For anyone who thinks calling pregnant women 'birthing people' is not a big deal, here's where that leads

[Clymene]

Femcare is an organisation in Canada which provides education and advocacy around periods, seeks to end period poverty and end the stigma and health issues associated with periods.

Look at this tweet in their series about PCOS: 'another complication that may arise as a result of polycystic ovary syndrome is a menstruator having a miscarriage or premature birth of the baby'

A woman who is pregnant is not menstruating you fucking idiots.

This is where this shitty language gets us. Organisations which are created and funded for women's health have completely erased us.

We are menstruators, birth givers, ovary havers.

Ps I am gratified to see that my iPad doesn't like the word menstruator. I'm sure that will change with the next update

Did anyone notice “ We’ve all been there – curled up on the sofa with a hot water bottle, a bar of chocolate and a good chick flick streaming on Netflix.”

What the fuck is a chick? Shouldn't they be saying menstruator flick?

Fucking chick. The sleazy shit bag men's word for women from the 70s is ok, but woman isn't.

I would call them cunts but that's actually too good for them.

I have never watched chick flicks or used a hot water bottle for anything. But it is acceptable to say that "we've all been there" because only fluffy stereotypes about women are used in that statement but nothing about what it means to live in a female body.

How about when menstruation has been an absolute nightmare since you were a teenager? Off school, lying on your back with your legs up against the wall because your mum says that'll sort the agony. Passing blood clots the size of your palm and bleeding through your school skirt onto the seat so that you have to sit there and wait for everyone to leave so you can tell the teacher, your face burning up, that they need to clean the chair. My menses have been a nightmare, I couldn't wait to have the coil fitted after I had my second child. They have been a huge and influential part of my womanhood. I'd go so far as to say tying me solely to menstruation as part of my identity is pretty triggering, I still need to buy sanitary products because some months I have an unpredictable bleeds, but I'm not strictly speaking a menstruator. So what am I?! I know...... why not use that instead?

Interesting how men's health organisations really seem to be under no pressure to find euphemisms for men. An example twitter.com/ProstateUK/status/1318217098171191298

HecatesCats Pisses me off when I get told we're ''privileged'' because at least we get periods They don't have a fucking clue.

When I was a student, my class was taken over by a supply teacher who refused to let me go to the toilet to sort out an emergency because 'you should have gone at lunch break', the prick. I was trying to discreetly explain to him, and that caught the attention of the class who assumed I'd pissed myself because I was whispering and desperate, and they started laughing at me.

So I thought fuck it, and in absolute agony, in a mess, and fucking humiliated, I stood up to walk out and passed out because of that combo of feelings. Dealing with extreme anxiety and depression at the time too and seriously considered ending my life so I didn't have to face that class again. I still cry sometimes even now thinking back to how ashamed I felt. Because of a period.

So fucking privileged. I'd curse the jealous bastards with mine in a heartbeat if it were possible.

Ridiculously, women with PCOS often don't menstruate or have massive problems with menstruation such as not have periods for months and then having periods for weeks and months on end. Calling them menstruators seems like a particular kick in the teeth!

Screw that supply teacher yourhairiswinterfire and kudos to you for standing up to walk out of there, but mostly a big, big hug . You should never have had to feel ashamed. They. Have. No. Idea.

Thank you Hecates. Our regular teacher was a woman, she was so lovely and understanding, would have been avoided if she were there. That male one was just so cold.

It's why it makes me so sad too, when people just flat out refuse to believe that women, and particularly girls in school, really do need their space away from males to sort themselves. It's not a selfish expectation, it's absolutely essential.

Tough shit, it’s inclusive. It’s kind

You don't remove the language that half the planet use to refer to themselves just in case it upsets the feelings of a teeny tiny proportion of that spits their dummy out and has a tantrum.

If the words women and female are so devastating, because they remind them that they can never, ever identify out of their biological sex, then they perhaps they should spend some of the many millions thrown at the TRA's on mental health care to help them function in society without being so fucking triggered by life, rather than stripping away female sex based rights.

Those same sex based rights that will still apply to them regardless of their identity.

Those removing our words because they don't have the balls to say no to the penis owners are even worse.

Why can’t it be women and menstartures why obliterate women?

@Deliriumoftheendless

Tough shit, it’s inclusive. It’s kind.

Kind? Do you think women struggling with fertility want to be referred to by a word like menstruator that’s intrinsically linked to their reproductive system?

it’s not inclusive, it’s breaking us into smaller and stranger groups. You can’t say sex doesn’t matter while grouping people by sex specific things.

You cannot opt out of this sex based shit. We still need a name for this sex and the oppression that goes with it.

If you identify as a man but have periods you may not want attention being drawn to this but you ARE in the same group as a load of women.
If you identify as a woman and you will never menstruate, then just ignore this part of woman stuff. There’s lots of woman stuff that doesn’t apply to the majority of women - tena lady, maternity pads, breast pumps, hrt. But women just shrug and say this stuff doesn’t apply to me.

