We can accept that a very small portion of the population doesn't fit into the definitions we commonly use without having to abandon them. It's obvious with good intentions but it seems like a silly hill to die on.
Why can't we just accept as a community that when you say male/female there will always be a little [*] attached to it for the exceptions?
I don't require everyone to make me comfortable, but I do positively notice when someone does. If I go to my office and there are men's rooms, women's rooms, and all gender rooms, I do feel much less excluded.
Not everyone is like me, but thousands or millions are. I do feel excluded by gendered language, and it does impact my ability to get work done, navigate social situations, etc.
For example, there are many more people who experience severe social anxiety than would identify as trans. Those people can have literal panic attacks and experience terrible fear and we aren’t considering redesigning society or language to accommodate them. Nor should we.
Fix your own head. It's more efficient.
I'd prefer to live in a world where we support people in finding coping skills to work through their own anxieties AND we recognized some humans will always be outliers who would benefit from some affordances. We can do both.
I view it as MY challenge, not everyone else’s.
Your emotions aren’t just these immutable, uncontrollable things that happen to you.
Discomfort very often is a signal that YOU need to make some internal change and grow as a person. It doesn’t mean that the world needs more bubble wrap so you feel safe.
I'm not trans or any of that sort - I'm generally uncomfortable around people. What I don't understand is, why impose upon others? To me, that's my cross to bear.
If your workplace said, "we've got some private rooms to work if it would make you more comfortable, it'd be something you positively regard and would make you feel more included, right?
I have absolutely no problem with gender neutral bathrooms. But I have a big problem with the name calling (“transphobe”), bullying, and shaming in some attempt to push an agenda where the upside is only fewer hurt feelings.
If I then go to my peers and say, "heads up, the phrase 'pregnant women' might not include everyone who is pregnant", and they say, "oh, that makes sense, let me adjust my own language!", I think that's probably not shaming or bullying either.
If, over time, those conversations spread and we see a general public movement to use "pregnant person", this again seems like good intentions without any particular agenda besides, "oh, of course. If we recognize trans men, then we should probably make sure we say pregnant people".
I don't think changing the language is bullying, shaming, or pushing an agenda - it's people making changes that are logically consistent with how they experience the world. Again: if trans men exist, then pregnancy must occur in men and women.
The reason you hear people react strongly is because they believe they have a simple logic, and people come in and say, "I deny that trans men exist, or I deny trans men are men."
That's a pretty strong thing to say and a pretty strong thing to hear.
Are you really just talking about yourself? You don't also expect everyone else to use the same language? You don't want every corporate website, school newsletter, teacher's curriculum, every Tweet from a public person, random Reddit comments, etc to also use your preferred language?
Because that's what it's meant IRL.
I've heard 100 people on Reddit/Twitter saying "they just want to be left alone to do what they want" and "why do you care what people do with their own private lives (or in their bedroom)?". Then they spend all of their time gatekeeping and purity-testing the language and actions of every person they come into contact with.
I'd encourage others to use that language and explain my reasoning (which is what I did above.) If they don't, I'm bummed out but I move on. I may think more negatively of that person in the future.
That's all. In real life and in internet life.
I get it. You’re super hip.
But words are indeed meaningful and you don’t get to choose how I use them or what they mean to me. I have a wife, not a “partner”. She is a woman, not a “birthing person”.
Make up whatever new words of definitions you wish. Hell, create a new language if you want. But stop trying to make everyone else conform to your vocabulary that primarily exists to virtue signal and for attention seeking.
I don't believe I've ever said you couldn't choose the words you prefer to use for yourself. The most I'd say is, "here is the reasoning for why this might make some people feel excluded" and let you make your own choices.
You've responded quite aggressively to me, attacking positions I don't hold while also insulting me. (Ironically calling me super hip, virtue signaling, and attention seeking.)
I'm non-binary, it has nothing to do with any of the reasons you mentioned, it's just the language I use with my community, and explaining to others calmly and rationally why it helps some people feel included.
