I cannot believe that we are having conversations where “people with a cervix” is being preferentially used by some in place of the word women. What possible context (on CNN) could have necessitated its use as a qualifier for a segment of the population, which could not have been equally served by the word “female”, for example? And is the person using this term likely an ally of the same people who so vigorously objected to JKR’s use of “people who menstruate”?
I’ve asked this before and didn’t get a response, so I’ll try again: What is served by removing the “trans” prefix from one group of people and then adding the “cis” prefix to another? Please explain to me what specific human right goals are accomplished by this game of semantics. And is the above linked article the unavoidable result of doing so? Are we now forced to differentiate between the population of “women” as those with a cervix and those without?
Transmen are curiously absent from the mainstream discussions regarding transgender individuals. A few years back, I had employees contact me asking what our company’s policies were regarding transgender workers and bathrooms but most of that discussion revolved around transwomen in the women’s room. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone voice concerns about transmen in men’s rooms in any context and there’s no concern regarding transmen in sports. Transmen appear to be largely invisible.
Is it really so surprising? You don’t hear about transmen athletes because they don’t win against cismen. Although I could think of some sports where having a smaller frame would be an advantage - jockeys, for instance.
You don’t hear about untransitioned transmen in bathrooms because they’d use the stalls, so who would know? Unlike the epidemic of transwomen waving their penises around in women’s bathrooms, apparently.
I do hear about transmen, but mostly in the context of entertainment personalities.
You are right. I don’t hear about transmen bragging about their “man boobs” or “man pussies”. The earlier conversation we had here about “chest cancer” suggests that transmen want to get as far removed from their femaleness as they can get.
I think it’s because the female body is full of uncomfortable realities. The biological realities of maleness are treated as “normal” and thus beneficial. The reality of female body is treated as “messy” and laden with “issues”. We never hear the term “male problems” when it comes to men’s health. But everyone has heard of “female problems”. I have not had a single conversation about my breast cancer with my father because “female problems”. My mother laughs at his discomfort, but it’s misogynistic bullshit. It’s amazing how the female form can be put up on a pedestal while simultaneously derided as disgusting and taboo.
The unmodified female form is hard to conceal . Chest binders can be very painful, so getting the girls surgically removed becomes practical after a while. Menses is very inconvenient, so you’ve got an incentive to shut that thing down with blockers or surgery. Beards and mustaches require testosterone. Ample muscles requires testosterone. A deeper voice requires testosterone. If you don’t go all in on HRT as a transman, you’ll likely look like a butch lesbian. Lesbophobia is not uncommon among transmen (a lot of detrans women talk about this experience in their narratives).
Meanwhile, what does estrogen get you? Boobs and a higher pitched voice. Boobs are relatively easy to simulate. Being a flat-chested woman is not a big deal. Voice training can help one to sound more feminine, and of course not all ciswomen have high pitched voices. I love estrogen, don’t get me wrong. I love how well my brain functions when my blood stream is full of it. But I can totally see how a person who is OK with their male body would not feel compelled to take it. You’ve got to be real committed to “womanness” if you’re prepared to take on the reduced libido, propensity towards overweightedness, cellulite and stretch marks, and elevated cancer risks that come from estrogen. I’m sure there are other benefits to it (softer skin, thicker hair, etc.) But are they worth the trade-offs to the average transwomen over the long haul? I don’t know.
I suppose this is why I put such emphasis on the biological reality of gender/sex. Women’s bodies are a huge part of our identity. All of the close friendships I’ve had with women have involved us trading stories about what our bodies are doing or going through. “Girl, I’m bleeding like a stuck pig right now.” “Girl, I’m having a personal summer right now.” “Girl, you know what I do when I’m feeling not-so-fresh?” “Girl, I must be about to start my period because I was about to kill that man.” “Girl, you should get the magic bra!” Many women have memories of celebrating their first blood and entry into “womanhood” with friends and family. So hearing lectures about how biology isn’t important to gender makes me think I’m listening to an idea crafted by men. I can’t imagine any thoughtful, empathetic, intelligent woman saying “fuck biology!” But I can easily imagine men saying this. Not because they are mean or hateful, but because they are clueless. Cluelessness isn’t the worst thing in the world and everyone (including me) has blindspots. But clueless people should not be dictating gender norms and conventions. They most definitely should not be lecturing women on what it means to be a woman.
