@SadSisters
The only people I have ever seen using the word ‘menstruator’ are people expressing anti-trans sentiments. Those who are trying to find trans-inclusive language to talk about menstruation say ‘people who menstruate’, which is person-centred and quite different.
It’s a deliberate choice for anti-trans groups to say ‘menstruators’ - they want to make trans-inclusive language appear to be dehumanising. But, as ever, the reality is much more nuanced than the propaganda.
If only “people who menstruate” hadn’t been oppressed, controlled, victimised and abused (as a class) by “people who ejaculate” (as a class) since time out of mind.
If only this wasn’t something that still urgently needs redressing now.
If only it wasn’t necessary to have clear, easily understandable linguistic terms to refer to these two groups of people, in order to carry out the task of redressing the ongoing imbalance of power between these two groups.
Side question: How much of the world’s wealth is in the hands of people who menstruate? [that is: people who actually do menstruate, people who could reasonably be expected to menstruate, people who used to menstruate, people who would menstruate if they didn’t have a medical condition that prevents it... oh, didn’t we used to have a nice, concise way of saying that?? Oh yes, WOMEN but now we can’t say that because we have to pretend that some people who menstruate are men and some people who ejaculate sperm are women... which is exactly where JKR’s original point originated...]
Anyway. The answer is 10%.
Ten fucking percent. That’s all we have. 51% of the population; ten percent of the wealth and a tiny minority of world leaders and vast under-representation in all positions of power and influence, and a plague of domestic abuse, with men murdering us at a rate of two a week in England and Wales alone (and that’s pre-lockdown figures), and endemic sexual abuse, assault and harassment at all stages of our lives including when we’re still at school, FFS, and don’t forget the pay gap, and the maternity discrimination, and the woeful lottery state of maternity care; and also don’t let us forget those issues that mostly affect women and girls in other countries but also a sizeable number of women and girls right here in the UK, like FGM, child marriage, so-called honour killings; also don’t let us forget that worldwide there are still places where women are girls can’t even go to the toilet without everyday fear of sexual assault; where teenage girls may be gang raped by a whole family’s worth of men to avenge some supposed dishonour done to one of them by a male relative of said teenage girl; where mass rape and forced impregnation are used as deliberate acts of war; places where women of any age have to have a male guardian by law; places where thousands upon thousands of baby girls are never even born because they’re aborted as foetuses simply for being female, or they’re born and left to die as tiny newborn babies for the same reason... because wherever you are in the world, the male of the species is still the default human, still the one that language, customs, traditions are centred around; the male perspective still predominates, the male narrative still holds sway, just as it has done for thousands of years - whatever inroads the movement for women’s liberation has made in terms of achieving some level of legislative protection from historic discrimination and oppression, and some cultural shift.
IF ONLY this wasn’t the reality of the world we live in; IF ONLY it wasn’t so absolutely crucial to have a word that encompasses all those of the female sex and excludes all those of the male sex so that we could talk about this phenomenon, recognise it, understand it, fight it.
But given that this is our reality, then I ask you - who benefits from this blurring of the lines between men and women, male and female, people who menstruate and people who ejaculate? Who benefits from our linguistic inability to identify and determine who has the power and who is relatively powerless, who is oppressing who, who is truly vulnerable both by reasons of biology and of historical disadvantage, and needs specific rights and protections in a civilised society?
Cui bono?