Suggestion that census could ask “do you menstruate?” instead of asking sex.

[broccolibush]

Telegraph article

So apparently it could be more inclusive and more precise to ask do you menstruate instead of asking for your sex. Which makes no sense at all to me. It would mean that pregnant women, menopausal women, women who have had hysterectomies, women on hormonal contraception, anorexic women, pre-pubescent girls and many others aren’t female. Surely this is beyond stupid?

More concerningly the article refers to “soft decertification” and “slow law” as a way to describe softly-softly pushing through change to erase women from womanhood.

These people need to grow up. And then fuck off.

So apparently it could be more inclusive and more precise to ask do you menstruate instead of asking for your sex.

No, it couldn't.

I wouldn't have thought many TW would like that idea one little bit either though, so I wouldn't worry that this bonkers idea would ever happen.

Surprise later. And if the surprise isn’t to your taste, you’re a transphobe.

Pcos - had maybe one light period a year for two decades. Am I a not a woman? Man? Undecided?

Fuck off.

thats a revolting word @Fanjoflaps

Is it because these people just have no idea how periods work, when they work and for how long?

Well, If someone were trying to come up with one giant step towards instantiating the Handmaid’s Tale they did great, but might have been pushing things too fast? I think starting off with freezing women’s bank accounts would have raised less suspicion.

I think they just want the word woman and can’t let go of that goal. A woman isn’t defined by menstruating, or boobs, or childbirth. These are things that are experienced by women but not defining and no amount of pretending you have period pain, silicon implants or being with (or paying for) someone giving birth let’s you experience that. Transwomen aren’t “a type of woman” they are men who long to be women.

I guess if the aim of the census is to work out what percentage of the population menstruate then its a valid question.

If the aim is to find out what percentage are female (which AFAIK is the aim) then it's not a very helpful question.

I believe the goal is to erase our ability to talk about (the female) sex. (Even now it looks as if I have lost my mind when I write that sentence, but several years of following this field clearly points at that goal.)

In the gender identity ideology, nobody is allowed to 'identify' on the basis of their biological sex because small minorities do not. Because those small minorities would be happier if their sex didn't conflict with their identity, making it impossible to mention sex would bring that possibility closer. The rest of us do not matter.

How is it inclusive? Transwomen don't menstruate and never will, so this does not include anybody into the women category. Transmen would not want to admit they could menstruate. This is eradicating women from their own category at least twice in the course of a life time. So if you are not a women when not menstruating what are you? Do they want to know how many uterus' are free and in working order at any given time? This indeed sounds like handmaid's tale.

Apart from erasing women are they going to specify 'menstruator'? I've argued on twitter that even if you take hormones on a 28 day cycle no you do not get 'menstrual cramps' and that sticking beetroot juice up your bum isn't the same as a period.

I can't even understand how they arrived at this conclusion. Is there no one on that research panel who thought "hey guys, if we ask "do you menstruate?" then what about all the AFAB* who don't menstruate?" How was this not even a consideration?

*used AFAB because that's what they'd say, not because I believe sex is assigned!

Erasing legal sex is one step closer to erasing women as a sex class. Away with all maternity benefits and sex discrimination cases.

There will still be lots of work mostly done by one group of people though.

And to supply the trade in babies via surrogacy) they'll still want to identify the potential breeders.

I joke not. Ireland is steaming ahead with erasing the word woman and simultaneously with opening up commercial surrogacy.

Twitter thread includes YouTube like to speech by Senator Keogan

WOMEN are being removed from our Maternity Protection Act 1994 via the Work Life Balance Bill, with the "replacement of “woman” with “person".
@SenatorKeogan spoke in the Seanad about the removal of Women and female.

twitter.com/thecountessie/status/1532836396414681088?s=21

Here's the link to her speech.

