Menstruators!!! - What's Up, Docs? on Radio 4

[IdaGlossop]

This is an interesting programme on Radio 4. I have learnt that 1/3 of menstruators suffer period poverty. Interesting. I have learnt that the plastic in a packet of sanitary towels is the equivalent of eight plastic bags. Interesting. I have learnt that it is possible to make a 30-minute programme about the defining physical process of the female body without once using a female pronoun. Ludicrous and infuriating.

YABU = menstruators is an inclusive word to use to describe male and female people losing the lining of their womb each month

YANBU = menstruators is an absurd word that panders to the deluded fantasists who have persuaded themselves that a human being born male can lose his womb lining once a month for 40 years.

I listened to most of it, thought the woman contributer was interesting and definitely heard woman being called woman ( also 'people'i will admit) . I didn't know that not all mammals have menstrual cycle and it was interesting re the cycle and impacts and positives of having a cycle. It was a bit irritating having 2 men talking about periods and daily impact of managing these like its all news to them when half the population is already aware but have little opportunity to talk about it openly.

It was very obvious in parts of the programme that both the doctors and the guest were avoiding using gender-specific language to the extent that it sounded forced.

Males don't have wombs so cannot menstruate

People who menstruate are female

I am so tired of this shite

How the fuck can a biological male menstruate???

Personally I would prefer ‘people who menstruate’. For me personally it’s not about identity or any of that jazz, but acknowledging that not every woman menstruates.

They can't. Trans men can menstruate because they were born women. I've erred in my YANBU definition.

The BBC has truly lost the ruddy plot

@IdaGlossop I think I caught the end of this - was there a woman who did say that some girls skip school during their periods? I wonder if mixed sex toilets have anything to do with this

The (female) guest did say that. I think she was making a comment about period poverty and not being able to afford period products but mixed sex toilets may also affect school attendance.

I'm personally pretty open minded about trans matters (and generally avoid talking about it on MN). If it doesn't hurt me then I wouldn't criticise how other people identify or live their lives. However, some trends in language do upset me - such as the use of 'menstruators' and the ghastly 'chest feeding'. If they have to label people, they should use (in this scenario) 'women and trans me. End of.

Exactly. I haven’t menstruated for three years (hello, menopause!) but I am definitely still a woman.

Same here. I'm 59 and definitely postmenopausal. I haven't had a period for over two years, which I am delighted about. 😃

I'm still definitely a woman.

I heard this earlier and found it irritating. The male twin doctors had invited a female doctor on to talk about menstruation. They all used the words female, woman and girls at some points but mostly they talked about 'people'. It's confusing. If you were very young or very ill-informed and have swallowed the nonsense idea that there aren't two sexes, that sex is a spectrum, you could end up thinking this is an issue that affects some males as well as females. There are after all credulous people on social media who seem to believe that transwomen on cross-hormones start having a menstrual cycle. This sort of obfuscation really doesn't help with making it plain that menstruation is a female issue and only a female issue. Not all women menstruate, but no men will ever menstruate.

On another point, I am not a scientist, but I don't understand why the female doctor said that humans had 'decided' to have a menstrual cycle instead of the more common arrangement found in most mammals of oestrous cycles. If my grasp of evolution is accurate, we couldn't do that. Surely it must have evolved by chance, turned out to be advantageous for some reason, so hominids who menstruated did well as a species.

Oh, and I should have said this too - we all know that health promotion campaigns work best if they use clear, simple language and if the target audience sees immediately the message is being addressed to them. This is why it matters that the NHS has sometimes talked about 'people with a cervix' instead of 'women'. Women with poor literacy or women who speak English as an additional language are not going to know what a cervix is or whether they have one. Same goes for menstruators.

What on earth are you on about? This makes no sense whatsoever.

Just ridiculous. I don’t menstruate either but the fudging of words is a nonsense. They are idiots.

Same here - I like the programme but this is ridiculous

So women should be reclassed into
Barren
Bleeder
Breeder
Barren
Etc?

And why people?

Why not women who menstruate

Men without a Penis = still a man after an accident or operation. Or do you mean a woman who wishes she was a man?

Non-men?? That covers any item that is not men, like a table?

Do not fucking address me as a menstruater.

Rude 😡

I also do not appreciate being addressed as
lactater
urinater
defecater
salivator
cougher
farter
burper

I'm fairly sure my partner wouldn't wish to be addressed as an ejaculator.

Idiots.

Man without a penis in this context = woman

Well some of us wouldn't menstruate if it wasn't for a false bleed brought on by the pill or hrt.

Not all women menstruate (for example post menopausal women, women who've had a hysterectomy, women on certain birth control, some very underweight women, and women with Turner's Syndrom, which is X0 (no Y, but a missing second X or partially missing), XX women with some disorders of sexual development which mean their organs don't form correctly- just as can happen with other organs such as the heart, kidneys etc without it changing the humanity of the person born with underdeveloped kidneys - the key is that only biological women and girls menstruate, but no biological men menstruate.

All people who menstruate are BIOLOGICAL women or girls.

All bananas are fruit, but not all fruit are bananas.

Using the word menstruators is also bananas, obviously.

Well, they can fuck off to the far side of fuck, can’t they?

Misogynistic little shits.

I came on to say something like this.

You expressed it perfectly