The transphobic “Gender Critical” war-on-inclusivity harms cis people, too.

You’ve seen the tweets. Some brand, hospital, medical association, or influencer on social media talks about “pregnant people,” “people with cervixes,” or “people who menstruate.” Immediately after the post goes live, an army of transphobic “gender criticals” scream that women are being erased.

But, are they?

Photo by Kim Gorga on Unsplash

Derailing Conversations

In 2020, a tweet linking to a sponsored article about menstrual inequality — that is, lack of access to menstrual products, clean bathrooms, soap, healthy water, and privacy, all part of gender inequality in our world — was derailed, as typical, by self-proclaimed “gender criticals” because they referred to menstruating people. It probably would have gone mostly unnoticed if the person that wanted to take the attention away from menstrual inequality and focus it instead on nitpicking word choice was someone other than famous author JK Rowling. She wrote,“‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

Of course it isn’t a new thing that well-off white women attempt to claim the mantle of feminism to interrupt conversations that disproportionately impact women in the global south. But this derailing of conversation wasn’t…