Oh ffs..."people with uteruses"

[irresistibleoverwhelm]

Downloaded Flo period app after Clue went all "people who menstruate", as they seemed reasonably sensible; but today got a popup notification from them letting me know that "70% of people with uteruses get uterine fibroids" FFS.

So fricking sick of this total bollocks rubbish.

It's almost as if the word "women" is shameful

Also just been marvelling at the utter bizarrity of this:

mobile.twitter.com/vagina_museum/status/1415685648736940036

"Instead of 'women's health', say 'reproductive health' or 'gynaecological health' (whatever you prefer)
Instead of 'women and girls', say 'people who menstruate' or 'people who have periods'"

Twitter thread of the VAGINA MUSEUM. I'll say it again, the VAGINA MUSEUM.

Let's not scare anyone by mentioning who the vaginas might be attached to! Just think of them as a body part that anyone might have. A bit like a museum, but just for Fleshlights. Lots and lots of disembodied Fleshlights.

@EnjoyingTheSunshine

It's almost as if the word "women" is shameful

Yes -- and on that Vagina Museum thread they actually recommend replacing women and girls with "people who menstruate".

I guess disembodied body parts is their thing, but how f-ing demeaning is that? What about women and girls who don't menstruate? Nice to reduce all of us to a bodily function. That's not derogatory or reactionary at all, of course.

Way to go to make it crystal clear that the agenda is really nothing about "including" transmen, but all about reducing women to being bodies and bits of bodies rather than actual people with minds, feelings, thoughts, desires, aspirations -- no, we're just functions.

And these people have the utter f*ing gall to say that "GC feminists" are "biological essentialists".

I found 'people who have periods' on the MIND website the other day when I was looking up PMDD while I was feeling fairly suicidal pre-period.

It's everywhere. Even our hormonal imbalances aren't sex-specific any more.

This stupid bullshit will eventually get public attention and it will come back to bite them on the arse.
Can't wait.

Institutional capture.

And you just have to wonder who the fuck these companies think will benefit from it or reward their efforts to make women sound like a bunch of biological functions. It’s dehumanising, pathetic, toxic, dangerous.

Not all women know they have cervixes, or uteruses or menstruate. This ridiculous language stops women who just know that they’re women from accessing products they might want and services they may need.

Erasure of biological women AGAIN AND AGAIN

I find it so enraging that it's often well-meaning but quite young women who are driving and enforcing these linguistic changes -- without any appreciation of just how much they are colluding with some of the most timeless misogyny about what women are thought and represented to be.

Just when we seem to have acquired some actual equal rights as persons before the law and society, this stuff pops up to remind us of the age-old reducing of women to their bodies and body parts and reproductive anatomy and whether they are fertile or not -- just to chip away at any sense we might have that we are actual people and not just bodies that are "not men".

Only this time, there's a whole host of young handmaidens to the patriarchy at work, standing ready to claim that this is in fact terribly progressive; and completely blinded to how complicit they are in their own erasure.

All the big charities are captured. It’s a total gravy train of them all paying each other for training in their ‘area of expertise’

It’s ridiculous. I was just reading an article on a medical site about menstruation and the covid vaccines.
It mentions the “gender gap” in medical research and then spends the rest of the article taking about “people with periods”. They’re always so inconsistent and always wrongly use gender and sex - even on health and medical sites . Though it’s amusing as despite someone checking over the document to remove words like “woman” there’s usually one or two they overlook.

I wish people trying to minimise sex would just step back and think - does this group not deserve a name. I mean we have single words for such trivial things yet categorising adult females isn’t worthy of that.

Saw this earlier today - here’s Milli Hill’s response that sums it up nicely:

Women have fought for decades to remove the shame around the language to describe their biology. It's because of their efforts that you can even call yourselves Vagina Museum. And now you're trying to frame the erasure of women and their words as progressive? Idiocy.

