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!

I don’t understand the treating someone as “socially female” mentioned upthread. What does that mean ? I treat people as people, except for when their sex matters. Much of the time their sex isn’t relevant, but where there is threat, or where women and girls want privacy, or where we note sex for fairness, then sex matters.
Not allowing women to classify themselves as their sex class is the trojan horse of misogyny.

Honestly, this whole campaign has just astonished me. How easy was it to win, all you had to do is make people aware of the dangers and potential issues of self identification and you would have walked it on a wave of public opinion support, anyone with the vaguest level of logic can see that self ID as proposed cannot work.

But the wrong people got into power on the feminist side. You’ve allowed self publicists who care far more about promoting their own agenda (emphasised by the fact all the figureheads seem to be spending more time taking shots at each other) than they do about the actual issues.

It’s become a snipey campaign with nonsense like the stickers, the T-shirt’s, the incredible waste of time and energy that was the Ocado boycott (well done with that one by the way, millions of free publicity that’s helped drive their share price to the highest its ever been).

All you’ve achieved is to turn off the middle ground that was more than keen to support you, but you dragged yourselves down (led by your vocal twitter minority) to the same level as the other side and just turned everyone off in the process.

How did you mess this up so badly?!

And as for weaponosing well..

We aren't the ones repeatedly reducing black women, butch lesbians, women with pcos, disabled women to a subset of women to try and justify including biological makes into the definition.

We aren't the ones no longer using the word gay and queering every body because biological makes wanna be lesbians.

Offending people with the word woman? Fuck off. We will not redefine it to include people it shouldn't include.

How easy was it to win, all you had to do is make people aware of the dangers and potential issues of self identification and you would have walked it on a wave of public opinion support, anyone with the vaguest level of logic can see that self ID as proposed cannot work.

Thats just not true, is it? Not one of the things that has happened to women so far - being raped on a psychiatric ward, being sexually assaulted while in prison, being pushed out of sports - has changed peoples minds.

Trans activists could have won so easily. All they had to do was ask for a third space for themselves and we could all have supported that. Instead they have demanded that any man who declares himself a women immediately gets all of the sex based rights we have.

I've never seen this level of support for any other group, not women and not disabled people.

It hasn’t changed peoples minds because their minds didn’t need changing.

There is still a massive hole in awareness of this issue. The feminist campaigners have got far too involved with exchanging with the trans campaigners instead of rising above it and focussing on awareness.

Campaigners are getting far too focussed on the replies in their twitter and social media bubbles and giving too much credence and energy to a vocal minority. Instead of rising above it and concentrating on getting a more measured message out to the right audience, instead of shouting at brick walls that won’t ever listen to you.

It’s all demonstrated by the drama llama antics of the leadership. Hopping on and off social media because of abuse, making a big drama and making it all about themselves and giving the other side a far larger platform in the process.

Every petition and every marketing campaign is worded and aimed in a hostile manner and directly engaging with the opposition. Leaving the middle ground just looking at it from the outside thinking “what a bunch of schoolchildren, just screaming ‘you started it’” at each other, I think I’ll just stay away from this one, I don’t think I want to be seen as a member of either of those groups.

Best strategy would be for the people at the top of the feminist side (and absolutely the right side) of this to get together, distance themselves from those who are making such a bloody mess of this so far, and get some new figureheads out there who will engage the wider public, rather than those whose views on this issue are already set in stone.

How is the word black offensive?

When it denotes where you can sit on a bus?

How is the word black offensive? When it denotes where you can sit on a bus?

That's why it's a bad analogy. Skin colour is never a good basis to segregate people. Sex, however, is.

Exactly, easyandy101.

Or how about if it was said sneeringly to a black person?
Still not offensive, it's "only a word?" and if upset at it, the phrase "hurty feelz" trotted out?
Of course it'd be bloody offensive.

sorry glitter but I've demonstrated above why it's not the correct analogy. Sexes should not be mixed where safety and health are requirements. This is so blindingly obvious I can only assume you are not posting in good faith.

So because I don't agree with you, I'm "not posting in good faith?"
FFS. Been here years, posting on all sorts of threads.
I cross posted with you. With a different opinion.
Do I say you're not posting in good faith as you disagree/ must have an agenda? No.

Oh here we go with the fucking I see you.
Pathetic.
Women are NOT a hive mind and do not have to all think the same!

No because it doesn’t work as an analogy. Unless you think segregating black and white children for games is the same as segregating boys and girls for changing/showers etc

No glitter

Its cos we have seen it before.

Comparing not being able to use the womens shower in a communal shower to Rosa parks on the bus.

It's the height of entitlement

Well I haven't seen that "argument" before so was responding to a poster's point.
Like people tend to do on a forum.

many words are exclusive and rightly so.

'Lion' excludes 'tigers' (and vice versa) but 'cat' includes both

'wardrobe' excludes 'bed' but 'furniture' includes both

'woman' excludes 'man' but 'human' includes both

I bet most primary age kids know this and yet there are adults who apparently don't. They are the 'I'm so open-minded my brains have fallen out' gang. It's a really bad look.

@GlitterStick

Offence is taken, not given. If someone uses the word ‘black’ in a derogatory way, I have the choice whether to get bent out of shape about it, or move on with life.

I hate all this identity politics. Society is breaking down into ever smaller groups competing in the oppression Olympics.

Race is not a useful comparison here because trans people aren't asking to do away with sex segregation. They're asking to be able to switch groups.

If sex segregation is so unimportant, why do we bother with it at all.
Oh wait, because it's obviously not always appropriate These aren't difficult concepts.

Seriously. Not playing dumb. FFS.

It's sickening to compare it to the Black Civil Rights movement. Pretty sure Rosa Parks would be sickened too.

That's why it's a bad analogy. Skin colour is never a good basis to segregate people. Sex, however, is.

Was an answer for those appearing flummoxed about how the word black can be offensive

Surely those people are not posting in good faith, as it is blatantly obvious that the word can be offensive

Are TRAs so desperately stupid they cannot tell the difference between "pro-woman" and "anti-trans"?

The meaning of the word woman is vital to discussion surrounding spaces where it isn't appropriate for there to be a penis, however its owner identifies.

Taking back control of the word 'woman' is only goady if you are trying to take it away.
Women deserve their own boundaries. This is women re asserting them.