For anyone who thinks calling pregnant women 'birthing people' is not a big deal, here's where that leads

Women aren't named anymore unless it's in the context of gender. Fucking dystopian.

I am just wondering if the attempted erasure of the word women is a human rights violation?

The term mother is in UK law but not sure about woman. All this bandwagon stuff would be stopped in it's tracks and with large intake of breath at a court case

😂

Tough shit, it’s inclusive. It’s kind.

No. It isn't.

Just awful, and the post upthread about trainee midwives is beyond worrying. WTAF?!

Did anyone notice “ We’ve all been there – curled up on the sofa with a hot water bottle, a bar of chocolate and a good chick flick streaming on Netflix.”

Nope, never done that. Never used a hot water bottle and I don't like chick flicks. But I can assure you, I am all woman, I've got the flaps and eggs to prove it, currently on my 3rd pregnancy.

Disgusting and dehumanising.

No one is calling men erection havers, or ejeculators.

Tough shit, it’s inclusive. It’s kind

It's not inclusive of women. It's not kind to women.

If you are a woman who doesn't have periods because of birth control, stress, illness, PCOS, pregnancy, homonal disorders or imbalances, deliberate manipulation of hormones through puberty blockers or taking transition drugs, hysterectomy or age, the term menstruator does not apply to you, although the content of these posts might well be supposed to be for you. If you use the term menstruator you exclude all of the above women.

Reducing the term you use to discuss us down to one of the consequences of the healthy regular biological function of those of us of a young enough age is inherently aggressive language to use about us. What other being is described only in terms of an inconvenient, often painful cause of their oppression? Broodmare perhaps. Broiler chickens. It's hardly empowered company is it?

Menses are at best inconvenient, often uncomfortable, expensive and painful, and the cause of women's oppression. They disadvantage women in a society that is not set up to accommodate a monthly cycle and bleed. Does it sounds inclusive to refer to people who experience this exclusively as experiencers of the thing?

It's not even inclusive to the type of people it's trying to center. Trans men may menstruate but they also may not do because of the drugs they take in relation to their transition. And whilst the content of these tweets clearly isn't relevant to trans women, I don't know a single one who will thank you for reminding her that she doesn't have periods, do you?

For the sake of everybody, the term woman to describe a biologically female adult human needs to stay. All this trying to skirt round it is making it more of a triggering and loaded term than it ever was.

Find a new word for the performance of femininity, if you want to talk about gender.

All this avoidance of the term for a biological female human is doing, is making it more loaded than it ever was and than it ever needs to be.

Trans men know they are biological women. That doesn't stop them from living as the male gender, dressing how they want, using preferred pronouns and name and taking whatever medical interventions they want to, but erasing the term for an adult human female may well prevent them from accessing healthcare and knowledge about their own bodies and health.

Stop. Erasing. The. Term. For. A. Biological. Woman.

Did anyone notice “ We’ve all been there – curled up on the sofa with a hot water bottle, a bar of chocolate and a good chick flick streaming on Netflix.”

This sums up the ridiculousness of the whole debate for me. As one of many women now in my 40s I follow these arguments because as a teenager I am fairly certain I would have gone down the transition pathway if it had been an option then.

There are many reasons I didn’t (don’t) “identify” as a woman, many of which were around periods. I started early, and heavily, so ended up on the pill at 13 to stop me becoming anaemia. The last thing I wanted to do was stay in and watch a “chick flick,” why would I, when not enjoying those movie stereotypes was a significant part of why I didn’t identify as female?

My father was a university lecturer and he once described lecturing as “Transferring the notes from teacher to students without passing through the brains of either.” Something similar going on here methinks.

Jacob it isn’t just women who give birth, it’s girls too, but they’re even lower down the pecking order than we are, so I doubt many give a shit about them.

Pleased to see that tweet getting ratiod, at least.

No of course it isn’t kind.

No of course it isn’t inclusive.

There is such a thing as sarcasm.

It’s blatant that this is misogyny in action as if we stole using men or transwoman and used “erection havers” “prostate havers” “sperm producers” etc we would soon see accusations of transphobia. Which is yet another contradiction in TRA ideology. Push for words to dehumanise women (including transmen) to be inclusive but never, ever, ever apply that to men (including transwomen).