I think maybe you and others have the wrong idea. Life isn’t like elementary school sports. You won’t always be included, there are no participation trophies, other people don’t care about you or your feelings.
Fulfillment in life is about what you can bring to the world, not the other way around.
Additionally, the only reason this is a talking point is the absence of any real struggles or oppression, so bored people invented some contrived, imagined grievances.
Watch how quickly this whole conversation stops once the western world faces some existential threat from a country like China.
It's not just "bored people", and I suggest you read up on their struggles.
I'm not against gender neutral spaces. There's often no need to segregate by gender, and it makes no sense to do so if there is no need. What I don't understand is why you feel excluded.
I don't feel an affinity to a gender either, but I understand that bathrooms labelled "mens" are generally intended to apply to people with penises, and bathrooms labelled "womens" a generally intended to apply to people with vaginas. That has nothing to do with any feelings I might or might not have about gender, and it's literally just a room. Why does it matter which one I/you use?
It's a automatic response I don't have much control over, but I've adapted to fairly well. Brains are wired to find different stimuli impacting or not.
I've wondered if I am high functioning autistic at times, for a number of reasons unrelated to gender. Some of the "fight or flight" responses to, eg, the sounds of someone eating are very similar to the fight or flight response I have in a men's room.
Ultimately, it's fairly textbook dysphoria and I've built up a lot of strategies so it's not super impactful day to day. But when I don't have to expend any of the energy employing those strategies, it's better.
> I don't think changing the language is bullying, shaming, or pushing an agenda
It doesn't have to be but it is. Look at the three-year long hate mob attacking Maya Forstater and JK Rowling because they objected to losing sex-based language. They both receive many credible death threats. That's bullying to push an agenda.
Even when this is sugar coated it's a poison pill. Accepting that males could be "trans women" immediately requires you to accept that they should use the women's washroom despite being the wrong sex and that sex being the large dangerous one. (Females in male spaces isn't a safety issue so I'm ignoring it for now.)
> people making changes that are logically consistent with how they experience the world. Again: if trans men exist, then pregnancy must occur in men and women.
Occam's razor would suggest that if a person is pregnant they probably aren't a man. Being that man basically means "the people who don't get pregnant". That is the difference between sexes.
> The reason you hear people react strongly is because they believe they have a simple logic, and people come in and say, "I deny that trans men exist, or I deny trans men are men." That's a pretty strong thing to say and a pretty strong thing to hear.
You say that as if your trans man friend will vanish in a puff of logic. Nobody is denying that they exist or threatening to make it happen and it's emotional blackmail to exaggerate like that.
There's a middle ground we could shoot for. These people would probably agree your TM friend was Masc (/Femme), because as a newly created word it doesn't have an existing meaning and isn't used to gate access to single-sex spaces like prisons.
You use words like "comfort", "support", "included" and say that you feel uncomfortable entering "gendered" spaces.
I submit that women are not supported, not included, are uncomfortable, and actually are unsafe when men enter women's spaces.
To be clear: I don't think that just means using inclusive language, you may need to specify more to help people understand that language if it isn't in common use, or whatever. I don't think there is a simple one-size-fits-all solution, but I think just assuming gendered language is good enough is clearly sub-optimal, and best terms that clarify the specific group in question are the best starting point.
Most of the comments here never established what's actually being discussed.
Personally I think a big source of contention is that a lot of people don't accept exceptions to words.
My brother was mentally ill his whole life; she is trans now. I showed her this comment and we both agreed.
It’s a good way to put it. We can try and do both, but clearly has to come before feelings.
It's easily witnessed in their forums, for example the 'MtF' subreddit, there are countless posts of men asking if it's normal to be sexually aroused while cross-dressing, fetishising their own breasts, talking about their longing to be a 'hot woman', and so on.
If someone who's pregnant wants me to address them as "sir" or "them", that's exactly what I'll do, even if the author of TFA may be offended.
