We are now being called bodies with vaginas by one of the top medical journals in the land

[JustcameoutGC]

YANBU the word is woman
YABU shut up VAGINA haver

This will probably get shunted back to the naughty corner. But this is something women need to know. Coming soon to a GP surgery near you. As a vagina haver you may be invited for a cervical smear.

This is what the erasure of women looks like. Splayed on the front cover of the journal read by every medic in the land.

@334bu

*But there's a valid argument that if you're going to do a public health campaign (eg promote smear tests) then phrasing it as women, transmen and non-binary people with a vagina is a good idea because the second two groups will assume that a campaign targeted at women only doesn't apply to them so they don't take notice*

I am absolutely sure that all transmen and non binary people born female are very aware that any medical campaign targeted at women is also targeted at them. They are all too aware that their bodies are female, they are not stupid.

Exactly. They can’t actually believe their own bullshit. They just expect other women to go along with it.

I have two bodies with vaginas in the household apart from me.

The bodies both starting menstruating before they were even in the final year of primary school.

Luckily the school had considered the needs of both boys and bodies with vaginas so even though they were young they coped ok.

I think that's right?

@Itsanewdah

I’m biologically female with a vagina. I’m categorically NOT a woman. I’m also not a transman. I’m nonbinary, always have been (over 40 years now, so a bloody long “phase”). We are so much more than our bodies (have a look at society, biological differences explain almost none of the societal differences).

Sorry to break it to you, you are a woman.

It's not something you get to opt out of I'm afraid!! Like being a Human.

If there was a call for all Women to immediately attend surgeries for an injection or die - would you be muttering "don't you define me" on your deathbed or be queuing with the other Women??

@YouMeandtheSpew

The more I think about it, the more I can’t see much of a difference between this and men referring to women as ‘pussy’.

Spot On!

Exactly. They can’t actually believe their own bullshit. They just expect other women to go along with it.

This!

Is this actually written with including a trans audience in mind? Because I see it as a medical journal a for medics simply pointing out that historically the ‘body’ in medicine has always been male. Everything is modelled on male bodies. Isn’t it a sort of play on words? Reminding that there are two types of human bodies, and ‘bodies’ with vaginas are actually very different. Which, let’s face it, lots of medics don’t seem to realise yet. It’s hard to articulate what I mean but I don’t necessarily find it that offensive.

Decadently,

You're genuinely happy with this cover page of a respected medical journal using the term 'bodies with vaginas'?

To encapsulate as a group all the women and girls in the world? All those billions?

Bodies with vaginas?

And the fact they use men and presumably boys to instead of eg bodies with testicles. You don't see an issue with that?

You genuinely have no problem with all the billions of women and girls around the world being referred to as bodies with vaginas?

Do you have an issue with them using women meaning female in other situations eg black women?

Are you comfortable with baby girls being encapsulated by the term bodies with vaginas?

No issues with in this case bodies.. Not even people?

Ok well if you see the issues and disagree then that's fine obv. Can you even see the issues at all though?

Bodies with vagina's ? the medical professions historical atitudes to menstruation, is that what the article is about ? surely it should be bodies with ovaries/uterus's/vagina's, that's the holy triumvirate that allows periods to occur.

@amijustparanoidorjuststoned

Here we go with the trans bashing again.

Nobody is trying to erase women. They are trying to be inclusive of women who are trapped in men's bodies, and men who are trapped in women's bodies. It is also fine to not know which gender you fit in to and to be non-binary.

There, fixed it for you.

Lol

@DingleyDel

Is this actually written with including a trans audience in mind? Because I see it as a medical journal a for medics simply pointing out that historically the ‘body’ in medicine has always been male. Everything is modelled on male bodies. Isn’t it a sort of play on words? Reminding that there are two types of human bodies, and ‘bodies’ with vaginas are actually very different. Which, let’s face it, lots of medics don’t seem to realise yet. It’s hard to articulate what I mean but I don’t necessarily find it that offensive.

Bullshit.

If this wasn't actually about appeasing the TRAs and the insanity surrounding them, and if the intention was to highlight that medicine has always focused on the male default, they could have said WOMEN'S BODIES.

Not fucking 'bodies with vaginas'.

But there's a valid argument that if you're going to do a public health campaign (eg promote smear tests) then phrasing it as women, transmen and non-binary people with a vagina is a good idea because the second two groups will assume that a campaign targeted at women only doesn't apply to them so they don't take notice.

I thought they were trans/non binary, not completely stupid.

