Shocked again

Labour Campaign for Trans Rights – i.e. some trans “activists” who created a website – has “issued” a “statement” saying why MP Rosie Duffield is in their view “transphobic.”

We in the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights are shocked by the comments made by Rosie Duffield today. To insist that “only women have a cervix” denies the existence of trans men and many nonbinary people. Not all women have cervixes, and not everyone who has a cervix is a woman.

Shocked, shocked.

Saying that only women have a cervix does not “deny the existence” of anyone. That claim is idiotic. An activism founded on idiotic claims of that kind (and not much else) is an activism that is doomed to failure. Women who call themselves trans men still exist, and they can still call themselves trans men (or men, or raccoons, or goblets) despite the existence of other women who point out that women and only women have female anatomy. Issuing outraged statements any time a woman mentions female anatomy is a stupid childish footling kind of “activism.”

Inclusive language harms nobody and costs little; it is a simple act of support for trans people in a political culture that is increasingly hostile towards us.

But “inclusive language” is just a label, and a pretty meaningless label at that. Who ruled that “people with cervixes” is inclusive while “women” is exclusionary? What about all the people who point out that it not only excludes women by not mentioning us even as our anatomy is the subject, it also obfuscates the very thing it’s trying to promote – the need to screen for cervical cancer? How about including us for a change?

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