People with a cervix

"Anyone with ovaries". Thanks to SEEN In STEM for explaining how this is harmful.

x.com/SeenStem/status/1773604935642275991

Fantastic insightful comments 👏

In short, trans women are focussed on being women. Trans men are focussed on not being women. Both lots are looking at women as the passive material from which to craft their new ideas about gender identity rather than men because our society has always constructed Woman as the passive empty vessel givem meaning by someone else, while Man, being contructed as the active agent, the one who observes and labels not the one who is observed and labelled, remains the water in which the fish swim.

@ExitPursuedByAPolarBear It's not about who has common sense, it's about who has power.

Trans women, being male, have the (mostly subconscious) expectation that they are entitled to women's support and that women will recognise the inherent correctness of anything they say, so they feel entirely safe and justified going after any TERFy language that suggests women are biologically female, and also angrier with women sayign no than with men saying no.

Trans men, being female, do not have the (mostly subconscious) expectation that they are entitled to men's support and that men will recognise the inherent correctness of anything they say. They therefore shy away from challenging men and male-centred language (which they'd lose or at best be laughed at) and express their rejection of their own sex by policing women-centered language to include either themslves (if it's medical) or trans women (if it's anything else).

TRA "allies", being part of society as well, also focus on policing women because it's easier and because women saying no to men makes them angrier than men saying no to women.

Basically, society finds saying no to women's needs and marginalising women's voices much easier than doing the same to men, so that is what it does.

@Chersfrozenface Thanks for this. That’s a very good point. I wonder if it’s because it’s expected that trans men have enough common sense to know this doesn’t apply to them. If so, why isn’t the same level of common sense expected for trans women?

I am hoping this madness is temporary.

I have 2 teenage daughters - they both think all the gender stuff is absolutely nonsense. They are also aware certain people at their school will set out to "cancel" them or bully them if they oppose the gender bollocks out loud.

So they both just get on with their days, with no doubt much internal eye rolling.

But they avoid those who are pushing the gender bollocks and making it the center of their universe. It's evident how insisting everyone believes what you believe will ultimately leave you isolated and alone. I do worry about young women/teens who are taking their angst out via the gender bollocks route - they might get some satisfying likes, power & attention early on, but ultimately become isolated as more and more people distance themselves from their attemps to control others.

Bring back the goths and other teen music based rebellions & expressions I say.

As a longterm terf I have gone very gently with my daughters - I was a bit terrified if I was "too terfy" & they were seeking a teenage rebellion, they might use the gender bollocks against me. But no - they have both come to terfdom largely on their own - because they know how to question, they know how to challenge and think, and this seems to be a great advantage in developing immunity to the cult of gender bollocks.

I know why.

A lot of the women caught up in thinking they’re trans are young, and unwell though. They’re disproportionately likely to be autistic or have suffered childhood abuse.

I’m not sure making cancer screening more difficult for them (in their eyes) will help them. A pp said it’s their own problem, but…I consider them victims of this ideology really.

I also know accepting the language changes isn’t in their best interest either, not to mind the general population’s.

So it’s a bit ‘rock and hard place’ to me at this present point of time. I know I’m probably not making much sense. I’m talking about making medical screening accessible specifically btw, not a more general change in language. I refuse to add pronouns to work signatures, I sometimes cross out gender and write sex on forms…but I feel sorry for those young women I suppose. I know one of them, and that has probably shaped my opinions too. I don’t want to make cancer screening more difficult for her in her own head.

I am hoping this madness is temporary.

I don't believe this attempt to change language is really about including women who want to be men, or 'non-binary'.

It's about not using the word 'women' in any context which makes plain that it does not include men who want to be women.

"it all goes back to there being a time in our culture (in many cultures) when we were treated as subhuman chattels to control access to our fertility, and the long long shadow that has cast in how society still sees us and sadly sometimes how we see ourselves."

There doesn't even have to be an intention to control. Just base all policy decisions on a default human who is male and don't consider the impact on women. An example would be lack of emergency contraception policies when Covid restrictions were introduced.

However, I think there is definitely an intentional drive to silence women's voices, by classifying all the rights and services that are specific to women as minority concerns.

After all, how many 'birthing people' are there at any one time? The impact of being expected to become pregnant and the consequences of having been pregnant are life long, but that can be ignored.

Re-read what Hardy said, @OakleyAnnie they're on our side. They're talking about trans activists reactions.

I think its because some transmen would refuse smear tests because they don't see themselves as female
That, frankly, is their problem.

Ask yourself why is it that no one was 'alienated' for decades and decades prior to say the last 5-10 years.

Why now? Why are they 'alienated' now, when they weren't before? What has changed?

There's a story on the BBC News website Wales section about a blood test for prostate cancer. Only men have a prostate - however they identify.

The phrase 'people with a prostate' does not occur even once. The word 'men' occurs 28 times and the word 'man' 11 times.

Compare and contrast.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn89v7z7422o

No.

It is absolutely women’s place to say how we are named and discussed in a document produced by our national health service.

It is dehumanising to refer to women by one aspect of our physiology.

I have no idea how genderists think Feminism started or who it exists for if they cannot recognise that female people exist in their own right in a way that is material and unavoidable and has nothing to do with how trans women (and indeed trans men) feel about themselves.

I'm all for intersectional feminism, but if it doesn't include the impact of sex as one of those intersections, it might be intersectional but it ain't Feminism.

Exactly.

