Anti trans for asking not to conflate sex with gender?

[OatALot]

On a menopause event at work and in the comments section they are being asked to use inclusive language such as 'people who menstrate'. These are being challenged and those who challenged are being called terf and accusssd of making others feel unsafe.

The people doing the presentation therefore have taken the stance anyone can go through the menopause.

I'd love to feedback that they should not conflate sex and gender. Surely if we just talk in term of sex and a biological function it can't be challenged? It takes the discussion away from a condition impacting females.

In Australia our sex and gender guidelines state that gender and sex continue to remain separate and distinct categories, but can be used interchangeably including in legislation. So not super helpful but it's saying that yes female is the district biological category. If this talk was solely about female biology I would give feedback on their miscategorisation and conflation with gender. Maybe check your guidelines or act for some guidance. Also the declaration on women's sex based rights is helpful.

Eg Sex and gender continue to be separate concepts entirely and I see little progress for women if our ability to describe and classify ourselves is misrepresented, particularly when speaking to a group of women about female biological functions.
Our organisation must ensure the full development and advancement of women and respect their human rights to be recognised as their sex class, for fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality.

All of the above are excellent points.

I’m also uncomfortable with using medicalised terms like syndrome for something that’s perfectly natural and normal for women to go through as I feel there’s then an implication that you can therefore ‘fix’ it with medication.

It’s also again using unfamiliar and unclear terms in order to placate a very small group at the expense of much larger groups of very vulnerable people (elderly people, people with learning disabilities, people with English as a second language, people with literacy issues). The same way that 40% of women don’t know if they have a cervix so cervix haver is useless. This is creating barriers to healthcare for really vulnerable groups.

A few years ago I was working in a Civil Service role and someone commented on an intranet comments section, referring to 'terfs'. I reported the comment as an inappropriate and abusive way to refer to colleagues and the comment was removed. The poster got a warning which I learned about when he complained about it on yammer.

@ScrollingLeaves

“TheFlamingnerd It's targeted harassment. Bet it was men on the call doing this“

The horrible thing is that there might have been women saying this too.

This particular piece of mangled language is about protecting the feelings of (some) females (those who now identify as men, but still menstruate, and have some sort of dysphoria if they are lumped in with women). I can't really see what males get from it.

NearlyThereMum

A TERF is a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist.

It is basically a person who does not believe that men who identify as women - transwomen - are actual women. A TERF can be female or male.

It is used as a derogatory term by trans activists against women and men who campaign to preserve female only sex based spaces - such as toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards etc - to ensure privacy to women and girls from men who identify as women but retain their biological male genitals.

I can't really see what males get from it

The comments could've been from anyone falling anywhere on the 'gender spectrum'. One simply has to spend 5 minutes on Twitter to see the vitriol levelled at women defending their rights. It comes from men, other women and everything else in-between.

In terms of how men benefit from mangling the language - if we can't properly define ourselves it prevents us from naming our discrimination. It prevents us from organising into groups to fight said discrimination. If we can't name the problem we can't fight against it. If the word woman encompasses everyone, it becomes meaningless. Were targeted specifically because of our sex so it's imperative we're able to accurately define ourselves and the issue.

If we can't organise, name and fight males benefit from "keeping us in our place"

If the word woman encompasses everyone, it becomes meaningless.

I agree. But this is precisely not about widening the definition of "woman". It is about acknowledging that "woman" is not wide enough to encompass all those who (under the new theory) menstruate. Women are a subset of menstruators. There are some female men who menstruate.

@BelindaBumcrack

NearlyThereMum

A TERF is a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist.

It is basically a person who does not believe that men who identify as women - transwomen - are actual women. A TERF can be female or male.

It is used as a derogatory term by trans activists against women and men who campaign to preserve female only sex based spaces - such as toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards etc - to ensure privacy to women and girls from men who identify as women but retain their biological male genitals.

Thanks so much, I've never heard of this before. I thought it was a Mumsnet abbreviation! Thanks again

@MurielSpriggs

If the word woman encompasses everyone, it becomes meaningless.

I agree. But this is precisely not about widening the definition of "woman". It is about acknowledging that "woman" is not wide enough to encompass all those who (under the new theory) menstruate. Women are a subset of menstruators. There are some female men who menstruate.

You've hit the nail on the head with your use of the word "subset". Woman means adult human female, therefore is sufficient when describing "people who menstruate" as menstruation is a biological function unique to females. Males are not capable of menstruation. For anyone looking for a gotcha, that's not to say that anyone who doesn't menstruate isn't female, simply that ONLY females CAN menstruate. By broadening the term woman to include "men" (read females who identify as men) the term is diluted and you get an insidious creep of a new type of "woman" (read males who identify as women). The group who belong to the original definition of the word women (adult human females), now exist as a subset of their own sex class. Making it impossible to define their own unique biological experiences.

Point in case - having to refer to menopause (a uniquely femal biological function) as hormone deficiency syndrome. It's wrong on so many levels not least because it signifies the menopause, a perfectly natural process, as some kind illness or disease.

As I've said upthread, people who menstruate is not accurate when talking about the menopause and the group it affects - some will have stopped menstruating but still be going through other symptoms. The word women, or at the very least females covers everyone who would be affected by the menopause.

Some people experience menopause, and I guess this event was for people who experience menopause. Some of those people are women, and some of them are men.

