> Why does their opinion about what they want to be called not matter?
I mean it does, but it doesn't override everyone else's. Consider people with with albinism. A medical text should not refer to people with albinism as albino men, even if some men might prefer to be called "men" instead of albinos. That'd mean calling albino women "men" which they clearly are not.
In the same way, assuming you accept that trans men are men (which the author purports to) calling people who menstruate women is calling these men something that they are not. So you need to use something that actually describes what you are trying to describe. This is also true since not all biological women menstruate, so even there if you use the term "women" instead of "people who menstruate" when discussing something medical that has to do with menstruating, you've now used an inaccurate term that describes a larger group of people than you are discussing.
>>I mean it does, but it doesn't override everyone else's.
That same logic should apply to people who claim to be the opposite gender from what they were born.
"Women" as a term is incredibly useful and descriptive when referring to females. It's strongly correlated with multiple important traits. When its definition is changed to mean any one who assigns the word 'woman' to themselves, the word conveys no meaningful information.
>> When its definition is changed to mean any one who assigns the word 'woman' to themselves, the word conveys no meaningful information.
This is the heart of the matter, and they even admit as much when they have to use terms like AFAB or ciswoman. These distinctions were not needed until they intentionally made the term "woman" meaningless.
That's what's a social construct is, and unless you make everyone you meet drop pants and show off their genitals, which you then inspect for surgical scars etc then run a DNA test to make sure they aren't intersex - you make a quick guess based on limited information that alligns with your previous experiences with people who also shared those traits.
We do often make a quick guess about a person's gender, but that doesn't invalidate anything I said. The two genders themselves once referred strictly to biological sex so when we said someone is a "woman", everyone knew what traits would be highly likely to be associated with that person.
> unless you make everyone you meet drop pants and show off their genitals
What's the obsession with this phrase, as if everyone is going to say "Oh no, we can't try to prevent rape anymore because we'd have to look at people's genitals to accomplish it. haha, silly us."
For one, we had a solution to this. It was your ID which listed your sex.
And two, if people screw with ID laws enough that it can't be trusted then you will be required to go to a doctor and drop your pants down to have your biology categorized as a requirement to enter female spaces and events.
> if you wanted to prevent rape you'd do better to ban politicians and priests
We already had banned all male politicians and priests from female spaces simply by virtue of their being male. You're weakening that protection by letting them claim to be female to avoid being removed.
And yet trans women (and males by any other ID) are the risk.
> Repackaged homophobic rehtoric
Wow, no. What's homophobic is you trying to use homosexuality to defend men in women's spaces. This is why the LGB Alliance is fighting for homosexual and sex-based rights and separation from the trans-queer movement.
There is a clear biological definition of the sexes (down to the genetic level if you want). Rather than changing definitions in language, wouldn’t it make more sense to add to our current definitions and language to accommodate the social flavours of sexuality?
A more adaptive definition of gender might be more suitable: social gender, body gender and biological gender.
They do not want to be called "menstruators", they want to be called women.
Why does their opinion about what they want to be called not matter?