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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feeling Very Disturbed

55 replies

FeelingVeryDisturbed · 28/02/2022 17:42

Name changed as outing.
I've just posted on my medical profession's closed FB group in support of an OP questioning the appropriateness of our professional body being a member of SW diversity scheme.
Cue pile-on by many talking all the usual talk - TWAW etc.
Thread deleted by admin as they agreed with reporters.
I'm really rattled - these are scientists denying scientific reality.
Just having a vent, really.

OP posts:
PermanentTemporary · 02/03/2022 07:20

I am loosely acquainted with a male neurology registrar who tweets aggressively that TWAW. Loads of doctors are fully bought in. The drive to believe and respect patient reality and the drive to respect women, both good things, and the drive for patient choice, a more ambiguous positive, make it inevitable that there was going to be a change in this direction despite the obvious issues in medicine and risks to women. Tbh I don't think things will change back, I am completely pessimistic.

DontLikeCrumpets · 02/03/2022 07:52

@PermanentTemporary

How does a doctor believing TWAW show respect or women? It's absolutely disrespectful to women.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 02/03/2022 08:00

Language changes all the time. A word that means one thing at one time may eventually come to mean another thing. E.g. nice, whose original meaning survives in the phrase 'a nice distinction' but otherwise is a very different word.

However, we don't usually lose essential words, words we learn very early in life and use frequently. Woman, man, boy, girl, female, male are such words. They refer to the biological reality that homo sapiens is a sexually dimorphic species, just like all the other mammals. Recognising and living with this reality is not the same thing as accepting the limitations imposed by sexual stereotyping.

@Needmoresleep, I am no sort of scientist, but from the little I know about genetics, it is indeed fascinating. You'd hope, though, that if push comes to shove, senior medics, vets and other HCPs and all biologists would accept that every single human being alive on the planet now and throughout history started life in the womb of a woman who then gave them birth.

We need a word for the class of humans whose bodies develop very soon after conception to provide the large gamete and to be capable of gestation, birth and breastfeeding. We have one. It's female. Adult human females are women, juvenile human females are girls.

We need another word for the other class of humans whose bodies develop very soon after conception to produce and supply the small gamete. We have one. It's male. Adult human males are men, juvenile human males are boys.

We will always need these words. Changing their meaning as some people are trying to do means we can't communicate clearly and precisely. In healthcare, that leads to potentially lifethreatening consequences.

eu.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/05/16/pregnant-transgender-man-births-stillborn-baby-hospital-missed-labor-signs/3692201002/

StillWeRise · 02/03/2022 18:02

The thing is 'nice' refers to a concept, a thing that exists in human brains. it's created by human brains. See also social or cultural concepts. 'Marriage' is a good example. You might come up with a fomral definition of marriage that encompasses the different form s marriage takes and has taken over time and place. But in common usage 'marriage' means different things at different times. Notably, in the UK we have recently expanded the meaning of the word 'marriage' to include a formally registered relationship between 2 adults of any sex. Some objected to this and said no, marriage can ONLY be between a man and a woman.

But because marriage is a human invention we can in fact all agree to change what it means. Other things like '5' or 'water' or 'dog' exist independently of humans and therefore we can't redefine them.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 02/03/2022 18:05

Excellent point.

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