J.K. Rowling’s post on trans-identity and modern misogyny

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s like being born a female and liking pink and expressing femininity is something bad. Like it needs to be purged and erased. Don’t do his to me. Don’t do this to the billions of women who think this way around the world. Women are still inunde el p,aging fields here. Heck we still don’t even have paid maternity leave in the freaking United States! Unlike some other countries. We get no propriety in society at all.

I accept you, trans or whatever you are. I love you. I admire you. I see you. But you must show the same regard to me. And also listen to the points here about how totally unfair it is to compete in our space, when we have struggle for so long to carve out our space, and gain some sense of traction in society.

How can you think trans women DON’T see and feel those same struggles as we do? Do you think they didn’t face struggles of their own growing up in an body they felt wasn’t theirs? That they didn’t face discrimination for who they are? Amazing you think YOUR womanhood is threatened or discounted by theirs.

Okay explain to me then why they don't want cis-women playing trans roles, you can't have it both ways, the struggle is not the same. And how anyone can support Jenner getting Woman of the Year, who is still a republican and before transitioning had never come out and supported LGBTQ issues is beyond me. She should have refused the award and I quote in acceptance speech, "“The hardest part about being a woman is figuring out what to wear.” F$$$ Y$$

Ugh, that just trivializes women. Jenner became a misogynist caricature of what men think women are. No, wearing heels and makeup and getting a boob job won't make you a woman. It is offensive.

Plenty of women choose to express themselves in a “feminine” way by wearing heels, wearing makeup, and getting boob jobs.

The fact that you are focusing on how Caitlin is expressing herself - and not millions of other women who do the exact same thing - says more about you than it does about her. You are singling her out in a bigoted way.

Nope. And in a related point, drag queens are deeply misogynistic - and frequently racist - depictions of womanhood.

OK, disgusting TERF.

Please take your deep-seeded mommy issues to a shrink.

Yes Please explain why you think I have “deep-seeded mommy issues”.

Res ipsa loquitur. Anyone as fixated on calling women “disgusting” or “old” or “fake feminists” or “honey” seems to have a lot of rage directed at either self or the source of self (mother). Seek help.

[Anonymous]

NP. It really bothers me how posters here are using language that has been traditionally demeaning to women to make their points.

I feel like I am trying to learn. I don't understand all of this, and I am trying to learn. I know I have a lot to learn. But when I see demeaning, condescending language like "honey" or age-related insults, it's hard to credit the speakers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Who is being "systemically oppressed due to their menstruation" in the US in 2020?

You do not know enough about women's issues to be telling me that I don't know what I'm talking about.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2018/08/14/lack-feminine-hygiene-products-keeps-girls-out-school/948313002/

https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/live/news/1545-the-state-of-period-poverty-in-the-us

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2019/02/jail-california-tampons-menstruation-paula-canny-sanitary-pads/

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/111219-sj-periodequity.pdf

https://time.com/3989966/america-menstrual-crisis/

Great links, and in addition, diseases like PCOS and endometriosis are woefully under researched. I have PCOS and the only solution I’ve ever been given is “Take birth control until you want kids, then hope your pregnancy cures PCOS.” No cure for people who never want kids. Other women are given diabetes medicine as if it’s the same thing, even though a significant % of PCOS Sufferers like myself have no insulin resistance.

One positive of being forced to abandon the word women — if periods are seen as something for males maybe some research money will actually flow our way!

Menstruation is used to oppress women in countries all over the world along with genital mutilation! although, I don't really think this was what Rowling was getting at, but I think being pro-women does not mean anti-trans and support what she was trying to say!

I'm sure all "people who menstruate" and "people at risk of genital mutilation" (including many here in the US!) would all benefit from inclusive advocacy.

Listen, I'm sure you're going to be particularly displeased by this response but I believe that this specific advocacy is actually in trans women's best interest. Trans women have SPECIFIC things that need to be advocated for. For example, trans women need to be clear with their doctors about their history because they have prostates and trans women are at a high risk of prostate cancer going undiagnosed if they do not communicate clearly their medical history.

Trans men can present as pregnant or skip ovarian and cervical cancer screenings for the same reason. The stigma towards trans women that results in them being sexually assaulted at higher rates deserves to be addressed, specifically.

Trans women do not get periods at age 12. They do not have get pregnant, they do not get cramps, endometriosis, PCOS, TSS, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, yeast infections, HPV and other complications that come from having a period. These are very important events in a teenage girl's life. It is something that women of childbearing age have to be CONSTANTLY aware of as they progress through life, lest they get pregnant and have to take care of a baby when the man walks away leaving them scott free. Your anatomy and genitalia are IMPORTANT in the context of advocating for health and health advocacy.