Hopefully this is the complete twitter thread unrolled

The law exists in a state of flux, as do the prevailing social opinions of the people it governs. These two aspects of our shared existence act upon each other — sometimes, changes in the law affect people’s opinions — more often, legislators and government wait to see which way the wind is blowing before making a decision.
Where this balance fails is when government and legislators are beholden, not to the prevailing, widely held opinions of the public, but to the carefully curated and concentrated views of a vocal minority who have been given powerful platforms as lobbyists. And yet this seems to have happened yet again in this country, in perhaps the most cynical manner yet.
To all the women and mothers of Ireland — did you know that the government is about to erase all mention of you from our legislation on maternity leave?
The proposition may sound ridiculous — indeed it is — but that’s the plan under the new deceptively named “Work Life Balance Bill”; after all, who could be against work life balance?
But hidden among the miscellaneous provision of the Bill are various amendments to the Maternity
Protection Act 1994 regarding both breastfeeding and maternity leave — amendments which remove all mention of the word “woman”, and which assert that men can breastfeed too.
We are told regularly that words matter, yet when women tell us that the words ‘mother’, ‘female’, and ‘woman’ matter to them they are dismissed as ‘unkind’ or ‘exclusionary’. The reality is that ‘maternity’ is undertaken by women and not by men.

To replace the word ‘mother’ or ‘woman’ with the word “person” is a retrograde step and strips women of a core part of their identity.
Women have wombs where our children are conceived and nourished during pregnancy. Women have breasts with which we feed our children.
These things need to be said, and they need to be said without fear of causing offence.
Who is insisting we deny that there are two sexes, and why? Sex is a protected characteristic in our Equal Status Act because women experience discrimination based on their biology.
Can’t we find a way to be inclusive without erasing women’s biology and women’s experiences from our legislation?
This country has spent years coming to terms with its treatment of women who became mothers outside of marriage — it is a journey we’re still making,
and I’m sure there are more apologies to the women of Ireland to come.
Are we, at the same time as those apologies, going to launch yet another attack on women in the very piece of legislation that was intended to protect them?

Well, if porn is to be believed there are female ejaculators (squirters?) out there, so these messy categories help no-one.

It's time to respond with the Mumsnet mantra No is a complete sentence
.
Women
Transwomen
Men
Transmen
etc.

I agree it sounds fetishy and grim.

So sick of this crap.

Perhaps the idea is we all respond with a loud “but there are many many women who don’t menstruate” and then there can be a glorious moment where transwomen can shout “EXACTLY”. 🙄

Probably. I still think they should pay back the eye-watering £579,717 and fuck off.

5zeds — perhaps you have identified the core objective of this nonsense: if they (whoever “they” really are) come up with categories ducha as “people who menstruate” and are met with “not all women menstruate”, and then try “people who give birth” and are met by “not all women give birth”, etc they eventually succeed in wearing away definitions of “women”. Ie if not all women menstruare and not all women are capable of becoming pregnant and not all women.give birth, then “why aren’t Transwomen “real” women?”.

it is such a pernicious argument… and can ultimately succeed in wiping away what most women — indeed most humans _ have always thought were simple and useful dichotomies of human as males/men and females/women.

How long will it take for common sense to prevail? Or have the youth if today been so completely brainwashed that society will be altered forever?

I know it is an article in the telegraph, but those designing the census would realise this would be a stupid question. It will never happen.

This is so ridiculous. I had a partial hysterectomy and I have not menstruated for years. I am a woman, with or without a womb, as I was born a woman and will always be a woman, thank you very much...This type of silly stunts doesn't help promoting diversity as it just achieve the opposite because people are rightly annoyed by the stupidity of it all...

How ridiculous!

How many transitioned males out there would absolutely answer this with a yes? Because they have been led to believe, and by Endocrinologists, that they too have a ‘cycle’. That they too have a ‘period’!

When will reality prevail? And if these people cannot admit their biological sex (which we are told people are not denying anymore… yeah, right!) then there needs to be discussion about treatment plans and whether being able to face reality without distress is being focused on enough in treatment.