Oh no, not the female symbol

ERASE WOMEN. Whatever else you do, be sure always to ERASE WOMEN.

Activist brags of getting women erased from packaging for…menstrual equipment.

After having contacted @Always back in June about their packaging that discriminated against their transgender customers through its design that featured the female symbol, I’m thrilled to hear back that they’ve now redesigned the packaging which will go out in December!!

Image

Yay! Women erased from another place! Awesome work, Ben!

(Ben may be a trans man. I don’t take that to make his activism any more progressive or useful or thoughtful.)

One reply:

There are women and girls who freeze to death bc they aren’t allowed at home or in school when they have their period. There are women and girls who can’t afford these products and have to use newspaper or socks. And you… you have a problem with packages… Holy shit.

Ben of course is now whining about women who don’t like being erased:

c.w.

I love being sent transphobic tweets and comments just for saying that a company shouldn’t exclude trans people

Comments

23 responses to “Oh no, not the female symbol”

  1. J. A. Avatar

    As a male I’ve never had a problem buying menstrual products for my wife, so this complaint seems just a wee bit calculated.

  2. iknklast Avatar

    Presented for thought: If you menstruate, you are female. Therefore, the female symbol refers to you. If you have problems with the fact that you want to be male, and you menstruate, that problem is not the problem of Always, it is not the problem of women, and it is not the problem of your biology. It is the problem of believing you are male when you are, in fact, female.

    If you have genuine gender dysphoria, I sympathize with you. That doesn’t mean you get to erase everyone else.

    As a female, I wish I could boycott Always for this, but I can’t boycott a product I no longer have use for. Anyone else want to contact Always that might actually be a purchaser of said product?

  3. Artymorty Avatar

    Conflating sex and gender? Check.

    Prioritizing men over women? Check.

    Whining about trans “exclusion” when no one is being excluded? Check.

    Changing the subject back to trans people the second discrimination against women comes up? Check.

    Calling everything they don’t like “transphobic”? Check.

    Sums up trans activism quite nicely, doesn’t it.

  4. Sastra Avatar

    Yes, it’s not even the symbol for “woman;” it’s the symbol for “female.” I thought transgender ideology gave a dismissive pass to sex (well, yes,) and put all the emphasis on gender. It’s what matters. So Ben wasn’t being excluded.

    I love being sent transphobic tweets and comments just for saying that a company shouldn’t exclude trans people.

    It’s interesting how easily trans people throw around the word “phobia.” Especially when it looks a lot like they have a basket of psychological triggers themselves, concerning their bodies, the concept of sex, the concept of gender, pronouns, “validation,” and other people who fail to conform to the world as they see it. It’s like one over the top overreaction after another.

    Maybe transphobia should be two words: trans phobia.

  5. iknklast Avatar

    It’s like one over the top overreaction after another.

    Which makes trans a perfect match for Trump.

  6. Blood Knight in Sour Armor Avatar
    Blood Knight in Sour Armor

    So where do furriest fit into all this? Why don’t they make menstruation products that specify what animal it’s intended for? Or for scalies which obviously don’t menstruate?

  7. Sackbut Avatar

    @Sastra #4

    I love being sent transphobic tweets and comments just for saying that a company shouldn’t exclude trans people.

    It’s interesting how easily trans people throw around the word “phobia.”

    And “exclude”. Anything that is somehow not about trans people is “excluding” trans people? Something like that. The word is overused to the point of meaninglessness.

  8. Rob Avatar

    1. Ben needs to get a life.

    2. Always need to grow a spine. I can only hope that their female customers move to other brands that are not ashamed of serving women and that Always thrives selling menstrual products to trans people.

  9. Roj Blake Avatar

    No, Ben is right to have done this. This is an oppression bridge too far. What is being harrassed daily, being bashed, raped, or murdered when set against the agony of a visual representation of a desire you can never achieve?

    Is that TERFY enough for you, Ben?

    Right now, I’ve got an ear worm, Alice Coopers Only Women Bleed.

  10. Michael Kuebler Avatar
    Michael Kuebler

    As a male I’ve never had a problem buying menstrual products for my wife

    Hell, I buy menstrual products for myself, I’ll leave it to the reader’s imagination as to how I use them. :^)

  11. Rob Avatar

    Emergency wound dressings? Emergency plumbing repairs? Uhhh, male incontinence? You just like to feel fresh?

  12. Michael Kuebler Avatar
    Michael Kuebler

    None of the above but you’re in the neighborhood!

  13. Ophelia Benson Avatar

    “You just like to feel fresh?”

    That made me laugh a great deal!

  14. Ben Avatar

    So the Venus symbol is to trans people what the cross is to vampires?

    They can’t even pick up the package if it has this symbol on it?

  15. Acolyte of Sagan Avatar
    Acolyte of Sagan

    Michael, you hang them from the brim of your hat to keep flies off your face and neck when you’re gardening?

  16. John the Drunkard Avatar
    John the Drunkard

    Sorry, you are not authorized to see this status

  17. Michael Kuebler Avatar
    Michael Kuebler

    Well that got more responses than I expected. I laughed at “feeling fresh” too since that was sort of the closest. Let’s just say pantyliners work well with over-exuberant flatulence. I find as I age and am forced to do jobs that require stooping and bending over a lot (even the IT jobs when I can get them) it’s nice to have that shield in place. I got the idea after my first horrible days working at Amazon last year.

  18. Sackbut Avatar

    Allow me to recommend:

    http://www.thecleanseat.net/

    I’ve used them for years.

  19. Imber Fatalis Avatar
    Imber Fatalis

    Rebecca Watson just released the most awful and disingenuous video imaginable about this, comparing “TERFs” to a bacterial infection. I’m beyond disappointed. What the hell has happened to everyone??

  20. Ophelia Benson Avatar

    Ugh. I watched a couple of minutes and cringed – she’s so insulting toward Julie Bindel – “an apparently prominent feminist in the UK.” I think she knows damn well who Julie is and how prominent she is and has long been. Cheap sneering belittling shit.

  21. Rob Avatar

    Good grief, Bindel is worth at least 10 Watson’s any day. Watson is after all famous pretty much only because she was (unjustly) shat on post elevatorgate.

  22. Michael Kuebler Avatar
    Michael Kuebler

    Thanks Sackbut but since I’ve never seen nor heard of them before now I’ll stick with the generic product I can find in literally any store in any location (in the US anyway). :^)

    I’ll add my disappointment in RW (admittedly haven’t seen the vid yet),I always thought she was one of the smart ones. (OK I started to watch and got about a third of the way in and had to stop. Christ on a cracker what has happened?).