These teenage girls do not need to have access to hormone therapies, they don't need access to mental health professionals and doctors to guide them through a difficult identity transition. And neither group is doing anything wrong there, but they need DIFFERENT THINGS. And to me, they both deserve dedicated movements designed to advocate for them.

I do not care if a trans woman calls themselves a woman. I will call them she/her and whatever name they have chosen. I will treat them like a woman. I will advocate for trans men and their specific health needs. I will call them him/he and I will treat them like a man. But I am not going to alter language to make it more confusing to the general public and world to advocate for specific health needs. The same language they themselves use to describe their own dysphoria. Because it is a real and tangible difference to be distinguished.

Look, from the perspective of someone who came into this conversation without a set opinion one way or the other, your arguments seem...pretty specious, tbh. Do you honestly believe that including transwomen will make it harder to deal with health and health advocacy issues related to menstruation? Seriously - I don't see what the obstacle here would be. "We should dedicate more funding to research the causes of PCOS - it's a women's rights issue!" "Well, what about transwomen?" "Just because an issue doesn't affect every single woman equally doesn't mean it's not a women's rights issue." That doesn't seem too difficult, honestly.

It really reminds me of the whole "we can't let the children know about homosexuals because it would confuse them!" argument.

Trans women can still have advocates for issues that affect them specifically. So can black women and gay women. It's called intersectionality.

Responses like this make me think I'm expressing myself poorly. But of course its also possible (and frankly fine) that you just disagree.

I think that when we advocate for things like abortion rights and access to feminine hygiene products etc that it is important to define these things as women's issues because they have historically been used to oppress and abuse women. And that historical oppression has led to the gender inequality issues we see today. And I think that when you start saying things like, 'people who menstruate need tampons' it obfuscates the fact that it is women who need them and they need them because there is centuries of oppression that come with how society has viewed periods historically.

Just like 'I don't see color' has been clearly exposed as a way to hide the systemic oppression faced by black people, 'I don't see gender' is a way to hide systemic oppression faced by women.

I passionately believe in intersectionality. Advocating for women, for black women, for gay women, for trans women etc. But trans women have not experienced a set of things that by their very nature have defined and held women back throughout history. And I, frankly, refuse to try to make that less clear through imprecise language.

How would a trans man who menstruates be any less affected by those same centuries of oppression? Seems like they deal with that oppression PLUS anti-trans oppression, including oppression by those who choose to exclude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s like being born a female and liking pink and expressing femininity is something bad. Like it needs to be purged and erased. Don’t do his to me. Don’t do this to the billions of women who think this way around the world. Women are still inunde el p,aging fields here. Heck we still don’t even have paid maternity leave in the freaking United States! Unlike some other countries. We get no propriety in society at all.

I accept you, trans or whatever you are. I love you. I admire you. I see you. But you must show the same regard to me. And also listen to the points here about how totally unfair it is to compete in our space, when we have struggle for so long to carve out our space, and gain some sense of traction in society.

How can you think trans women DON’T see and feel those same struggles as we do? Do you think they didn’t face struggles of their own growing up in an body they felt wasn’t theirs? That they didn’t face discrimination for who they are? Amazing you think YOUR womanhood is threatened or discounted by theirs.

Okay explain to me then why they don't want cis-women playing trans roles, you can't have it both ways, the struggle is not the same. And how anyone can support Jenner getting Woman of the Year, who is still a republican and before transitioning had never come out and supported LGBTQ issues is beyond me. She should have refused the award and I quote in acceptance speech, "“The hardest part about being a woman is figuring out what to wear.” F$$$ Y$$

Ugh, that just trivializes women. Jenner became a misogynist caricature of what men think women are. No, wearing heels and makeup and getting a boob job won't make you a woman. It is offensive.

Plenty of women choose to express themselves in a “feminine” way by wearing heels, wearing makeup, and getting boob jobs.

The fact that you are focusing on how Caitlin is expressing herself - and not millions of other women who do the exact same thing - says more about you than it does about her. You are singling her out in a bigoted way.

Nope. And in a related point, drag queens are deeply misogynistic - and frequently racist - depictions of womanhood.

OK, disgusting TERF.

Please take your deep-seeded mommy issues to a shrink.

Yes Please explain why you think I have “deep-seeded mommy issues”.

