The words 'his', 'her', 'he', 'she', 'girl, 'boy', 'man', 'woman' are now meaningless

[PatterPaws]

They actually don't mean anything anymore.

No one is allowed to define these terms unless that definition includes 'a feeling'.

Those feelings are all based on stereotypes of what certain people think males and females should be.

What is this shift in thinking actually teaching our young people? That if you don't fit the stereotype, you must be trans?

Can anyone help me see this more clearly?

Yes. Most of the narrative around this is false. Kids know what girls are and they know what boys are. They’re sitting there not understanding why their teachers have gone mad.

You already see it perfectly clearly, OP. A tiny minority of vocal activists have hijacked the English language in their pursuit of the destruction of women’s rights to single sex spaces. In the process, they have thrown us back to the 1950s and dated sexist stereotypes of male and female cultural behaviour.

A small minority of people say they are meaningless. They say it loudly and angrily but they are a small minority. Imagine if you asked every single person in this country what they thought, what percentage of people would define those terms as they have always been defined?

99.5%? More?

From what I understand the courts are upholding the definition of those words in cases that are getting to court..

I feel like we have angry teenagers trying to rebel and uni students who think they know best encouraged on by anarchists and women haters. The edges are cheerleaded by people who think they are being kind and progressive. And then add some flapping politicians into that mix and you have some sort of bizarre menagerie of a broken society.

Hopefully justice and logic will prevail!

Imo it's about breaking down barriers and preventing safe guarding of women, girls and children
This may be an unintentional result of this movement or may have been planned by some

We're told that man/woman cannot be tightly defined, as it is a feeling.

Yet those who transition, insist that they are the very thing they can't define.

But if you can't define something, how can you know that you are it? Or that you're not it?

Language does evolve and no one can stop that. But people can define however they like; it's common use that always prevails and lasts. Only if we stop using our words, in the way we really mean them, and start to use them in a way we're asked to instead, will a meaning change.

Use your words with meaning.

@PatterPaws

We're told that man/woman cannot be tightly defined, as it is a feeling.

Yet those who transition, insist that they are the very thing they can't define.

But if you can't define something, how can you know that you are it? Or that you're not it?

Yes, yes, yes!!! (as Sally said!!!).

How can these things be simultaneously true in an untroubling way? what are you transitioning to and from then?

I heard that a 'woman' had won a horse race of some kind for the first time last week. My first thought was 'so what?' as I didn't know whether this was someone in the category of people who'd always won these races (biological males) or a genuine first (biological females). We should know. This should be clear.

Sorry but I will disagree and say your premise is incorrect. They do have meaning and everyone knows what they mean.

I don't need permission to use words to mean what they mean. Neither do you. It is up to us to use the language. We're in charge as much as anyone.

We don't need to be obedient little lemmings every time someone with an agenda comes up with an arbitrary use of a word or a diktat about the meaning of language.

I will not qualify the word 'woman' or 'man' with other words such as 'biological'. Nor 'sex'. Sex IS biological. I don't need to say 'biological sex'.

If someone wants to be or be called transwoman, that doesn't say that the word 'woman' for a woman, has to be changed or qualified. Why would it? A woman remains a woman and 'woman' remains the word for a woman, so long as people keep using it as such. It's up to us as women to mind our language, in more ways than one.

And questions or arguments we constantly hear these days about what is a woman - or man, for that matter, if that comes up - are game playing, pure distraction from what isn't being discussed but should be.

All good points @Abitofalark

Sex IS biological. I don't need to say 'biological sex.

^ Absolutely! This is how it should be.

Saying 'biological woman' or 'assigned at birth woman' is liking defining a mathematical shape as 'a four-sided quadrilateral' as opposed to 'a three-sided quadrilateral'.

I'm shocked at how many people are so readily taking on board trans ideology as fact, when it goes against all common sense.

@Abitofalark

Sorry but I will disagree and say your premise is incorrect. They do have meaning and everyone knows what they mean.

I don't need permission to use words to mean what they mean. Neither do you. It is up to us to use the language. We're in charge as much as anyone.

We don't need to be obedient little lemmings every time someone with an agenda comes up with an arbitrary use of a word or a diktat about the meaning of language.

I will not qualify the word 'woman' or 'man' with other words such as 'biological'. Nor 'sex'. Sex IS biological. I don't need to say 'biological sex'.

If someone wants to be or be called transwoman, that doesn't say that the word 'woman' for a woman, has to be changed or qualified. Why would it? A woman remains a woman and 'woman' remains the word for a woman, so long as people keep using it as such. It's up to us as women to mind our language, in more ways than one.

And questions or arguments we constantly hear these days about what is a woman - or man, for that matter, if that comes up - are game playing, pure distraction from what isn't being discussed but should be.

Spot on.

It is time to stop playing the definition game.

Every English speaker knows what 'woman' means and what it is to be a woman. That includes everyone reading this, pre-literate toddlers who do not know the meaning of 'definition', self-regarding semi-literate fools who may have heard of Judith Butler, male Tory MPs who like wearing lacy knickers, and all the rest.

Leave the obfuscators and fools to their foolish obfuscation.

"That Lia Whassername bloke is a woman? You what? You having a laugh? Do you speak English?"

"But it might upset them! ..."

-- "Tough shit. Not as much as it upsets me when I hear of children being sterilised."

"Why can't you just be kind?"

-- "Why can't you just get real?"

Enough is enough. We all know what that means, too.

Yep, you have nailed it, OP. It's an attack on language, severing the link between meaning and reality.

@PatterPaws

Sex IS biological. I don't need to say 'biological sex.

^ Absolutely! This is how it should be.

Saying 'biological woman' or 'assigned at birth woman' is liking defining a mathematical shape as 'a four-sided quadrilateral' as opposed to 'a three-sided quadrilateral'.

I'm shocked at how many people are so readily taking on board trans ideology as fact, when it goes against all common sense.

Useful, to see who will mouth absurdities.

And you know what they say about those who will have us believe them.

All sacrificed to the religion of choice.

It’s quite confusing tbh. I spent last year objecting to being called a menstruator, cervix haver, body with a vagina. I got shouted down by one of my friends and told ‘inclusion doesn’t cost you anything’…and now Angela Raynor says it’s crass to reduce people to their genitalia. So, I think she means that it’s ok for women to be reduced to body parts, but it would be crass for anyone else.

@Whatiswrongwithmyknee

I heard that a 'woman' had won a horse race of some kind for the first time last week. My first thought was 'so what?' as I didn't know whether this was someone in the category of people who'd always won these races (biological males) or a genuine first (biological females). We should know. This should be clear.

did the horse identify as a woman?

The words 'his', 'her', 'he', 'she', 'girl, 'boy', 'man', 'woman' are now meaningless

No they're not.
I don't suddenly stop being she, her and a woman just because other people are trans and/or using different pronouns to me.

Either:

Man = adult human male
Woman = adult human female

or

Man = anyone who feels they have a magical man essence
Woman = anyone who feels they have a magical woman essence

One set of definitions is useful, non-circular and stands up to scrutiny. The other is not.