#ifmenhadperiods

[ethelb]

I thought it was a joke that trans people claimed it was offensive to say women had periods.

Apparently it was not a joke after all. The Twitter feed is dominated by this crap?

This makes me so angry! Whining on about 'erasure' when they are the ones 'erasing' the original message. Can't they see the irony?!?

I don't get this men having periods stuff, although I did read a really interesting guardian article about transgendered people and I don't feel prejudiced towards them.

Are the people on the Twitter thread trying to say that there are people born with female genitals (or variants thereof) who feel psychologically male but have periods/ can give birth?

I'm assuming that you wouldn't be born with male genitals but have gender reassignment surgery that actually gave you periods.

I dont like the term cis. At the end of the day there are women and trans women. It seems very aggressive to adopt the old term for women as applying to trans women whilst giving original or normal or whatever the suitable term for women a new prefix. Plus it sounds bizarre. Not that it comes up ever IRL, just on here IME...

Exactly Zen

felas - men do gestation better than us too, obv...

I don't do twitter, have only seen whats on mn threads about this. Maybe some good can come of this - if the actual issue of the hashtag was that guardian piece, maybe it might help them get their priorities straight.

I don't get how transmen want to be seen as men, but then go out of their way to make the point that they have periods? I'd keep quiet about it if I was trying to convince people that I was a bloke. It's a bit of a tell isn't it?

But no, it's transphobic to care about girls who have nothing, apparently

Is there any evidence that the beef is with the issue itself, with the highlighting of what happens to young biological females in Africa in itself, as opposed to the beef being only with the transphobia implicit in the specific slogan they chose?

I guess there is a PR lesson in there somewhere. Try to avoid transphobic, homophobic, racist etc language in your slogans. No matter how important the issue is, there will be those that won't like it and won't just quiety accept it because the issue underneath the slogan is important.

That's right, JAPAB, feminists just need to learn that the best way to combat sexism is to be careful to never, ever imply that that it has anything to with sex. Fuck off.

*to do with

There used to be a word for the class of people that bled, breastfed, made eggs and babies and got paid less. It was women. We had feminism to try to address the real, violent and all pervasive discrimination against this group.

Can anyone tell me what the fuck we have now?

Where is the "transphobia" inherent in the slogan, please? It's a clear and unambiguous statement of reality. If transactivists and mansplainers think differently, the onus is on them to provide the evidence for the extraordinary claim.

The suggestion on Twitter is "if cismen had periods".
Anyone reading that would not think it was going to be about they rights of women in developing countries (etc) would they, they would think it was something to do with transphobia. As of course everything has to be about that.

Surely "if cismen and transwomen had periods" would be more 'accurate' or are we pretending that transwomen so have periods.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/samantha-rea/men-dont-have-periods-wom_b_11893838.html

👍

*do

But mrsterry, that then still doesn't include all the gender queer snowflakes of the xy persuasion.

If only we had a word for the 50% of the population who have their underlying biology in common with both transmen and "cis" women...

If only...

Personally I find "egglaying" a pleasant alternative to menstruaters. I mean it isn't accurate but It's more accurate than front hole.

female?

We could channel a 1970s comedian and be 'bleeding women'.

I'd guess most transwomen don't think it's offensive to say women have periods. I know several who are really fucked off with this bullshit.

There are some very vocal arses on social media/forums. To do with anything - not just trans issues. I'm becoming increasingly suspicious that a lot of these people are just trolls getting off on the outrage they cause (narrows eyes).

I'd guess most transwomen don't think it's offensive to say women have periods.

Doesn't this just highlight part of the issue? Talk of trans here and it all becomes about transwomen. Transmen are effectively rendered invisible.

Thanks for the link SpecialSnowflake . Great article.

I agree Bumble. I actually know more transmen than transwomen (with both I'm talking about a small sample size but I tend to listen to their narrative more than I do a lot of the histrionic TA bollocks online) They are even more fucked off with this bullshit than the transwomen I know. They feel like being trans means they're automatically associated with the trans activist movement which is dominated by transwomen.

And they object because they were socialised as girls and tend to be - I'm only referring to my personal experience here - transmen who previously identified as lesbian women so they had a hell of a lot of experience of crap before they started transitioning.

And in some cases I believe that's exactly why they started transitioning. But these are transmen who agree with their diagnosis of gender dysphoria.