I am not a "person who menstruates"

[auserna]

AIBU to think that terms such as "birthing person", "partner with eggs", "womb-carrier", "cervix haver", "people who menstruate", "chest-feeder" are not only insulting to women but downright hurtful to those who have any gynaecological and/or fertility issues, including DSDs?

Those terms may be considered inclusive to/by people whose gender identity doesn't match their sex (c.0.5% in the UK) but are exclusive to those with DSDs or gynaecological issues (c.12% in the UK).

NB My figures are rough, partly because the statistics relating to people with DSDs are very contentious and because "gynaecological issues" is a broad term, but they are clearly significantly higher for the latter group.

I am a WOMAN !! Don’t let them erase you !

This is the start of the NHS page on cervical screening. Would you say this is offensive?

• 'All women aged 25 to 64 are invited for cervical screening every 5 years to check the health of their cervix. Cervical screening used to be called a smear test.
• Everyone with a cervix should go for cervical screening.
• If you're a trans man or non-binary and have a cervix, you can speak to your GP, sexual health clinic or transgender health clinic about getting invitations routinely

I genuinely can't follow your logic in your last paragraph sorry. I don't see how acknowledging there are people who have a cervix and don't consider themselves women, means that you aren't considered to be a woman, or aren't included when using the term women. And comparison to an association with thieves is a bit odd unless you think having a cervix is a bad thing? (I'm not being flippant I've re-read the post and I really can't see how you've come to that conclusion)

It’s the loud trans people who have kicked up such a fuss and drawn so much attention to the trans community that leads to many of us women deciding that actually, no, we don’t want men in our spaces. We don’t want to be described as cis. We don’t want words like chest feeders or pregnant people. The trans people I follow on TikTok say things like “most women say it’s ok” …. Ok but you cant bypass consent. So one woman saying no is enough.

The worst thing is that these cases are women who inflict this on other women so they can pretend to be men. We shouldn't have to put up with nonsense.

I’m a woman and I won’t owner to these nonsensical terms

Sigh. I originally had a racism analogy which might have been clearer for you, but I changed it because as a white person who does not face those challenges I try to avoid using racism as an example, even though it is probably the closest equivalent scenario. Perhaps you can think through that yourself to other groups who might be subdivied in offensive ways.

I don't understand your arguements that if the sexism is in a different leaflet then it's ok.

Either "woman" means all adult human female people, or it does not.

If it does not, then what is the criterion that makes a "person" into a "woman", and are those of us who do not have it now not "women"?

I'm a "real.woman" and have no issue with these terms. What I do have an issue with is other "real.women" telling me how I should feel.

But anyone who accepts the validity of language that differentiates between "women" and other types of people with female biology is telling other women how they should feel and define themselves. That is the whole fucking problem!

We'll have to agree to disagree @FlirtsWithRhinos I still can't fathom why acknowledging there are women and that there are people who are trans, non binary and intersex is derogatory to women. I think it would be strange to pretend that there was no difference really, and that's before considering when it comes to health services there will be some practical differences that need to be considered. I appreciate you hold a different point of view though even if I don't understand it.

It's not rocket science.

Can you explain the difference between a "woman", a "trans man" and a female "non binary" person in a way that does not requiring reducing the range of allowable forms of womanhood from "the half of humanity that is female in all our diversity" to some subset of that based on the idea that some personalities are not compatible with being "women"?

Here you go - 100s, perhaps 1000s, of examples. Some are behind a paywall, but I don't subscribe and am still blown away by the scale of it.

https://millihill.substack.com/s/the-word-is-woman

PS Just skimmed the latest edition, curious to see what any interested parties from here would see, and few items in... NHS poster.

I also found "lactating people" particularly delightful.

But hey, at least second-language speakers and those with learning difficulties understand that any potentially life-saving public information poster or leaflet they happen to pass should be followed up by a few minutes with the dictionary or queuing at front desk to request the material written for their own demographic just in case...

Er...

