Good ways of using inclusive language without excluding women etc

[Slythermum]

Anyone got examples?
So for things like periods, menopause, prostate cancer etc - what would be examples of easily understandable (for non English speakers) and that can make sure that trans people are also getting the healthcare access they need whilst keeping the words women, men, mother, father etc in the descriptions? Would be good to include some examples.

I'm team Babdoc
Woman means adult human female & therefore includes every single female regardless of which of the 100 gender identities aka personalities they have chosen.

@Babdoc

I’ve never understood why a transman who is doing the most womanly thing possible - ie giving birth - is happy to become a mother, but is apparently unbearably traumatised by the mere use of the appropriate word! This seems a cognitive disconnect of massive proportions. And smacks of narcissistic manipulation of language.

Another extremely good post @Babdoc

The debate raging on as someone has pointed out does not remotely reference the fact that being a woman and a mother is absolutely essential to our identity and experience. Anyone who doesn't see that having had a baby exit their vagina is hugely self absorbed. Their own feelings about their identity do not counter those who a biological women and mothers.

Did you see l Twitter feud yesterday with the CEO of a female Gynae cancer charity basically raging at anyone who suggested that pregnant people was not acceptable language.

@Deliriumoftheendless

I’m down with “women and..”

I know some here don’t like it, I’ve read their reasons and feel that’s up to them but I think it meets most needs without excluding anyone.

It doesn't exclude anyone directly, but it still kinda does.

"women and transmen" should remember to have cervical smear tests doesn't exclude women, but it does muddy the waters and involve changing definitions.

In this example the whole point is that cervical smears are there for ALL women, a sex class, and not for anyone who is not a woman, because people who are "sex-class: woman" have cervixes and no-one outside of this sex-class has one.

So the choice is, effectively -

(1) "Include" women and trans men
or
(2) "Exclude" trans men.

But to include trans women you by definition have to fuck with what it is to be a woman, to deny the simply fact that woman is a sex class and cervical smears are for women.

You literally cannot be "inclusive" to trans men without fucking with the definition of women and pretending that some women aren't women, and that is exclusionary of women.

If you are a health care provider talking about periods, menopause, cervical smears etc, then the only word you need is women.

Women and men, with a note that this refers to sex, not gender.

If you are targeting a specific audience use specific literature, as with any other health condition.

as with any other health condition or social group.

You literally cannot be "inclusive" to trans men without fucking with the definition of women and pretending that some women aren't women, and that is exclusionary of women.

Agree.

"Women and" implies that 'woman' can only be used to refer to gender.

In situations that refer to menopause, periods etc. it is clearly being used to refer to sex.

So in this ideally medically it could work to prefix with "People who are biologically" female".

There's not really any need for the word 'biologically' there though, is there? 'Female' means biologically female, and describes a woman or a girl.

So in answer to the OP, to make sure everyone gets the right care, I'd have medical information say 'Women (i.e. adult females)' Men (i.e. adult males).

I am an HCP and I refuse to used gender inclusive language in patient information leaflets which are for all women who attend my department. I have leaflets with inclusive language for trans and NB people which I think is a good solution to this thorny issue.

My colleagues do not agree. Tough, I'm the boss and I hold the budget so I'm insisting they do an impact assessment of what happens to the engagement of marginalised women if we change the language - if they do that work and show no harm done then I'll change it.

So far there is just a lot of grumbling in the office as they try to out woke each other.

It's as if no one gives a shit about the women with poor literacy, or english as a second language or learning disabilities or those who don't give a flying feck about gender.

Appraisal time is coming. And I will be commenting on the lack of concern for those groups.

@TheIncredibleBookEatingManchot

I don't think anything should be changed. It should just be made very clear to trans people that they can not actually change sex, only be made to look more like the opposite sex, so trans men should know that women's health issues apply to them and trans women should know that men's health issues apply to them.

And let’s face it, they do know that, even if it isn’t something they want to acknowledge. I have a family member who is diabetic and who knows exactly how they should be monitoring their health, but chooses not to, nothing to be done about it adults make their own choices in life. What is important is that they are informed about the consequences of their behaviour in clear, unambiguous language.

A group working on violence is using women+, which they define (at length) in their literature. I know the reasons some don't like it but I do. The word 'women' is front and centre, because they also work on VATW and VATM it works in a definition way for them, and it pithy for posters.

It also means they can put things like, "we work on violence against women+. Women are x times as likely to suffer blah" so they can be statistically precise without muddying the waters.

I find "women and..." offensive as it suggests that my being a woman is linked to my personality or however the genderologists define it.