Res ipsa loquitur. Anyone as fixated on calling women “disgusting” or “old” or “fake feminists” or “honey” seems to have a lot of rage directed at either self or the source of self (mother). Seek help.

I’ve called the anti-trans posters “disgusting” and the posters with TERF viewpoints “TERF” but none of the others. There are many people posting.

I have a lot of anger towards people who are hurtful to others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
NP, and I've read your responses, and they just don't hold together. You seem to take it as a given that it would be too confusing to advocate for women if you have to account for trans women in the definition, but you don't explain why it would be confusing, or how, or give any examples. And it isn't as obvious as you seem to think.

DP.

For a biological woman, having or not having a period can be a serious thing. If we reduce women to "menstruators" we hide that issue. A young woman who's gotten to be age 16 or 17 without having a period may well assume she's just not a menstruator. She may have no idea that's an issue she should bring up with a medical professional. Girls and womens health concerns are undervalued. We are ignored from research to implementation. And now we're supposed to avoid centering womens health and health issues, because a tiny minority of people might possibly have to deal with the fact that their biology is different from the biology of people they'd like to align themselves with.

We don't avoid pushing for prenatal care because of a minority of women who can't get pregnant - even when it causes them serious distress to deal with this knowledge. Why? Because making sure women have access to care before and during pregnancy is critical to the health of those women and the resulting infants. But perhaps we should prioritize women who are dealing with infertility, and just leave it to all other women to make sure they know exactly what they'll need, and that they're effective self-advocates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Who is being "systemically oppressed due to their menstruation" in the US in 2020?

You do not know enough about women's issues to be telling me that I don't know what I'm talking about.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2018/08/14/lack-feminine-hygiene-products-keeps-girls-out-school/948313002/

https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/live/news/1545-the-state-of-period-poverty-in-the-us

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2019/02/jail-california-tampons-menstruation-paula-canny-sanitary-pads/

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/111219-sj-periodequity.pdf

https://time.com/3989966/america-menstrual-crisis/

Great links, and in addition, diseases like PCOS and endometriosis are woefully under researched. I have PCOS and the only solution I’ve ever been given is “Take birth control until you want kids, then hope your pregnancy cures PCOS.” No cure for people who never want kids. Other women are given diabetes medicine as if it’s the same thing, even though a significant % of PCOS Sufferers like myself have no insulin resistance.

One positive of being forced to abandon the word women — if periods are seen as something for males maybe some research money will actually flow our way!

Menstruation is used to oppress women in countries all over the world along with genital mutilation! although, I don't really think this was what Rowling was getting at, but I think being pro-women does not mean anti-trans and support what she was trying to say!

I'm sure all "people who menstruate" and "people at risk of genital mutilation" (including many here in the US!) would all benefit from inclusive advocacy.

Listen, I'm sure you're going to be particularly displeased by this response but I believe that this specific advocacy is actually in trans women's best interest. Trans women have SPECIFIC things that need to be advocated for. For example, trans women need to be clear with their doctors about their history because they have prostates and trans women are at a high risk of prostate cancer going undiagnosed if they do not communicate clearly their medical history.

Trans men can present as pregnant or skip ovarian and cervical cancer screenings for the same reason. The stigma towards trans women that results in them being sexually assaulted at higher rates deserves to be addressed, specifically.

Trans women do not get periods at age 12. They do not have get pregnant, they do not get cramps, endometriosis, PCOS, TSS, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, yeast infections, HPV and other complications that come from having a period. These are very important events in a teenage girl's life. It is something that women of childbearing age have to be CONSTANTLY aware of as they progress through life, lest they get pregnant and have to take care of a baby when the man walks away leaving them scott free. Your anatomy and genitalia are IMPORTANT in the context of advocating for health and health advocacy.

These teenage girls do not need to have access to hormone therapies, they don't need access to mental health professionals and doctors to guide them through a difficult identity transition. And neither group is doing anything wrong there, but they need DIFFERENT THINGS. And to me, they both deserve dedicated movements designed to advocate for them.

I do not care if a trans woman calls themselves a woman. I will call them she/her and whatever name they have chosen. I will treat them like a woman. I will advocate for trans men and their specific health needs. I will call them him/he and I will treat them like a man. But I am not going to alter language to make it more confusing to the general public and world to advocate for specific health needs. The same language they themselves use to describe their own dysphoria. Because it is a real and tangible difference to be distinguished.