Big difference between that and low-key calling someone a hypocrite, actually.
Well, your straw Twitter TRAs, at any rate…
I’m just letting a poster know they might as well not waste their keystrokes typing posts I’m just going to skip over without reading - just like they agreed at the time would be “fine” by them.
It makes less than 1% of the population feel better about themselves. That’s always going to be the answer.
I find “biological female” and “biological male” problematic for the same reason. I can think of no instances in the English language where the marked category is assigned to the dominant group while the minority group defaults to the unmarked category. It would be like if black people were demanding they get called “people” while everyone else gets assigned a racial adjective. Black folks could demand something like this till we are blue in the face, but it would be considered a very unrealistic and thus stupid demand.
Will transfolks get “female” and “male” while the rest of us get “biological”? Of course not. Either we will both get adjectives or the dominant group will remain unmarked. It wouldn’t make any sense any other way. And it wouldn’t even make anyone feel good about themselves. Being just “female” will take on the same connotation as “transwoman”.
“Biological X” probably has some currency in academia, but I just can’t see it being a thing anywhere else.
There are concerns about transmen using men’s spaces, but you are right these concerns are rarely talked about. I suspect they aren’t discussed because they affirm the taboo idea that transmen cannot identify out of the hazards that come with a female body. In addition to genderqueer accommodation, this is another gaping hole that the gender affirmation crowd conveniently ignore.
Although a female-to-male trans person (trans man) might identify themselves as a man… the reality for many is that surgery and hormones are expensive, passing is out of reach, and men’s services are not safe for a trans man who may not pass. If an FtM has not been approved for testosterone, or had a mastecto- my, (and even if he has…) then he is at risk for physical, verbal, and sexual assault in men’s dorms/ bath- rooms/ and showers. There have been incidents of gang rape toward FtM’s in men’s shelters. Some FtM’s may choose to face these risks in a shelter that validates their identity… but they should not have to.
I’m as guilty as anyone else in assuming that transmen have a preference towards using men’s spaces, but that’s probably not a safe assumption. If the threat of male violence drives transmen and transwomen out of men’s spaces—surely its only logical for women to want single-sex spaces? Moving us closer to mixed-sex spaces increases the likelihood we will be preyed upon. We know very well what is wanting to come through those doors, and the honor system is not an adequate safeguard to keep them out.
It’s not a thing in my world. Everytime I find myself typing biological female, the veterinarian in me says “What the fuck is wrong with you? You would never use that for a cow, so quit treating humans as if they aren’t just another mammalian species.”
I see it more as an expression of the typical male behaviors of competition, domination, and aggression. Women generally are more about cooperation, consensus building, and fitting in. Men typically are more about power grabbing and making people do things their way compared to women. I see many of the transwomen’s behaviors discussed here as typically male. It’s seems very much a male behavior to expect that a male-looking person can go into a traditionally female space or that a person with male biology can compete unrestricted in a traditionally female sport. Those seem very much behaviors which are not about cooperation and fitting in. On the other hand, transmen exhibit many of the traditionally female behaviors, which means they are more about trying to fit in rather than demand things change to suit them.
So far as I can tell the purpose is to divorce the categories of men and women, male and female from their roots in biology. So that trans people can say they’re ‘real men/women’, basically.
You’re not “forced” to do anything. Especially not to divvy up the population of women.
But when someone else does choose to use the term “people with a cervix” because they care about inclusivity of transmen, what’s being asked is not to commit the asshole move of “correcting” them with “only women have a cervix”.
