Saying ‘women have vaginas’ is transphobic?

[ProfessorInkling]

According to a science teacher at my DS’s school.

I acted dumb and asked how do you mean? She said, well, it doesn’t include transwomen who don’t have vaginas or trans men who do.

I said, well, you can’t identify-out of biology. She agreed. Sort of?!

Blah blah Stonewall training - cue other staff getting excited ‘oh yes Stonewall!!’

I don’t even know where to begin. They have mixed toilets. They have always been mixed. Challenging it seems impossible.

How could it be, its factual isn't it? Facts aren't hateful or phobic, they just are. Women are a sex class, vaginas are part of the female sexual and reproductive organs.

Well, we are back to the age-old question of what is a woman.

Woman = adult human female. Adult human females have vaginas (and no, a 'neovagina' is not the same as a vagina).

Saying 'only women have vaginas' is not a transphobic statement. It could only possibly be a transphobic statement if there is an alternative, coherent definition of 'woman'.

As regulars to this board know, nobody has ever been able to provide an alternative, non-circular definition of 'woman'.

Perhaps a science teacher could explain it.

@334bu

So this Science teacher is implying that "woman " as a word only refers to gender identity and therefore can be used to describe people of both the male and female sex. However, when teaching about actual sex ,they use female to describe the sex with the vaginas. Have I got that right?

people. However, when referring to actual

Yes, that’s exactly it.

I didn’t feel able to pursue that further than I did as it was an open forum discussion and they took on board what I said about sex v gender - I didn’t want to push it and end up discredited entirely.

It bothers me because my DS seems to accept trans ideology as fact despite me trying to have really open conversations with both my kids at home.

I do wish I’d been sat there with my adult human female mug but I’d been waving that about in an earlier Teams training session and it was in the dishwasher

@PlanDeRaccordement

It’s not transphobic to say “women have vaginas” it’s only transphobic to say “only women have vaginas”.

Much like it’s correct to say “rain is wet” but not “only rain is wet”

Teacher must have failed her basic class in logic and reasoning.

Funny you should complain about the teacher's logic while posting such abject nonsense.

Only Women have vaginas may, by your reasoning, be an incorrect statement. The claim that it is transphobic is nonsensical though. It doesn't follow from your premise.

Is it waterphobic to say only rain is wet? Of course not.

I'm well used to the claims that make little sense, the circular definitions, the litany of fallacies, the regressive, unscientific claptrap. I couldn't not be after all this time. But I think I might just call it what it is a little more often.

And I am embarrassed for you, I really am.

@334bu

But it would be ok to say only human females have vaginas? That wouldn't be transphobic would it?

Well not at the minute but give it time...

Ah, I see my Plato just eluded you completely. It’s too bad you never studied classics at university.

Miaow!

So would you agree Plan that saying only human females have vaginas is not transphobic?

Well it all comes down to whether you consider woman to be a biological word or a “feelz” word doesn’t it. You can probably tell which camp I’m in.

Hi OP
What age is your DS and for what age group are the school consulting? Interested as my DCs school are consulting about the year 6 RSE curriculum and plan to include gender identity. This is despite them not yet having covered sex and reproduction so I'm wondering how they're going ahead to tackle this. I'm very interested to hear what other schools are doing. (I've posted a separate thread in Primary Education).

Words can have more than one meaning, of course.

The usual meaning is definitely adult female person, and thus person with vagina. Transwomen seem to be using a different meaning of woman, a more abstract sense (like ‘this is a painting of a woman’ or ‘he played a woman in Macbeth’). We can cope with multiple meanings, but especially in science, people should define their terms!

@MoonCatcher

If the term woman is not defined by reference to biology what is it defined by? Does it even have a meaning?

II used to teach sport/physiology/biomech and, to be fair to biology teachers, the terms are male and female, not man or woman, in all cases.

So in a biology exam no women has no meaning, nor does man! If the mark scheme does not include those terms, and they never used to, they won't get the mark if they use them instead of male and female.

Was told oh we will say woman in other contexts.

And can they explain what this means in a way that doesn’t rely on sexist stereotypes or remove all meaning from the word ‘woman’?

It's interesting that they think it's ok because the word female is scientifically untouchable.
As there's been creeping in on that word too...

@transinclusionist

That is mildly transphobic, as not all women have vaginas and not everyone with vaginas are women

As Lewis Carroll (or was it the young man formally known as Alice?) said, "Not all vaginas have women". Which is I suppose what you mean. Of course, Carroll never claimed to be writing anything but nonsense...

It’s not transphobic to say “women have vaginas”
it’s only transphobic to say “only women have vaginas”.

Only biological women do have vaginas. I'm not interested in mashing up definitions to mean other things. If one thinks the truth is transphobic then so be it. 🤷

CuriousaboutSamphire said:
So in a biology exam no women has no meaning, nor does man! If the mark scheme does not include those terms, and they never used to, they won't get the mark if they use them instead of male and female.

That looked unlikely to me.

So I just had a look at the AQA Biology GCSE specification, and it contains several instances of the word "woman", as well as the words "mother" and "father'.

For example:

"Several hormones are involved in the menstrual cycle of a woman."
and
"• IVF involves giving a mother FSH and LH to stimulate the maturation of several eggs.
• The eggs are collected from the mother and fertilised by sperm from the father in the laboratory.
• The fertilised eggs develop into embryos.
• At the stage when they are tiny balls of cells, one or two embryos are inserted into the mother’s uterus (womb)."

The word "man" doesn't appear in the specification, but I still do not for one moment believe that students would lose marks if they used "man" to refer to an adult human male in a biology exam, even if that word is not used in the mark scheme.

Meanwhile in Scotland: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/university-student-faces-disciplinary-action-for-offensive-remarks-g7rk2zppm

I think she is being repped by Joanna Cherry.

"Women have vaginas" is a factual statement. Anybody traumatised by basic biological facts that most pre-schoolers have grasped should seek psychiatric help, not expect others to indulge their delusions en masse.

@Erikrie

It’s not transphobic to say “women have vaginas” it’s only transphobic to say “only women have vaginas”.

Only biological women do have vaginas. I'm not interested in mashing up definitions to mean other things. If one thinks the truth is transphobic then so be it. 🤷

Only women have vaginas. This is a scientific fact.

I'm sorry that you believe it means people have a phobia. I am not remotely scared of transwomen, so no phobia here. I don't care what anybody wants to call themselves or wear etc. But I will not pretend things I know to be false to be true because then words lose their meaning and we descend into nonsense.

Women have vaginas" is a factual statement. Anybody traumatised by basic biological facts that most pre-schoolers have grasped should seek psychiatric help, not expect others to indulge their delusions en masse

This I like.

Obviously my last post wasn't directed at you @Erikrie, I agree with you.

@transinclusionist

That is mildly transphobic, as not all women have vaginas and not everyone with vaginas are women

Lol! This stuff is just bonkers. It's like living in an Orwell novel. I'll assume you're either joking or hammered and leave the thread I think, I seem to have wondered into a parallel universe. 🤣