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.”

This sums up the ridiculousness of the whole debate for me. As one of many women now in my 40s I follow these arguments because as a teenager I am fairly certain I would have gone down the transition pathway if it had been an option then.

There are many reasons I didn’t (don’t) “identify” as a woman, many of which were around periods. I started early, and heavily, so ended up on the pill at 13 to stop me becoming anaemia. The last thing I wanted to do was stay in and watch a “chick flick,” why would I, when not enjoying those movie stereotypes was a significant part of why I didn’t identify as female?

My father was a university lecturer and he once described lecturing as “Transferring the notes from teacher to students without passing through the brains of either.” Something similar going on here methinks.

Tough shit, it’s inclusive. It’s kind

It's not inclusive of women. It's not kind to women.

If you are a woman who doesn't have periods because of birth control, stress, illness, PCOS, pregnancy, homonal disorders or imbalances, deliberate manipulation of hormones through puberty blockers or taking transition drugs, hysterectomy or age, the term menstruator does not apply to you, although the content of these posts might well be supposed to be for you. If you use the term menstruator you exclude all of the above women.

Reducing the term you use to discuss us down to one of the consequences of the healthy regular biological function of those of us of a young enough age is inherently aggressive language to use about us. What other being is described only in terms of an inconvenient, often painful cause of their oppression? Broodmare perhaps. Broiler chickens. It's hardly empowered company is it?

Menses are at best inconvenient, often uncomfortable, expensive and painful, and the cause of women's oppression. They disadvantage women in a society that is not set up to accommodate a monthly cycle and bleed. Does it sounds inclusive to refer to people who experience this exclusively as experiencers of the thing?

It's not even inclusive to the type of people it's trying to center. Trans men may menstruate but they also may not do because of the drugs they take in relation to their transition. And whilst the content of these tweets clearly isn't relevant to trans women, I don't know a single one who will thank you for reminding her that she doesn't have periods, do you?

For the sake of everybody, the term woman to describe a biologically female adult human needs to stay. All this trying to skirt round it is making it more of a triggering and loaded term than it ever was.

Find a new word for the performance of femininity, if you want to talk about gender.

All this avoidance of the term for a biological female human is doing, is making it more loaded than it ever was and than it ever needs to be.

Trans men know they are biological women. That doesn't stop them from living as the male gender, dressing how they want, using preferred pronouns and name and taking whatever medical interventions they want to, but erasing the term for an adult human female may well prevent them from accessing healthcare and knowledge about their own bodies and health.

Stop. Erasing. The. Term. For. A. Biological. Woman.

Disgusting and dehumanising.

No one is calling men erection havers, or ejeculators.

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.”

Nope, never done that. Never used a hot water bottle and I don't like chick flicks. But I can assure you, I am all woman, I've got the flaps and eggs to prove it, currently on my 3rd pregnancy.

Just awful, and the post upthread about trainee midwives is beyond worrying. WTAF?!

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

No. It isn't.

@CallmeIT

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

Perhaps we could just go straight to “wankers”

😂

I am just wondering if the attempted erasure of the word women is a human rights violation?

The term mother is in UK law but not sure about woman. All this bandwagon stuff would be stopped in it's tracks and with large intake of breath at a court case

Women aren't named anymore unless it's in the context of gender. Fucking dystopian.

Fucking hell.

To label women as menstruators is disgusting anyway. But to use it in the context of a woman who is losing her baby?! Fuck me.

It's fucking insensitive, cruel and probably written by a misogynistic wanker.
So wrong on so many levels.

Sometimes I feel relieved that my DC is a boy because the world is becoming a very dark place for girls and women, even in parts of the world where you'd expect progess instead of completely erasing us as a sex. News like this makes me very worried about our future.

@Nancydowns

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.”

Nope, never done that. Never used a hot water bottle and I don't like chick flicks. But I can assure you, I am all woman, I've got the flaps and eggs to prove it, currently on my 3rd pregnancy.

