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.

@MaxNormal

They are trying to be inclusive of women who are trapped in men's bodies, and men who are trapped in women's bodies

That is a belief system, and should not be conflated with medical reality.

Precisely 👌🏻

But if those on this thread saying 'women' and 'bodies with vaginas' are linguistically interchangeable then surely that's an end to the whole trans women ARE women debate as we can just expect all trans women to be called trans bodies with vaginas... except of course they don't all have vaginas etc... Hmmm.... So probably not interchangeable after all...

Exactly @MovedByFanciesThatAreCurled

"Hysteria" , that most misogynistic of dismissals as well.

No Transmen are bodies with vaginas, I do wonder how they would like it , perhaps embrace it and transmen are bodies with vaginas and transwomen are bodies with penises, heck it is inclusive after all 🤣

@Holly60

I’m some ways when I think about it I wonder if the gender critical community is actually doing more harm to women by insisting that there is nothing more to bring a woman than have female sex organs.

There is so much to my identity as a woman than my sex organs…

Umm hello?? That is why I want to be called a woman. I’m a woman, not a cervix haver, not a menstruator, not a ‘people’, not a body with a vagina. A woman is a unique complex state born of my biology, nurture and wider society. You can accept transwomen as women for you in spaces you control, you may not accept them for me. You may not tell women in prison to scoot over, here’s your new male buddy. You may not tell women at their gp they don’t need a chaperone because this is a woman. You may not tell a raped woman that this male person is of course the female counsellor or support person you asked for. You may accept whatever you wish for yourself but you may not deny women as a class their right to exist in safety.

timeisnotaline sums it up perfectly!

@Holly60

I don’t feel pushed to the margins by that. If you do, then I think that might be something you need to explore.

Oh, aye. Women who don't agree with you have 'issues', eh?

Nice bit of concern trolling, there.

The trouble with this 'I'm so lovely I just CARE about everyone and want them to be happy' act doesn't extend to women. Why don't you care about women, Holly?

It is so bloody awful. It scares me. How have we got here?

It is so hard to speak out about too. Fine on MN, but if I have ever attempted to explain my fears in real life you can guarantee to be accused of being transphobic by someone.

Where is this going to end?

I’m some ways when I think about it I wonder if the gender critical community is actually doing more harm to women by insisting that there is nothing more to bring a woman than have female sex organs.

There is so much to my identity as a woman than my sex organs…

So what is it that makes you a woman then, if its not your sex organs?

Being a woman is about what sex organs and chromosomes you as a human have. That is what makes you a woman or a man.

Everything else, your personality or your identity, has or should have nothing to do with your sex. But, this is not how society works is it. Women have been, and continue to be, oppressed on the basis of their biological sex. This still happens around the world. So at the moment we can't just say 'oh well biology is irrelevant' because that biology is the root of our oppression. You have to recognise the biology of women and how that is used against us in order to try and tackle that oppression.

If we all woke up tomorrow and decided there was no 'man' and no 'woman' and we were all just 'humans' do you think that oppression against women would just cease? All humans would have reproductive rights, all humans would have equal rights in the workplace, equal rights to an education.

Or do you think it would still be the case that one class of human is murdered at the rate of nearly 3 a week by another class of human? Can we name those classes of human? How would we do that? How would we distinguish those classes, upon what basis?

@Holly60 stop trying to gaslight with your rubbish.

gender is a social construct to be fought against not reinforced.

Sex is irrefutable physical reality, along with all the sexism, oppression and violence that goes with it, every woman knows you cant identify out of being oppressed and vulnerable to male attacks.

Go tell white people in South Africa they can identify out of being Afrikaners to avoid attack.

Go tell black people in America they can identify out of being attacked by police.

You wouldnt try to gaslight them would you? yet you think its ok to gaslight 51% of population and tell us we are over reacting to what we are seeing playing out in front of our own eyes, that is affecting our own lives, a slow creep of dehumanization, its like abusers telling women not to trust their own eyes or ears, their gut feelings, telling them they are over reacting and being silly for feeling hurt for feeling depressed and put down.

yet who mentioned Trans? bloody telling isnt it that literally the first reply on thread about derogatory descriptions of women was screaming dont be transphobic, always the whataboutary to try and shut women down from talking about us, our feelings, whats important to us, our rights, our fear. get back in your hole.

Double standard for men and women any way you slice it. Not equal and therefore not legal.

Have you seen the article?

Read it.

It's not really saying that.

