JK Rowling’s recent tweet criticizing the movement to refer to women as “menstruators” (so as not cause offense to transgender people) sparked a huge uproar. Many have taken offense with the fact that some within the trans movement were dismissing that biological functions are different between men and women.
The new idea from some trans activists is to call biological women “menstruators” instead of just women – because the idea, they say, is that transgender women are to be classed as real “women” but can’t menstruate.
It’s worth pointing out that this is a more radical idea that not all transgender people support and there has been much backlash, including from Harry Potter author, JK Rowling.
“‘People who mensturate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomund? Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate,” tweeted Rowling, while also attaching a link to an article that read, “Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate”.
Unsurprisingly, many women don’t want to have their gender dismissed and instead be called “people who menstruate,” as it would leave them to be categorized by a mere biological function.
That being said, several corporations have still gone on to use the term for describing women.
The Body Shop, for instance, wrote “girls and menstruators”, while also talking about the struggles faced by women due to menstruation. Naturally, the brand attracted intense backlash, followed by a huge Twitter hashtag campaign to boycott The Body Shop’s products.
What’s more, when a woman took the issue to Change.org and launched a petition that asked for women to remain being called woman (the campaign was called “Don’t call us menstruators”) the campaign was shot down in under three days after users on social media called it transphobic. The campaign apparently broke Change.org’s “Community Guidelines”.
We have an archived screenshot of the petition here:
“My petition “Don’t call us menstruators” which had 3000 signatures in under 3 days has now been REMOVED by @change for “violating the terms + conditions”. They’ve literally silenced women on a petition about women being silenced. #WRONGTHINK #IstandwithJKR #BoycottBodyshop,” tweeted Jade.
Upon reaching out to Change.org about how the petition violated its community guidelines, Jade has not yet received any reply.
Jade, upon being contacted for a comment by The Post Millennial, said that she was “extremely disappointed that women have been silenced on a petition about women being silenced”. At a juncture where it is being accused that women are being censored, Change.org’s executive director Jamie Biggar, said that the petition was probably removed due to the fact that it may have “anti-trans” language.