One recent example. Though I feel like there are others and I don’t want to wade through 4K posts to find them.
Though, in fairness, I was asking for formal/clinical use. In equal fairness, “cis” has become used in much less formal instances to describe non-trans people.
How is it okay to say “people with a cervix” when talking about (I assume) biologically identifiable women, but not okay to say “people who menstruate”? I’m guessing context matters. And if context matters, the context in which the subject of a cervix comes up, saying “women” should be contextually acceptable, not exclusionary. Therefore, a trans-man who is not completely ignorant of his own anatomy should understand that the conversation very likely applies to him on some particular or important level.
As for me, there would never be a reason to point out the biologically obvious, particularly not with the intention to hurt someone through callous use of language in that way. Especially when it has nothing to do with me.
Yes, I can see this playing a part. But I do think internalized misogyny is an important factor. Men aren’t shamed for their bodies like women are. Transmen probably have internalized a lot of body shame that has nothing to do with gender dysphoria. It is the same shame that a lot of ciswomen have.
“Dad bod” just came to mind. Mothers are shamed for carrying extra fat post-pregnancy and "“giving up” on themselves. Fathers are praised for getting a little pudgy post-pregnancy and are told they are “sexy”. Transmen will see their big hips and big asses as things to fix through testosterone and exercise and covering-up. So they aren’t going to flaunt these things because why would you flaunt shameful, embarrassing things?
We also have to remember that transmen and transwomen have different folks they are looking for affirmation from. There are a lot of ciswomen who love them some gender non-conforming males and are quick to provide instant validation no matter how unusual the presentation. Women aren’t likely to be repulsed by a skinny, flat-chested bearded male in a skirt with hairy legs. At the very least, women aren’t likely to be cruel or mean. But men tend not to be as diplomatic. They may not be mean or cruel, but they aren’t going to gush and say stuff like “You go, boy” if you don’t actually look like a boy.
It was Rowling who objected to ‘people who menstruate’. She doesn’t like being referred to by a body part or biological function, particularly ones that women have been discriminated against for. It’s trans allies who are insisting on this language.
Right. She used it in a way to identify what has traditionally been seen as segment of the population called “women”. I’m not saying she used in a way that she preferred to identify women as a sex.
Did I misunderstand when Mr.Dibble approves of the use of “people with a cervix” as an inclusive, more positive way?
There is a false dichotomy that I sense you may or may not be picking up on. The pro-inclusivity side keeps framing the choices as binary: either we say “women need cervical screening” or we say “individuals with cervixes need cervical screening”.
They refuse to see that there is an excluded middle. Here is one option that not even the most ornery of gender critical feminists would take issue with:
“People born female need cervical screening…”
The question is why do we never see this phrasing? There seems to be a deliberate campaign to replace the words “woman” and “female” with sex-neutral terms that effectively turns women’s health messaging into All Lives Matter drivel. It really does seem like it’s become taboo to say females includes women and transmen, and that they both have medical needs that men and transwomen, as a rule, never have.
I think you did misunderstand. The idea is to remove all mention of biological sex, which they do by using ‘people who menstruate’ when talking about eg period poverty, and ‘people with a cervix’ when talking about cervical cancer screening. Basically trying to find some other way to refer to the people concerned so they can avoid using ‘women’ or ‘female’ at all. The same ought also to apply to men’s health issues, but is rarely seen in the wild. Feel free to speculate as to why…
Which is why I’m adamant that we not turn “female” into a meaningless thing. There are so many ways to effectively communicate with “female” that are both inclusive and non-objectifying.
“People with a female anatomy”
“People with a female reproductive system”
“People assigned female at birth”
When it comes to sex education, what are kids going to be taught? The anatomy of “people with cervixes” and the anatomy of “people with testes”? Or are they going to be taught male and female anatomy?