Queeriods. "How to talk inclusively about periods."

[Lamahaha]

I saw this on a Twitter thread of Glinner, in which he said I'd better be careful. I'm extremely drunk and might tweet something like "Women menstruate".

I followed a few of the tweets and found this website :

periodpositive.wordpress.com/

This is where apparently media & menstrual product companies now working from and get the language. All about "inclusive" language. The words "woman", "feminine", "female" are taboo.

Grovelling apologies offered; I would have thought this was satire had I seen it anywhere else:
rubycup.com/blogs/news/we-need-to-apologize

I have never seen a web page about prostate cancer which talks about "prostate havers". I have never seen a web page about men's sexual health or about men's rights to paternity leave which talks about "ejaculators." I have never seen heterosexual men described as "vagina fetishists" or gay men described as "penis fetishists."

However women are meant to be happy with being referred to as "menstruators" despite the fact that in some parts of the world women die of exposure in menstruation huts. Women are meant to be happy to be referred to as "birthing people" despite the fact that pregnant women still routinely lose their jobs for being pregnant - something done to them because they are women in a sexist society, not because they are "pregnant people."

The US elected a president who talked gleefully about "grabbing women by the pussy" and one of whose first acts on becoming president was to strip funding from overseas aid agencies which provided abortion support. When women took to the streets wearing "pussy hats" as an ironic protest, some TRAs decided to take them to task for centring biology and thereby excluding transwomen... at a protest about electing a president who celebrated male on female sexual violence, and who is pandering to the anti-abortion wing of his party.

None of these demands about linguistic contortion are being aimed at men. None. NONE. They're all being aimed at women. Any single one individually, you could possibly just go "meh." But connect the dots, watch it happening over and over again.

And isn't it interesting that in a left wing culture where the oppressed person's experience is meant to be primary, and they're meant to be the one who gets to dictate what's acceptable language and what isn't, the one group not allowed to choose our own names is women? We're "cis-women" whether we like it or not, we're "cervix-havers", "uterus-bearers", "birthing people", "menstruators", "chest-feeders" whether we like it or not.

IMO it undermines credibility and perceived impartiality when it comes to the areas where women’s rights are materially threatened, such as the proposed removal of legally recognised sex-based protections.

Women's rights have already been, not merely materially threatened, but effectively nullified even though in law there are still meant to be sex based protections. And a lot of this is down to the abuse of language. The often repeated untruths,'transwomen are women, transmen are men' gets blindly translated into practice, sanctioned by unelected pressure groups such as stonewall. A boy says he's a girl and is allowed to beat girls in their races, use their changing rooms etc and woe betide them if they dare to dissent.

Language matters.

I’m going in Superdrug later, if I see a men’s aisle and no women’s aisle, I’ll be asking lots of awkward questions. And then flounce right out, thrusting my full to the brim basket of items I now no longer wish to spend my money on, on the poor unsuspecting penishaverager

The equivalent @KentuckyBlueberry would be talking about prostate havers in articles for prostate cancer checks. Or testicular cancer posters talking about testicle owners.

The one bright spot I see in all this is that teachers now have a rich source of imaginative kennings to share - judiciously - with children: Now, Year 5, who do you think the writer means by "Birth-givers" and "Chest-feeders"? Yes, Sophie, it's those people we used to call (whispers) "women" but can't any more. Now, let's think of some kennings we could use for men if we wanted to banish the word we use for them . Don't worry, Freddie, that will never happen. Stop snivelling, Sophie!

@nauticant Quollocks(!) Stealing that, right now...

So then 'dickheads' might actually be a perfectly reasonable term to use? 😀