Lionel Shriver article

[Motorcyclemptiness]

very well put, IMO

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/breastfeeding-is-now-chestfeeding-why-are-the-language-police-trying-to-wipe-out-women-wfqmws0j0

@MsTSwift

Dh and I have met her - twice!

@MsTSwift have you!! What is she like in person?

Great! Really interesting decent person. It was at book signings we are not stalkers 😁

Thank you for sharing

Why do people look to Freddy for advice? Freddy represents nobody except himself. Freddy famously cannot even prioritise his own child over himself. This is not a person to invite to co-author NHS maternity policy.

Utterly ridiculous that I have to describe Freddy who got pregnant and gestated a baby as "him" to avoid being accused of hate speech.

Yup, Trans Women and Women but women are not.

Freddie again?!? Scoring out the word women? Good grief
Did he hate being a woman or just hate women?
Yet women are the sex that do pregnancy and birth- funny that
Talk about cherry picking

Thank you for the share token

The comments are all very much to the point. Several also discuss how with two TM actually affected, this is becoming more and more obviously not coming from or about meeting the needs of anyone female at all.

I posted the article on social media and am receiving a kicking from people saying it’s being used on an individual basis as an option according to the individual and not being used as a general descriptor . I’ve previously received unpleasantness online when I’ve challenged euphemisms for “ woman” so I hadn’t researched before I posted it. What do people here think?

If it were intended only for the two transmen in the UK who have had babies post-GRC then why did they make a big song and dance about it? I don't see them making pronouncements about how they will care for mothers who are in wheelchairs or are amputees or have learning difficulties and there are a hell of a lot more of them. So they are choosing to make it about more than an individual basis.

Good point , thank you

The real motivation behind this to remove the link between female sexual and reproductive functions with the word women. It is not to include transmen, it is to allow the word woman to be redefined to exclude women.

Best thing about the Times articles is all the sensible comments. I subscribe just for the chance to read them. Some excellent contributors (and some total twats, obviously).

Agreed Ragz. You can really see the impact of sunlight in the comments - several years ago these articles attracted limited views and a lot of "ha - this is what you asked for feminists".
Now there's a massive range of comments - many of them powerful / thoughtful. An increasing number of gay men commenting, lots of men "my wife is horrified at this and I support her" with lots of evidence of people having 'educated themselves' as we're always instructed.
And of course a range of passionate feminist posters.
This particular issue has really touched a nerve - impacting on everyone who's a parent with the vast majority horrified.

"The tyranny of the minority"

Im havin that one. 😊

@ChateauMargaux

The real motivation behind this to remove the link between female sexual and reproductive functions with the word women. It is not to include transmen, it is to allow the word woman to be redefined to exclude women.

Exactly! A rose by any other name....if we take the female specific words out of women’s health care for transmen then aren’t we just saying that transmen are women by another name, which is supposed to be the opposite of what they want?

@unwashedanddazed

I bloody love Lionel Shriver. Can't wait for her novel on the subject! (I live in hope.)

Same here. She just won't bow down to the crap.

Yes she needs to do her next book on this. She’s covered obesity, psychotic children, US health system, obsessive exercise and global economic disaster.

Letters in the Sunday Times in response to this.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/letters-to-the-editor-language-police-twist-trans-cause-kt5vjzh86?shareToken=f93abe4a3392fc62d4ea00ff15a908fc

(Slightly wry aside on the first letter correctly noting that ‘changes to language alter the way we think’ ... from someone sporting a rather feminine forename.)