Look, from the perspective of someone who came into this conversation without a set opinion one way or the other, your arguments seem...pretty specious, tbh. Do you honestly believe that including transwomen will make it harder to deal with health and health advocacy issues related to menstruation? Seriously - I don't see what the obstacle here would be. "We should dedicate more funding to research the causes of PCOS - it's a women's rights issue!" "Well, what about transwomen?" "Just because an issue doesn't affect every single woman equally doesn't mean it's not a women's rights issue." That doesn't seem too difficult, honestly.

It really reminds me of the whole "we can't let the children know about homosexuals because it would confuse them!" argument.

Trans women can still have advocates for issues that affect them specifically. So can black women and gay women. It's called intersectionality.

Responses like this make me think I'm expressing myself poorly. But of course its also possible (and frankly fine) that you just disagree.

I think that when we advocate for things like abortion rights and access to feminine hygiene products etc that it is important to define these things as women's issues because they have historically been used to oppress and abuse women. And that historical oppression has led to the gender inequality issues we see today. And I think that when you start saying things like, 'people who menstruate need tampons' it obfuscates the fact that it is women who need them and they need them because there is centuries of oppression that come with how society has viewed periods historically.

Just like 'I don't see color' has been clearly exposed as a way to hide the systemic oppression faced by black people, 'I don't see gender' is a way to hide systemic oppression faced by women.

I passionately believe in intersectionality. Advocating for women, for black women, for gay women, for trans women etc. But trans women have not experienced a set of things that by their very nature have defined and held women back throughout history. And I, frankly, refuse to try to make that less clear through imprecise language.

How would a trans man who menstruates be any less affected by those same centuries of oppression? Seems like they deal with that oppression PLUS anti-trans oppression, including oppression by those who choose to exclude.

Well, when they assume a male identity they, in fact, do lift themselves above a certain set of discriminatory practices that happen towards women. Especially if they are fully transitioned and pass completely as male. And as I specified above, I believe they need targeted outreach for their own issues (like making sure they are screened for biologically female cancers and assistance with something like menopause if they have not gone through a complete transition) that are legitimately different than the issues a biological female presenting as a woman goes through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s like being born a female and liking pink and expressing femininity is something bad. Like it needs to be purged and erased. Don’t do his to me. Don’t do this to the billions of women who think this way around the world. Women are still inunde el p,aging fields here. Heck we still don’t even have paid maternity leave in the freaking United States! Unlike some other countries. We get no propriety in society at all.

I accept you, trans or whatever you are. I love you. I admire you. I see you. But you must show the same regard to me. And also listen to the points here about how totally unfair it is to compete in our space, when we have struggle for so long to carve out our space, and gain some sense of traction in society.

How can you think trans women DON’T see and feel those same struggles as we do? Do you think they didn’t face struggles of their own growing up in an body they felt wasn’t theirs? That they didn’t face discrimination for who they are? Amazing you think YOUR womanhood is threatened or discounted by theirs.

Okay explain to me then why they don't want cis-women playing trans roles, you can't have it both ways, the struggle is not the same. And how anyone can support Jenner getting Woman of the Year, who is still a republican and before transitioning had never come out and supported LGBTQ issues is beyond me. She should have refused the award and I quote in acceptance speech, "“The hardest part about being a woman is figuring out what to wear.” F$$$ Y$$

Ugh, that just trivializes women. Jenner became a misogynist caricature of what men think women are. No, wearing heels and makeup and getting a boob job won't make you a woman. It is offensive.

Plenty of women choose to express themselves in a “feminine” way by wearing heels, wearing makeup, and getting boob jobs.

The fact that you are focusing on how Caitlin is expressing herself - and not millions of other women who do the exact same thing - says more about you than it does about her. You are singling her out in a bigoted way.

Nope. And in a related point, drag queens are deeply misogynistic - and frequently racist - depictions of womanhood.

OK, disgusting TERF.

Please take your deep-seeded mommy issues to a shrink.

Yes Please explain why you think I have “deep-seeded mommy issues”.

Res ipsa loquitur. Anyone as fixated on calling women “disgusting” or “old” or “fake feminists” or “honey” seems to have a lot of rage directed at either self or the source of self (mother). Seek help.

I’ve called the anti-trans posters “disgusting” and the posters with TERF viewpoints “TERF” but none of the others. There are many people posting.

I have a lot of anger towards people who are hurtful to others.

You have a lot of anger that is misdirected. And you lack maturity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Who is being "systemically oppressed due to their menstruation" in the US in 2020?