From the depths of my Saved posts list: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/4439896-If-women-cannot-be-defined-biologically-what-happens-to-sex-based-oppression?reply=113881759

In The Excessive Regulation of Early Abortion Medication in the UK: The Case for Reform, which is an interesting paper proposing that "the abortion pill" could continue to be taken at home (home treatment is currently [in Jan 2022] allowed only temporarily under COVID rules) and be prescribed over the phone, I noticed the following in Section V:

"Furthermore, such an objection is an instance of regulation assuming that people with the physiology to become pregnant are irresponsible users of healthcare."

The medical misogyny that authors have noticed that women face is much clearer when I reword that to:

"Furthermore, such an objection is an instance of regulation assuming that women are irresponsible users of healthcare."

Saying "women" allows us to instantly join the dots between "the people who aren't trusted to take misoprostol at home" and "the people who are usually raped" and "the people who become the primary carers for children" and "the people who get ovarian cancer". Calling us "the people with the physiology to become pregnant" or "the people with cervixes" makes that much less clear.

@selffellatingouroborosofhate Spot on. I was logging on to post exactly that. That's what "trans inclusive" language actually does - it hides the sex-based experiences of women. It hides the reality of who is doing what to who.

Feminism started when women talked to each other amd realised they had shared experiences of injustice and abuse and marginalisation, that these were not one off incidents, they were systematic patterns of behaviour and disempowerment experienced by the female sex. There is a reason "the people with cervixes" are also "the people who don't get taken seriously by doctors" and "the people killed at the rate of two a week by their male partners and relatives" and "the people who chose to wear uncomfortable shoes" and "the people most likely to be left as single parents" and "the people under-represented in positions of professional, political, cultural and financial power" and it all goes back to there being a time in our culture (in many cultures) when we were treated as subhuman chattels to control access to our fertility, and the long long shadow that has cast in how society still sees us and sadly sometimes how we see ourselves.

I have no idea how genderists think Feminism started or who it exists for if they cannot recognise that female people exist in their own right in a way that is material and unavoidable and has nothing to do with how trans women (and indeed trans men) feel about themselves.

I'm all for intersectional feminism, but if it doesn't include the impact of sex as one of those intersections, it might be intersectional but it ain't Feminism.

He's absolutely right. "People with a cervix" is defining people by their biology.

It also reduces women to body parts in a way that conceals:

1. which body parts go together as sets, and
2. which body parts correlate extremely strongly with being subjected to misogynist oppression.

• The people with cervixes also happen to be the people who make up six rape victims in seven.
• The people with cervixes also happen to be the people who can get pregnant.
• The people with cervixes are the people who get patronised by car mechanics.
• The people with cervixes are, as a class, physically weaker than the people with prostates and so inherently disadvantaged in sports.
• The people with cervixes are also the ones who suffer endometriosis, which is systematically undertreated across the world.
• The people with cervixes make up three quarters of those who get migraines.
• The people with cervixes are the ones whose lives are limited by abortion restrictions.

It's a lot harder to join the dots and say that there is a systematic, global mistreatment of one sex class, the women, when you aren't allowed to use the word "woman" to describe that sex class.

I can't help wondering whether the contempt for women expressed by dehumanising language - bleeders, birthing parents, cervix havers and the rest - have actively contributed to the dire state of maternity care. According to the CQC, 47% of Maternity services have been rated Inadequate or Requiring Improvement. The CQC are (shamefully) Stonewall Diversity champions so presumably they've contributed to the dehumanising language used and with the NHS captured by extreme transactivism, they must sanction diverting staff from their core purpose of offering safe care for women and babies to spending hours and hours on courses / policy documents etc "learning" how to reduce women to body parts?

I know that's cynical but the maternity care scandal has been going on for so long without improvement it's time we looked behind why the NHS doesn't care enough to make lasting improvements.

Aw! Weaponised misunderstanding from Mr Hardy. Cute!

Thanks @MrsOvertonsWindow that last article shows how a poor culture results in harm.

Many people dislike blood tests, either because they don't like needles or the sight of blood. Sometimes they have an involuntary reaction and faint.

Obviously a phlebotomy department needs to sensitively deal with this possibility, but they don't pretend that the process of taking blood is other than what it is.

Shouldn't it be the same when talking about sex?

Firstofall
Is that why CC had to add ‘people with a cervix’ to their advertising so? If ‘women’ didn’t legally cover transmen with a GRC?
The GRA is a disaster.

No CC removing women and replacing it with people with a cervix that was TRA in action.
That came first.
The ideology was to remove to the word woman.
(Eg free period products is a "bleeder" bill with students/ people who live near and bleed. (To have legal case the woman involved has prove she is a bleeder not a woman.))

Then women campaigned and got the women bit added back in.

If the State will put a male with a GRC in a female jail the logic has span the whole range of law
Its not in the interest of the TRA to point out a messy flaw in that Act. Staff in womens hospitals and GP services are at risk under the 2018 Abortion Act because again its women and pregnant woman. So the question are you pregnant is technically needed in all Irish hospitals as a man can get pregnant.

I feel sad for those women. They need mental health support, not pretending that they are men. Very sad.

GRC men are women with no legal rights to access womens only services.
Providing services is woman sex specific and transmen who opt to get a GRC are men and male under Irish law but are people with a cervix.
Is that why CC had to add ‘people with a cervix’ to their advertising so? If ‘women’ didn’t legally cover transmen with a GRC?
The GRA is a disaster.

In audit terms one case has little value as it is a single sample so too narrow a scope to fully test the service provider.

@AnSolas Yes, but they audited everyone ( up to Dec 15 I think?) so 1,120 women who had been diagnosed with cervical cancer.
That provides a lot of information.

It’s called an audit, though it may be different to other types of audit.