You’ve seen the tweets [edit for 2023: “tweets” were messages on Twitter, a defunct platform which often tolerated transphobia]. Some brand, hospital, medical association, or influencer on social media talks about “pregnant people,” “people with cervices,” or “people who menstruate.” Immediately after the post goes live, an army of transphobic “gender criticals” scream that women are being erased.

But, are they?

Derailing Conversations

In 2020, a tweet linking to a sponsored article about menstrual inequality — that is, lack of access to menstrual products, clean bathrooms, soap, healthy water, and privacy, all part of gender inequality in our world — was derailed, as typical, by self-proclaimed “gender criticals” because they referred to menstruating people. It probably would have gone mostly unnoticed if the person that wanted to take the attention away from menstrual inequality and focus it instead on nitpicking word choice was someone other than famous author JK Rowling. She wrote,“‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

Of course it isn’t a new thing that well-off white women attempt to claim the mantle of feminism to interrupt conversations that disproportionately impact women in the global south. But this derailing of conversation wasn’t intended to be racist, classist, or colonialist, even if it served all of those oppressions well. It was, on the surface, intended to highlight the perceived “erasure” of women like the rich, white woman making the statement, ironically erasing the experiences of the women who probably aren’t as rich and often not white who deal with menstrual inequality.

Nobody reading a tweet about menstruation would seriously think it isn’t talking about a women’s issue, and they certainly wouldn’t if they read the article. Indeed, the article itself mentions women, just in case someone didn’t realize that many women menstruate. And it’s unlikely that JKR, or indeed any of the thousands of other people that respond to tweets about “people who menstruate,” “people with cervices,” or “pregnant people,” is really concerned about the erasure of women. Why would they hijack a tweet about menstrual inequality if that was the case, as would that not be erasing vulnerable women, in ways that go beyond a distaste for a certain word choice?

Of course we know the answer: it’s that language like “people who menstruate” includes trans men and non-binary people who menstruate, without misgendering these trans men and non-binary people. That is the objection: trans people are not being misgendered, and the gender criticals think they should be.

Erasure

Indeed, they see trans men and non-binary people that were assigned as female at birth as erasing lesbians, causing lesbians to essentially go extinct. The transphobic theory here is that these trans and non-binary people would be lesbians, and not trans, if it wasn’t for “transgender ideology” and discredited theories such as “social contagion.”

This is remarkably similar to great replacement rhetoric. In great replacement ideology, a racist theory, the concern expressed is that white people in white-dominated countries (typically countries in the global north) are being “replaced” and will someday not be the dominant demographic as a result. Like this racist theory, the lesbian erasure theory tries to tap into a fear that an oppressed group will displace those with more status (cis lesbians, particularly white, middle- or upper-class, lesbians are obviously also oppressed, but arguably have higher status than most trans and non-binary people). Like the racist theory, it recasts the targeting of a vulnerable group in language of protecting a different group (with the great replacement theory, it is about protecting national character or values; with the lesbian erasure theory, it’s about protecting lesbians from extinction; both of these sound better than what they really are: targeting racially oppressed people or targeting gender minorities).

But of course they go further than just talking about lesbians. The claim made by these social media armies fighting the fight to use non-inclusive language (I.E. to use “pregnant women” and to use “women” as a synonym for “people who menstruate” and/or “people with a cervix”) are that by not using the word women, it removes context of gender oppression from these discussions, when they very much are gendered topics. Again, nobody disputes that mostly it is women who menstruate, have cervixes, and get pregnant, and whether the word “woman” is used or not, it’s hard to believe that these will ever not be seen as groups that experience sexist oppression, including patriarchal oppression. Indeed, trans men and non-binary people who face oppression because of disparities around menstruation, pregnancy, and cervical cancer are facing sexist oppression. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a world where someone would say, “Yes, we recognize it is important to provide reproductive justice to women, but we can’t do that because we didn’t use the word ‘woman’ when talking about people who are pregnant or who menstruate!” That would be absurd.

So, ya, this isn’t about the erasure of women. It’s about the inclusion of trans men and non-binary people, in a way that doesn’t misgender trans men and non-binary people. Seeing someone else write in a way that is respectful of trans men and non-binary people’s self-declared gender is an affront to the “gender criticals,” at least in their own eyes (seriously, someone else not being a bigot doesn’t infringe on your right to be a bigot, gender criticals!).

But I don’t want to write about this. I want to write about their favorite definition of woman, and how, even if you somehow accept the transphobic world-view of the gender criticals, it is still important to talk about “pregnant people,” “people who menstruate,” and “people with cervixes.”

Isn’t “Woman” defined as “Adult Human Female?”

This is the claim of the transphobic gender criticals — they present a definition of woman as “adult human female.”

Indeed, a popular transphobic gender critical tactic right now is to purchase billboards, T-shirts, flyers, etc, with the text, stylized as a dictionary entry:

woman
wʊmən
noun
adult human female

Indeed, this weird focus on an apparent dictionary definition is the source of the recent trend of right-wing extremists asking non-right-wing political figures, “can you define woman?” There is apparently only one answer, despite the category of women being a highly contested one over centuries, one that is only easy to define when you are either ignorant or pushing an agenda.

