Bloody good period writes a painfully woke letter to JKRowling

[Clymene]

The charity which buys menstruation products to refugee WOMEN has written an open letter to JKR telling her to read some munroe Bergdorf. And no I'm not joking. It's an absolutely dreadful embarrassing letter, with arguments you'd expect in a gcse essay.

Signed by a load of misogynists like jolyon Maughan and some some that should know better like Jack monroe and that stupid guilty feminist woman.

docs.google.com/document/d/1EEbzyncbkIy27j8gAEQ03JNz0nla6EHZRU_Ng8zUuEY/edit

For shame.

Ffs. This creepy bullshit winds me up. No pal, you're not having a period. A woman isn't having a period if she has a tummy ache, is grumpy and emotional and craves chocolate but doesn't bleed out her womb lining. If she doesn't bleed, her period hasn't happened and she would therefore be concerned about pregnancy, or another problem.

There is no difference between menstruating and a period. The attempt to make a meaningless distinction is the same manipulative sophistry that gave us a difference between 'woman' and 'female' in relation to humans. And it can fuck right off.

So very odd. I never had any symptoms of having a period except for bleeding for five days and that was that. Nothing else, ever, and this seems to be a family trait among the women (no knowledge of the men..).

Same here. I never had any "symptoms" apart from bleeding. It's not that rare. just that we don't here about it.
That means I never menstruated....?

Exactly, Lamahaha!

[quote lionheart]Period Aisle has transwomen talking about their periods:

periodaisle.com/blogs/all/6-transgender-women-talk-menstruation[/quote]
Why? Shall I write an article about my prostate?

If being grumpy and wanting chocolate means you're on your period, I must be constantly having mine.
It makes about as much sense as claiming to be pregnant because quite a lot of those symptoms overlap too.

Why? Shall I write an article about my prostate?

Lol! -They should enforce this in woke creative writing courses! It might make them realise how ridiculous they're being.

It’s all just nonsense it really is. I’d read an article about cosmetic surgery and how/why having a boob implant or a penis-ectomy felt/feels but that’s fact. Not imagining.

I was shouted at on Reddit once when I posted about women menstruating in refugee camps, and how they needed sanitary protection, soap and water, toilets, and clean clothes. Various men angrily demanded didn't I think refugee women had more important things to worry about. Turns out they were probably right

I can't shake this from my head now I've read it. How awful, and such a demonstration that these men just don't get it. Maybe all the "have a happy period" rollerskating mystery blue liquid marketing has worked on the menz because it never convinced women and it's now a desirable luxury of unbelievable privilege to bleed uncontrolled from one of your most sensitive body parts which is cramping and causing you nausea at the same time. Woot, what an enviable thing, we should be ashamed if we ever mention it

All this changing of language for a minority of a minority (those women who want to be men but who still have periods)

Raging against cultural appropriation is trendy right now. I wonder if there has ever been another example of cultural* * scientific language appropriation where so many were appropriated for the "benefit" of so few.

And where are the trans men who are actually protesting the fact that only women have periods? I don't see them. I'm all for amplifying the voices of the most oppressed but this isn't that, this is woke people thinking they can and should speak on behalf of an oppressed minority to erase an opressed majority

We write this ... to invite you in to an open-minded, justice-focused feminist space. We write this with the simple intention of promoting accountability and for the growth of you as an individual

This needed some fixing;

"We write this ... to invite you in to an open-minded (that is, only you should have the open mind, we gonna stay closed minded thanks all the same) justice-focused (i.e. punitive to you) feminist -(if you include menz in feminism) space. We write this with the simple intention of promoting accountability (for you, we shouldn't have any) and for the growth of you as an individual (again note that just you should change, we're fine thanks-)"

I read an article yesterday on fertility where the writer wrote 'people with ovaries' instead of women - RIDICULOUS!

@twinkledag

I read an article yesterday on fertility where the writer wrote 'people with ovaries' instead of women - RIDICULOUS!

How did he refer to men?

And where are the trans men who are actually protesting the fact that only women have periods? I don't see them. I'm all for amplifying the voices of the most oppressed but this isn't that, this is woke people thinking they can and should speak on behalf of an oppressed minority to erase an opressed majority

I have a young trans man in my family. There has been much weeping and wailing about JK

Ffs. This creepy bullshit winds me up. No pal, you're not having a period. A woman isn't having a period if she has a tummy ache, is grumpy and emotional and craves chocolate but doesn't bleed out her womb lining. If she doesn't bleed, her period hasn't happened and she would therefore be concerned about pregnancy, or another problem.

Just imagine getting asked the date of your last period at the doctors and saying ‘well I was rather grumpy and I felt better after eating a dairy milk so it must be the 13th’.

