To think that women should not be referred to as menstruators and pregnant people?

[FRETGNIKCUF]

This is a thread about the impact trans activism is having on women. This is the beginning.

Don't read on if you're going to whine about another trans thread.


Julian Vigo (@lubelleludotcom on Twitter) wrote the following.

There is a war on women, folks. The transgender lobby has gone down the rabbit hole by refusing to acknowledge that women's lives and bodies not only matter, but that they are real. Instead women's bodies have become the simulacra in an extended theatre of male entitlement (to be women while telling women to STFU) or they are rendered an extension of male subjectivity such that we now see hairy transmen's female bodies breastfeeding, the only form of female body hair that would ever be allowed in Time magazine.

And now for the latest: we are being called "menstruators" by the same right-wing discourse which seeks to remove the mention of woman from women's healthcare across the USA (ie. now many providers have been pressured to remove the term woman and write instead "pregnant person.") It is as if the last 100 years of women's rights had never occured.

The ironies are multiple. Here you have a group which claims its own marginalisation while working steadily to marginalise an already marginalised group, women. Then you have a group of female people who by virtue of the current transgender identity doxa necessitates "gender dysphoria," yet paradoxically adheres to—and even embraces—the real and symbolic thrust of much of what the female body actually is and produces, a complete opposition to gender dysphoria. Therein lies the greatest contradiction which, not surprisingly, once again holds women hostage: woman is symbolic for those who emulate her, woman is only acceptable inasmuch as she recognises males as females, and women are now relegated to "non-males" by political parties, as "pregnant humans" and "menstruators" by females who reject their bodies yet who hold out for the double-bind of gender in this theatre of cruelty where only a [sic] "man" can truly understood pregnancy, breastfeeding, and motherhood.

The only parallel I can think of is if the KKK were to insist that the Black Panthers stop calling themselves "black", demand that their white hoods be viewed as black, assert that only white people know what it is like to experience life as a black person, and then turn around and maintain that black people are just a group of entitled, bio-essentialist racists.

[FRETGNIKCUF]

This will lead to legal ramifications to maternity rights, women will cease to be protected.

[JudyCoolibar]

^The problem is most transpeople do indeed just want to pass. To live their own quiet lives without impinging on anyone else.6

8This, absolutely. Unfortunately, people focus on the ones in the media who make a huge fuss and who might well have other motives. However, the majority is why I will alway refer to them by their preferred pronoun etc.8

Hear, hear. This issue is already being discussed on another thread, so this one seems to have been started specifically to put the buzz words into the title and try to whip up a frenzy. No-one seriously believes that one obscure and badly understood statement by a US organisation is going to have any impact on terminology.

[JudyCoolibar]

Of course it won't lead to maternity rights being affected.

[SaucyJack]

Wouldn't it be better all round to have a niche interest forum for this threads?

[FRETGNIKCUF]

Judy? You think it's one group doing this? You think women quotas are being filled by transwomen?

[TwatbadgingCuntfuckery]

The original tweet. If anyone is interested about context.

[Comejointhemurder]

It's already being discussed on at least two trans threads I've seen. Was that not enough?.

[HermioneWeasley]

judy I'm really interested why you're so clear it won't lead to an erosion of maternity rights /protection

Maternity is a protected characteristic under th equality act because ONLY women experience it. When that changes so that legal makes can become pregnant, it opens that protection up to challenge. Why would you even want to open that door?

IIRC a woman in Texas lost a case about right to breastfeed because now men can breastfeed too.

[DoctorDonnaNoble]

All the trans people I know in real life just get on with it and want to get on with their own lives.
I do have some concerns about how early in life these things are being considered. The Channel 4 programme about trans kids seemed to suggest that parents thought a boy who liked Frozen, dolls and wearing dresses must actually BE a girl. I think that's dangerous. We could do with being less rigid about 'gender' anyway. It seems to be conflated with biological sex in a worrying way. Doing this would help everyone.
I share some of the concerns about the extremist TRAs, but consider them like all extremists - not representative of the majority. If we all calmed down and remembered these angry people are a minority of a minority we might get on better.
As for terminology, the concept of 'men who have sex with men' angers me. They are gay or bisexual. However, I know it is essential to get people who are in denial to engage with medical services. This results in 'fudge' terms.
Transitioning is a long and difficult process and during that time, and for some things after, medical care is necessary for things which can make the patient beyond uncomfortable (due to dysmorphia). It could be a question of life and death.

