Is the word woman being eroded in other countries?

[PerverseConverse]

We are currently fighting for the right for the word woman to mean woman in the UK and I'm wondering if this is happening in different countries and different languages? In the last week I've seen woman spelt womxn so not only is the meaning being changed but the spelling. Is this peculiar to the UK and the English language or is it happening elsewhere and if so what are the new words for women that include transwomen?

I hope I've explained what I mean!

Interesting question. I can't see it getting much truck in the ME to be honest.

I have a German colleague, who is also a speech scientist. He thinks that Germany isn't experiencing this in the same way as pronouns are so much less exclusive, all objects have m/f assigned. He thinks this means that it is not a big deal to refer to a person as female, it doesn't mean you believe it any more than you believe a ship is female. The words carry less weight and are more flexible, so easier to compromise.

Just one theory, I'd be interested if other parts of the non English speaking world are approaching it differently.

But has the actual language changed?

That is different, Iran forces gay men to have a sex change. The trans women there aren't pushing for a change in the law, they are victims of a horribly homophobic loophole, parading itself as progressive.

I've got relatives out there but have never asked! Actally I find the attitude to sex and homosexuality there rather prudish and embarrassed about the whole s-e-x thing. But then I don't know any teens or twenty somethings to ask!

The anglosphere is more deep into this nonsense which originated in Northern America than the rest of testosterone world.
Canada is furthest down the rabbit hole, New Zealand / Australia close behind. Women in the UK (apart from Scotland) are the ones fighting the strongest.

HAHA "testosterone" was meant to be THE Haa epic typo.

I’ve noticed we seem to be gaining most
traction in England/Wales. I’ve always thought UK was particularly strong on sceptical thought. Not sure why Scotland has gone daft on this though.

I'm in Greece so I can comment on the situation here (and with the language).

There is still a preference for the use of the word "transsexual" here to refer to anyone MTF but a lack of understanding that FTM can also happen. Most people believe that anyone who falls into this category has had complete genital surgery and hormones and is likely gay (with respect to their birth sex, that is; meaning, a biological male who is attracted to other biological males). Many people use the word for 'transvestite' completely interchangeably with transsexual, including newspapers. There is very little understanding of what trans means in 2018, here, which is probably how we ended up with self-ID for anyone 15 and up, enshrined in law, with pretty much only the Church and the communists objecting.

In the language there are two words that are used within the LGBT community, one meaning transsexual and the other transgender, referring only to roles and stereotypes. Most people don't know these words or use them.

As for the word "woman", it only means woman here; and "man" only means man. I have yet to see anyone try to claim that the word 'woman' in Greek actually includes transsexuals or transgendered people identifying as women against their sex. But it almost certainly does happen within the LGBT community (which I'm not in). We hear a lot about oppression of trans people despite them actually having additional rights in law that literally no one else has, but I haven't actually heard complaining about 'language exclusivity' so far.

It's a language where almost every word in the sentence reflects grammatical gender so if someone is making you use pronouns against your linguistic instinct, it becomes almost impossible to speak. I've yet to come across this in real life here, because sanity continues to prevail in the smallish town where I live.

I agree in The German speaking world it is not like that. A Child or a girl is ‚it‘ a Person is ‚she‘ ( even if it is a male person) and a human is ‚he‘, (even if it is a f male human) so pronouns are all over the place and mean nothing. When you talk of transsexuals you use the pronouns matching biology, actually. Transwoman would be ‚she‘ though. There is no wider push to redefine‘woman‘, at least not openly, but I think there Is lawfare around the issue, also regarding selfID. All very quietly.
But I think the concepts will be more difficult to convey in German. There is no word for gender. So they now talk about biological and social sex, which sounds weird. And there are no separate words for female and feminine.

And, for transpeople srs is widely assumed as a given ( though it is not necessary in law). And I have never in my life heard anyone in German or Austrian politics claim TWAW. It would not fly and rightwing parties are already uncomfortably strong as it is, to the point where they may become unavoidable parts of government (Austria). Pushing that would be political suicide imo.

