People who menstruate

Starblaze,your comment is a wonderful response and how I wish everyone would respond.I understand what the OP is saying but,until a very close family member or friend is Transgender then you have no idea what they go through.You can legally and physically pass as a Male,but still have periods.They do usually stop after taking hormones for a prolonged time.For people "transitioning" it makes a difficult time even harder.

Gay men experience prejudice and inequality as do black men, men who do not present in a typically masculine way experience bullying and harassment, none of this makes them women.

Purplestar I have to be completely honest, I hadn't thought of it from a trans male perspective but that just makes an even better point doesn't it

The issue is about transmen that's the whole point. It is nothing to do with transwomen. Transmen mostly get overlooked in the debate. I cant imagine why.

if you’ve decided not to be female

Someone may decide that but it is impossible to stop being female (or male).

TRAs are insisting that anyone who says they are a woman, is one, and should be treated legally as a woman.

This has already caused assaults to women and girls in hospital wards and prisons when males' claims to be female were accepted as fact by organisations which should know better.

The "we're all people" argument is disingenuous nonsense. We know we're all people. But some of us are femail people, otherwise known as women and some of us are male people, otherwise known as men. And the moot point here is that males physically cannot menstruate because they do not have the physiology to enable them to do so*, ipso facto, they are not women. Femails, on the otherhand, do have the physiology to menstruate, even though there will be times in their lives when they do not bleed. Ipso facto, they are women.

The wording 'people who menstruate' is meant to include transmen (and non-binary people) but it is helping to remove the category of woman, as a female human being.

That is also an aim of many transwomen and activists.

FarNorth

The wording 'people who menstruate' is meant to include transmen (and non-binary people) but it is helping to remove the category of woman, as a female human being.

That is also an aim of many transwomen and activists.

Spot on FarNorth. It beggars belief that this has been allowed to take hold in society in the way that it has.

It beggars belief that this has been allowed to take hold in society in the way that it has.

Even more shocking is that it's a movement that's being supported by women who claim to be feminist.

I understand that people are upset

I don't quite understand the why

I guess I just feel it would be better to accept trans people and especially transwomen into the womanly fold (as women) and just adjust our perceptions of what constitutes a woman because they aren't going to go away and society is going to carry on becoming more accepting whether people like it or not.

I’ve not shopped at M and S for nearly a year now since they opened their changing rooms to self id- ing women.

I didn't know that, suziewoozie.
I must admit to not shopping there because I couldn't find anything I liked last time (hence didn't use the changing rooms).
They do have doors with bolts as far as I remember, not just curtains, but even so I would be hesitant to use them.

So how do we define people who do not menstruate?

In what way would it be better for women?

Starblaze, I think most people are prepared to live and let live if people want to transition, but as has been pointed out, it’s the trans activists who push and bully for societal and legal change.

But I’m afraid I can’t ‘adjust . . . perception of what constitutes a woman’ because a woman is a woman and no fluffing round the edges can ever erase or change innate biology and people can’t be expected, and certainly not forced, to believe it can.

I don't quite understand the why

I'll try to explain it to you Starblaze. Removing the word woman or women from products that are predominantly used by people with the XX chromosome, is misogyny and, as others have already explained, is another step in removing the category of women as a human being. You have no problem with san pro being advertised as "For people who menstruate"? Do you imagine that their will be signs advertising Durex for "people who ejaculate"?

It's precisely because women have fought for their identity, to be seen and heard as independent beings, that we are so alarmed at being air brushed out of society now and all because the word woman presents distressing boundaries to the identity of male people.

For someone who self identifies as a feminist, I'm surprised that you don't know this.

I guess I just feel it would be better to accept trans people and especially transwomen into the womanly fold (as women)
Starblaze No-one on here has said they don’t accept trans people. I think most people on GN are tolerant people. I’m sure that most trans people struggle with their decision to transition and deserve support throughout the process.
What isn’t acceptable is the pretence that people with beards and penises are women, and the bullying that seems to accompany their demands for ‘rights‘. Can you explain why their rights should take precedence over those of cis women?

It is interesting that the aggression in the Trans debate seems to come from males transitioning to women not the other way round. Isn't it just another example of men, brought up with all the privilege that being males involves, telling women what they should think and do. It's just another example of men trying to dominate women. As feminists we should resist this. No person raised as a man in a male dominated society where women have to constantly adjust their behaviour to keep safe, to achieve, to earn, knows what it is like to be a woman . You have to live it to be it.

janeainsworth ?

The point is that there are people who do not choose to call themselves women but who menstruate. Now are some insisting that they have to be called women? Isn' t that a bit mysogynistic? They are after all what some would insist are women, but they choose to identify in another way. There are young people now who identify as 'they' rather than 'he' or 'she'. Are they not permitted a choice?

I'm just a feminist who is not trans exclusionary.

And that's all she had to say about that.

Never any answers ever.
They can be called anything they like trisher, and presumably the same courtesy is offered to women.

As I understand it there are an infinitesimal amount of transmen, who are still female anatomically because they haven't fully transitioned and would therefore still menstruate.

What I find harder to understand, and I again, I imagine these people are also a small minority among the transwomen population per se, are those, who having transitioned from male, who haven't and never will menstruate but insist nevertheless on some pretence they do and furthermore that they should be not be precluded from procedures such as cervical smears, even though the person carrying that out probably won't be able to locate a cervix. I can't help feeling that in some instances there are those who fetishize aspects of womanhood . There may be those on this thread who will have read about Jessica Yaniv in Canada, formerly Jonathan, who brought spurious legal cases against various beauticians in Canada because they refused to carry out Brazilian waxes on their person due to the fact that anatomically this individual was still a male, insomuch as a penis and testicles were still attached. This person was also prone to hanging around women's toilets specifically to engage young pre pubescent girls in discussions about their periods and what sanitary wear they would recommend for "her" own heavy periods. I'm not sure why anyone who doesn't have periods would want them, personally I never enjoyed mine, but there you go that's gender appropriation for you . Although I have yet to hear any transwomen assert that they want to experience menopausal symptoms in all their glory from sleepless nights, hot flushes, palpitations etc etc.

Interesting thought, Magsymoo

I don't see that anyone on here is being 'trans exclusionary' - whatever that may mean. But being Trans means just that - Trans. It doesn't make you a woman. And a Trans person has as much right to respect and equality as any woman. But it still doesn't make them a woman.

And a Trans person has as much right to respect and equality as any person. But it still doesn't make them a woman

There was no need to put anything on the packaging.....we all know what sanitary towels are for, so it’s done to sell and appeal to as wide a market as it possibly can.
Off topic, but did you know that both here and in the US (maybe other countries too) there are groups ( men and women) who dress as babies and wear nappies and suck on dummies, so maybe nappy producers will soon be including that on the packaging.It’s a mad world.