“People with a vulva” or how the word “woman” is being erased from discourse
According to the language police, you should rather say “people with a vulva” instead of “women”, even when talking about the issues of female genital mutilation.
A commentary on a tweet published by pro familia, the German Society for Family Planning, Sex Education and Sexual Counseling (published on Twitter on February 6, 2023)
What is a woman?
This seemingly inconspicuous question has become a real issue over the last couple of years – indeed, it has even morphed into an outright polemic which would have been unthinkable until very recently. Somewhere between the continuous indoctrination of schools and universities with the anti-scientific concepts of gender ideology, the relentless LGBTQ propaganda machine on social media, the general radicalization of activist movements, and especially the loss of nuanced and critical thinking, the term “woman” has been destroyed.
What is generally said to be a culture war is in fact an ideological war of society against itself. The definition of the word “woman” has become a battle ground where this culture war is being waged: On the one side, there are those who defend biological reality as the foundation of their thoughts and action. On the other side stand those who want to tear apart and negate biological reality with all their might in order to replace it with their own ideology of how they think reality should be.
The most prominent fighter at the front line of defending reality is “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, who was viciously defamed and denounced in the media for her belief that women’s rights should be based on biological characteristics. The Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie had to face the same fate because she made clear that “transwomen are transwomen”. Rowling and Adichie are famous examples for the kind of hostility that will be thrown at you whenever you state – to put it in Orwell’s words – that 2+2=4. Nowadays, you might have to pay a heavy price for stating simple biological facts such as “transwomen aren’t women”. In Germany, biologist Marie-Luise Vollbrecht of the Humboldt University of Berlin became a target of trans activists because she wanted to give a talk about sexual dimorphism. At Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland, law student Lisa Keogh is facing disciplinary action because she claimed that “women have vaginas” and are “not as physically strong as men”. A 16-year-old Canadian teenager named Josh Alexander was recently arrested for questioning whether men could be women and vice versa and for saying that “students born male should not be permitted into the girls’ bathroom.” He is accused of being “transphobic”. These cases are just the tip of a gigantic iceberg of intimidation, lawsuits and arrests which underline the mere scope of this culture war.
For on the other side, there are very powerful actors who, by skilfully using semantic games in the name of a self-righteous fight for so-called equality and tolerance, not only distort the term “woman” but also strip it of any meaning and even erase it from discourse. At a US Senate hearing on the topic of abortion, Professor Khiara M. Bridges from the UC Berkeley School of Law talked about “people with a capacity for pregnancy”. During a one-minute interview segment, Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon – who currently faces massive backlash for passing the controversial Gender Recognition Reform Bill which, among other things, would enable biological men to enter women’s prisons – wasn’t even capable of deciding on who a woman is and who isn’t. And the United Nation’s department for women’s rights, UN Women, tells us: “All LGBTIQ+ women are women.” So, in other words: “Transwomen” are women. Or more concretely: Men are women. 2+2=5.
When the word “woman” loses its biological meaning and instead becomes ideologically charged, that’s when everything just slides into in the absurd. This is what happened on February 6, the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. Pro familia, the German Society for Family Planning, Sex Education and Sexual Counseling, which can be compared to Planned Parenthood in the United States, posted a tweet that day, stating: “FGM_C is a massive infringement of human rights of women and girls.” On the picture that was featured in the tweet, it continues: “Around 100.000 women and girls affected by genital mutilation currently live in Germany.” This – accurate – tweet was posted on February 6, 2023, at 4:16 pm. After around 20 hours – and, probably, after some kind of shitstorm happening behind the scenes of pro familia – an “apology” appeared below that tweet which said: “The wording used in the sharepic is indeed incorrect and should say: people with a vulva/vagina. We are sorry for that. However, we don’t want to use the wording women/girls in this context because there are people with a vulva/vagina who don’t identify as women.”
Let’s pause here for a second to let the blatant absurdity of this statement sink in: The German federal association pro familia wants to avoid using the wording “women/girls” in the context of female genital mutilation. Victims are now supposed to be called “people with a vulva/vagina” (Menschen mit Vulva/Vagina) because there are people with a vulva/vagina who don’t identify as women. But what is a woman if not a person with a vulva/vagina? The answer to that question is, according to the usual circular reasoning of gender ideology: a person who identifies as a woman.
