'Women's Health - Let's talk about it' - Survey

They know; they just avoid using the correct construction because they won't refer trans women as "women" and trans men likewise, so they prefer the construction that implies it's an entirely separate word.

I started there but now I just use TW as then I don't have to use 'woman' at all. I just hated being complicit in a lie. I am trying to think 'What Would Posie Do?' in 2022.

@RoaringtoLangClegintheDark

Excellent explanation. I may just quote parts of it to my very woke daughter who seems to think that saying TWAW is being kind.

Thank you Goats

RoaringtoLangClegintheDark

Good post. Summed up perfectly. 👏👏👏

Just to clarify that’s a faith based ideological position you’re expressing there, not a neutral, objective fact.

You believe it’s to be right. I believe it’s misogynistic bullshit.

Trans is not an adjective here: in this case it’s a prefix that completely changes the meaning of the word it’s being applied to.

Here are some examples of how actual adjectives work with the word “woman”, and how trans is not in that category:

Tall woman: adult human female who is tall
Young woman: adult human female who is young
Wise woman: adult human female who is wise

All these adjectives are used to tell us more about someone we know to be an adult human female.

Transwoman: adult human male who “identifies as”/wishes to be seen as a woman, ie that which he is (of necessity) not.

It tells us that this person is not of the group “adult human females” but wishes to appropriate their material reality as his identity, and he’s using his male privilege and power to do so, backed up by a fundamentally misogynistic, patriarchal society that is predicated upon catering to male demands at the expense of female people.

You want an imaginary space in there because it bolsters your pretence that “trans” is an adjective that describes the noun “woman” in the same way that “tall”, “young”, “wise” etc do; it bolsters your pretence that some adult human males “are” in some way women, that that nebulous indefinable concept of “gender identity” is more important, more fundamental than the reality of biological sex.

(This despite the fact that biological sex is the basis on which the male sex class has oppressed and continues to oppress the female sex class since time immemorial, and if we no longer have meaningful terms with which to name and analyse that oppression, that oppression will only be perpetuated and intensified.)

Many pp here refuse to put that space in precisely because they will not collude in pretending that any adult human males can actually be a subset of adult human females. They are not interested in your sleight of hand.

I personally refuse to use the term either with or without the space because I won’t collude in naming male people with a word that even contains the word “woman”, so damaging is that practice to the interests of actual women. Biologically male trans people are male. Not women of any kind.

HTH.

It is so refreshing to read a whole govt document about women and referring to females.

'Transwoman' is a compromise on my part - I'd prefer a definition that didn't include 'woman' or 'female' at all, as it would be more accurate and truthful.
I use 'transwoman' as the words I think are more appropriate are said to be hurtful and I don't like to hurt people unnecessarily.

... also MN tends to remove them :)

Yes, Nothing. We need clarity. The fact is that when we differentiate between man and woman we need to know people's sex, biological sex. That is what drives a person's body, is coded into our DNA and is the necessary information. Gender is as relevant and useful as star signs.

This is why every time we discuss these things we have to do a tedious parsing of what someone actually means by a 'trans woman' - do they mean a female who thinks they are male or vice versa.

I think that language is one of the reasons that some people, knowing very little about the trans issue, are happy to “be kind” (see also Hayley Cropper from Coronation Street played by a woman). Because it’s quite difficult to understand who is being referred to:

Trans man = male with a trans identity = transwoman

Trans woman = female with a trans identity = transman

And that was difficult to type due to autocorrect; I had to keep manually removing the spaces.

The thing is though Edge, while I agree that the new definition of woman and man needs work, even if there was a coherent definition we would still need the words to refer to sex. Through memorable history (and in law and policy) the words used to describe sex have been man and woman. So while understanding the new definitions would be helpful, it wouldn't solve the problems caused by seeking to redefine existing words, in particular where that happens retrospectively, where existing laws and policy are read with the new meanings or when there is no acknowledgement that other people are not using those new definitions.

Happy to use the word 'trans' as an adjective provided that someone can supply a coherent, non-circular definition of the word 'woman' other than 'adult human female'.