@FlirtsWithRhinos I'm really not being facetious, I can't even follow your question. I can only assume it's because we're coming from very different viewpoints as I genuinely don't have any idea what you're going on about. I'm not asking you to keep explaining it as nothing you've posted in follow up has been any clearer (to me at least)

@Catiette what I took from that is some women get upset by being referred to as people. Each to their own I guess. I only clicked through a few as there's a lot of bile to get through before the actual examples, but I couldn't see any references to menstruaters, chest feeders etc as the OP had posted about, and quite a few appeared to be posts by private individuals rather than UK public bodies.

Birdsong has been very polite in her disagreement with you and has said she is not interested in debating further. There's no need to be so rude and keep poking.

The thing is, I understand you exactly. I just think you are wrong.

My question is incredibly simple. So simple that I do not believe you don't understand it.

You yourself said "there are women and that there are people who are trans [and] non binary (I'm leaving DSDs out of this as that is a separate topic) ... I think it would be strange to pretend that there was no difference",

So all I am asking you to do is to explain a difference that you yourself are very clear exists between a "woman", a "trans man" and a female "non binary" person, in a way that does not requiring reducing the range of allowable forms of womanhood from "the half of humanity that is female in all our diversity" to some subset of that based on the idea that some personalities are not compatible with being "women".

I mean, you are the person saying reducing the definition of "women" to a subset of female people doesn't reduce or redefine women, so all I'm asking you to do is put your money where your mouth is and explain what the differences between these different groups of female people actually are.

Guven this is such a simple question, just asking you to describe a difference you yourself say you see very clearly, if you continue to swerve the question or come back with a circular non-answer like "a trans man is a female person who identifies as a man", all I can conclude is either you are self-censoring your own thoughts because someone has done a number on you such that you believe even acknowledging you understand me makes you a bad person, or you see exactly what my question means and that's why you can't answer it because if you do, it blows the underlying sexism of the construct of "women, trans men and female non binary are people" way open.

Thank you for your concern, but she replied to me so clearly that was not necessary.

And FWIW I don't consider replies that imply my very clear and simple question is somehow too complex and incomprehensible to answer to be polite. I actually found her reply quite dismissive and rude.

AIBU to think that terms such as "birthing person", "partner with eggs", "womb-carrier", "cervix haver", "people who menstruate", "chest-feeder" are not only insulting to women but downright hurtful to those who have any gynaecological and/or fertility issues, including DSDs?

I think it depends on context. For example, as a menopausal woman with no womb or cervix, I like the specificity of a medical pamphlet saying ‘x test or y health issue only affects womb having /cervix having /menstruating people rather than x test or y health issue affects women.

I don’t think it is insulting in a medical context as the particular biology of which body parts we have or don’t have can be relevant.

I think it would be in insulting in a social or legal context where there is no medical need for such specificity.

Women have had to fight to have safe medical procedures because they are woman they have a vagina that’s why and that we now have this we should absolutely protect this

I am not bothered by woman and non binary but I absolutely will not accept and feel offended when my sex, me being a woman - an adult female human and is dismissed. It is not inclusive it’s ignoring the very basis of being female

Beyond sad that women are not centred even for maternity care.

Re: quantity

You just skimmed (I assume) post 84 or whatever it was of several years' record-keeping, and that with an acknowledged focus on finding the exact terms that are actually used in this thread to represent an offensive trend. I'm not too surprised that you didn't find what you were looking for.

Re: what I took from that is some women get upset by being referred to as people. Each to their own I guess.

I think this is either a deliberately cynical or surprisingly superficial interpretation of 5 pages of some quite nuanced discussion.

To try to kill all birds with one stone... I think what people sometimes find most offensive (note: I used the word "people" here, as a generic reference to all those concerned by these changes in our language) is what this language represents: the de-prioritisation of women's health (and here, I used "women", not "people" - or "menstruating/lactating/birthing people" - to refer to an entire demographic, the one which endured millennia of discrimination because of their collective reproductive capacity). Meanwhile, most people posting here seem to agree that proactively changing language so that certain minority groups within the demographic of women lose their previously easy and rapid access to important information is fundamentally wrong.