Do non anglophone countries have the concept of gender identity - eg the innate sense of our own gender which most people on here don't believe in? Does the idea even exist. The German word social sex sounds more like gender as an external structure rather than part of personality? It's interesting to think how differently these cultural concepts can develop in different linguistic environments.

I'm in the US, small woke city. The progressive organizations are using womxn. But not mxn-that stands for Mexican.

GraceTheDisgrace why were the communists opposed ?

Portugal here.

I haven't noticed it at language level.

It's not really an issue yet, although a gender reassignment law has been passed recently. People can change gender without a medical report, but they have to change it officially, which goes in the ID card.

"DM lives in Florida, they did a workshop in a local primary school and asked 6-9 year olds about their gender identity."

This is so wrong.

It's gender fascism.

Girls are females, boys are males the rest is personality, which hopefully they are still allowed to develop without weirdo workshop people asking nosy questions that are none of their business. Asking children 6-9 whats your gender identity is sexist and a form of brainwashing a fucked up ideology.

Out of interest whats scientology's view on all things 'trans'? Seems like a new form of cult or religion to me. One which uses elaborate marketing techniques.

Manderley I do not think the ‚innate gender that may be at odds with body‘ idea is as ingrained as it seems to be in the anglosaxon sphere, though I can well imagine lgbt+ groups are influenced by it ( they use terf) but this is very confined. You might get ‚innate gender‘ ideas with the real right wing, obviously, but never in that dualistic ‚wrong body‘ concept.
In schools 6 year olds get a cartoon depicting an undressed boy and an undressed girl and all major body parts are labeled and named the same except for The penis/vagina difference. The girl cartoon does not even have long hair or a ribbon, the hair is a tad longer than the boy‘s and the faces are identical. I was very relieved to see that.

Well perhaps this is my ignorance but I don't really get the point of view that the pronoun stuff can't apply to the German language? I did German A-level, and I understand that if you say "Sarah is [a masculine noun]" then the next sentence might begin "he ..." even if Sarah is a woman. But surely people's names have a sort of default gender associated with them, as in "Where's Sarah? She's in the library" or "Where's Peter? He's in the kitchen"? So isn't there then the question, which I believe is the relevant one, of whether a trans person is entitled to demand a different (default) gender for their name/identity? And whether they are entitled to expect people to refer to them as "X's daughter/sister/mum" where previously people would have referred to them as "X's son/brother/dad"?

In any case, I think North America, as so often, leads the way and other countries follow - especially English-speaking ones.

I came across an article on slate.fr from 2016 ( www.slate.fr/story/117553/cisgenre-dictionnaire ) reporting that the word "cisgender" has been admitted to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The article concludes that "it's no doubt just a matter of time" until the word "cisgenre" appears in French dictionaries: "a lot of social changes in the US, such as equal marriage, eventually cross the Atlantic. Get used to 'cisgenre': one day it will very probably be in the pages of your dictionary, whether they're made of paper or of pixels."

Notably, in Austria an intersex person won the right for a third gender. And in an opinion piece in austria‘s newspaper analogue to the Guardian (der Standard) a lawyer then made the case that this ruling in his view now should mean everyone could freely self-ID and politicians need to now make the framework for this. The ( mostly very liberal/progressive) commentators tore him to shreds. With the rightwingers in charge there is currently no way, anyway, but I can‘t see an easy turnaround among liberals either. Germany is closer to self-ID I think.

transdimensional the point with German is that using she or he does simply not feel like acknowledging any biological or sociological reality.

As for Son or daughter, yeah that would be like in English, though, obviouly with terms like kid, parent, sibling, partner... you can always be noncommittal in both languages.

Yes locally yo me an abortion law has been tabled by the Green Party. The law says all materials about abortion should refer to pregnant people