General Chat

Oh my, I have been listening to Jeremy Vine on R2 and the discussion was all about the word "woman" and to trans people, its shall we say almost offensive!
I am not prejudice in anyway towards any other human being but...Instead of being called a mother after you have given birth, its suggested to include trans people that the term mother should really be birthing parent, not breast feeding but chest feeding. A female has a breast, a male has a chest!(yes a male does have breasts but that part of his body is called his chest)

There was a"person" on the show who I believe was born female and has trans to male. They still have female body parts. They had to go back to a gynae clinic for a repeat smear as the previous one when they were known as female was abnormal. The "person" was offended as they dress and now look like a man and when they reached the clinic which was Gynae(only for females) was told they were in the wrong clinic because the clinic assistant clearly thought they were male as they looked a male. they are clearly offended by this.

im not being unkind but if you look and live as a man, then surely it is going to look a bit strange when you turn up to a gynae clinic surely,?
The whole conversation was about including all the new different genders etc and changing the word woman to be more inclusive
The definition of a woman in the dictiionary is " An adult female".

You cannot change that . This trans man refers to himself as a man not a trans man yet still has a complete female body.

Is it just me who finds this all a bit irritating? if you are not happy with the body you were born with and want to change it, then go ahead but why does everyone else need to be affected?

As I said. I do not intend to offend anyone but just wondered what other peoples thoughts are on this subject?

Florence in the hebrides

So 'man' is ok then? :-S

Interesting point made in that, once a 'person' has given birth, they are called a mother. There is no similar name for a person with a womb who has not given birth.

Could be a value judgement there I feel.

Given that an awful lot of people still won't use the title 'Ms' when asked by women who prefer their marital status not to be disclosed, I say those who want to get rid of 'woman' haven't got a cat in hells chance, so don't waste energy on being irritated.

Sharron, a woman doesn't have to give birth to be a mother.

the world has gone crackers, everyone is offended by something,well tough don't listen don't look
it seems to be the era of minority rule or minority mob

Well the word "man" didnt come into the conversation really! Well you can say birth mother as in the woman that gave birth to you to be totally correct but if you say adopt a child then you are their mother. A mother is a female who has raised a child/children by whatever means. A man is referred to as a Father. Well thats how we were educated. I suppose the word parent will now be used in place?

You are right, why should we be irritated and waste time. But these so called " new gender peeps" seem to think they can change everything to accomodate them and removing the word woman is not up for discussion in my books.

i do enjoy a good debate listening to the radio but today, i felt the discussion wasnt worthy of air time. Far more interesting things to talk about.

In my local GP on the toilet door ,it used to say men/women or male/female. Now it shows just a sign of a person in trousers and another in a dress/skirt..lol

Florence in the hebrides

OK. So what do you call a person with a womb who has not given birth and neither has that person raised or cared for children?

A woman sharon

Florence in the hebrides

Nulliparous is the def of a woman that has never given birth

Personally I would call you a woman/ female. But it seems, nowadays, they don’t exit.

I can understand it can be embarrassing for some to be told they are in the wrong clinic etc. But they seem to refuse to look at it from the other side.

i agree with you nameslessone

Florence in the hebrides

But a female human who has given birth or raised young is also a woman. Nurturing or producing the next generation gives them another name. Does it give them higher value?

I have never thought that Sharron but there will probably be a name recently invented i expect. A woman is a female adult regardless of whether she has given birth.No woman is superior to another regardless of whether they have given birth in our culture maybe.
There maybe cultures in the world where there is higher values amongst women but I have never heard of any.

Florence in the hebrides

I suppose it just makes it more descriptive to say 'This is the mother of this child', rather than 'This is the woman of this child'.

Oh, and in my view, anyone with a penis, is either a 'he' or a 'they', they aren't a 'she'.
If they want to go 'full woman', they need to get it chopped off!

Edit: There is one proviso, people who were born intersex, and had their gender decided, just after birth, by a surgeon.

A different angle on this matter of terminology.

A couple of weeks ago OH and I had a long-overdue holiday on a narrow boat. It was owned and run by a couple of young-ish men and before we went, wondered whether they might be gay. Not that it bothered us at all and they were delightful and great fun.

The question of their sexuality was settled when one of them, telling stories about previous customers, referred to himself as a "middle-aged poof". This is not a word I have ever used, although I did know what it meant!

Later in the week he said that one of the other narrow boat owners regularly called him "ginger poof". I asked whether he minded and his reply was that they weren't being nasty, that was what they called gay men and it didn't bother him at all.

My 2 sisters chose not to have children, one of my female cousins is married to another woman and both have children from previous relationships, another cousin is going through the trans gender process from woman to man and all at the moment are women/female. I think legally they can't change their birth certificate but it can be added to it that they have changed gender.

Sharron, there used to be a word for women who hadn't given birth - womb or no womb, who knew?. That word was 'barren'.
There is no need to label women who haven't given birth imo.

Island. I think it was grounds for divorce way back in the day but women couldn't divorce then.

As a woman/female/ mother etc I was in John Lewis one day quite a lot of years ago. I knew in the narrow space there was a man and a female staff member.
I heard a mans voice and then another mans voice, I whipped round as I hadn't been aware anyone else had crowded into the space. The staff member was going through the 'must live as a woman period'.