All: If you were put in charge of deciding policies surrounding sex/gender identity in your state/province/country/whatever, what would you implement?

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[–]GenderbenderShe/her/hers 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (8 children)

That is not narcissism. Look up NPD. Most people who are capable of pregnancy are women. If you want to be called a woman, fine. If you don't want to be called a woman, fine. I will respect whatever gender you identify as.

[–]Spikygrasspod 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

You're framing it as calling people whatever they want to be called. But this entails a redefinition of 'woman' away from 'female person' to 'someone who wants to be called a woman'. The ability to name and define ourselves affects all women, so you can't please everyone by just using the words they prefer. It isn't respectful to go along with men's attempts to redefine womanhood as a personal identity and to poach woman centric language for themselves.

[–]GenderbenderShe/her/hers 1 insightful - 3 fun1 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 3 fun -  (6 children)

It isn't respectful to go along with men's attempts to redefine womanhood as a personal identity and to poach woman centric language for themselves.

In this case, it is indeed men (trans men) attempting to re-define womanhood. I have no issues with it. Cis women are still welcome to call themselves women and tie their own pregnancies to being female.

[–]Spikygrasspod 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Yes, yes, you can misconstrue what I meant by using your redefinitions of my words. Very helpful.

We may be welcome to call ourselves "women" but you and others are working on changing the definition of woman. It's not about making certain sounds or syllables with our mouths, you know. It's about shared meaning, and you and others are attempting to take words that are already in use, and redefining them so they lose that original shared meaning and, if you are successful, have a new meaning, while the old meaning becomes more difficult to express. It reminds me of when Mary Daly said she defined lesbian as women-identified feminists, and the people previously known as lesbians were mere homosexual women. It's linguistic poaching. Besides, if "women" did mean people with a feminine gender identity, I would not count this term as applying to myself. So again, you cannot respect everyone by just calling them whatever they want. If you're part of the attempts to poach sex based language from women/female people, in order that men/male people can use said language as fuel for their personal identities, you are not respecting women/female people.

[–]GenderbenderShe/her/hers 1 insightful - 4 fun1 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 4 fun -  (4 children)

Yes, yes, you can misconstrue what I meant by using your redefinitions of my words. Very helpful.

I did not misconstrue what you meant. You said it is men who are attempting to redefine womanhood, and I affirmed that. Unless by "men" you meant trans women. In this case the conversation was about trans men, not trans women. Trans women and those AMAB are not the ones saying pregnancy and periods should not be tied to womanhood, unless they are sticking up for their trans brothers. It's mainly those who are AFAB but not women requesting these terms be used. Trans people AFAB are also pushing for laws allowing them to use men's restrooms and changing rooms. They are a part of the trans rights movement as much as trans people AMAB. GCs frequently complain trans men are invisible in the trans movement, yet you didn't take notice that the conversation was about trans men.

[–]Spikygrasspod 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, when I say men I mean all and only male people. And yes, I think male people have been at the front of the movement to redefine womanhood to include themselves for decades, and that non female people have joined in, in smaller numbers at first and in greater numbers more recently. That isn't what I want to talk about, though.

The conversation I want to have is about you calling people whatever they want to be called, as you say you do, and whether that's respectful and harmless. I want you to address the charge of linguistic poaching that I made in the last two comments. I want to know if you can actually see the conflict and the harm in taking and redefining language other people use to define themselves.

Was it good, or harmless, for Mary Daly to redefine "lesbian" to mean "women-identified feminists" while downgrading actual lesbians to mere "gay women"? What if straight feminists took all those words (lesbian, gay, homosexual) to refer to themselves, too, and said the people previously known as lesbians were a mere subcategory of feminists, and as a result the people previously known as lesbians had to scrape for new terminology to organise events and spaces for themselves (which they would still need because their reality hadn't changed)? Or suppose I see a subculture that I like, but I'm not part of it. Would it be okay for me and a lot of others who feel the same way to redefine their language to include and refer to myself, even if that erodes the meanings of the language over time?

What I'm asking is do you understand the concept I'm trying to illustrate with linguistic poaching, and do you see how it could be harmful? Can you understand why I don't take it as a respectful gesture when you write that you'll call me "woman" if that's what I want, while at the same time you're engaged in the project of stripping the old meaning (female person) from the word "woman" and giving it a new meaning (person with a feminine gender identity) that does not apply to me and is of no use to me?