Yes - we bog-standard women can be offended too

I feel excluded when I see language like this as it tells me the service provider has adopted a new ideology that I find problematic (yes, we bog-standard women get to call things problematic too )

Someone made a good analogy on another thread about it being like if "French" was redefined to mean wearing a beret and shaking a string of onions around on a bicycle.

Women, transmen and female non-binary people.

Or just biological females.

'woman+' isn't as clunky but I assume it's shorthand for 'women and...'? If so then I have the same problem with it as I do with 'and': it changes the meaning. I think it's really important to hold the line.

I think I love you @vivariumvivariumsvivaria ❤️❤️

Thank you for sticking up for all these groups of women. I work with street homeless women and your post made me well up with tears, to think that someone senior in healthcare thinks about our service users and other women like them.

This is only an issue because of the success of the gender ideologues in leaving us without a word with which one is "allowed" to describe every person born female, and only them.

Those of you who don't think it's a big deal to say "women and..." should perhaps think about that. Those pushing for these language changes are doing so because they expect "women" to include males. And "mothers," and "girls," to include males. Even "female," must now include males. They want there to be no word in the language that describes the half of the human population born female, and recognises them as in that way distinct from the other half, who are born male.

Why would that be? There are so many words in the English language; over 171,000 in current usage! There are words to differentiate a particularly foggy winter day (brumous) from a regular wintery day; to differentiate a noisy, gleeful laugh (chortle) from any old laugh; to differentiate male from female dragonflies (drakes and queens, respectively); moles (boars and sows) and crabs (jimmy and jenny!). But no words in the language to describe the female half of humanity, and them specifically?

"Being kind" and accommodating the personal identity preferences of people who might dislike being reminded of the fact of their actual sex sounds great. But to do this by changing the meanings of all the words that used to mean 'female human' - so that they all now include some males or exclude some females, or refer to a set of stereotypes or a social role instead of the material realities of being both human and female - is to leave female humans without any such word of their own. That's not very kind, when even a Jenny crab can be acknowledged to belong to her sex class in order to aid conservation efforts, but the same sex class in humans is allowed no words around which to describe their common struggles and organise for their rights.

♀️✊🏼✊✊🏿✊🏾🦀

The human body is a transphobe. It couldn’t give two chocolate cherries for your pronouns, it defines itself and it’s illnesses by its chromosomes. If you have one set you get periods, menopause, ovarian cancers etc and the other set gets the prostate and scrotal cancers etc. It doesn’t care what language you use, it’s cancers, being prone to heart disease or becoming pregnant are going to get you. Personally if it’s going to save a trans mans life I would say “women, trans men, non binary people who were born female” but I absolutely understand and respect those that want to stick at women.

@Babdoc

If you are a health care provider talking about periods, menopause, cervical smears etc, then the only word you need is women. Whatever gender transmen identify as, their sexcategory remains “woman”. Illness and medical care are sexed, not gendered. The person performing your cervical smear doesn’t give a shit what gender you are - their only concern is to get some cells off your (patently obviously female) cervix!

Yep. There is no “and”. There are women and men. Trans men know they have female bodies, so they know medical literature relating to women includes them. Nothing needs to change at all. It’s medical care not fucking Twitter.

Gender I think about them all the time. We have long waiting lists and not enough money and not enough staff - and the women we do deal with are mostly white and middle class. Which is fine, of course they need care - but what about the rest of us?

There are groups of women all over the country working really hard to support women who have all manner of reasons for not accessing health or education or justice.

Their needs and rights and dignities matter. Trans and NB females matter too, but, it seems to me that they tend to be better at advocating for themselves than e.g. the women you are working with.

TBH I well up at the thought of you working with your group of women who are now facing months of cold weather. Thank you for what you do for them.

@Babdoc

If you are a health care provider talking about periods, menopause, cervical smears etc, then the only word you need is women. Whatever gender transmen identify as, their sexcategory remains “woman”. Illness and medical care are sexed, not gendered. The person performing your cervical smear doesn’t give a shit what gender you are - their only concern is to get some cells off your (patently obviously female) cervix!

100% this... unequivocally....

I think this will be - and needs to be - the next big shift.

Transmen and transwomen recognising that they can't change sex - that yes society will accept them as another gender, but the reality of physical bodies - for healthcare, sport, etc - is unchangeable.

I think it will help the trans community cope much better with the disappointment many feel after transing.... and I know a couple of decades ago this was where therapy with transsexuals was focussed: on recognising what would change and what would be challenging in how society perceived them.