You do not know enough about women's issues to be telling me that I don't know what I'm talking about.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2018/08/14/lack-feminine-hygiene-products-keeps-girls-out-school/948313002/

https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/live/news/1545-the-state-of-period-poverty-in-the-us

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2019/02/jail-california-tampons-menstruation-paula-canny-sanitary-pads/

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/111219-sj-periodequity.pdf

https://time.com/3989966/america-menstrual-crisis/

Great links, and in addition, diseases like PCOS and endometriosis are woefully under researched. I have PCOS and the only solution I’ve ever been given is “Take birth control until you want kids, then hope your pregnancy cures PCOS.” No cure for people who never want kids. Other women are given diabetes medicine as if it’s the same thing, even though a significant % of PCOS Sufferers like myself have no insulin resistance.

One positive of being forced to abandon the word women — if periods are seen as something for males maybe some research money will actually flow our way!

Menstruation is used to oppress women in countries all over the world along with genital mutilation! although, I don't really think this was what Rowling was getting at, but I think being pro-women does not mean anti-trans and support what she was trying to say!

I'm sure all "people who menstruate" and "people at risk of genital mutilation" (including many here in the US!) would all benefit from inclusive advocacy.

Listen, I'm sure you're going to be particularly displeased by this response but I believe that this specific advocacy is actually in trans women's best interest. Trans women have SPECIFIC things that need to be advocated for. For example, trans women need to be clear with their doctors about their history because they have prostates and trans women are at a high risk of prostate cancer going undiagnosed if they do not communicate clearly their medical history.

Trans men can present as pregnant or skip ovarian and cervical cancer screenings for the same reason. The stigma towards trans women that results in them being sexually assaulted at higher rates deserves to be addressed, specifically.

Trans women do not get periods at age 12. They do not have get pregnant, they do not get cramps, endometriosis, PCOS, TSS, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, yeast infections, HPV and other complications that come from having a period. These are very important events in a teenage girl's life. It is something that women of childbearing age have to be CONSTANTLY aware of as they progress through life, lest they get pregnant and have to take care of a baby when the man walks away leaving them scott free. Your anatomy and genitalia are IMPORTANT in the context of advocating for health and health advocacy.

These teenage girls do not need to have access to hormone therapies, they don't need access to mental health professionals and doctors to guide them through a difficult identity transition. And neither group is doing anything wrong there, but they need DIFFERENT THINGS. And to me, they both deserve dedicated movements designed to advocate for them.

I do not care if a trans woman calls themselves a woman. I will call them she/her and whatever name they have chosen. I will treat them like a woman. I will advocate for trans men and their specific health needs. I will call them him/he and I will treat them like a man. But I am not going to alter language to make it more confusing to the general public and world to advocate for specific health needs. The same language they themselves use to describe their own dysphoria. Because it is a real and tangible difference to be distinguished.

Look, from the perspective of someone who came into this conversation without a set opinion one way or the other, your arguments seem...pretty specious, tbh. Do you honestly believe that including transwomen will make it harder to deal with health and health advocacy issues related to menstruation? Seriously - I don't see what the obstacle here would be. "We should dedicate more funding to research the causes of PCOS - it's a women's rights issue!" "Well, what about transwomen?" "Just because an issue doesn't affect every single woman equally doesn't mean it's not a women's rights issue." That doesn't seem too difficult, honestly.

It really reminds me of the whole "we can't let the children know about homosexuals because it would confuse them!" argument.

Trans women can still have advocates for issues that affect them specifically. So can black women and gay women. It's called intersectionality.

Responses like this make me think I'm expressing myself poorly. But of course its also possible (and frankly fine) that you just disagree.

I think that when we advocate for things like abortion rights and access to feminine hygiene products etc that it is important to define these things as women's issues because they have historically been used to oppress and abuse women. And that historical oppression has led to the gender inequality issues we see today. And I think that when you start saying things like, 'people who menstruate need tampons' it obfuscates the fact that it is women who need them and they need them because there is centuries of oppression that come with how society has viewed periods historically.

Just like 'I don't see color' has been clearly exposed as a way to hide the systemic oppression faced by black people, 'I don't see gender' is a way to hide systemic oppression faced by women.

I passionately believe in intersectionality. Advocating for women, for black women, for gay women, for trans women etc. But trans women have not experienced a set of things that by their very nature have defined and held women back throughout history. And I, frankly, refuse to try to make that less clear through imprecise language.

How would a trans man who menstruates be any less affected by those same centuries of oppression? Seems like they deal with that oppression PLUS anti-trans oppression, including oppression by those who choose to exclude.