[missingmumxox]

I feel like the emperors new clothes here, as everyone seems to understand the op, I didn't understand a fucking word of it, I must be stupid, however I did laugh at the pun in the tweet menstruators that's actually pretty good,
The Demonstrators most likely being women who are menstruating.

[Kungfupandaworksout16]

Maybe I'm still half asleep, but I'm confused as to what trans people and sanitary products have to do with each other?

[JudyCoolibar]

Judy? You think it's one group doing this?

OK, tell me what other groups are campaigning for women to be called menstruators.

Hermione, this thread is about that specific issue. The link between one US organisation describing women as menstruators specifically in relation to a campaign about tampon tax on the one hand, and maternity rights on the other, is tenuous at best ;and the suggestion that one will inevitably lead to the other is lacking in foundation.

[bumbleymummy]

Kungfu, I think it's the idea that 'menstruators' is being used instead of 'women' in the tweet. I think the OP reckons this is because using 'women' would offend trans women who don't menstruate.

I take it as a reference to women who use tampons ie. those who are menstruating. It's not something I'm going to get overly worked up about. I'm not going to start worrying about my maternity rights disappearing either...

[nooka]

It might have been helpful if the OP had posted the tweet that the commentary was presumably about, from Planned Parenthood referring to 'Menstruators'. I currently have my period. I have never referred to myself as a 'menstruator'. It sounds very much like another way of avoiding saying that women are biologically female. So a nod to the trans lobby. Ironically given that the trans lobby are very keen to police any 'erasure' of their members this sort of language very effectively erases women

[IfTheCapFitsWearIt]

This thread looks like you have whipped yourself up into a frenzy, then burst all over AIBU in an incoherent mess.

Its really not helping anyone become educated, sympathetic or interested in what you are saying.

[dontwannapullahammie]

Having now seen the original tweet it is abundantly clear that it is referring to people who have had need of the product, and who are menstruating.

Using this example to get offended or to push your anti trans agenda is fucking ridiculous

[nooka]

There are virtually no maternity rights in the States in any case. No regulations on maternity leave in New York state (which is where the changes to taxes on tampons is from) at all. Workers rights in the States are very limited indeed.

[RestlessTraveller]

I have a trans-friend. She has no agenda other than trying to get some treatment for the harrowing effects of knowing something was wrong with her for her entire life. She attempted to kill herself at age 12 because of her poor mental health brought on by her situation. She has fought for years and I love her and I am proud to call her my friend.

I find the anti-trans bullshit posted on Mumsnet abhorrent. In every other way this forum is a a genuinely supportive place but it seems perfectly acceptable to attack a section of society because they are struggling with thier identity.

I don't think being female in an enviable thing to be at this time. Why would you willingly want to subject yourself to the everyday struggles that women go through? You just need to read every other thread on here to see the suffering that some women have to endure.

I don't think my feminity is a precious flower that has to be protected. I don't think my feminity is defined by my vagina and the fact that I bleed from it every month. The tamon tax pisses me off though!

By the way op your manners are atrocious.

[dontwannapullahammie]

Would it have been easier for them to say "women who have bought these tampons and who may or may not be menstruating have been tweeting their receipts"? No it would not! Just because some people are trying to change the meaning of words or use them against women does not mean they shouldn't be used when it's appropriate...here it's an appropriate word!

[Lightbulbon]

So we should advocate sterilising all suicidal 12 year olds?

Mental health problems should be treated with talking therapies and/or medicines.

Never surgery.

It's a regressive, socially conservative ideology and in practice is no better than the lobotomies and clitordectomies of the past.

[Gothgirl78]

Well said restless. My thoughts exactly.

[BeyondASpecialSnowflake]

Word that could have been used so as not to use women, but without making up "menstruaters" (which isn't even any more accurate as a lot of menstruaters won't use tampons)

How about purchasers ?? Why not use a relevant word that does already exist?

[BeyondASpecialSnowflake]

(Especially as it then includes men who could be purchasing tampons for their partner with their groceries!!)

[LiviaDrusillaAugusta]

Well I don't think this went the way that the OP hoped

[bumbleymummy]

It seems to have been moved to feminism chat so I imagine she'll start getting more of the type of responses she was looking for...