Unless you think women aren't people ,or you don't think trans men are men and that is so upsetting to you that you can't cope with it, I don't understand what your objection is.

It has nothing to do with sex being a protected characteristic at all.

Do you want them to make a statement that "only women have menopause" to deliberately exclude trans men?

Do you want them to make a statement that "only women have menopause" to deliberately exclude trans men?

Oh no we can't have that can we?

I mean, presumably trans men know they are women otherwise they wouldn't be trans right?

And if they are actual trans men, their 'menopause' comes crashing at them about 30 years too early.

So it is a COMPLETELY different scenario.

So totally right to say only women have menopause.

Some people experience menopause, and I guess this event was for people who experience menopause.

All those people are female. Don't you think it would be useful to have a word for female people? How about 'women'. And male people could be called 'men'. What do you think?

As someone currently “experiencing menopause” for the fifty fucking thousand times only biological women no matter they bloody identify experience menopause

Biological men do not and i am sick to fucking death of being patronised by members of the sex who do not go through menopause about this

"I mean, presumably trans men know they are women otherwise they wouldn't be trans right?"

Trans men are men, and they know they are men. They also know their own bodies. That has nothing to do with including them as people in this event.

Transmen are female.

I have no idea if you are confused or a biology denier!

Can't cope with the language being so heavily bastardised

@Shedmistress

Do you want them to make a statement that "only women have menopause" to deliberately exclude trans men?

Oh no we can't have that can we?

I mean, presumably trans men know they are women otherwise they wouldn't be trans right?

And if they are actual trans men, their 'menopause' comes crashing at them about 30 years too early.

So it is a COMPLETELY different scenario.

So totally right to say only women have menopause.

Yes, we absolutely can have that, and just as they know their bodies so do you, and I guess you have no objection to being referred to as a person.

Trans men do not undergo medical interventions experience menopause.

Many women don't experience menopause. People who experience menopause is both factually correct and inclusive.

Oh god. The what about women who don't menstruate / experience menopause trope.

Stop it. It's so old had, ludicrous, and we really don't have to continue engaging with such claptrap.

Take it elsewhere, FFS!

Trans men are men, and they know they are men. They also know their own bodies. That has nothing to do with including them as people in this event.

If they know their own bodies, then they know they are female and as only adult human females ,AKA women , can go through the menopause , then the inclusive term is women.

Yes, we absolutely can have that, and just as they know their bodies so do you, and I guess you have no objection to being referred to as a person.

Did you miss Nancy Kelley's interview on WH then? Additive language is the Stonewall recommendation now that women pushed back on having the word 'mother' erased. I can link you up to her words if you like.

So, yes. We can be angry about an event for us being labelled as 'people who'.

It is inaccurate and frankly, it is simply obscuring one of life's natural processes that women have been made to feel shame about for a millennia. It shows a distinct lack of knowledge about female's lives to be censuring women who are upset about having this subject further obscured through use of language about exactly who suffers during this process.

Trans men do not undergo medical interventions experience menopause.

Many women don't experience menopause. People who experience menopause is both factually correct and inclusive

As a woman going through menopause right night, fuck off with the 'some women don't experience menopause' line to fit your ideological thinking. And I have been going through it for a lot fucking longer than that supposed average of seven fucking years of perimenopause.

The ONLY people who experience menopause are females. If those females who have identified as anything other than woman cannot handle being referred to using additive language, then that is their issue to deal with. May I suggest some better mental health support.

So, please take your shaming women who have medical conditions so that they do not experience menopause elsewhere too. It is highly offensive. But you have been told this repeatedly on this board over time.

This is why conflating sex and gender is an issue. The menopause is a biological process only experienced by the female sex. It is not experienced by the male sex.

“DadJoke
Some people experience menopause, and I guess this event was for people who experience menopause. Some of those people are women, and some of them are men.”

All of those people who experience menopause (a biological phenomenon) are women ( a biological group) Hence the use of ‘women’ to name those people in this context.

The only thing you can say about women these days is that they have a penis. Anything else and it's 'transphobic'.

Fucking sick to the back teeth of this fucking mess.

Even if it were the right thing to do ideologically to combine women and trans men into the group of “people who menstruate” (and for the record, I do not agree that it is), it is not the right thing to do practically.

These will be different, and possibly contradictory experiences, depending on what levels of hormonal and surgical intervention have happened.

I’ve had a chemical menopause at 35 and the real thing at 42 and they were completely different experiences. Women who experience premature ovarian failure won’t necessarily be served by a workshop looking at natural menopause. Trans men who experience chemical or surgical menopause maybe in their twenties or earlier don’t have the same medical issues and needs as women in their fifties.

Vaginal atrophy caused by testosterone and vaginal atrophy caused by menopause will be quite different. Testosterone is used as as HRT for the menopause, but clearly a trans man and a menopausal woman won’t be having the same conversation about doses, frequency, side effects etc, will they? The conversation around menstruation would be happening on different planets.

It is perfectly fine to target a workshop about the menopause at women and solely at women, and perhaps if trans men need a workshop on trans related hormonal issues, they could crack on and set that up.

I’m willing to bet that the trans men being fought for here were theoretical, though.

Stay strong, Op, you’re not wrong.

DadJoke

The reason why transmen experience the menopause, is because they are biological females.
Gender is a social construct, whilst biology is scientific fact.

@Sophoclesthefox
Your point is excellent.
Special needs in either case.