Edinburgh Science Festival - Humans with Uteruses

[AuntieRae]

Browsing through the events at the Edinburgh Science Festival, always a wide-range of things for non-science people like me. I noticed there's an event called "Period Power" for "humans with uteruses".

www.sciencefestival.co.uk/event-details/period-power

Not sure if the language is the Science Festival's or the presenters so I have asked them to clarify. Is it just me or does "humans with uteruses" sound like something from a dystopian novel? Why can't they just say "female"?

And others

Didn’t John Lennon song ‘Human’

What’s that one ‘cos I’m a hu- man - H Uuuuuu M A N, I’ll say it again...’?

John Lennon wrote loads of great songs

Human with a uterus,
I can hardly express
My mixed emotions at my thoughtlessness

Well, Quite.

Is the term "trans people" ok? Or 'trans humans'?

I've never seen them referred to other than "trans community" or transmen/transwomen.

Just wondering about that in relation to the gender free manner some people expect us to use when talking about biological parts or functions.

It appears that some people believe the term women and trans men would be too confusing and might stop trans men accessing the information. So 'humans with uteruses' it is. Surely women and trans people would make sense?

Honestly I'm not sure if sometimes people are trying to be accessible or just trying to be woke.

If trans people is not acceptable, why is it ok to strip their identifiers of gender, but our biology should somehow incorporate all 100 genders.

‘people with a transgender identity’ is surely the equivalent?

So ‘people with a transgender identity and a uterus’
Or ‘people with a transgender identity and a prostate’

Times article today:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/4499cfb8-5cce-11ea-9891-dcb2edabd2b0?shareToken=4670ee1536cde7a81f80a7d9e69fa163

Just to lighten the mood - an excellent Twitter thread.

twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1234510858446921730?s=21

@Lordfrontpaw I actually guffawed at the having one in a jar comment. I can't believe I live in a world where I can't be referred to as a woman although I have a uterus. Clearly the list of biological criteria means nada and the woke, self identifying, pick off the menu of random things you construct or identify as being female is more societally valid. What a nonsense. It just makes me feel old all this. Old and frustrated.

I see Sefton council twitter account has been captured too. Women = Persons, Men = Men. Interesting 🤔

The idea of tracking how you feel during your entire cycle is something I found interesting and did. It was actually very useful to me. If she said that rather than talking about super powers that'd be somewhat better. btw as I didn't discover a super power on any day, let alone Day25, am I not a woman?!

I have found though that this sort of "alternative" perspective on health often - very often - links with supreme wokeness. What is incredibly ironic about this is that these people usually have a LOT to say about how allopathic medicine (normal medicine) fails on a number of levels. They have a point, at least in some ways. They tend to be vegetarian or vegan, avoid chemicals, antibiotics etc. That's all fine, I don't have a problem at all with any of that. However, they then wholeheartedly back this ideology that sends kids down a lifetime of hard core medical treatment and untested/barely tested drug use. I mean, if you're going to suggest people boil herbs to drink as a cure for allergies, HOW can you support sending children for mastectomies, medical induced infertility, osteoporosis and the rest?

I do hope someone goes and challenges her with very simple, innocent sounding questions that show the audience what an absolute hypocrite she is. Any suggestion of meditating rather than taking a pain killer for period pain relief would likely set me off! I won't be near there then, which is probably just as well!

I was reading the intro to her book on google books, period power. Which looks like a good book actually, that I'd like to read.

Every paragraph I'm thinking, hang on, she says woman, she knows exactly how biology works, and each one ends with a trans disclaimer. It's like it went through a trans bot mangle. Ironically it makes it very clear as a result that she absolutely knows that trans men are women.

She found it so impossible to write a book about periods without using the words female and woman, as it is impossible, that she has to include several disclaimers at the start.

Re tracking periods, this has been a revelation and very helpful for me. There's an app called hormone horroscope that can help you understand how hormones can sometimes affect mood, and the Chelsea women's football club link I posted below are now using knowledge of the menstrual cycle to improve training programmes to great effect.

I downloaded the free app they use/ developed and I really like it as I have hypermobility. It fits very well with what I'm noticing hormone wise in terms of how my joints are over the cycle and when I can do more vigorous exercise. It includes loads of links to recipes, nutrition and info on various fitness stuff.

Biology really matters and clearly sport is really starting to look at how they can work with women's cycle to improve their sporting outcomes.

Igneo Thanks for the share token. Like the reply highlighting a "spokesman" commented on behalf of the festival.

Yes - how dare they use the term spokesman. It should be spokesperson with a penis / prostate, surely?

Funnily enough when I see this sort of insanity it's NEVER events describing 'humans with penises/prostates'. Men are never described this way only women.

Well they've taken the stupid "humans with uteruses" phrase out and then fallen over themselves to highlight how women and men and trans and enbies are all welcome to the fluffy, lovely PERIOD FUCKING EVENT FOR WOMEN.

The last bit in caps was mine. If you were in any doubt.

Oh and no apology, no acknowledgement of how the publicity was really demeaning to women..

A man who trots up to a period event is... [finish this thought]

Oh for fuck's SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKEEEEEEE

each one ends with a trans disclaimer. It's like it went through a trans bot mangle

That's ideology for you. Every single work produced under the totalitarian regime I grew up in had that. Never realised how blind I was to these affirmations of allegiance to the regime/and or its Marxist ideology, until I borrowed an old grammar book for an exam some ten years after the fall of the regime.

And there, right there mixed in with tables about verb tenses and the noun case system, is an affirmation of the superiority of Marxist ideology and the author's allegiance to it.

This was a book I'd worked with for years before and I had never noticed. I asked my friends, and they hadn't either. We grew so used to paying lip service to the regime, we didn't notice those affirmations.

But the people in charge, the monitors - the Stasi, they noticed if you didn't include it. And that had dire consequences for your future career. So it was easier to put them in, whether you believed in the ideology or not.

Well they've taken the stupid "humans with uteruses" phrase out and then fallen over themselves to highlight how women and men and trans and enbies are all welcome to the fluffy, lovely PERIOD FUCKING EVENT FOR WOMEN.

Except they haven't said "women, men, trans and enbies ".
They've said "MEN, women, trans and non binary" (My caps).
Why would they put Men first for an event about periods? Sure, some men might want to go, but surely the event is primarily aimed at women and girls (who, are, after all the class of people who have a uterus and periods)?

Forgot the screenshot.

Back in our rightful place as second class citizens then?

Yes, not as important as men at an event about periods. Less important than the collection of dog shit to Sefton Council. Nice to know.

But a man might get poo on his shoes!