Except “woman” doesn’t mean “female person” anymore, it means “anyone who identifies as a woman” because attaching any common noun at all for people based on sex rather than gender would be accused of transphobia.
It’s kind of like if someone asked what the term for the sexual orientation of someone who is interested in partners they could hypothetically reproduce with is, the answer is there isn’t one and suggesting there should be will get called transphobic.
Do you often find yourself in discussions where the trans-inclusivity/exclusivity of the term is important to know?
Because whenever I use “men, guys” or any other such term, whether it includes trans people doesn’t even cross my mind. Like the discussions if we should welcome “guy friends” at our girls’ game and gossip nights, or if I’m being too naive around “men”. Talking about “males” like an alien species would be weird and mildly offensive. (Mildly because the Finnish word “uros” can imply admiration for a man’s masculinity.)
If you wanted a term for potential partners you could possibly reproduce with, none of the “female, woman, male, man” terms by itself would do, because (even personally known) infertility for various reasons exists.
Just say what you mean. Intersex and trans people exist. For example, “menstruator” or “people who menstruate” if you’re talking about periods. Not all women menstruate, not everyone who menstruates is a woman, and hell, there are plenty of people who have uteruses but don’t menstruate. It’s way clearer and inclusive.
partners they could hypothetically reproduce with
“fertile women”
“women capable of pregnancy”
Outdated, slight red flag option: “gynephile”
Or you could even try “I find women attractive and would love to have kids with the woman I love one day”
There, language isn’t that hard.
You’re actually demonstrating my point - I said “a common noun” for one and “a term” for the other. The whole point is that any “acceptable” language for those notions (a person of the sort who possesses female genitals and potentially has ova that she could hypothetically carry to term and identifies as a woman and a person attracted to the sort of person they might hypothetically be able to reproduce with) has to have at the very minimum an adjective if not an entire phrase attached to it.
For example, imagine someone tried to re-popularize the old English words to refer to cis folks, using wifmen for cis women in this example. That would immediately be deemed transphobic, specifically because it’s a common noun to refer specifically to cis women and not a shared category you have to use an adjective or phrase to differentiate from.
Same thing applies to orientation - we have a lot of words for sexual orientations. But a word for a person who is attracted to cis people of a given sex relative to one’s own is unacceptable - the very idea that there could be a term for it is transphobic. Despite sexual attraction being one of those rare cases where what genitals you have and whether or not they’re the original equipment is actually relevant.
Also wouldn’t “gynephile” meaning one who has an attraction to women still not be precise enough, since women includes trans women by definition, at least the feminine ones?
I think you’re just chronically online. Just say female if you’re in a conversation and want to exclude trans women. Most trans people won’t care as long if the context isn’t transphobic. I really don’t see why it’s unacceptable to have an adjective if you’re describing a subset of women. Like there’s not a singular noun for “tall men” but if you’re actually not being transphobic then whatever.
Again with sexual orientation, it sounds like you’re saying that because chronically online. There are people who say it’s transphobic to say straight but exlude trans people. Again, context and intent matters. You can just say straight. This one is tricker because not all trans people have surgically transitioned, genital preference matters, and orientation is a spectrum.
And it’s a tough subject within the trans community itself, because it’s frustrating to present as a gender, transition in every way to that gender, be accepted and pass for that gender, only for someone to say they aren’t attracted to you only after they find out you’re trans. What other conclusion would you have other than transphobia? And it doesn’t help that it often is accompanied by blatant transphobia.
So if someone is calling you transphobic, either the context is also transphobic or they’re misunderstanding your intent.
So that hypothetic person is turned off by learning someone is infertile for any reason?