Well, when they assume a male identity they, in fact, do lift themselves above a certain set of discriminatory practices that happen towards women. Especially if they are fully transitioned and pass completely as male. And as I specified above, I believe they need targeted outreach for their own issues (like making sure they are screened for biologically female cancers and assistance with something like menopause if they have not gone through a complete transition) that are legitimately different than the issues a biological female presenting as a woman goes through.

DP. You seem to be talking about 35 year olds while others are talking about 15 year olds. Very different people and issues, mentally and medically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Who is being "systemically oppressed due to their menstruation" in the US in 2020?

You do not know enough about women's issues to be telling me that I don't know what I'm talking about.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2018/08/14/lack-feminine-hygiene-products-keeps-girls-out-school/948313002/

https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/live/news/1545-the-state-of-period-poverty-in-the-us

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2019/02/jail-california-tampons-menstruation-paula-canny-sanitary-pads/

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/111219-sj-periodequity.pdf

https://time.com/3989966/america-menstrual-crisis/

Great links, and in addition, diseases like PCOS and endometriosis are woefully under researched. I have PCOS and the only solution I’ve ever been given is “Take birth control until you want kids, then hope your pregnancy cures PCOS.” No cure for people who never want kids. Other women are given diabetes medicine as if it’s the same thing, even though a significant % of PCOS Sufferers like myself have no insulin resistance.

One positive of being forced to abandon the word women — if periods are seen as something for males maybe some research money will actually flow our way!

Menstruation is used to oppress women in countries all over the world along with genital mutilation! although, I don't really think this was what Rowling was getting at, but I think being pro-women does not mean anti-trans and support what she was trying to say!

I'm sure all "people who menstruate" and "people at risk of genital mutilation" (including many here in the US!) would all benefit from inclusive advocacy.

Listen, I'm sure you're going to be particularly displeased by this response but I believe that this specific advocacy is actually in trans women's best interest. Trans women have SPECIFIC things that need to be advocated for. For example, trans women need to be clear with their doctors about their history because they have prostates and trans women are at a high risk of prostate cancer going undiagnosed if they do not communicate clearly their medical history.

Trans men can present as pregnant or skip ovarian and cervical cancer screenings for the same reason. The stigma towards trans women that results in them being sexually assaulted at higher rates deserves to be addressed, specifically.

Trans women do not get periods at age 12. They do not have get pregnant, they do not get cramps, endometriosis, PCOS, TSS, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, yeast infections, HPV and other complications that come from having a period. These are very important events in a teenage girl's life. It is something that women of childbearing age have to be CONSTANTLY aware of as they progress through life, lest they get pregnant and have to take care of a baby when the man walks away leaving them scott free. Your anatomy and genitalia are IMPORTANT in the context of advocating for health and health advocacy.

These teenage girls do not need to have access to hormone therapies, they don't need access to mental health professionals and doctors to guide them through a difficult identity transition. And neither group is doing anything wrong there, but they need DIFFERENT THINGS. And to me, they both deserve dedicated movements designed to advocate for them.

I do not care if a trans woman calls themselves a woman. I will call them she/her and whatever name they have chosen. I will treat them like a woman. I will advocate for trans men and their specific health needs. I will call them him/he and I will treat them like a man. But I am not going to alter language to make it more confusing to the general public and world to advocate for specific health needs. The same language they themselves use to describe their own dysphoria. Because it is a real and tangible difference to be distinguished.

Look, from the perspective of someone who came into this conversation without a set opinion one way or the other, your arguments seem...pretty specious, tbh. Do you honestly believe that including transwomen will make it harder to deal with health and health advocacy issues related to menstruation? Seriously - I don't see what the obstacle here would be. "We should dedicate more funding to research the causes of PCOS - it's a women's rights issue!" "Well, what about transwomen?" "Just because an issue doesn't affect every single woman equally doesn't mean it's not a women's rights issue." That doesn't seem too difficult, honestly.

It really reminds me of the whole "we can't let the children know about homosexuals because it would confuse them!" argument.

Trans women can still have advocates for issues that affect them specifically. So can black women and gay women. It's called intersectionality.

Responses like this make me think I'm expressing myself poorly. But of course its also possible (and frankly fine) that you just disagree.

I think that when we advocate for things like abortion rights and access to feminine hygiene products etc that it is important to define these things as women's issues because they have historically been used to oppress and abuse women. And that historical oppression has led to the gender inequality issues we see today. And I think that when you start saying things like, 'people who menstruate need tampons' it obfuscates the fact that it is women who need them and they need them because there is centuries of oppression that come with how society has viewed periods historically.

Just like 'I don't see color' has been clearly exposed as a way to hide the systemic oppression faced by black people, 'I don't see gender' is a way to hide systemic oppression faced by women.