Stupid clickbait quote on the cover but the article was different.

@ThinkAboutItTomorrow the significance of this is not really the article content. It’s that a renowned medical journal pulled that quote out of it and thought it a suitable for the front cover , front centre , surrounded by miles of white space, contextualised with a comment about the ongoing shame of period poverty. That was an editorial decision to give women a big middle finger up, hey all you women fuck you. The issue is the lancet and their deliberate choice to dehumanise women.

This doesn’t stop me from accepting them as fellow women.

In what sense? Just because a male person tells you they are a woman you believe it? That level of naivety could give you problems in life, if you think you can skip around like Pollyanna and no one is ever going to use it against you.

They are male. Males pose more threat to women than other women do. That's a fact, and our political interests as an oppressed sex class depend on being able to speak clearly about issues which affect only us as a sex class, and to advocate for ourselves on our own terms. Gender identity ideology is misogynistic.

@ThinkAboutItTomorrow

Have you seen the article?

Read it.

It's not really saying that.

Stupid clickbait quote on the cover but the article was different.

Stop gaslighting women.

We know what they said.

@beastlyslumber I'm not gaslighting! I was furious about this yesterday but reading the next line makes me think the choice on the front cover was dumb but not reflective of an article that otherwise is about women's lived experience and shines a light on how bad it has been historically

""for example, the paucity in understanding of endometriosis and the way women's pain has been seen as more likely to have an emotional or psychological cause, a hangover from centuries of theorising about hysteria"."

I'm not even sure the choice of language was about jumping through inclusive hoops as much as setting menstruation as just another physical thing.

The reason behind the use of " bodies with vaginas" is actually irrelevant, it is the fact that it was deemed to be a reasonable way to describe half the world's population which is important; to portray woman as less than human.

Males pose more threat to women than other women do.
what a lovely delusion. on a physical level it’s probably true, but on any other level it’s highly delusional.

It is true. There's no "probably" about it. It is very clearly evidenced that males pose a greater threat to women. Not sure what you are talking about as "non physical threat", which of course absolutely do exist but I'm not sure what you are referring to?

OP YADNBU

Woman is a sex word, not a gender word (same with man).

You are a girl/woman or boy/man regardless of any identity you do or do not have because they are sex words, they describe your sex and nothing else.

This whole clusterfuck has been created by people trying to change the meaning of words. When we say 'woman', meaning biological sex and nothing else, they hear something gender essencey (I'm not even sure what because someone is yet to provide a coherent definition).

@Lokdok if any person who identifies as trans/NB is confused about what medical treatment they need, it's precisely due to the efforts of those who are trying to convince everyone woman/man are gender words and have some kind of deep meaning, rather than a simple descriptor of a persons biological sex.

@Itsanewdah

Males pose more threat to women than other women do. what a lovely delusion. on a physical level it’s probably true, but on any other level it’s highly delusional.

And yet crime statistics reflect this very thing. Including that males (however they identify) commit 98% of the sex crimes. And the majority of violent crimes.

Not sure what you are using as a metric. Please do share.

@Itsanewdah

Males pose more threat to women than other women do. what a lovely delusion. on a physical level it’s probably true, but on any other level it’s highly delusional.

Elaborate?

@WrapAroundYourDreams

I’m actually not an activist in any way. Just a woman who accepts decent loving people for who they are and wouldn’t tell someone that they aren’t what they feel they are.

Aw. Sweet.

If I go into HSBC and tell them I feel like a millionaire are they going to throw wads of cash at me?

If I say I'm 70, does that mean I can claim my state pension already?

If I say I'm Harry Styles' wife, does it make it true?

In no other area of life are we being gaslit into accepting such impossible falsehoods as reality. I don't understand how this emperors new clothes situation has ever got to the stage it has.

I agree with this and have to state how angry this all makes me feel. I have a severely disabled DC; do you think that if I climb into his wheelchair and 'self-identify' as disabled, that means I am disabled and everyone should just accept that as true?

So I can claim PIP payments and travel concessions? Oh and maybe I should be able to enter (and perhaps win) the Paralympics?

Of course others including disabled people (let's not call them 'genuinely disabled' people) may object to my doing this, but they would be short sighted bigots as otherwise they wouldn't dream of telling me that I am not what I feel I am.

It's disgusting and dehumanising.

I emailed the editor of the Lancet to let him know what I think.

His email address can be found at the top of this page in case anyone else wants to do the same: www.thelancet.com/contact-us