@bellinisurge

Still waiting for the word "ejaculators" to be used by these clowns.

Men don’t see a need to define themselves in any way other than men. However men present to the outside world or however much they lie to themselves there is a part of them, which knows they are men and well, men are in charge. TRA’s know this despite everything they say to the contrary, which is why they despise us so much. And there really is no word to define men in the same way as women. Women can ejaculate, get erections, produce testosterone etc etc.

I find it bizarre that this group of men so particularly jealous of our biological ability would wish to define us as menstruators. All I can think is that they hate us that much for being what we are and what they can never be that they have latched onto this as a way to dehumanise us. After all menstruating has long been seen as dirty and shameful, demonised in some sectors of society. The double edged sword in calling us menstruators is that they slap themselves in the face with what they are not. The hatred and need to erase us thus deepens, so does the desire to perform acts of violence on us.

We only have to read a little on who Barbie Kardashian is to get an insight into this warped thinking pattern. For anyone, who doesn’t know, this person is a 19 yo violent hater of women, who wishes to “rape and murder” women. This person has legally become a woman and is now residing in a female prison in Ireland. God help those poor women.

@MiniMum97

Ridiculously, women with PCOS often don't menstruate or have massive problems with menstruation such as not have periods for months and then having periods for weeks and months on end. Calling them menstruators seems like a particular kick in the teeth!

I thought exactly the same.

I’m in a Facebook group of midwifery students and wannabe students and they are all so woke I could weep. Lots of posts saying stuff like it’s not just women who give birth. Talking about how you should never use the word woman in assignments, never use the word woman in a personal statement when applying.

I’d have thought as student midwives they should be the most pro women people about. They don’t seem to see the eraser of women aspect of their language and actions.

I can't see how transmen would find "menstruator" preferable to "female", given that menstruation is so clearly a female-only thing (which most of them will be acutely aware of, having experienced it first-hand). If the latter is triggering, then surely the former is too.

Or is this all about appeasing transwomen (who will never actually have to experience any of this, so have no business deciding what counts as "appropriate language" in this context)?

Is it that use of the word "menstruator", which they don't associate with womanhood (since it doesn't match their experience of "womanhood") makes it easier for them to detach from reality and pretend that their version of "woman" is just as valid as those of the female variety?

JacobRees, what do they think a woman actually is?

If 'woman' is something people can identify into and out of, what do they think people are identifying into?

I'm astonished that this ideology, that noone can explain, has become mainstream to the point that even midwives accept it.

And on another point, I agree that using the term 'menstruator' to describe:
a) a woman who is bleeding from her genitals because she is experiencing a miscarriage; or
b) a woman who does not regularly menstruate owing to a condition such as PCOS
is among the most crass, hurtful and unkind things one can do.

THIS

Still waiting for the word "ejaculators" to be used by these clowns

Perhaps we could just go straight to “wankers”

All I can think is that they hate us that much for being what we are and what they can never be that they have latched onto this as a way to dehumanise us.

This is it. I just find it hard to believe that any woman thinks it is kind to say "not only women give birth".

It's not kind to lie to women and pretend that they are not the only type of person who can be pregnant.

It's also not kind to women who identify as men to collude in their delusion that they are actually a man. That they can be a pregnant man. That they are being reasonable getting upset when words relating to women are used around pregnancy and birth. All that is doing is reinforcing a deluded mindset and causing the transgender person to live in a constant state of anxiety that someone might speak truthfully.

Extreme trans rights activists who have pushed this erasing of the word woman are most definitely not kind.

Can they not see how dehumanising this language is? to them themselves?, as it will have been written by a woman . What kind of woman wants to be called a menstruator . They really should have their funding withdrawn as are not fit to supports womens healthcare needs

@testing987654321

I agree 100%.

It's not kind to lie to women and pretend that they are not the only type of person who can be pregnant.

I wonder if they understand that the definition of 'woman' has been sneakily changed to be just a liking for pink and sparkles and submissiveness and so on? Because that is what the quoted assertion must be based on.

Indeed, all 'inclusiveness' is based on the unstated assumption that being a woman now is just an abstract feeling for everyone, including the vast majority who have never transitioned. It has been severed from biology and all the female experiences which go with that and affect our lives so much.

No of course it isn’t kind.

No of course it isn’t inclusive.

There is such a thing as sarcasm.

It’s blatant that this is misogyny in action as if we stole using men or transwoman and used “erection havers” “prostate havers” “sperm producers” etc we would soon see accusations of transphobia. Which is yet another contradiction in TRA ideology. Push for words to dehumanise women (including transmen) to be inclusive but never, ever, ever apply that to men (including transwomen).

I’d buy the inclusion/be kind narrative of it applied to both sexes but it doesn’t and it never has. It never will because this is driven by men to keep women down.

Pleased to see that tweet getting ratiod, at least.

Jacob it isn’t just women who give birth, it’s girls too, but they’re even lower down the pecking order than we are, so I doubt many give a shit about them.