I passionately believe in intersectionality. Advocating for women, for black women, for gay women, for trans women etc. But trans women have not experienced a set of things that by their very nature have defined and held women back throughout history. And I, frankly, refuse to try to make that less clear through imprecise language.

How would a trans man who menstruates be any less affected by those same centuries of oppression? Seems like they deal with that oppression PLUS anti-trans oppression, including oppression by those who choose to exclude.

Well, when they assume a male identity they, in fact, do lift themselves above a certain set of discriminatory practices that happen towards women. Especially if they are fully transitioned and pass completely as male. And as I specified above, I believe they need targeted outreach for their own issues (like making sure they are screened for biologically female cancers and assistance with something like menopause if they have not gone through a complete transition) that are legitimately different than the issues a biological female presenting as a woman goes through.

DP. You seem to be talking about 35 year olds while others are talking about 15 year olds. Very different people and issues, mentally and medically.

I've talked about both groups throughout this thread with the same point. Women's health is important and undervalued from teens all the way to the end of our lives. The reasons why it is important to call women's health issues what they are range from teenagers needing to know what is normal as they go through puberty and begin to have sex through older women experiencing menopause and osteoporosis and hormone depletion.

Trans people of both sides will weave between male and female health issues by the nature of their journey. Not calling these two parallel paths what they are simply obfuscates what they themselves will need as they transition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Who is being "systemically oppressed due to their menstruation" in the US in 2020?

You do not know enough about women's issues to be telling me that I don't know what I'm talking about.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2018/08/14/lack-feminine-hygiene-products-keeps-girls-out-school/948313002/

https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/live/news/1545-the-state-of-period-poverty-in-the-us

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2019/02/jail-california-tampons-menstruation-paula-canny-sanitary-pads/

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/111219-sj-periodequity.pdf

https://time.com/3989966/america-menstrual-crisis/

Great links, and in addition, diseases like PCOS and endometriosis are woefully under researched. I have PCOS and the only solution I’ve ever been given is “Take birth control until you want kids, then hope your pregnancy cures PCOS.” No cure for people who never want kids. Other women are given diabetes medicine as if it’s the same thing, even though a significant % of PCOS Sufferers like myself have no insulin resistance.

One positive of being forced to abandon the word women — if periods are seen as something for males maybe some research money will actually flow our way!

Menstruation is used to oppress women in countries all over the world along with genital mutilation! although, I don't really think this was what Rowling was getting at, but I think being pro-women does not mean anti-trans and support what she was trying to say!

I'm sure all "people who menstruate" and "people at risk of genital mutilation" (including many here in the US!) would all benefit from inclusive advocacy.

Listen, I'm sure you're going to be particularly displeased by this response but I believe that this specific advocacy is actually in trans women's best interest. Trans women have SPECIFIC things that need to be advocated for. For example, trans women need to be clear with their doctors about their history because they have prostates and trans women are at a high risk of prostate cancer going undiagnosed if they do not communicate clearly their medical history.

Trans men can present as pregnant or skip ovarian and cervical cancer screenings for the same reason. The stigma towards trans women that results in them being sexually assaulted at higher rates deserves to be addressed, specifically.

Trans women do not get periods at age 12. They do not have get pregnant, they do not get cramps, endometriosis, PCOS, TSS, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, yeast infections, HPV and other complications that come from having a period. These are very important events in a teenage girl's life. It is something that women of childbearing age have to be CONSTANTLY aware of as they progress through life, lest they get pregnant and have to take care of a baby when the man walks away leaving them scott free. Your anatomy and genitalia are IMPORTANT in the context of advocating for health and health advocacy.

These teenage girls do not need to have access to hormone therapies, they don't need access to mental health professionals and doctors to guide them through a difficult identity transition. And neither group is doing anything wrong there, but they need DIFFERENT THINGS. And to me, they both deserve dedicated movements designed to advocate for them.

I do not care if a trans woman calls themselves a woman. I will call them she/her and whatever name they have chosen. I will treat them like a woman. I will advocate for trans men and their specific health needs. I will call them him/he and I will treat them like a man. But I am not going to alter language to make it more confusing to the general public and world to advocate for specific health needs. The same language they themselves use to describe their own dysphoria. Because it is a real and tangible difference to be distinguished.