And yes, even putting all that aside, I do find "lactating people" etc. offensive. It reduces women globally, in all our glorious complexity - a complexity that infinitely transcends the single common denominator of our female bodies - right back down to body alone. As if there's no humanity to us, and instead we're just machines or animals. As if the 51% of human beings from whom every human in existence ever has come is no longer deserving of a word of our own with which to name their corresponding needs and facilitate access to these.

I'm probably feeding the troll here, but hey ho.

@FlirtsWithRhinos I would find it strange if I was assumed by a health service to be the same as a trans man because i would expect that a trans man may be taking hormones, and may have had surgery, both of which would need to be taken into account by a medical practitioner. I would also expect that in a female specific setting, a trans man might have some emotional/psychological needs (eg anxiety about attending) that I do not. I would expect that for some women, being in a female specific setting and someone who 'passed' as male being there could be frightening and that that would be taken into account as well.
None of that makes me feel any less of a woman, or makes me feel that I'm being diminished as a woman.

I find it weird that you would think that I should see myself as no different to a trans man.
And the idea that your posts are 'clear and simple' - well, we must have different definitions of those terms. I'm starting to wonder if you're a bot or AI in all honesty, and I'm not going to bother responding again. And the fact that I responded doesn't make your posts any less rude or aggressive.

Sorry - carelessly didn't quote you. My reply to this is above! Oops...

OK. If your "difference" is purely the medical differences trans men introduce into their bodies that does make sense.it doesn't explain the "difference" you mentioned for non binary women though.

I do not, however, think this makes it reasonable or acceptable to play act through language or behaviour that trans men are not simply a subgroup of women, which is what is being done when we give headspace to concepts like "women and other people who"... have female biology.

Finally, just because someone disagrees with you and doesn't roll over when you try to "nice" yourself out of a conversation that is more challenging than you antipicated does not make them a troll. I assumed you are posting in good faith, albeit your position is badly thought out. Please do me the same courtesy.

Hm. Just took a minute to look at your last claim, too: quite a few appeared to be posts by private individuals rather than UK public bodies. I find this surprising. I mean, the UK part, granted, but the fact that this is global, to me, compounds the issue. But private people? Here are the sources cited in Post 84, in order, all included (hopefully! - quickly done):

1. the European Medicines Agency
2. director Georgie Wileman at the Baftas
3. NHS
4. Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses
5. The Breastfeeding Medicine Podcast series
6. Health New Zealand
7. NUPAS
8. the "core curriculum" tome for lactation consultants
9. a tweeter.

= 2/9 are "private individuals", although the first of these, in an extremely high-profile public context.

In case I was being unfair, I then did the post below, number 83 (cos I'm a pedant and stickler for fairness!) Here it is...

1. an individual running a high-profile business in maternity services
2. the Birthrights organisation
3. the Scottish charity Amma
4. an inconclusive debate at Warwick District Council

= 2-3/4 (depending on how you count the last!) are "private individuals", although the first of these, in an extremely high-profile public context.

In any case, I think just dismissing it as "private individuals" is, again, not looking closely enough at what this, in itself, signifies. Some will, indeed, by posts by private individuals. But the (many!) others show the proliferation of institutional usage that explains why private individuals are taking this approach. I mean, the private individuals would look a bit weird and not be widely understood of this weren't the case - it certainly wouldn't do any favours to private individual #1, above, to use this language, if, for example, 2, 3 and 4 weren't aware of - and supporting it frequently enough - too.

@Catiette

Re: what I took from that is some women get upset by being referred to as people. Each to their own I guess.

I think this is either a deliberately cynical or surprisingly superficial interpretation of 5 pages of some quite nuanced discussion.

I agree. That little dig did seem to undermine the wide eyed tone the poster was affecting.