WE ARE NOT “PEOPLE WITH”
It’s like a bad rash.
The concept of "virginity" for people with vaginas has a complicated history, and has often been (incorrectly) linked to breaking the hymen.
Read more from @TeenVogue ⬇️https://t.co/RVwYHTZ9B5— Open Clinic NHS (@OpenClinicNHS) November 2, 2020
Shoutout to @GCi_magazine for featuring our Humans with Vaginas campaign! https://t.co/L63AyHLue7
— The Honey Pot Co (@thehoneypotcomp) November 2, 2020
Experts say there is reason for pregnant people to exercise caution as we learn more about how they, and their children, may be impacted.https://t.co/5NNZu5qkNQ pic.twitter.com/cDqk2wK8Ou
— Forbes Science (@ForbesScience) November 1, 2020
The word you’re looking for is
WOMEN
But if you use the word “woman” to refer to a person with a vagina, then you’re defining a whole class of people by their reproductive organs. You’re being reductionist and essentialist.
And that’s why you have to refer to them as “people with vaginas”.
(Did I get that right?)
If we don’t get to be called “women” because doing so fails to validate the transgender, then we don’t have to call them “transgender.” They are “people with identities.” Yes, we have vaginas; yes, they have an identity. We just are.
Now everyone is validated.
Yeah, uterus-haver probably excludes a lot more people from the group (women people) than women excludes. Women will count all those uterus-havers…plus all adult human females who, for one reason or another, do not now, and in some cases maybe never did, have a uterus.
As for “people with vaginas”…that’s just so fucking demeaning. I suspect that was adopted to get rid of the argument I just made, because, well, surgical vagina removal is not nearly so common as hysterectomy. Anyone who tries to call me to my face a person with a vagina will get the same treatment as someone who greats me by grabbing my vagina – a knee right between the legs.
In the spirit of anatomical accuracy, perhaps we should refer to trans women as Penis People Aspiring To Become Vagina People. I’m sure they won’t consider that demeaning or reductive.
iknklast #3
Years ago I made a half-joking promise to myself that I would slap the first person who ever called me “cis” to my face. Since I live in the red state and stay away from the college campus, I have not had to choose between keeping or breaking that promise yet. I get called “person with a vagina” to my face and I won’t promise it but I might bet money on it that there will be more than slapping going on from me. Had enough with this disgusting garbage being thrown at real women.
I don’t know if there are any others who frequent this board, but this spectrum-adjacent person finds language mutilation an extreme source of anxiety, unease, and disquiet. To whom do I address complaints for the redress of said grievance?
I suggest mounting a campaign that ‘men’ should be called ‘people with penises and testicles’ or ‘blokes with cocks (or ‘pricks’) and balls’, if that is easier, as it well might be, though that might cause grief amongst those who self-identify as being of another gender while retaining the said penes and testicles.
I’m sure someone has pointed it out already but by referring to a class of people as “people with vaginas” automatically separates anyone from that group. And since that group is also considered female or women, it necessarily excludes anyone by definition, who doesn’t have a vagina all of whom, by definition, are women.