@FlamingoAndJohn

And where are the trans men who are actually protesting the fact that only women have periods? I don't see them. I'm all for amplifying the voices of the most oppressed but this isn't that, this is woke people thinking they can and should speak on behalf of an oppressed minority to erase an opressed majority

I have a young trans man in my family. There has been much weeping and wailing about JK

Shows a definite delicacy of emotional balance. They may not wish to have anything womanly about them and reject the idea that they are female but - if you get periods you just can’t ‘want’ them away. Biology will just get on with its job.

like when they invited a transwoman (the one helping to shape NHS South West policy on transwomen's rights to access the women's single sex facilities etc) to a large Women's event in Bristol in all seriousness to talk to women about menopause and HRT. On the grounds that the speaker had 'been on HRT' ie. cross sex hormones for years. I am amazed at how they see this as anything even vaguely similar as the process that a woman goes through at the end of her reproductive life.

“ yet, their inability to menstruate and to conceive a child doesn’t call their womanhood into question”

Oh do fuck right off. Trust me, 5 years of crippling infertility and I abso-fucking-lutely had my womanhood called into question. By everyone from a mean old male GP through to a pregnant friend gleefully rubbing her bump as she told everyone at her baby shower how she never truly felt like a woman until she became a mother. I was having a miscarriage at the time so felt pretty womanly actually. But ho hum. Men now have the monopoly on fertility shaming too.

Transwomen having menstrual symptoms...
Let’s say it slowly and carefully...
Psy-cho-so-matic

It might not be validating, but it’s the truth.

That article throws up some serious problems. How are women supposed to talk to each other about their biological functions if in the one hand you’ve got transwomen who find it upsetting and make that our problem, and on the other you have trans women who are so desperate to join in that we have to act as though their psychosomatic symptoms are the real deal. Where does that leave us? Why is the much touted ‘kindness and empathy’ so incredibly one sided, why is it seemingly impossible for transwomen to show some themselves rather than constantly refocus every single thing onto themselves and their feelings over and above everybody else?
Has there ever been a more selfish and unsympathetic rights movement?

YY Toes

I’m infertile too & having my infertility used as a gotcha by TRA makes me want to punch things!

The shameless misappropriation of #BLM is the really slimy, gutter-level tactic being adopted here. Align yourself with a cause that so many more people could likely get on board with and your cause becomes appropriated under that same umbrella. Win-win, because you can then far more easily claim that any detraction from that line amounts to bigotry.

It's blatant, flagrant cynicism. BLM is a pressing, immediate and necessary cause with an entirely separate set of aims and agendas. Racial oppression is not the same as sex/gender oppression. Its variables are separate and the fight against them is separate. It's also offensive to claim, as some do, that black women are somehow a subcategory of women.

Interesting also that they saw fit to mention the 'seahorse' dad. That appeal has been rejected because it was a case of child rights conflict with adult rights, and in UK courts (rightly) the child's rights always win. No matter what court of appeal it's taken to, I can't envision any scenario where the outcome would be otherwise. After all the work done on a child's rights to know its biological origins, the political can of worms which would be opened were the legal definition of 'mother' ever tampered with are too far-reaching to be ignored. 'Mother' isn't only a biological relationship. It's a legal category.

Hope JKR treats this illiterate screed with the contempt it deserves and ignores it.

If they are taking oestrogen then its a fixed dose daily surely?

How can there be the hormonal fluctuations that are part of the menstrual cycle ? What organ is it thats cramping

Kenny Ethan Jones - the first trans man to front a period campaign
Munroe Bergdorf - activist and model
Charlie Craggs - activist and founder of Nail Transphobia
Juno Dawson - Writer
Jamie Windust - Writer and activist
Jono Roche - Writer
Freddy McConnell (the "Seahorse" dad)

Is there only one trans man on the list? The one who is known for giving birth?

I'd rather be woefully uneducated that woefully educated.

So many

Interesting also that they saw fit to mention the 'seahorse' dad. That appeal has been rejected because it was a case of child rights conflict with adult rights, and in UK courts (rightly) the child's rights always win

Shame the same can't be said for France . I'm sure there was an article not so long ago about a transman who won the right to be named as the father on the child's birth certificate

I love that the third signatory of that letter is transwoman Charlie Craggs. They wrote a charming Instagram post about Suzanne Moore around International Women’s Day that I screenshotted (but not in its entirety which I regret because they quickly deleted it.) It said about IWD

’(IWD)...ain’t for women like me, it’s for dried up middle class white hags with dry skin and hair who have dry columns expressing their dry views in dry Tory newspapers they’re angry at hypothetical scenarios they make up about trans women because they have nothing to actually be angry about, maybe if they spent more time moisturising and less time making the public scared of trans women for no reason we’d all be OK. Fuck IWD it’s not for women like me.’ And another post ‘dedicated to The Guardian’ said ‘hope you and your columnists are having a lovely IWD eating unseasoned chicken that’s as dry as their skin and hair lol’ this latter post had a pic of Suzanne Moore attached.

Obviously nothing worse than a woman who doesn’t moisturise. Am sure JKR can learn so much from talking to Charlie about inclusiveness and periods.

I can’t help but wonder if all those signatories are legit?

Jack Monroe has been very quiet on this subject, despite previously being ‘trans’. Seems strange to me that she has put her name to this. But I am only speculating.

Do many trans men actually want to be referred to as "menstruators"? It seems like an unlikely request.