmen' it avoids the implication that women and transmen are biologically different.

It may seem like a lot of fuss over the word 'and' but I think we need to be vigilant and precise in our language. Not being so is arguably what got us into this shit.

Actually, the study itself also doesn't completely horrify me. It's very wrong that the women in the study didn't consent to being rated this way. However, it does seem to be an attempt to test a hypothesis, borne of informal observation, that certain physical characteristics potentially associated with differences in development were associated with endometriosis. It would have been much better if the physical characteristics associated with conventional "attractiveness" had been broken down better and presented this way (symmetry/wth ratio, etc.?). But informally it was "attractiveness" that the clinicians noticed, so they crudely assessed this. A bit shit, but not worthy of retraction, perhaps?

Endometriosis (like many female conditions) is extremely under-researched despite affecting 10% of the population. On average it takes 7 years to get a formal diagnosis which is only possible with a laparoscopy. Removal of deep endometriosis is one of the most complex surgeries performed on the NHS, it needs a surgeon with many years of training to adequately treat.

As someone with Stage 4 endometriosis, I think this study is pretty shit. What good has been done by figuring out that some endometriosis sufferers are attractive? Does it help the diagnosis and treatment of sufferers? At worst, it means that a GP will look at a tearful 21yo doubled over in pain and think she can’t have it because she’s not conventionally pretty.

There is so much that needs to be researched. The prevailing theory on why endometriosis happens dates back to 1922, they still don’t know why it happens. It’s insulting AF to find out that precious research dollars were spent figuring out that white Italian female sufferers were considered attractive by men, rather than a topic with the potential to actually help women.

[quote BobbieDraper]@DialSquare

Just read this thread, ir a number of others on here, which show the hundreds of mumsnetter who will refuse to use the pronoun chosen by the person in question because they werent born that way.
If they pass as the gender the choose, the people on herr have called it "being tricked". If they dont pass, then they wont use the chosen pronoun. And that's gender ideology?[/quote]
The position of Mumsnetters even here on FWR is far more nuanced that you present it as. We differentiate between traditional and newly coined pronouns, between general usage and hypothetical situations or people, between discussing actual situations or people and how we behave while being in specific situations or meeting specific people offline.

There's a wide spread of approaches to all three of scenarios, including at one end those who will never use anything other than chosen pronouns and at the other end people who will never use anything other than the pronoun accorded to the sex of the person discussed. Most of us are somewhere in between.

As for gender ideology:

Gender ideology is an ideology which elevates an individual's preference for the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes associated with one or the other sex in importance above the individual's actual sex, especially for the purposes of organising society and writing and enforcing laws.

It is centred on the belief that we are all of us born with a preference for the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes associated with one or the other sex.

This is typically explained by talking of a disembodied but sexed entity that is located inside an opposite sex body for individuals who identify as trans.

This entity is variously described as a female/male soul, a female/male brain or an inner feminine/masculine essence and a small number of other things.

Another tenet of the faith is that while the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes associated with either sex are innate and material reality, sex itself is a social construct and that biological material reality does not, in fact, exist.

This is usually explained by referencing specific non-human flora and fauna where the sexes are organised slightly differently from humans, such as species where individuals can change from producing the gametes of the female sex to producing the gametes of the male sex (or vice versa, or both) usually in response to environmental or population pressures. Or by reference to the complicated medical issues suffered by the small number of people born with a Difference in Sex Development.

That reproduction even in those species and in people with DSDs still only happens via the combination of male and female gametes is typically not remarked upon.

Another tenet of gender ideology is that the expression of any disagreement with any of its aspects is an act of hostility. That is because questioning the tenets of this faith is framed not as questioning the belief of its adherents but their very existence.

HTH

The more I think about it, the crosser I get here.

Endo is under diagnosed, with an often extremely delayed diagnosis. It is poorly treated, with the gold standard of excision surgery for moderate-severe endo being rarely/patchily available on the nhs. Women with the disease often have to push hard for treatment, pay out of pocket to see private specialists, travel long distances to centres of excellence. Pain is often dismissed and fobbed off, particularly in young women as “just period pain”.

Anything that encourages women away from understanding that regardless of how they identify, their female biology will expose them to certain diseases, is dangerous . Don’t let’s reshape the language - keep the language, hold the line that biology is what it is. Demand better for trans people, don’t perpetuate linguistic contortions that obfuscate an already fraught reality!

I think if the language in these sorts of scenarios was "Women and trans men" it would be useful in so far as it helps educate those who haven't yet caught up with trans issues, and distilled in the mind that a trans man is female. Many people mistakenly believe a trans man is a man who has transitioned.

It sums up why it makes some uncomfortable. Mainly this:
"Forcing our brains to ignore the evidence of our eyes, to ignore a conflict between what we see and know to be true, and what we are expected to say, affects us.

USING preferred pronouns does the same. It alters your attention, your speed of processing, your automaticity. You may find it makes you anxious. You pay less heed to what you want to say, and more to what is expected of you. It slows you down, confuses you, makes you less reactive. That’s not a good thing."

@KarenKarendson

My point is, to all those posters, how do they manage day to day if you cant use pronouns until you know what someone's chromosomes are?