That only really makes sense on an individual basis. The OP article (which I can't read due to a paywall), appears to be talking about pregnancy literature, and your solution can't really apply to literature. If you have group of 1000 people, where 999 want to be called "pregnant women" and 1 who wants to be called a "person experiencing pregnancy," what term to you use in your literature to refer to the group?
Anyway, you're on the right track but the article was actually far worse than your example. There was a chart showing "recommended gender-neutral language" for pregnancy literature which had some real head-scratchers on it. For example, instead of "penis" you should say "erect erogenous zone." That's almost bad enough, as if I had encountered it in the wild it would take me a moment to figure out what they are talking about (erect penis? erect nipples?).
But it gets better! Guess what they recommended you replace "vagina" with? Also "erect erogenous zone"! (wtf?!) Now beyond the fact that its is anatomically wrong, I can't even know if they're talking about male or female genitalia. If I am on a medical website reading something about changes to my "erect erogenous zone", does it apply to me? Heck if I know!
That's part of what the article covered and what I was responding to in my above comment. This goes way, way beyond the relatively harmless change of "mother" -> "birthing person."
Lots of women don’t want to be called menstrators, a tiny number of transmen do. To whom should we defer?
You can. This is feelings all the way down. Specifically whose feelings are going to be accommodated.
When men are allowed into women's spaces - washrooms, rape shelters, and prisons - women and children die.
We have single-sex spaces for a lot of very good reasons.
English has a right to a word that means, "those who can get pregnant". Moreover, that word is women. You seem to want a new word that means, "i want people to treat me the way society treats women/men". This is not a problem with the language, you might argue that its a problem with society, but consider exactly what it is that you're asking for.
Do you really have a right to be treated differently from other people? Its pretty easy to argue that men and women should be treated more equitably, but theres also a fair amount of structure in place to treat men and women differently to further that aim. Do you really think you have a right to opt into the perceived benefits of this attempt?
It sounds like you really value the social divisions between men and women.
> English has a right to a word that means, "those who can get pregnant". Moreover, that word is women.
Yes, but language has to evolve with new information. We discovered and are now socially recognizing the existence of a different kind of human. We now have XX women, XY women, XX men, and XY men. So now XX women, XX men (and in the future potentially XY women) can get pregnant so there’s a desire to adapt to this new information and genericise the term.
> Do you really think you have a right to opt into the perceived benefits of this attempt?
If that’s how it worked that would be a good point but it isn’t. Trans folks didn’t choose to be trans. A trans woman is and always has been a woman and can’t just opt in to being a man. If you’ve ever talked to one you would know most of them try and fail because it destroys their mental health.
And this should be intuitively obvious because if a gay trans woman could just choose to be a straight man they probably would without hesitation. No hormones, expensive surgeries, no extreme difficulty dating, being the political punching bag de jour, don’t have to worry about being hatecrimed or discriminated against.
> It sounds like you really value the social divisions between men and women.
No, in fact it’s the opposite. Trans people are some of the biggest proponents of abolishing gender roles and pointlessly gendered stuff. Trans people are all about breaking down those social divisions.
Wanting to be seen and treated as the gender you are is not the same thing as reinforcing or valuing the divisions between genders. Again, it really comes down to that not being able to choose thing. If people could choose and trans men were really just masculine women then you would have a point.
This also should be intuitive because there are feminine trans men and masculine trans women. If they could choose and it was based on presentation wouldn’t it have been a heck of a lot easier for them to not be trans?
It certainly seems to me, that rather than be a more effeminate male, instead they want to be in the gender roles and be the “role” of a woman (or vice versa).
Aside: Since in real life people use sex and gender interchangeably I’m gonna do that too and just refer to chromosomes directly when needed.
> I don’t get just accepting the sex you’re born as.
When you actually survey trans people they do try really really hard to be the sex that usually goes with their chromosomes. But empirically it doesn’t work out. The distress caused by trying drives a worryingly high percentage of them to attempt suicide.
