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| quote: | Originally posted by JEO
I might be stating the obvious here, but I don't think it's about whether a considerable amount of people feel miscategorized, but rather about whether the loudest ones feel so. This includes people who don't necessarily have anything to do with being transsexual or transgender – or what ever happens to be the subject group(s) – but who just like calling companies out on inane things like this, were they to find a reason to. And, unfortunately, many companies and universities let themselves be held hostage by these seemingly sociopathic people on social media, so I can understand the care they try to take around subjects like this, but it's never as perfect as some would want it to be. |
Maybe, and I'm inclined to agree with you, so that's why I was hoping a trans TA would come here and give their two cents.
Perhaps it's a case of #NotAllPeople and only a vocal minority shaping the discourse, or maybe it really is a far more widespread view than we imagine. I tried to look for some data on how common this point of view is, but couldn't find any 
| quote: | Originally posted by hoopoe
Well the OP refers to The Lancet - a medical journal - which is kind of the scientific equivalent of a legal document, so that is almost literally what is happening here. |
I guess that's the very argument they used to support this wording, and I wholeheartedly agree with you that's a very apt comparison, so that's me for not writing a lengthier "legal-worded" post myself 
I didn't want to go too far down this rabbit hole, but here we go:
What I mean to point out is that, as far as language is concerned, there comes a point we just take meanings for granted, even in legal or scientific documents. Here's why:
Let's suppose they didn't just stop at "women", but also defined "bodies" and "vaginas" to avoid confusion. We've been assuming "bodies" refers to "human bodies", right from the original post, when it could've been referring to all sorts of animals. The context counts, of course, because to the best of my knowledge The Lancet is not a publication for veterinarians, but "bodies with vaginas" could easily be a catch-all phrase for "female mammals" (as animal anatomy and physiology do exist). My moggy sitting right next to me is a body with a vagina, but she isn't a woman in any sense. Is that paragraph talking about her too?
If it is, then it shows they could've been more specific, because that's not something I considered myself when I first read it. If it isn't, it shows we are ourselves reading a lot more than just the words written on the quoted paragraph, and always will. If we push this clarity to its logical conclusion and repeat these steps a few more times, we'd most likely end up with a phrase like "human organisms containing an elastic, muscular canal that extends from the vulva to the cervix" when "women" or "females" would've sufficed.
A simple inclusive footnote decoupling the notions of sex and gender would avoid trans-exclusionary interpretations, or something similar, could have made it both clear and useful.
| quote: | Originally posted by hoopoe
As a body with a penis it does not bother or register with me in the slightest. If I saw those words written in a scientific context I would just immediately (correctly) conclude that it was referring to something that affects that particular organ, and that there is a range of people who posses such an organ that do not necessarily fall under the term 'man'. |
It wouldn't bother me either (we're not the target audience for my question, to be honest, assuming you're a cis male just like I am), but it just doesn't seem to happen, so there's something odd happening here. An imbalance, if you will.
I'm afraid that, with good intentions in mind, we're yet again treating women differently, and The Economist has an interesting take on it. In short, the words "men" and "women" don't really have to be trans-exclusionary, do they?
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