BobbieDraper
I have a young female in my family who identifies as trans who does not agree with you either.
That's because this redefinition of women is primarily neither pushed by not for women who desperately wish not to be women. It is done in the interest of men claiming womanhood.
As Buck Angel, a prominent trans rights campaigner, and female transsexual pointed out this week, females who identify as trans identify out of being women because they want nothing to do with everything that comes with being female, including and especially female biology. The suggestion that it isn't just women who menstruate, who get cervical cancer or endometriosis but that men do too is offensive to Buck and many of Buck's friends who made that same journey.
So this inclusive language is rejected as offensive by at least some of the females you are so concerned about. Do they matter?
And this inclusive language means that many women will not respond to health campaigns in the way they should. Because health campaigns need to reach the largest possible number of members of the particular group you're targeting.
There are far more women who will not respond to health campaigns using this language because it sacrifices comprehension to include a minute number of females.
Let's take a health campaign seeking to encourage women to have a smear test. I just filled in a survey testing three posters seeking to motivate women to book an appointment for a smear test. Two of them did not include the word woman at all.
That's because if we concede that the word woman is no longer enough to address all adult females and a poster doesn't have the space for a women and ... phrase, the next best solution from the inclusion handbook is to drop the word woman altogether.
Now instead of using the word woman, the cervix or people who have a cervix are referred to instead.
But research has shown that just under half of all women do not know what a cervix is and that they have one. Let's say you're aiming to get one million women to book an appointment, and let's assume (very unrealistically) that every woman who understands that this health campaign concerns her own health books an appointment.
That's 500,000 who do.
And 500,000 who don't.
The UK incidence rate of cervical cancer is just under 10 per 100,000.
50 women in that second group will develop cervical cancer and may die because the health campaign was not written in a way that addressed them.
1% of the population is estimated to be trans, so let's go with that figure.
A second health campaign is addressed to women, and it is understood by all one million targeted women.
If 1% are trans and all of these individuals feel excluded by this health campaign, then
999,000 book a test.
1000 don't.
A prevalence of 10 in 100,000 females developing cervical cancer means that - statistically speaking - there is a ten to one chance that not one of the 1000 will develop cervical cancer. But let's assume one does.
So, on the face of it, the first health campaign results in 50 women developing cervical cancer because they did not get tested. The second one results in one cancer case.
Now personally while I do understand that 49 lives saved makes the second campaign better, I don't believe that we need to accept that one case happening as a result of the second campaign. Every life is worth saving.
The solution is simple: we don't have to stop with the second campaign. Just as such campaigns are often available in a number of different languages to ensure we reach those for whom English is not their first language, we can complement the second campaign with additional material specifically written to address females who identify as trans.
That is an approach which does not exclude any women, regardless of how they identify.