By removing the word “woman” or “girl” from discourse – especially in this context –, the specifically female victims of this practice are made invisible. The purpose of FGM is to control female sexuality and reproduction – its victims are exclusively women and their womanhood is the very reason why they are victimized. To reduce these women to their (mutilated!) reproductive organs is outright degrading. And to talk about the potential offense to “people with a vulva/vagina who don’t identify as women” in the same breath as female genital mutilation, as if the horrors and pain of FGM were comparable to using a “wrong term” (woman!), demonstrates the ignorant hypocrisy of it all. Because if girls and women in countries like Somalia, Egypt or Mali could evade this horrible practice by “not identifying as a woman”, they would probably do that in no time. Instead, an important part of their female identity was brutally taken away from them by destroying their genitalia.
Reducing women to their reproductive body parts is something that starts with redefining and changing language. Language is the foundation of our thinking and our perception, which is why these fights around definitions of words like “woman” are so essential. The expression “people with a vulva/vagina” (in English, the terms “vulva owners” or “vagina owners” seem to be more prevalent) stands alongside semantic deformities such as “uterus-bearer” (Menschen mit Uterus), “birthing person” (Gebärende) or “menstruator” (Menstruierende), which have slowly but surely entered the English and German language (and others) respectively. Paradoxically, however, while women are reduced to their genitals and their functions, these terms may not be used exclusively for women anymore.1 What is being suggested here is that men can have children or menstruate2, or that women don’t usually have a uterus or ovaries (except, of course, women who had surgical interventions which, however, don’t make them any less of a woman). As a consequence, the word “woman” is disappearing from public discourse and with it words like girls, mothers or daughters. We are erasing women from the semantics of our language.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote in an outstanding essay for UnHerd, “The Year the West Erased Women”, that “[t]hose who would divorce ‘woman’ from its biological implications often present their ideas as innocuous. They are, we are told, simply champions of ‘inclusion’. But their ideology is hardly uncontroversial, and surrendering to it is not harmless.” Indeed, the culture war that is currently raging in the West around the definition of the word “woman” is anything but harmless. It represents a bigger, even more fundamental question, the answer to which will set the philosophical and moral direction of the twenty-first century: Will we subject our society – and with it our values, our laws and our sciences – to an ideology that wants us to “reject the evidence of our eyes and ears”, as Orwell put it? Or will we defy this anti-Enlightenment movement and choose reality – a reality where women and men exist as female and male representatives of the human species and where this fact stands beyond doubt?
For my part, I absolutely refuse to talk about “people with a vagina” or “menstruators”. If you submit to the language police, which seriously wants us to erase the word “woman” from discourse because of a small group of people who cannot handle the basic reality of sexual dimorphism and who accuse everybody of “transphobia” and “hate speech” for simply using the word “woman”, then you are complicit in the ideological and unscientific insanity of the woke mob. None of that. Rather, let’s say the word – and all the words that are connected to it: mother, daughter, girl, man, father, son, boy – as loudly and clearly as we can: woman. Woman! WOMAN!
About the author: Born 1987, with roots in Germany and the Philippines, living in Spain. Constantly curious and eager to learn new things. Freedom > safety. Your own opinion > groupthink. Coffee > tea. Podcast recmomendation: What’s Causing the Trans Explosion? | Triggernometry & Helen Joyce.
Die deutsche Version des Artikels findet sich hier:
One is reminded of Ricky Gervais’ politically incorrect and therefore hilarious sketch “New Women” from his segment SuperNature.
The poster child for men who identify as menstruating girls is Dylan Mulvaney, who even carries tampons with him, you know, just in case.
Another excellent article. You write with tremendous passion and insight on this subject.
There are many things that you said that I want to comment on, but only in agreement, not disagreement. I continue to be astonished by the nerve of the tiny trans community to try to redefine what gender is for the whole human race. And I continue to be angry at gullible non-trans people for going along with it.
You'll notice that men aren't being erased, only women. Trans people have no problem using the word "man".
I'm in my seventies, and I am gay. I used to think that gay people were at the bottom of the social totem pole, but I eventually realized that it is women who occupy that position -- and for no other reason than that they are physically weaker than men (ultimately, women's second-class status comes down to that). Because they constitute more than half the human population, no one describes them as a "minority group", but they are certainly oppressed. Look at all the things that are happening to women in the world, or HAVE happened:
* They have rarely held any kind of power in this world.
* During the middle ages (and after) they were hunted and murdered as witches.
* Today and in the past, they are and have been frequent victims of rape.
* Today and in the past, they are and have been the primary victims of honor killings.
* Serial killers almost always target women.
* FGM is a horrendous mutilation of women (although male circumcision isn't much better).
That's only a short list, the only ones that come to mind at this point.
Anyway, keep up the good work. I'm trying to get my own Substack set up on which I will post similar articles, but I am having technical problems.