I’d buy the inclusion/be kind narrative of it applied to both sexes but it doesn’t and it never has. It never will because this is driven by men to keep women down.

It's not kind to lie to women and pretend that they are not the only type of person who can be pregnant.

I wonder if they understand that the definition of 'woman' has been sneakily changed to be just a liking for pink and sparkles and submissiveness and so on? Because that is what the quoted assertion must be based on.

Indeed, all 'inclusiveness' is based on the unstated assumption that being a woman now is just an abstract feeling for everyone, including the vast majority who have never transitioned. It has been severed from biology and all the female experiences which go with that and affect our lives so much.

@testing987654321

I agree 100%.

Can they not see how dehumanising this language is? to them themselves?, as it will have been written by a woman . What kind of woman wants to be called a menstruator . They really should have their funding withdrawn as are not fit to supports womens healthcare needs

All I can think is that they hate us that much for being what we are and what they can never be that they have latched onto this as a way to dehumanise us.

This is it. I just find it hard to believe that any woman thinks it is kind to say "not only women give birth".

It's not kind to lie to women and pretend that they are not the only type of person who can be pregnant.

It's also not kind to women who identify as men to collude in their delusion that they are actually a man. That they can be a pregnant man. That they are being reasonable getting upset when words relating to women are used around pregnancy and birth. All that is doing is reinforcing a deluded mindset and causing the transgender person to live in a constant state of anxiety that someone might speak truthfully.

Extreme trans rights activists who have pushed this erasing of the word woman are most definitely not kind.

Still waiting for the word "ejaculators" to be used by these clowns

Perhaps we could just go straight to “wankers”

THIS

JacobRees, what do they think a woman actually is?

If 'woman' is something people can identify into and out of, what do they think people are identifying into?

I'm astonished that this ideology, that noone can explain, has become mainstream to the point that even midwives accept it.

And on another point, I agree that using the term 'menstruator' to describe:
a) a woman who is bleeding from her genitals because she is experiencing a miscarriage; or
b) a woman who does not regularly menstruate owing to a condition such as PCOS
is among the most crass, hurtful and unkind things one can do.

I can't see how transmen would find "menstruator" preferable to "female", given that menstruation is so clearly a female-only thing (which most of them will be acutely aware of, having experienced it first-hand). If the latter is triggering, then surely the former is too.

Or is this all about appeasing transwomen (who will never actually have to experience any of this, so have no business deciding what counts as "appropriate language" in this context)?

Is it that use of the word "menstruator", which they don't associate with womanhood (since it doesn't match their experience of "womanhood") makes it easier for them to detach from reality and pretend that their version of "woman" is just as valid as those of the female variety?

I’m in a Facebook group of midwifery students and wannabe students and they are all so woke I could weep. Lots of posts saying stuff like it’s not just women who give birth. Talking about how you should never use the word woman in assignments, never use the word woman in a personal statement when applying.

I’d have thought as student midwives they should be the most pro women people about. They don’t seem to see the eraser of women aspect of their language and actions.

I find it bizarre that this group of men so particularly jealous of our biological ability would wish to define us as menstruators. All I can think is that they hate us that much for being what we are and what they can never be that they have latched onto this as a way to dehumanise us. After all menstruating has long been seen as dirty and shameful, demonised in some sectors of society. The double edged sword in calling us menstruators is that they slap themselves in the face with what they are not. The hatred and need to erase us thus deepens, so does the desire to perform acts of violence on us.

We only have to read a little on who Barbie Kardashian is to get an insight into this warped thinking pattern. For anyone, who doesn’t know, this person is a 19 yo violent hater of women, who wishes to “rape and murder” women. This person has legally become a woman and is now residing in a female prison in Ireland. God help those poor women.

it’s not inclusive, it’s breaking us into smaller and stranger groups. You can’t say sex doesn’t matter while grouping people by sex specific things.

You cannot opt out of this sex based shit. We still need a name for this sex and the oppression that goes with it.

If you identify as a man but have periods you may not want attention being drawn to this but you ARE in the same group as a load of women.
If you identify as a woman and you will never menstruate, then just ignore this part of woman stuff. There’s lots of woman stuff that doesn’t apply to the majority of women - tena lady, maternity pads, breast pumps, hrt. But women just shrug and say this stuff doesn’t apply to me.