Look, from the perspective of someone who came into this conversation without a set opinion one way or the other, your arguments seem...pretty specious, tbh. Do you honestly believe that including transwomen will make it harder to deal with health and health advocacy issues related to menstruation? Seriously - I don't see what the obstacle here would be. "We should dedicate more funding to research the causes of PCOS - it's a women's rights issue!" "Well, what about transwomen?" "Just because an issue doesn't affect every single woman equally doesn't mean it's not a women's rights issue." That doesn't seem too difficult, honestly.

It really reminds me of the whole "we can't let the children know about homosexuals because it would confuse them!" argument.

Trans women can still have advocates for issues that affect them specifically. So can black women and gay women. It's called intersectionality.

Responses like this make me think I'm expressing myself poorly. But of course its also possible (and frankly fine) that you just disagree.

I think that when we advocate for things like abortion rights and access to feminine hygiene products etc that it is important to define these things as women's issues because they have historically been used to oppress and abuse women. And that historical oppression has led to the gender inequality issues we see today. And I think that when you start saying things like, 'people who menstruate need tampons' it obfuscates the fact that it is women who need them and they need them because there is centuries of oppression that come with how society has viewed periods historically.

Just like 'I don't see color' has been clearly exposed as a way to hide the systemic oppression faced by black people, 'I don't see gender' is a way to hide systemic oppression faced by women.

I passionately believe in intersectionality. Advocating for women, for black women, for gay women, for trans women etc. But trans women have not experienced a set of things that by their very nature have defined and held women back throughout history. And I, frankly, refuse to try to make that less clear through imprecise language.

Hence the reason as a woman, I am not going to be called a cis-woman when I have been an advocate and fighting for women's rights all over the world. Being pro-women is not anti-trans, just as trans-women don't always want us in their spaces, speaking for them or representing them in the media the same for women. Safe spaces for women, is not transphobia! And many lesbian and gay women do have an issue with SOME of the trans-rhetoric!

[Anonymous]

NP. I don't understand the emphasis on denying any difference, physical or life experience, between ciswomen and transwomen. I don't understand why it is transphobic to say that growing up female is a formative experience. It seems like in every other area, we (rightly, I think) insist on recognizing and supporting physical differences that lead people to have different life experiences and needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
NP, and I've read your responses, and they just don't hold together. You seem to take it as a given that it would be too confusing to advocate for women if you have to account for trans women in the definition, but you don't explain why it would be confusing, or how, or give any examples. And it isn't as obvious as you seem to think.

DP.

For a biological woman, having or not having a period can be a serious thing. If we reduce women to "menstruators" we hide that issue. A young woman who's gotten to be age 16 or 17 without having a period may well assume she's just not a menstruator. She may have no idea that's an issue she should bring up with a medical professional. Girls and womens health concerns are undervalued. We are ignored from research to implementation. And now we're supposed to avoid centering womens health and health issues, because a tiny minority of people might possibly have to deal with the fact that their biology is different from the biology of people they'd like to align themselves with.

We don't avoid pushing for prenatal care because of a minority of women who can't get pregnant - even when it causes them serious distress to deal with this knowledge. Why? Because making sure women have access to care before and during pregnancy is critical to the health of those women and the resulting infants. But perhaps we should prioritize women who are dealing with infertility, and just leave it to all other women to make sure they know exactly what they'll need, and that they're effective self-advocates.

No one is saying anything of the sort. We can talk about more than one thing at once. We can advocate for women's health and health issues, and we can include trans women, just like we include women who have had hysterectomies. And just like we advocate for health professionals to actually listen to black women's pain even though that isn't an issue that generally affects white women. We can hold more than one thought in our head at once. We can do all of those things. It's actually quite easy: just don't be a d!ck. As it were.

[Anonymous]

Y'all really have to know that, to the younger generations, this is a non-issue. None of us have a problem including trans women as women, while at the same time advocating for women's rights.

You're on the wrong side of history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y'all really have to know that, to the younger generations, this is a non-issue. None of us have a problem including trans women as women, while at the same time advocating for women's rights.

You're on the wrong side of history.

This does seem to be a generational issue, to an extent. But you don't care about trans men, younger generation, either. A lot of concern about being acknowledged but not a lot of concern to acknowledge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. I don't understand the emphasis on denying any difference, physical or life experience, between ciswomen and transwomen. I don't understand why it is transphobic to say that growing up female is a formative experience. It seems like in every other area, we (rightly, I think) insist on recognizing and supporting physical differences that lead people to have different life experiences and needs.

+1

And it seems like women are always the ones who are told to ignore their needs (both medical and mental) in an effort to be inclusive. When there is nothing wrong with advocating that certain issues are inherent only to women (menstruation, pregnancy, menopause, etc.)