If one of our posters could answer the question 'what is a woman?' I'm sure many of us would be happy to change our language on this.

So far we've only ever heard circular definitions (e.g. 'a woman is anyone who feels like a woman') or slightly bonkers definitions (e.g. 'a woman is a formless constellation').

If you are not sure whether your definition makes sense, replace the word 'woman' with something completely made up, e.g. 'squigglysquog'.

'A squigglysquog is anyone who feels like a squigglysquog' does not help anyone. 'A squigglysquog is a formless constellation' also makes no sense.

Until someone can explain to me what a woman is and why this definition includes (a) all mtf transitioners and (b) all adult human females except ftm transitioners and non-binary people, I cannot accept the term 'trans' as an adjective.

I am open to hearing alternative definitions of the word 'woman' though and am willing to change my stance on this if such a definition can be provided.

Until then it is 'transwoman' or 'mtf transitioner'.

@BlueberryCheezecake @thequeerteacher

Call it what you want, use any language you choose. It doesn’t change the material reality that people cannot change sex.
I can call my cat a dog, my car an aeroplane, my husband a pixie. They’re still my cat, car and husband. See?

The need activists have to redefine trans as an adjective comes from the same rationale that demands the erasure of the word " woman" when referring to women's reproductive role or women's health issues
The idea that the word woman refers to a person of the female sex has to be removed ,as it cannot include male people who wish to identify as " women".

That is pretty much it, yes Blueberry. On this part of the site most people use the words woman /transwoman with their usual/ most commonly used meanings to refer to the female sex in humans in the case of "woman" and someone of the male sex but who has transitioned with the intention that the world regards them as a woman in the case of "transwoman".

There are however new meanings for the words woman and man, which I think Blueberry favours, where the word woman doesn't refer to a sex in humans but to a feeling and the word trans woman therefore refers to someone who has that feeling but is also trans. The trans bit though refers to the fact that though that person has the feeling called woman in this nomenclature, they have been wrongly called a man by other people. That labelling was wrong because they have never had the man feeling. As a result of that wrong labelling they are trans. That the label of man was applied on the basis of sex and not a feeling is irrelevant, they are still trans. So you would be a man and a transwoman under the language favoured on this part of the site (and I would argue used by almost every one until very recently), whilst also being a woman and a trans woman if using the new definition of the word woman.

The new definitions are difficult in my view in part because we very commonly use, and need to use, the words men and women to describe sex in humans in society and for law and policy, so the fact that the new nomenclature uses those exact same terms to mean something different, causes communication problems as well as confusing law and policy. The other difficulty is that though the new definitions seek to disassociate the words from the sexes most people use them to describe, they need simultaneously to retain that association as otherwise the concept of being trans cannot exist.

They know; they just avoid using the correct construction because they won't refer trans women as "women" and trans men likewise, so they prefer the construction that implies it's an entirely separate word. And then they complain about everyone else getting it wrong as if they're not the ones getting it wrong. Welcome to Mumsnet.

Correct construction? The use of trans as an adjective is a construction introduced over the last couple of years by activists who wish to change the meaning of the word " woman", so it that can be used to describe a person who is not a member of the female sex. Transwoman has always been the descriptor of a person who ,despite being male, identifies as being a member of the opposite sex.

Definitely a prefix not an adjective because a transwoman is a male person who identifies as a woman and not a woman who is transgender.

I assume that's not what you mean by trans woman.

It's a prefix, yep, Lemon.

We sometimes also need to use 'male', for clarity, too. Many people think 'transwoman' means someone who is biologically female. The terminology can be confusing to the average person. And of course, pretending 'trans' is an adjective risks even greater confusion, as a transwoman is by definition not female. That's the whole meaning of the word!

Nope cause then it would be trans-man or trans-woman

Just to clarify the word trans is an adjective that helps describe someone's gender identity, and it should be treated like other adjectives. So trans woman or trans man instead of transwoman or transman.

I was confused as to whether the ‘different to’ included transwomen or transmen or both. Separating them would have been useful.