I know you didn’t mean it this way but what you said was right. Trans people need to accept the sex they were born as and transition if they want to live happier healthier lives. People in the lgbt community call this acceptance “coming out to yourself” or “your egg cracking.”
> It certainly seems to me, that rather than be a more effeminate male…
Okay so I think you’ve almost got it but have some wires crossed. So this is a bit simplistic but for the purposes of this lets classify people as either masculine or feminine and men or women.
You’re probably used to masculine women being called “tomboys” or “butches.” You can do the opposite too with “tomgirls” and “femboys.” These are expressions of gender. You can kind of think of them as aesthetics but more central and important to the individual. Like for example most men would typically feel not themselves or like they were wearing a costume if they dressed feminine.
Okay so gender roles! Men take out the trash, women do the cleaning, men are the breadwinners, women are the caregivers, boys like rockets, girls like dolls, yada yada. These are mostly, but not entirely, cultural. Lgbt folks are pretty darn anti gender roles in general because they stop making sense in same sex couples and trans people prior to transitioning feel put in a box, and not only that but the wrong box which triggers their dysphoria.
So trying to read between the lines here I think again you’re right. Trans women aren’t feminine men, and would like to be treated just like any other women.
But the difference is that this treatment is totally separate from the individual’s gender expression or the roles they wish to take on. Trans women can be feminine, masculine, both, or neither and they can take on traditional gender roles or completely ignore them.
I couldn't disagree more, and this is precisely what i am arguing. The argument that the biological and social categories of men and women are different is fundamentally predicated on the existence of the social category, otherwise known as gender. This is regressive, and we should absolutely not accomodate it.
It's growing up being told that men play with trucks and women play with dolls, and instead of casting this obvious bullshit aside, you acquiesce and now argue that men who play with dolls are women, and that's ok.
This is an extremely misguided attempt at constructing justice fron the premises of religious fundamentalism.
Does someone stop being a woman if they have a hysterectomy or go through menopause? If someone is born infertile, can they never be a woman?
Calling genuine questions about your statement 'bad faith' or a 'stupid argument' is a bad look when you communicated incorrectly. I am here out of curiosity and to learn, not to foster any agenda.
Wrt bad faith, are you really curious about how language works? Or are you just looking for short arguments with long counterarguments. Aka technical knockouts on twitter. It seems like making spurious analogies to mathematical language, or just generally arguing that english words are complicated intersections of unions of properties, and therefore no argument about what words mean can ever be valid, are just intrinsically arguments made in bad faith, and with no regard to what these additional assumptions would do to your own arguments.
I didn't realize I had to say this so explicitly. The way you wrote your comment indicated that the definition of 'woman' is someone who can get pregnant. If this is not what you intended to communicate, then your wording is at fault.
I responded by questioning the argument. I asked, based on what you wrote, what that meant to you as far as 'biological' women who are not able to get pregnant. There was no trap of logic, no pedantry, no counterargument. I asked questions about what you meant. And yes, I am genuinely curious how someone who argues that women=fertile person would categorize my friend who had her reproductive organs removed as a child.
The "spurious analogy to mathematical language" was an attempt to efficiently illustrate the meaning of your own words as written based on an understanding I assumed you would have.
Further, it genuinely reads to me that you're claiming no argument can ever be valid unless you cannot be questioned when saying "the English word for 'roasted bird' is 'chicken.'"
You need to read my comment closer.
Why does that only apply to trans people and how they want to be addressed? What about cis-women that want to be addressed as women, but now the medical profession is refusing to grant them that basic request for dignity?
I also don't just mean accomodation in terms of words: if trans men have any needs different to cis women, then medical literature on pregancy must include this when in circumstances where it's appropriate.
Serious question: do you suppose that that trans men have different needs than cis women (in a medical sense) with regard to pregnancy?
That said, if they've transitioned they (I think) need to stop taking testosterone, which points out that hormone stuff could perhaps be different. There's also the social aspect of a man attending/needing typically women only support.