well sometimes u need to refer to ppl who have a vagina, because having a vagina is somehow relevant to the topic of conversation. which in my experience comes up very rarely, so i dont have to use it very often.
some people who have vaginas arent women, and so if the topic includes those ppl, then “people with vaginas” is the perfect phrase to use. and if talking about ppl with vaginas who all identify as women, cis women is more fitting.
“female” is a very vague way of referring to something. some ppl use it to describe gender identity, others use it to talk about ppl with vaginas, others again use it to refer to ppl with estrogen-dominant hormonal systems, etc. etc.
3dogsinatrenchcoat@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
People with vaginas is the right terminology if discussing something that pertains to vaginas. Eg. “People with vaginas should make sure to see a gynecologist regularly.” in this case, saying “women” would exclude/misgender many trans and intersex people who have vaginas but are not women, while also including some women who do not have vaginas and would not need to see a gynecologist
user224@lemmy.sdf.org 3 days ago
The person you replied to said “female” though. As far as I know, “Man”/“Woman” is on the gender side while “Male”/“Female” is on the sex side, based purely on things like reproductive organs, chromosomes and hormones.
Although taking all three into account may just make it hard to determine. But it does imply that “male woman” and “female man” are also valid combinations.
MBM@lemmings.world 3 days ago
Not really, I don’t think. They’re just the adjectives where woman/man are the nouns. If you talk about a male coworker I assume he’s a man, not that you checked his birth certificate.
LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
Male and Female are still normative exclusionary categories that describe trends within physiology and not hard rules or limits. Sex is not a golden rule. It is a human created category in the same way gender is.
If you want to talk about specific anatomy there is no reason why you can’t talk about the anatomy you’re referring to.
3dogsinatrenchcoat@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
Sex is a lot more complicated than male/female. There’s a bunch of different sex characteristics that make up “sex” and people can have all sorts of different combinations of them. If you just use a male/female binary, that doesn’t tell people what sex characteristic you’re referring to. Maybe something affects people based on chromosones, in which case people who are xy but otherwise “female” (like with cais) would go in the “male” category and vice versa. Or maybe something affects people based on hormones, in which case transgender people taking hrt would have to be categorized based on that. If you say “male/female”, no one knows if you’re talking about hormones, or genitals, or chromosones, or gonads, or whatever else, so it’s best to be specific and use language like “people with [body part]”