"periods: a genderless function" FFS!!!

[whistleblown]

How greedy and selfish of us to keen periods to ourselves all this time. 🙄🙄🙄

Those two sentences contradict each other.

The person in question is a woman. Denying it is the opposite of facing biology.

If you don't think the word woman means 'of or denoting the sex who bears eggs', what do you think it means?

Seriously. What does it actually mean to you?

I've never met anyone called Oscar who wasn't a wanker.

Why can't they refer to themselves as 'period-havers' or 'menstruators' and leave the women and girls whom everybody knows full-well and uncontroversially are women and girls alone to be referred to as such.

///

Yup

Because having chosen to exclude themselves from the definition of "women" (on the grounds that they, and only they, believe that it is a gender identity they don't share, rather than a word for people of the biological sex they do share), it is now apparently vitally important for the rest of us to be redefined and renamed in order for them to be included in the same group they chose to exclude themselves from.

Nope, me neither.

I've never met anyone called Oscar who wasn't a wanker.

I can think of one who seems decent enough - but then he does live in a dustbin!

I've emailed and told them to remove them from their mailing lists due to this crap. Let's all do the same and try and get them to listen.

I knew a gorgeous cat called Oscar. NAOAWs

Its meaning does seem to have shifted. I just googled. The Cambridge Dictionary includes a definition like yours, but also an "additional descriptor":

an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth

They've got a symmetrical definition of man, so they do include identity as an alternative to biology.

Perfect.

And it's bollocks anyway. If suddenly women were truly, universally, called menstruators, they'd want to opt out of that as well.

Transwomen too. First they wanted woman, so women started to differentiate themselves by calling themselves female, then they took female, and now they want ciswoman. And according to India Willoughby, biological woman too!

The name is really immaterial, it's the very concept they want.

Its meaning does seem to have shifted. I just googled. The Cambridge Dictionary includes a definition like yours, but also an "additional descriptor":

Very much like the second definition of 'literally' in some dictionaries.
used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible

The secondary misuses of 'literally' and 'woman' make no sense whatever without the primary meanings actually remaining true

Yep, here it is
No physical symptoms…..

What does "identifies as female" mean?

What are they identifying with?

I don't see how they can be identifying with having a different type of reproductive system to the one they actually have, and whatever else they might be identifying with has got fuck all to do with being female.

Precisely.

It goes much further than them wanting people to refer to them in a way they prefer.

They don't want the rest of us to be able to refer to or define ourselves by reference to sex, i.e. in a way that includes all members of our own sex and excludes all members of the opposite sex.

Since magic isn't real, they can't stop biological sex from being real, binary and immutable, so they're trying to do the next best thing and prevent us all from having the vocabulary to identify and discuss it, or any laws or rights or spaces on the basis of it.

And frankly, when it becomes apparent that that's what they want, you realise that (1) it doesn't matter what language you use to refer to them or to the rest of us, because what they want is for us all to be prevented from describing reality on the basis that it offends them, and (2) that's completely unreasonable and none of us should be expected to indulge it.

You can go on an interesting merry-go-round in the Cambridge Dictionary.

I think it's the contemporary version of "acts a bit feminine". Or more specifically in the context of this thread in the case of women identifying as men, "a bit butch". We've long accepted that as meaning something other than "has a cock and XY chromosomes".

Right.

So what does someone with a vagina, uterus, ovaries and breasts, who has a buzz cut, wears jeans every day, never wears makeup, is attracted to men and doesn't believe in gender identity but calls herself a woman because she is female have in common with someone with a penis and a prostate who has long hair, wears lingerie and dresses every day, always wears makeup, is attracted to women and believes that their gender identity is female?

If they have nothing in common beyond being human, what group are they both part of and why does this group need its own toilets, prisons and sporting categories?

What do they have in common?
They both satisfy the (new) definition of woman

If they have nothing in common beyond being human, what group are they both part of
See above

and why does this group need its own toilets, prisons and sporting categories?
I'll leave someone else to answer this!

an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth

What on earth does 'may have been said to' mean? The whole purpose of dictionaries is that they're meant to document facts, not philosophise about opinions or beliefs.

The take-home that I'm getting is that, as endorsed by the dictionary, anything can now mean anything.

A house has two wheels, a chain and handlebars, even if it may have been said to be an immovable building. A pomegranate has a hard-drive, motherboard and screen, even if it may have been said to be a fruit.

So glad to have cleared up any confusion there; isn't it wonderful to live in these times and be able to benefit from all the hitherto accumulated scientific knowledge of all humankind.

The whole purpose of dictionaries is that they're meant to document facts, not philosophise about opinions or beliefs.

As in commonly-accepted factual definitions. At the very least, they should specify if a word has an 'unorthodox' rendering by clearly marking it as slang/colloquial.

The whole purpose of dictionaries is that they're meant to document facts, not philosophise about opinions or beliefs.

I don't know where you got this idea from! I mean you could get very meta and look up the definition of dictionary

They don't both satisfy the "new definition of woman".

One satisfies the original definition of woman: adult human female.

The other satisfies new, circular and therefore meaningless definition of woman: person who identifies as a woman.

So what do they have in common?

They do both satisfy the "new definition" however much you dislike it and however much you repeat the question and demand a different answer! I mean you need to take this up with the editors of the dictionary and not with me.

Bottom line here.

Men aren't women.

Women don't stop being women.

Tricks of language to enable wishes and hopes around this are just tricks of language, they don't impact on reality.

Next week: the definition of kitten will be altered to mean a small roman empire. Anyone can cock about with an online dictionary.

Bollocks. Only women have periods. Yes, some don't but every person who does, is a woman.

and why does this group need its own toilets, prisons and sporting categories?
I'll leave someone else to answer this!

@NewPanDrawer why do you find it so difficult to answer this question? I mean, it should be a no brainier right?

If some people are female but do not wish to identify as women, say, 0.5% of all, then obviously what needs to happen is that the 99.5% must also agree not to view 'woman' linked to their biology.

This seems incredibly totalitarian and undemocratic to me. We have been treated as girls and women because we are female, and will continue to be treated as women by most in the society, but now we are expected to have our embodied identities as women scrapped completely to benefit that tiny minority? And we are expected to replace those scrapped embodied identities in some horrid agreement with sexist female stereotypes and retrogressive gender roles for women?

The sexism of this ideology is breathtaking, in particular as it is pushed by the progressive left.