The strategy of relinquishing the word "woman"

Anyway in answer to the OP - yes, it's crazy talk and would never work.

I'll have a look at Spinster, ta Grinitch. Currently on my second suspension from twitter for so-called 'hate speech' and it's clear they're on a purge - i'm losing patience for tip-toeing around this issue, constantly self-censoring, just to stay online.

Nevertheless it's valuable to stay on Mumsnet, too, alongside those spaces.

I believe the MN rules require two words?

No, they don't. 'Transwoman' is explicitly permitted.

^ Can I use the expression ‘trans woman’ or ‘transwoman’?
Yes.^

www.mumsnet.com/info/trans-rights-moderation-policy

Can we change thread title to 'the strategy of relinquishing the words "woman" and "they"?'

Is there anywhere left online where Women can go to discuss their concerns, in factual words, without being censored?

Stroke City Brilliant.

What you say about no neutral language during the height of the Troubles, Cara, is really interesting and very pertinent I think.

I believe the MN rules require two words?

I don't think they do (nor should they) because of the distinction between compound noun (seahorse) and noun-adjective pairing (brown horse).

Funnily enough, the example that springs to mind on seeing your username is one a lovely Irish boyfriend of mine came up with at the height of the Troubles: "There is no neutral language - as soon as you've referred to a particular city as Derry or Londonderry, you've picked a side."

Well I've just read a whole article on a pack that has been made for sale (charity) for women and girls to keep their tampons etc - its all around the stigma of periods and how in some parts of the world women and grs are treated terribly as a result.

But being The Indy, the only references to the words 'wome/an 'and 'girl/s' werei n direct quotes by women involved.

We are already on the edge of losing "woman" - some would say it is lost, since we talk about "trans women" (I believe the MN rules require two words?). One of Fair Play For Women's areas of focus this year has been complaining to the media any time they report "female" incorrectly. They've had a few wins but the IPSO guidelines are a problem here, as is the Equal Treatment Bench Book which tells judges etc to use the pronouns the defendant wants, and then that is usually what is reported in the media. So people could genuinely believe women are suddenly being convicted of porn offences or child abuse or whatever. We have to keep pushing and supporting this work or we will never make progress. It was brilliant to see a surge in support for Fair Play For Women yesterday after the Woman's Hour debacle.

I will be sure to report any sweeping negative generalisations about gender critical feminists in future. I doubt I'll have to wait long.

How curious that such intensive reporting should happen on a day when this forum was being discussed on the BBC, thereby leading, I imagine, to a lot of new visitors. I have some further thoughts about this but I think I will keep them to myself for the time being.

(I mean we could draw the conclusion that the mods view the appropriation of language as being an Undesirable Thing. But presumably whoever reported such posts didn't.)

Sweeping negative generalisations about any group, including trans people and gender-critical feminists, won’t be tolerated.

Not 'generalisation', the prohibition is 'sweeping negative generalisation'

Did the deleted posts actually contain that sort of generalisation? In this discussion of language, we may well see the appropriation of 'woman' and 'female' as negative - but the people who are doing it don't. So what exactly is the complaint?

Linguistic shifts, especially when driven by people with an agenda, will result in a change in the demographic using them. Time was when 'trans women are women' would not have had wide acceptance, let alone become a dogma. It's almost although not ubiquitous for trans people (and virtually all trans activists) to claim that as a truth. Can we use 'they' in this case?
Whereas the next stage of incursion is at an earlier stage but it's growing. The 'they' who claim that transwomen are females, or even biological females, is maybe small now, but growing.

'We' is a generalisation too - on this board at least, I'd hope it wouldn't ever be considered deleteable to say 'we say no. Woman means adult human female. Female is defined by science in terms of reproductive role in sexed species.'

Is it okay to use the term TRA? (Trans' Rights Activist.)

I use it to refer to anyone (trans or not) who is pushing this ideology at a cost to women. I do not classify all trans people as TRAs. My use of 'they' is a reference to TRAs.

Thank you for the clarification Michael. If I am reading you correctly, and posts are actually being reported to MNHQ for using the word 'they' instead of 'some', then I think my brain has just blown a fuse.

Errol: refinement - "some X AND not all X".

{ begin context
Define they = [some trans people]||[some postmodernist queer theory types] ||[some MRAs in disguise]
}

Something like that, anyway.

OK, thanks for explaining. So what I wanted to say was the term 'natal woman' is not safe from appropriation anyway, under the premises that some people work from.

Some people believe that the defining feature of a woman is a feminine gender essence, rather than physical sex. Some people also argue that gender essence is innate in all humans. Following these two premises, some people already think that your biological sex has nothing to do with whether you are a 'natal woman' or not.

If there were an entire demographic who could be shown to be doing an Undesirable Thing then a generalisation would probably be fine - but we think it's very unlikely to apply to all trans people.

The demographic is as posted by Errol above. I didn't mention or imply trans people in my original post, and I'm sure others who were deleted didn't either.