The dictionary definition of woman is a hate crime now. AIBU or is this political correctness gone mad.

[DJLippy]

Feminists across the UK have "defaced" statues by dressing them in T-shirts containing the dictionary definition of the word woman .More details here.
makemorenoisemanc.wixsite.com/mysite/mmnblog/a-womans-place-is-in-the-resisters-midnight-t-shirt-protest-sparks-outrage

Trans rights groups are calling this a hate crime. I hate to sound like such an old fogie but this it sounds like political correctness gone mad! How is this offensive? What's so offensive about the word woman I don't understand!

Cross posted with userblablabla. Yes, all of that.

There is nothing offensive about the word woman.

Woman means something - adult human female.

It doesn't include men, or any adult human males whether they want it to or not.

How do you identity the group of humans that have or have had the potential to gestate and birth a child?

How do you identity the group of humans that may be subject to fgm?

How do you identity the group of humans that are isolated during their periods because it is thought that it is unclean?

How do you identity the group of humans that may be affected by cervical or uterine cancer?

It's not anti-trans to want to quantify a group of people. In fact transmen would be included in all of those groups so it's not anti trans at all.

The one word that sums up the people in all of these groups is 'women'.

Transwomen are welcome in some places and not in others. Like the rest of us.

If trans women are women how is the word woman excluding them exactly?
Another black hole in the logic of trans ideology.

I don't think it can be considered a Hate Incident (crime is only when a physical act has taken place) as gender despite being a protected characteristic under the Equality Act is not part of the protected characteristics under Hate Crime legislation.

Surely a hate crime is intending to alarm and harass or discriminate against a group or to incite hatred or fear?
It doesn't have to be physical at all.

‘Gender’ is NOT a protected characteristic.

The protected characteristics are ‘Sex’ and ‘Gender Reassignment’.

It doesn't have to be physical at all

i agree

Ive no idea if its legally correct though

It is not discrimination to deploy dictionary definitions. It is not hate crime to ask that the government continue to uphold protections that already exist for females in law.

No hate crime without an actual crime.
That doesn’t look like criminal damage and it certainly doesn’t look like a public order offence. Insulting, thankfully, has gone from Section 5. So wheres the crime?

Just cos you don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s a crime

Speaking up for women's rights is not transphobic.

Demonising women for doing so is misogynistic though.

I agree with onlyjoined, ladyoftheloch, glitterstick, and userbla

Just cos you don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s a crime

Unfortunately, lots of people have lost the ability to recognise this. I blame cotton-wool parenting.

Hate incidents and hate crime are acts of violence or hostility directed at people because of who they are or who someone thinks they are - summary from CAB.

Fuller quote:

"Hate incidents and hate crime are acts of violence or hostility directed at people because of who they are or who someone thinks they are.

For example, you may have been verbally abused by someone in the street because you’re disabled or someone thought you were gay.

If you’ve experienced a hate incident or hate crime you can report it to the police.

Read this page to find out more about hate incidents and hate crime.

What are hate incidents?

The police and Crown Prosecution Service have agreed a common definition of hate incidents.

They say something is a hate incident if the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on one of the following things:

disability
race
religion
transgender identity
sexual orientation.
This means that if you believe something is a hate incident it should be recorded as such by the person you are reporting it to. All police forces record hate incidents based on these five personal characteristics"

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/discrimination/hate-crime/what-are-hate-incidents-and-hate-crime/

Not saying I. Eli eve it is a hate incident or hate crime - just that there seems to be some misunderstanding at to what is meant by a hate crime and a hate definition

Dictionary definitions are hostile now? Burn the books! Burn them all!

However if you want the general public to listen and care you need reasoned debate and not cheap stunts designed to be controversial

In general I tend to agree, but the reasoned debate had gone on a long time with little result. Middle class, well educated, liberal people, who want to be kind and decent to everybody, tend to assume that tabloid style stories are always false or exaggerated (because they sometimes are) and can be dismissive of genuine concerns as populist nonsense. At least that was me a few years ago.

It took the attention grabbing stunts to really get the public to acknowledge the issue and to get journalists interested. It took the time and effort of a lot of women, with evidence to back up the attention grabbing, before many people listened.

Dictionary definitions are hostile now?

No. The intent of some people are.
Are people just pretending not to understand?

The general public seem to have listened to Humberside Police’s cheap stunt of ringing a bloke about his ‘thinking’. They seem fucked off. Apparently the public are quite in favour of free speech.

mobile.twitter.com/Humberbeat/status/1089899900177956864

Glad to see people weren't impressed with Newport Council's response to the campaign.

mobile.twitter.com/NewportCouncil/status/1089927638175625217

If your aim of spreading "adult human female" t-shirts about is to make the point transwomen aren't welcome

If anyone is doing that, they should fuck right off. Are they? I don't think the kind of biots who think transwomen aren't welcome anywhere are the type to put a feminist sticker up.

or will always be a bloke

Well, it depends what you mean by that. Clearly a transwoman will always be biologically male.

That doesn't mean they shouldn't be treated respectfully. It doesn't mean they shouldn't be treated as (socially) female in 99% of situations and of course we should challenge those who are rude or prejudiced about it.

But when discussing women's health care, or sports, or crime stats or single sex spaces, or access to services, the ability to discuss biological reality is vital.

The intent of the protest is to uphold the current definition of woman and to retain single-sex exemptions in the law. I think it’s you that’s either pretending not to understand or trying to weaponise offence

Males appropriating words as the fancy takes them; and telling the rightful "owners" of that word to get fucked is what's hostile here.

Did you think all women would just meekly give up the exact word that defines us as a distinct category without a murmur?

It's not like the word "woman" was new and without any meaning, and up for grabs by whoever called shotgun on it.

It already has a clear, unambiguous and globally known, very specific meaning. And it was already taken.

If trans people want a word for males who live in the style of women, then use transwoman; or mtf; or trans identified male - hell, use ghoomiot if you want (assuming I did just make up a brand new word there!).

But don't glom onto one that already means something else, and then have the brass-necked nerve to evict those already there.