The fucking ridiculous thing is, that there are trans women who are convinced they DO have periods. I'm not joking, you can watch any number of trans women on a popular video platform who are adamant they experience periods, every symptom apart from bleeding but INCLUDING cramps. Cramps. Complete with sad frowny face when describing their period pains, bloating, headaches and mood swings. There is advice to 'go to bed with a hot water bottle, etc. What fucking alternate reality have I fallen into where a biological man is clutching his hot water bottle for his period cramps? On the flip side, trans men would like to forget they ever had periods and erase the whole concept. WOMEN have periods. Jesus wept.

It's like a mental illness isn't it?

@SunsetScreech

Pleased to see that tweet getting ratiod, at least.

I couldn't find a thread with responses, can someone give a link?

The femcare tweets themselves, read together, appear to me to be material which has had the word 'woman' globally replaced by 'menstruators' without any regard whatever to how completely inappropriate and unkind it was in some of them.

Delusional womb-envy. Has a lot to answer for. These men are not well.

Lunatics running the bloody asylum. No pun intended.
I am furious. It’s a malicious and rampant propagation of lies. So harmful.

I went searching for instances where 'menstruator' (or similar) is a term of abuse for women and girls. I can remember it being. I can remember girls being shamed for menstruating, and women reduced to this function when they wanted to do men's work, like flying planes. Menstruation has been traditionally seen as dirty or taboo and menstruating women can't be touched, or have sex or enter dairies in case they turn the milk sour. Obviously, we need to counter all this and claim menstruation as something normal or natural, or, in the case of some (cultural feminists and witches), sacred. But this should be on our terms. It should not be about accepting the label from elsewhere (I'd be more explicit here, but don't want to risk a banhammer).

Meanwhile, in my quest, I found this

Klara Rydström Degendering Menstruation: Making Trans Menstruators Matter
Abstract
Rydström works within a post-constructionist framework to critically explore the nature of menstruation, which many perceive to be a strictly female bodily function despite many scholars’ recognition that menstruators are of various gender identities. In challenging menstruation as a cisnormative phenomenon, the author explores various menstrual experiences among trans people and argues that cis and trans menstruators come to matter differently. More specifically, menstrual activism, public bathrooms, menstrual products, and the healthcare sector are problematized as areas wherein trans menstruators are Othered. Finally, Rydström calls for a recognition of the multiplicity of menstrual experiences as they exist and a degendering of menstruation as phenomena.

I think that the article is free to view if you want to chase it.

Would midwives care to be re-branded as ‘non-doctor carers for birthing people’, I wonder?

Don't be giving them ideas Mumsnut!

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.”

As a WhataFarce76 says this ^ is not an experience that women commonly share. Anyone who has had a period pain will know the last thing you can do is concentrate on a bloody film.

And yes, there are any number of transwomen on YouTube saying they suddenly get a craving for chocolate and watching rom coms once a month because of their 'period'. 'Curled up on the sofa'? Snort.

They seem to view it along same lines as the mythical teenage girl pyjama party.

And the reason we have to be 'menstruaters', is because that part is seen as the only specific part that is connected to our biology.

And yes, of course, however dehumanising it is, if it eventually becomes the word for women, it will be appropriated.

In the meantime, I sincerely hope it is reported far and wide as the misogynistic, dehumanising tactic it is meant to be.

And most of all how almost 100% uninclusive it is.

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

I’m not sure if your being sarcastic, but obviously it is really not fucking kind. I’m not just a biological function and neither are trans men. Menstruator is grim.

@TheMarzipanDildo

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

I’m not sure if your being sarcastic, but obviously it is really not fucking kind. I’m not just a biological function and neither are trans men. Menstruator is grim.

She was definitely being sarcastic!

@Deliriumoftheendless

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

It’s cruel and offensive to call women with PCOS menstruators when all too often we are not. I have PCOS and as is common, I don’t menstruate as a result of it. I have cried when a month has passed and there’s no sign of the period because it means I’m not getting better. It’s the furthest thing from kindness to rub my illness in my face.

Rydström works within a post-constructionist framework to critically explore the nature of menstruation, which many perceive to be a strictly female bodily function despite many scholars’ recognition that menstruators are of various gender identities.

Give me strength.