I am S p a r t a c u s

[PermissionToSpeakSir]

I am a woman.

I was a girl.

I am an adult human female.

Something a man can never be.

I am a woman.

People refer to me has her and she.

Sometimes said with deep contempt and misogyny.

I am a woman.

Something a male will never be.

I have a vagina and uterus.

I menstruate and have given birth.

I am a mother.

Something a male will never be.

I have been insulted, assaulted, belittled, dismissed, held back, intimidated, stereotyped, terrorised, mocked, shamed, humiliated because I am a woman.

Something a male can never be.

I feel insulted, appropriated, offended, anxious, tense, depressed, hurt and under siege, when a male claims to be a woman or anyone says a male can be female.

It is not civil or respectful to treat me this way.

I am a woman.

I am Spartacus.

@Clarabumps if you sign up shoot me off a pm and I'll give you my username so you start to build a network xx

I am a woman.

I was a girl.

I am an adult human female.

Something a man can never be.

I am a woman.

People refer to me has her and she.

Sometimes said with deep contempt and misogyny.

I am a woman.

Something a male will never be.

I have a vagina and uterus.

I menstruate and have given birth.

I am a mother and a grandmother.

Something a male will never be.

I have been insulted, assaulted, belittled, dismissed, held back, intimidated, stereotyped, terrorised, mocked, shamed, humiliated because I am a woman.

Something a male can never be.

I feel insulted, appropriated, offended, anxious, tense, depressed, hurt and under siege, when a male claims to be a woman or anyone says a male can be female.

It is not civil or respectful to treat me this way.

I am a woman.

I am Spartacus.

I am also absolutely ashamed of @MNHQ

I am a woman.

I am Spartacus.

(Shamelessly copied and added a tiny bit).

Woman = adult human female grown from a female child

Woman is not a feeling
Woman is not a costume
Woman is not a performance
Woman is not pornography
Woman is not male

Biology is not bigotry
Biological truth takes no prisoners

I value truth over make believe - even when it hurts

Spartacus

I am a scientist. Sex is a biological fact that cannot be changed. I will not submit to the suppression of facts.

I am Spartacus.

Still a woman, still Spartacus.

And no, birthing children didn't 'validate' my womanhood. Womanhood cannot be validated or invalidated.

The only people who talk about validating womanhood is those to whom it does not apply.

Women who can't birth children are having an explicitly female experience.

I'm Spartacus.

Sex is immutable and a fact. I have nothing but compassion for delusional people who can't cope with reality but I'm fucked if I'll allow them to compel my speech when the consequences might include the destruction of women's rights and increased violence against women and girls.

I think I may have crossed into madness with all this. I just emailed Cancer Research this, in response to their copy about cancer screening making references to men but not women:

"Dear Cancer Research,

I am a person with a cervix. I recently lost a friend who was also a person with a cervix to ovarian cancer, which appears to have been a condition associated with being a person with a cervix. The departed friend-person with a cervix left behind a young person with testicles, who now face growing up fostered by another person with a cervix, as the person with testicles who provided the spermatozoa that fertilised the ovum of the person with the cervix from which the young person with testicles issued could not be bothered with looking after the young person with testicles.

Far from suggesting that there is anything special about people with cervices or the responsibilities they take for young people with either cervices or testicles, I feel that my friend-person with a cervix is honoured, posthumously, to be relieved of the boring old identity of “woman”.

I therefore enthusiastically welcome this neutrality and request that you immediately remove any and all references to the male sex in your public-facing information about testicular cancer screening. In fact, I feel so very enthusiastic about this change that I simply will not be able to consider making any donations to your organisation until you are consistent in this matter.

Alternatively, you could reinstate the references to biological sex in your copy about cancer of the sex organs.

It is of course up to you whether you choose to go forward with this laudable afford to create a perfectly even playing field, or revert to associating sex organs with sex. But I will simply not be able to focus on mundane matters like opening my wallet until you demonstrate absolute consistency in this matter. It would be too, too unfair to keep the singular joy of being a person with a cervix to ourselves. There are, after all, over 3 billion men out there who will undoubtedly be delighted to become people with testicles.

I look forward to your confirmation that you will extend this exciting prospect to the male population with immediate effect."

I have to say this whole circus would be a lot more enjoyable if the adjustments went both ways.

I'm now going to go and sit in a nice and quiet room. Over and out.

Night night,
Spartacus.

Swede

Well said Swede

I am female, I am a woman and I am Spartacus.

I wish every single woman would stand up to this nonsense and call a man a man.

When they've jailed us all, and men find themselves doing all their own housework, childcare and life admin, when the only people left for them to have sex with are transwomen, I bet then they'll agree that there's a biological difference!

Well said Swede.

I'm finding this all bloody frustrating.

And I see absolutely no reason why every single organisation in the country shouldn't find it equally frustrating. Not to mention confusing.

Apart from anything else the way Cancer Research are writing their literature is discriminatory towards women.

Transactivists will target every mention of the word woman. Well, they already are, obviously.

So let's do it with men, too.

Although men are not affected as much, their threshold for this sort of nonsense will be far lower.

Very sorry to hear about your friend and her son, Swede. Cancer is such a bugger. In five years we have lost three friends (all mothers of primary-age children) to breast cancer, ovarian cancer and a brain tumour.

I am a woman, a female human and I am Spartacus

I gave birth to two children who I am newly a single parent to. One of them is talented in sports and I fear she will never experience success if she is competing against people with male bodies. One of them is autistic and I fear he may believe one day that being atypical means he is really a boy, despite his male body.

We know that humans cannot change sex, regardless of how they choose to express their personalities.

being atypical means he is not really a boy, obvs

We're women, and we don't need any dissembling mansplaining words.

I think I already Spartacused myself last night, on an earlier page. But here's going for it, anyway!

Great letter Swede

So sorry to hear about your friend swede
Your letter is fabulous, dripping with the scorn they deserve.
Please sisters, when I die, don't let me be posthumously called a cervix-person!

I was born a girl & as such will be a woman until the day I die.

'Woman' & 'female' are words that describe my biologically embodied reality.

I actively reject gendered stereotypes & roles associated with the social constructs known as 'femininity' & 'masculinity'. As such, I fully support people of both sexes having the freedom to express their individual personality and subjective identity in ways that are personally meaningful to them.

However, it is 100% biologically impossible for anyone who was born with a penis & XY chromosomes to change sex and become a woman, just as it's impossible for anyone born with a vulva & XX chromosomes to ever change sex and become a man.

Given this biological reality, my support for gender non-conformity will never extend to accepting or respecting a biological male's right to appropriate the language used to describe my biologically embodied reality as a woman, nor the sex-segregated spaces & services that were developed to meet the specific needs of women as a biological sex.

I do not consent to being coerced to lie to appease the feelings of others - truth matters.

I am so very, VERY disappointed in MNHQ.

I am Spartacus.

I am a woman, not a clownfish,

If we're emulating biology,

I pick the praying mantis.

Just joined mumsnet for sole purpose of saying I am Spartacus too.

Swede

And superb letter.

I hope you get a decent response.
And not an inclusivity apology of a letter.

Hi Az nice name. Non desistas non erieris! Women rise.

Somebody has to be the amoeba

Having read the latest set of clarifications of the new policy, I think it may be time for us all to go be Spartacus somewhere else, because it's all getting a bit 1984 in here. Authoritarianism isn't OK just because you add smiley faces to it.

I am a woman, an adult human female.

A man can never become a woman because humans can't change sex.

This is a statement of fact, not bigoted, not transphobic, just factual.

I am Spartacus.