And all this "I can always tell". No you cant. There are thousands of examples of "identify the trans" photo collages and people cant. A lot of them pass.

If you refuse to use a pronoun being forced on you, then how do you use them everyday? Do you go around asking what sex someone was born? If you later find out someone was born a different sex, do you change what you call them?

[quote BobbieDraper]@DialSquare

And what I typed was a continuation of what I had been asking before of all the posters saying they wouldn't use preferred pronouns. If the trans person passed successfully as their chosen gender, then those posters would be "tricked" into using the false pronoun. But if that person, wanting to be called her, looked male then these posters would not call them her.[/quote]
Well it wasn't how it read to me or others on this thread. You appear to be basing your argument on 'old school transsexuals". I think you need to do some reading on the stonewall trans umbrella. Many of us were like you until we looked deeper into this ideology.

Bobbie despite what you may have heard, not all FWR posters agree on everything. Pronouns are one such area of disagreement. Some posters will use them and some will not. But this thread isn't about pronouns so I'm not sure why you keep coming back to them.

And what I typed was a continuation of what I had been asking before of all the posters saying they wouldn't use preferred pronouns. If the trans person passed successfully as their chosen gender, then those posters would be "tricked" into using the false pronoun. But if that person, wanting to be called her, looked male then these posters would not call them her.

So what's your point?

@DialSquare

And what I typed was a continuation of what I had been asking before of all the posters saying they wouldn't use preferred pronouns. If the trans person passed successfully as their chosen gender, then those posters would be "tricked" into using the false pronoun. But if that person, wanting to be called her, looked male then these posters would not call them her.

Ok, so let’s suppose for a moment that we do perform these linguistic contortions, and accommodate non binary and trans inclusive language when talking about endometriosis. Triggering avoided.

What happens to those non binary and trans identified females who actually do have endo? the specialists who treat endo are gynaes. Gynaes work on gynae wards (if surgery is required), which one would certainly hope are single sex. First line treatment is hormonal. You have to be able to discuss impact on your cycle, your sex life - when do you bleed? When does it hurt? What are your plans for family and how will your illness and treatment affect these?

If people can’t cope with words on a page or a screen, how on earth will they cope with any of this? I’m not saying this to be mean, I am saying this because I just dont think it helps. If you’ve got endo, you’re a woman. You are going to have to deal with that reality. If that’s distressing, then you need help with that distress. Turning the world inside out to accommodate your reality won’t help.

I am happy the word woman has still been used.

However I just cannot bring myself to be amongst those who are complicit in maintaining the false information regarding biological sex. I dont see how it helps anyone and I just can't do it.

Pronouns to me also make me hugely uncomfortable as I am.not a dishonest person.i find lying makes me feel absolutely awful and I would be so worried about messing up on top of feeling like shit for lying that I honestly don't know how anyone can say it doesn't hurt anyone or it doesn't affect me..
When you have to watch what you say akd not say whT you see thats incredibly difficult.

We "refuse to say her if the person looks a bit masculine" was your complaint, Bobbie.

It's a falsehood. We're happy to use "her" of a female person who looks masculine; not happy to say "her" of a male person regardless of whether he looks feminine, masculine, or utterly androgynous. Because personal pronouns are markers of sex, not gender.

Using the term woman for all adult females IS inclusive. In fact, it is the MOST inclusive term because it includes any adult person born female regardless of how they express themselves to the world, what their body looks like, how they love, how/who/if they have sex, if they have children, how they parent...all those things. There is no word that is more inclusive.

I'm talking about transwomen who dont pass as women. Everyone on here is saying they would not call that person "her"

Why would they? It's one thing to identify as something you're not. It's another thing altogether to insist that others call you by that thing that you're not. No-one has to buy into that if they don't want to. And why would they want to, when by doing so harms women?

[quote BobbieDraper]@TyroSaysMeow

Where did I say that mumsnetter call masculine women "him"?

I'm talking about transwomen who dont pass as women. Everyone on here is saying they would not call that person "her".[/quote]
No, everyone is not saying that.

Is it the majority? Is it hundreds?

MN insists posters use the pronoun the person being referred to wants (unless a convicted sex offender) so I don’t know how many people posting are doing that to prevent deletion and how many are doing it just because. I can see posters on here stating they would use the pronoun for the correct sex but I don’t read the wider site but I’d be surprised if across the whole board there are hundreds of women calling trans people by their sex (except when pointing out TMs have women’s biology etc which doesn’t necessarily mean that’s how someone would speak to someone’s face.

I suspect MN as a whole have a similar attitude as members of society in general- some will happily use the expected pronouns, some will refuse point blank and most will use them without actually deep down believing it.

Not just the nasty mumsnetters and the mean feminists anymore. The gender campaigners worst move was to pile on to key figures, like JKR, William Shatner, Rosie Duffield and even the archbishop of Canterbury, the more they shine a torch on the idiocy of their argument. The whole world can see it for what it is.

@TyroSaysMeow

Where did I say that mumsnetter call masculine women "him"?

I'm talking about transwomen who dont pass as women. Everyone on here is saying they would not call that person "her".

If they pass as the gender sex they choose, that is tricking people.

And I say that as someone who used to pass as male routinely online.