@IsadoraQuagmire

Nothing needs to be changed apart from some people's ability to face up to reality.

My opinion has moved to this position of late. I used to be fine with 'women and', but not now. It DOES downgrade 'women' to just an identity and not a sex class and we should not be facilitating that downgrade.

Bottom line, transmen and female NBs know that they're female. They KNOW! So any healthcare aimed at women - they know it's for them too. They know they are included. And yes I have heard all the 'but it sets off my dysphoria' - well that just proves that they know they're female and it applies to them. As adults, they do need to take responsibility for their own healthcare just the same as every other adult.

They do have access to the sex-appropriate healthcare - if they choose. But wanting themselves to be centred in healthcare messages when this makes it less accessible to non-English speakers, women with learning difficulties or literacy issues - which I am sure is far more women than transmen/NBs - no, that's not acceptable. Not any more. And really, never should have been in the first place.

"Woman/girl" is inclusive language. It covers all female humans.

Being a woman does not mean you have to embrace all stereotypes associated with women, physical or behavioural or emotional.

Woman is inclusive, as it means those of us with female biology. This was a perfectly acceptable definition for everyone up until very recently when a small group of angry people decided they didn't like it, and now for some reason we are all supposed to go along with this. It's not about being inclusive, it's a power play.

I appreciate you are trying to do a good thing OP, but it will never be good enough. Nothing but complete capitulation to their cause will be good enough.
Queer theory sees the reshaping and control of language as the way to remake the world. They believe that words are actual reality, and by manipulating them, we can shoehorn reality into the words (it's totally nuts, but hey ho). Therefore they must control the language and manipulate everyone's speech to align with their view of the world. And they've done a good job so far with emotional threats and outright abuse.

They also want to decouple the word 'woman' from female biological processes, so that men who don't have the required internal biology can opt in to that group (because no matter how great their fake boobs are, no amount of plastic surgery can give them a working uterus or cervix, or allow them to menstruate). This is very important to them for several reasons, mainly validation and AGP.

Can't remember who it was, but something somewhere used women throughout the document with an asterisk on the firs mention that lead to a reference/foot note which explained who they were using the word to cover, ie this covers women, transmen anyone of the female sex, so similar to the "includes" approach, and does not interrupt the flow of the document.

We have to be able to assume that every transman and every woman who identifies other than by their sex descriptor, does, in fact, know that they are a women when we are talking about sex (or at he very least knows that the word "women" might be referring to them). Admittedly, given the education on this issue that some are getting, that may not be safe to assume in the future, but right now it is.

Sign me up to team Babdoc!

The thing is, this only ever seems to be about redefining the word 'woman' so that it includes men.

I had a leaflet through the door about signing up for Movember and there was not a single mention of 'men and...'

If you are looking for easily understood and inclusive, "women and" constructions do not meet the brief. Neither does "women (which includes...)".

Both are undeniably inclusive, but they do not meet the requirement for comprehension. In my view, this is much better dealt with by using a tested and proven method of adding a separate paragraph (often a side bar or a text box, sometimes even a whole new leaflet) which directly addresses women with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

Of course, it's still possible to get this wrong. The Scottish Government for instance used "women" without any additions throughout its new "Women's Health Plan". And then they added a text box to state that where they say women, they mean of course all female people including those who identify as trans. (From content and context it is unequivocally made clear that this is indeed about the healthcare needs and issues of female people only.)

Unfortunately instead of saying that, they said this:

^This document will use the term
‘women’/‘woman’ throughout. It is
important to highlight that it is not only
those who identify as women who
require access to women’s health and
reproductive services. For example,
some transgender men, non-binary
people, and intersex people or people
with variations in sex characteristics
may also experience menstrual
cycles, pregnancy, endometriosis
and the menopause. The actions
included within this Plan make clear
that all healthcare services should be
respectful and responsive to individual
needs.^

When creating healthcare materials it helps to use a coherent definition of your target group, i.e. women. The Scottish Government does not have one as it believes that women can be male or female, which here interferes with some otherwise excellently ambitious aims for improving healthcare for women. Hence they're using "identify as women", a phrase which firmly includes males in the provisions of this health plan even though they go through neither menstruation, pregnancy, birth, endometriosis, gynaecological cancers or the menopause. They also exclude those of us who do not identify as women but simply are women.

I'm giving them a 3 out of 5 for intent on that text box (because I know exactly where that thinking is coming from - a need to genuflect to the doctrine of gender identity and its proponents), and a 0 out of 5 for execution.