The strategy of relinquishing the word "woman"

I've had a copy of my original offensive post from MNHQ so I am doing to post it again and substitute in Errol's excellent definition of they:

"[The people who are doing this thing which is wholly unscientific and contrary to the interests of women would] just appropriate natal female too."

It's a tad wordy but the meaning is exactly the same.

(It has just occurred to me that maybe my general ability to avoid deletions is because I write code - computers are pretty stupid and don't deduce context; precision and adherence to rules is necessary).

The 'they' in this context is 'the people who are doing this thing which is wholly unscientific and contrary to the interests of women

This^

Yet it seems MNHQ read "they" and substitute "trans people" if the context is negative which seems a tad transphobic to me.

Generalisations are a normal part of discussions in real life. It's quite hard to always avoid, in particular if you think the parameters of who is meant by 'they' is obvious enough with a little thought.

We've had it over the years - never generalise about men, else we get 'NAMALTed' (though rarely deleted). So, we painstakingly have to try to adjust our normal modes of speech - always use that 'some' or 'men as a class'. It's laborious.

No, all trans people aren't making the same incursions into women's language as others. Some are. Some of the people claiming trans women are actually females aren't trans people (example of an SNP MP has been cited).
The 'they' in this context is 'the people who are doing this thing which is wholly unscientific and contrary to the interests of women'.

The deletions have been explained.

Not the first two comments after the OP, which I saw, when I then posted as number 4 saying they had summed up my reasons. I didn't see anything which could be construed as objectionable!

So we're not allowed to use 'they' when the correct word is 'they' but we are required to use 'they' when the correct word is 'he' or 'she'?

My ironometer just broke.

Blimey - I'd not scrolled back, I hadn't realised how many deletions there were. I don't remember seeing much other than women asserting their rights.

Me neither!

Well for me, (a) the word woman is already taken, thank you very much and (b) experience has shown that give and inch and a mile will be taken (e.g. the insistence by some that post-op individuals become "cis" [sic]).

The end game seems to be to leave no form of words which could be used to refer to the class of people formerly known as women, which of course has profound political and personal implications for that class (historically and geographically fairly universally and systematically disadvantaged relative to the class still allowed to call themselves men). This end game, curiously enough, seems to work to the advantage of the class of people still allowed to call themselves men.

Comments along the lines of 'they're doing this' - make it look like a whole group of people are being represented as doing something undesirable

I'm confused. If there is a whole group of people doing something undesirable we are not allowed to use the pronoun they to refer to that group?

I definitely did not reference any particular person or use any officially forbidden vocabulary. I made a tongue-in-cheek reference to my government’s prominent policy, oft-repeated by Presidents, that we do not negotiate with ... people who make unreasonable demands ... lest we encourage them to make further unreasonable demands.

Amazed that “unreasonable” is the strongest word I can think of that might not be deleted...

So, if we preface it with 'some people are doing this' is that acceptable then?

I'm also seriously pissed off about this, even though I wasn't directly affected. I admit that typically when I see deletions, I tend to shrug and move on. But not this time.

This wasn't a thread about an individual, it was about the meaning of a word. If we can't discuss what words mean without walking on eggshells then we're in deep shit.

Just came back to this thread to find it was Swiss cheese and my (as far as I remember) fairly innocuous boost deleted. I didn't get any notification of the deletion from MMHQ so I have asked for clarification. As far as I remember most of the posts after mine were pretty innocuous too.

I can only imagine the sheer outrage if POC were being forced to rebrand themselves as cis black or cis Asian.

I still dont understand why appropriating someone else's ethnic diversity would be intolerable, but appropriating gender is fine. What's the logic?

oh yes OP we are deep into "claim to be female" tactics and have been for a while now

What interests me in this whole debate is why a minute handful of people (TRAs) taking precedence over a huge majority of traditionally vulnerable people? That's not a rhetorical question. Who is funding this movement, what does wider society have to gain?

@MNHQ

Do you have a trigger happy intern at the delete button working for you at the moment?

What's going on?

I'm seriously angry about this.

The discussion about the use of the word woman is one of the most important in the entire history of women's rights. Without the word "woman", people of the sex who give birth to all of the humans on the planet, can't have rights specifically for them.

Women ourselves can't have this discussion, on a feminist chat forum without being deleted, basically told to shut up, for no apparent reason other than our stating feelings and opinions on the matter.

By who? Why?

I do see comments sometimes and think ooh, that must be for the chop, but more and more often I do not understand. I've learned a few things are not allowed even though they aren't in the rules, and have (very rarely) fallen afoul of the newer part of our special rules. But neither of those things happened here.

Heard on tv. Pregnant individual. Wfaf

In response to the OP, not a good idea.

""Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man. You take a step towards him, he takes a step back. "Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man."

We already see individuals claiming not only to be women but to be female, and to have always been so. Give up one word, they'll come for the next.