The more I think about how driven a lot of this is by young women, the more I see parallels in societies with practices like FGM, in which these are demanded by men; but often also enforced culturally by women -- who either fear social condemnation or abuse for not going along with it; or who are captured by the narratives of their culture around women's purity, honour, sexual fidelity etc.

Similarly, the men's rights angle of gender ideology demands these changes; but a lot of (especially young) women go along with these as a way of social regulation of purity, kindness, being a good person, being "progressive", virtue signalling etc. They may or may not fervently believe that they are in the right, but it really is a case study in self-deception -- what we used to call "being complicit in your own oppression". (I'm fairly sure a majority of TRAs know they are not; but the young women who go along with it most often genuinely seem to be captured.)

But they never do it on telly ads. Notice that.

They only do it where they can’t be in front of most of us

Too afraid

Keep pushing back. Keep pushing

Leave an app don’t suscribe to an app which uses this shite. After all they need us to subscribe to keep going

It should be uteri not uteruses.

I am still getting to grips with some of this, but I don't understand what is wrong with saying "women and people who menstruate". That covers it all - women who menstruate and trans men who menstruate. I am a woman who doesn't menstruate because I am old, I am not offended to be reminded of that fact.

I'm fast running out of period products I can buy which don't come out with this shite!

Had to give up Yoni, then Flow pads, can't buy any more Modibodi.

The best ones I've found are Boots thin maternity sanitary towels (got to be the thin ones) they're unbleached and comfortable, and I think they'll find it pretty hard to market maternity towels as for "people experiencing lochia" or some such nonsense. Likely to fly under the TRA radar. Still bloody irritating though.

All the big charities are captured. It’s a total gravy train of them all paying each other for training in their ‘area of expertise’

This is so fucking true.

@krystalweedon

I am still getting to grips with some of this, but I don't understand what is wrong with saying "women and people who menstruate". That covers it all - women who menstruate and trans men who menstruate. I am a woman who doesn't menstruate because I am old, I am not offended to be reminded of that fact.

Krystal it might look fine replacing "women" with "women and people who menstruate" for period products; but it doesn't stop there tweets like those from the Vagina Museum are demanding that any use of women and girls be replaced with this stuff. Would you replace every use of "women" in casual conversation or anywhere -- with "women and people who menstruate"?

"Both men and "women and people who menstruate" can join the army these days"

"Men and "women and people who menstruate" across the globe are divorcing more frequently"

This is what these "progressives" demand.

We know we aren't seeing similar calls to nuance language around men (unless it's on sex tips websites, where "penis owners" is actually making an appearance )

We know we aren't seeing similar calls to nuance language around men

Yes, out of curiosity I looked at the Prostate Cancer Charity website. No mention of "people" there, just men.

prostatecanceruk.org/prostate-information/are-you-at-risk/

Thankful for the menopause quite honestly!!
I'd use uterus havers etc if men could be referred to as prostate owners, testicle bearers or penis havers. Which won't happen. Ever.
Funny how the word men isn't getting messed with

Public attention is starting.

My mum said to me this evening "did you know you are not allowed to say "woman" any more, it's all Birthing People and People with Uteruses?" My dad then mentioned JK Rowling!

I haven't discussed it with them and they don't use the internet. I think there have been articles in the Telegraph recently.

My mum is not impressed.

I may point her in the direction of some letters to write.

I also feel like some brands and communications go too far in trying to be progressive and actually exclude more people by being 'inclusive'

I went to read Clue's policy on language and here's what they say they use now:

helloclue.com/articles/culture/accessibility-gendered-language-at-clue

How are we supposed to talk about the fact that for women, and women only, there are a number of reasons that being ‘a person who doesn’t menstruate’ is very significant?

[quote emilybens123]I also feel like some brands and communications go too far in trying to be progressive and actually exclude more people by being 'inclusive'

I went to read Clue's policy on language and here's what they say they use now:

helloclue.com/articles/culture/accessibility-gendered-language-at-clue[/quote]
5% of the people who use that don’t think they’re women? Blimey.