But is it easy? For the curious reader, I’ll make some suggestions on where you can read more about this! Simone De Beauvoir wrote a lot about what a woman in The Second Sex, in 1949, drawing a distinction between being female and being a woman, with woman being imposed by (patriarchal) society (a short, unusually presented, video on this). Judith Butler, in Gender Trouble (1990) notes that both “female” and “woman” are “troubled and unfixed” terms, and are relationshionally defined, which in essence is what she wrote the entire book about — it isn’t something that can be reduced to a three word definition! The definition for “female” which the transphobes derive woman from (ah, yes, biological essentialism and biology is destiny is back!), is also complex! Biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling has been writing about sex (male, female, intersex) for a long time, and might be best known for The Five Sexes, written in 1993 (she has refined her views significantly since that paper was written, but remains committed to the idea that sex is not an easy thing to define).

Adult Human Females menstruate, have cervices, and get pregnant, right?

So defining “woman” is hard. But let’s go with the over-simplistic definition here, and pretend that neither trans or intersex people exist, and that “female,” and thus “woman,” is an uncontested category. For our purposes in this text, “woman” is “an adult human female.”

So, can we replace “people who menstruate” with women? Again, in this thought experiment, we erased the gray, and have a dichotomous view of gender — there are no trans or intersex people, exactly the world the “gender criticals” want. So…people who menstruate.

People who menstruate

In this imaginary world without intersex or trans people, you can just, as JK Rowling and others continue to suggest, replace the inclusive “people who menstruate” with “women,” right? After all, nobody in this world, except women menstruate.

Well, except girls. Girls aren’t women. Girls are not adult human females, even if they are otherwise human females. Some eight year olds menstruate, although most girls in the global north start menstruating when they are around 11 or 12 years old.

We don’t want to leave girls out of conversations on menstruation, do we? I hope not. The people most in need of these conversations are people for whom menstruation is a new experience!

But, beyond the category not being inclusive, it’s also not accurate. Females (I’m using this because we need to include girls) even in a world without trans or cis people, don’t all menstruate. People younger than puberty age, who are past menopause, or are currently pregnant don’t menstruate. Most of them have experienced menstruation, but not all of them, in any of these categories (including pregnancy — a young girl for a short amount of time before her first period should occur can become pregnant, for instance). Some forms of birth control also stop periods, so those people, too, aren’t menstruating.

Indeed, only around half (likely less than half) of human females menstruate any given month. In otherwords, transphobes, simply because “people who menstruate” doesn’t misgender trans people, want that phrase replaced with “women” — even though less than half of women actually menstruate within a given month. But scientific nuance is not a transphobic strong point — they want the world to confirm to their false dichotomies. You’re either a walking womb (woman) or not (man).

People with Cervices

Again, when a cancer charity posts on social media about “people with cervixes” needing cervical cancer screenings, we hear the whining about this “politically correct” language. Again, the suggestion is to replace this with “women.”

But, we know not all women have a cervix. Excluding those not born with one (including some genetic “XX” women), and ignoring other intersex and trans people, one of the most common surgeries performed is the removal of the uterus, a hysterectomy. Usually in this procedure, the cervix and ovaries are also removed. Indeed, this procedure is so common that roughly 1/3rd of women over age 50 have had a hysterectomy. While some of these may have left the cervix, most would not have, and that’s a lot of women without a cervix!

That said, who needs these cancer screenings is a bit more nuanced than “people with cervixes.” But it definitely isn’t all women, and people with cervixes captures the majority of people who do. That said, we can argue for more nuance here, and we should. That won’t be achieved by removing nuance and replacing this phrase with “women,” though.

Pregnant People

Again, when a brand or charity posts on social media about “pregnant people,” the transphobes come out and reply in force, letting them know that “women” is the word that they want to use, usually as “pregnant woman” or “pregnant mother” or “mother-to-be” or other gendered language similar to this. Essentially, any language that would misgender pregnant trans men or non-binary people would probably be acceptable, but what isn’t acceptable is the accurate, inclusive “pregnant people.”

Let’s look at the alternatives, again assuming intersex and trans people don’t exist.

“Pregnant woman” won’t work since girls, starting immediately before their first period, can become pregnant. This is obviously not a good thing (despite the anti-abortion and anti-contraception activist claims that this is a miracle of life), and pregnant girls in particular are a very vulnerable group that any woman’s movement should include. Certainly, we can’t have an inclusive conversation about pregnancy without including everyone who might get pregnant. Even without intersex and trans people, girls need to be part of that conversation.

The terms “pregnant mother” and “mother-to-be” assume that the woman is or will be a mother. Obviously that’s a loaded term, depending on the woman’s views of whether or not a fetus is her child (remember, trans and intersex people don’t exist in this hypothetical world, so “her” is the proper pronoun here).

What works is “pregnant people.” Everyone knows exactly who you’re talking about. And nobody is thinking you’re erasing women from the conversation about pregnancy — well, nobody except transphobes.

Be Inclusive

We can be inclusive, and we can push back when inaccurate language is pushed because it serves a transphobe’s beliefs. There is nothing offensive about the inclusive terms, and we need to ask exactly how are women being erased when it is suggested that women are erased with inclusive language.

As I discussed above, “women” isn’t sufficient, even without considering trans, intersex, and non-binary people. But despite some people’s desires for a simpler world, trans, intersex, and non-binary people rebelliously exist without the permission of the gender criticals. When we’re talking about areas of health where there are many disparities, we should include the relevant trans, intersex, and non-binary people in those conversations, and we should have those conversations in ways that do not discourage people from taking care of their health.

And, just as important, when you see someone try derailing a conversation about menstrual inequality because — gasp — the term “people who menstruate” is used, and that doesn’t misgender trans, intersex, or non-binary people, push back. Don’t let the conversation about these important gendered issues be about an incomplete supposed dictionary definition of “woman.” Let’s amplify the conversations about gender inequality, and call out people who try to derail it because of their political views about trans people.