@DingleyDel

Is this actually written with including a trans audience in mind? Because I see it as a medical journal a for medics simply pointing out that historically the ‘body’ in medicine has always been male. Everything is modelled on male bodies. Isn’t it a sort of play on words? Reminding that there are two types of human bodies, and ‘bodies’ with vaginas are actually very different. Which, let’s face it, lots of medics don’t seem to realise yet. It’s hard to articulate what I mean but I don’t necessarily find it that offensive.

That may have been the aim (i don't think it was written with any thought of trans people, just as bad a description if not worse for transmen I'd have thought) . But in that case WTF not just say 'female bodies' or 'women's bodies' rather than singling out one of the several specifically female organs to label us by?

@Itsanewdah

I’m biologically female with a vagina. I’m categorically NOT a woman. I’m also not a transman. I’m nonbinary, always have been (over 40 years now, so a bloody long “phase”). We are so much more than our bodies (have a look at society, biological differences explain almost none of the societal differences).

You're a woman. It is coded into every cell of your body, whether you like it or not.

The only possible way to be a woman is to possess XX chromosomes.

@DingleyDel

Is this actually written with including a trans audience in mind? Because I see it as a medical journal a for medics simply pointing out that historically the ‘body’ in medicine has always been male. Everything is modelled on male bodies. Isn’t it a sort of play on words? Reminding that there are two types of human bodies, and ‘bodies’ with vaginas are actually very different. Which, let’s face it, lots of medics don’t seem to realise yet. It’s hard to articulate what I mean but I don’t necessarily find it that offensive.

A few interesting explanations on the thread!

I'm not sure what the relevance of a trans audience is? The point of being inclusive is to move away from language that is not inclusive of trans people full stop. Audience is irrelevant.

And anyway obviously trans people can be and are in the field. Why on earth wouldn't they be??!

What's your thoughts on their use of men when it's things about bodies with prostates? Surely they deserve clever wordsmithing as well?

@amijustparanoidorjuststoned

Here we go with the trans bashing again.

Nobody is trying to erase women. They are trying to be inclusive of women who are trapped in men's bodies, and men who are trapped in women's bodies. It is also fine to not know which gender you fit in to and to be non-binary.

There, fixed it for you.

Shame an article a couple of weeks earlier was about men’s health issues.

Not quite so inclusive then, eh?

@DingleyDel

Is this actually written with including a trans audience in mind? Because I see it as a medical journal a for medics simply pointing out that historically the ‘body’ in medicine has always been male. Everything is modelled on male bodies. Isn’t it a sort of play on words? Reminding that there are two types of human bodies, and ‘bodies’ with vaginas are actually very different. Which, let’s face it, lots of medics don’t seem to realise yet. It’s hard to articulate what I mean but I don’t necessarily find it that offensive.

If they had a trans audience in mind, then they should use similar terminology when talking about prostate cancer. And they don’t.

If it was. a play on word with women bodies being different, they’ve failed in a major way. Plus, as you mentioned it, plenty of medics have no clue about the female body. So I would make it easy for them rather than hard to follow tbh

YANBU it's a disgrace, I'm ashamed of them.

@amijustparanoidorjuststoned

Here we go with the trans bashing again.

Nobody is trying to erase women. They are trying to be inclusive of women who are trapped in men's bodies, and men who are trapped in women's bodies. It is also fine to not know which gender you fit in to and to be non-binary.

There, fixed it for you.

👏

It’s not about trans. It’s about women. You know that word which can’t be written. Or heard

Women

Womaninthistown Stop quoting and perpetuating the transphobia from page 1.

These two pages will explain why such phrasing is problematic and exclusionary.

skepticink.com/avant-garde/2017/01/trapped-wrong-body/

everydayfeminism.com/2016/05/transgender-without-dysphoria/

Something very wrong if ,simply objecting to women being degraded, is considered to be trans bashing.

@334bu

Something very wrong if ,simply objecting to women being degraded, is considered to be trans bashing.

But the world revolves around a tiny minority don't you know.

@334bu

Something very wrong if ,simply objecting to women being degraded, is considered to be trans bashing.

Yes. Something is VERY wrong.

For fucks sake have you read the article? It says women and girls in every paragraph. The function of the sentence used as a pull quote is to highlight that even in pure anatomical terms (when you would not expect there to be a difference because hey it's just body parts) women's bodies are less well described.

I have extreme doubts that female people with gender dysphoria, think being referred to by the body parts that are the biggest reminder of what sex they are, really like this.

Why would a trans man want to be referred to as a person with a vagina? Let alone a body with a vagina.

None of this movement of language, disconnection of the words woman girl from anything to do with our sexed bodies. And the increasing attack on the word female.

None of this is really at the behest of or for the advantage of those who are female. In fact the opposite. And always has been.