The Word is Woman #56
Documenting the erasure of women from language and life.
It’s Friday, and that can only mean one thing! It’s time for this week’s edition of The Word is Woman, the part of this newsletter where I document the madness of a movement that tries to erase women as a sex class and reinvent ‘woman’ as a category open to all, all through the medium of language. I sometimes wonder how the heck I have ended up being the person that writes about this - how do you get from campaigning for improved childbirth and writing books about women’s health, to somehow being entangled with trans activism and being sent examples of women being referred to as ‘egg owners’ etc?
But the strange thing is, the two worlds are overlapping - in fact trans activism has actively targeted areas like maternity and menstruation and demanded the language be changed. Why? Because the visceral reality of female biology is THE biggest barrier to their key mantra: “trans women ARE women”. In order for this to be literally true, as some wish or believe it is, you have to uncouple the reality of female biology from the concept of ‘woman’. You have to pull these two things apart and put them at different ends of the room. “Woman”, at one end, and period blood, pregnancy, birth, vaginas, clitorises, wombs, tampons and all that jazz that no man will ever ever have, right down the other end. Once you’ve prised them apart and made a big space between them, you make it much, much easier for ‘TWAW’ to be true. This trick is performed entirely linguistically through phrases like, ‘not all who have periods are women’, and ‘not all pregnant people are women’. And, indeed, by the myriad of examples features in the 55 previous issues of The Word is Woman.
So whilst we talk about ‘erasure’, I think it’s important to identify that what we are also seeing is ‘decoupling’ - the repeated insistence that periods, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding etc are NOT solely the preserve of women. Initiated by trans activists, this decoupling is a ‘meme’ that is now shared and repeated over and over by social media accounts and organisations connected to female biology. Many of them do this in the belief they are supporting women who want to be seen as men but who may still use tampons or give birth or breastfeed. In reality, they are supporting men, for whom the gritty reality of female biology is the biggest and most visual barrier to their claim to womanhood.
Interesting, too, that we very rarely see erasure or decoupling in the world of menopause. It’s almost as if this isn’t an area of interest for those agitating for these changes. I wonder why that would be. I’ll let you work it out.
That person in the last photo, by the way, is A.J.Silver, who runs the Queer Birth Club, who offer LGBTQ+ competency sessions for people who work in maternity, birth etc. She identifies as trans but is in fact a married, heterosexual mum of two. She was also one of the key players in the online bullying I experienced, ensuring that her brand was put on the map and that, having seen what happened to me, she was forever above scrutiny and criticism.
Her workshops sell for around £90 per person for a few hours online. The Queer Birth Club is not registered with companies house so we have no idea of how much money it brings in, but this social media post from 2021 suggests it’s lucrative: 500 people booked on their half day zoom courses which at the time were £75 each = £37500 in just 6 months.
So for some people, all of this mucking around with words is not just a misguided attempt to ‘be kind’ - it’s a grift, or, you could argue, a protection racket - because paying your £90 for the QBC course and sticking their badge on your website buys you a bit of immunity from the rather terrifying brigade of doulas and hypnobirthing teachers who will happily declare you to be ‘evil’ in between their antenatal classes.
And look what you can learn at the QBC! Yes, men can breastfeed and anyone who says they can’t is a transmisogynist, a term from deep down the rabbit hole if ever I heard one…
As you know, I usually share example of erasure (and decoupling!) that you lot send to me in your droves, but this week, I’ve not had a single one! Well, apart from this curious post from The Economist someone just sent me, where they tell us that, when it comes to sex, ‘we know most about men and older people because most big sex surveys concentrate on those who might get pregnant’.
It’s not really the worst example I’ve seen, if I’m honest?
Could this mean the tide is turning? The grift is up? We can only hope.
In the meantime, if you do find examples, send them to me for next week’s issue!
Have a wonderful weekend!
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Good analysis, Milli. I’d like to know if the QBC continue to make £££.
My theory: in 2021, conferences & in person training were still affected by pandemic-related restrictions. A ninety quid zoom session would have less competition than in normal years. Also, not everyone thinks they need or want this training. The market is niche, imo. It might be the QBC reached the low hanging fruit of naïfs & allies in 2021 and two to three years on, it’s run out of clients.
Plus the fact more and more people are sceptical of the whole thing.
I might be wrong,of course. But while the NHS as a whole remains captured, I suspect the grifting is less appealing.
The word ‘decoupling’ is a great word for how our female bodies are being decoupled from being women. I shall use that, too. Thank you for it!