As I understand it, there's two types of anecdata.

[conuly]

There's the deeply personal type, as in: "When I had Covid, these were my symptoms".

And there's the more broad type, as in: "People are more likely to say firefly than lightning bug".

I really don't like the second type much, especially when talking about things of actual import, because you're not really talking about your own experience anymore. You're talking about your perception of how things are, and I actually *do* know from my own experience that people's perceptions of how things are, at least with regards to language, are very often wrong. People will often say "I only started hearing this last year!" and then a cursory glance at the material shows that whatever term or phrase it is appeared in popular media that they definitely read/watched/heard like, 30 years ago, and it's been widespread ever since. Or they'll say that a certain baby name is more or less popular after a specific event, but when you go and check the data you'll see that their perception has no relation to reality.

If this is the case for language and language-related things, it may be the case for other things as well, but as it happens I gave this whole intro to talk about something language related!

Elsewhere several months ago, some people were talking about inclusive language, for example, "pregnant people". (For the record, I maintain that the only reason to object to the phrase "pregnant people" is because you don't actually think anybody who can be pregnant is a person. Given the overlap between transphobia and straight-up misogyny, you know I'm right.)

Anyway, one of the people on that thread said something along the lines of "blah blah blah, obviously it's just reducing women to parts and about erasing women, and that's obvious by the fact that you hear people talk about saying 'people with vaginas' or 'uterus havers' but nobody ever suggests 'people with penises' so...."

And I thought at the time that she was totally wrong, that I definitely see phrases like "penis owner" more often than the other, or at least as often.

But I didn't say it because of the aforementioned irritation with that flavor of anecdata and also, honestly, that thread was going nowhere good.

But it's still in the back of my mind.

And even though I really, really don't like this sort of anecdata, especially with regards to language use, I'm gonna solicit it anyway. In your perception, do you think that you see the one more than the other from sympathetic sources? Obviously whatever transphobes say when they're quoting or mocking doesn't count!

Obligatory endnote: I've said it before and I'll say it again, probably by the end of this week. If your natural allies are the far right, you need to seriously sit down and reconsider the life choices that have brought you to this place. You've clearly stepped wrong somewhere.

Comments

[lilysea]

There's also the phrase

"bepenised men"

or "bepenised individuals"

which I've only ever seen being used by transphobes who want to be horrible to trans women.

"Penis owners" on the other hand, I've seen used by sex educators who want to include all people who have a penis, regardless of their gender.

[conuly]

I haven't seen either of those, but the transphobes can go someplace very warm and do something very unpleasant to themselves.

[oursin]

I have forgotten the details of the sectarian differences within British feminism in the mid to late 70s, so can't recall whether it was the RadFems or the RevFems, but I'm pretty sure one or the other referred to 'the willy-wearers'. It was meant to be pejorative/dismissive.

[ioplokon]

that makes it seem more like they've got beef with strap-ons (which, i suppose, they probably did)

[oursin]

Oh yes, there were very strict and particular rules about Politically Correct Sexual Practices!

[conuly]

Geez, the last thing I want is my entire consciousness raising group hanging out in my bedroom as I do it. Can't they sit in the living room instead?

[melannen]

I've seen usages that refer specifically to penis-havers in various wording for a long time, but mostly not in ways that are sympathetic to them. (there was a long period when I saw that referencing men in a derogatory way much more often than the uterus-related equivalents.)

From sympathetic usages, people tend to pick the body part that is actually relevant to the discussion though, and it's usually not that one? So I think I see references to testicles, testosterone, or facial hair more often. I think the non-derogatory usage of phallic synecdoche comes up most often for me in backpacking forums where it's extremely relevant to toileting advice.

[lilysea]

I saw a headline today with nice use of language:

"Offer support to trans men who choose to chest feed, new guidelines advise"

chest feed (instead of breast feed) for trans men feels like such a nice/elegant/respectful use of language

[conuly]

Ah, well, doncha know, "people who are pregnant" erases women, and "people with uteruses" reduces women to their parts, but "chestfeeding" does BOTH those things.

I don't know about you, but I keep my boobs on my chest.

[alexseanchai]

it depends on the topic of conversation. recently there has indeed been a distinct skew away from "people with penises" and the like, mostly because they're not whose health is at risk from unwanted pregnancy, but the phrase still comes up re vasectomies and such.

[kengr]

There's a significant imbalance with "penis-bearers".

Given the current state of phalloplasty, most trans-men don't *have* penises. The only folks who do are either cis-males, of pre-op/no-op trans-women.

[conuly]

Fair point, though to be honest, "penis bearer" sounds like a member of a fertility cult, and "penis owner" sounds like somebody with a collection of artistic dildos.

[kengr]

There's a festival in Japan where they have people (teams of 6-8 or more) carrying giant wooden penises, and often have people riding on them. :-)

[ioplokon]

You'd think more women would understand how difficult it is to get medical treatment if you're not the Type of Person Who Needs it in the eyes of doctors, insurance, medical admin &c. Whether it is lesbians having to fight to get pap smears/sti testing, trans women getting prostate cancer screening, or trans men trying to find out whether to do breast cancer screening after top surgery, it's really an uphill battle to access accurate information and medical treatment. so idk, some of the language is a bit cringe or alienating outside of a medical context, but it can also be clarifying.

Also another anecdote but we're definitely in a huge backlash against inclusive language. I was doing a french writing course and the prof wouldn't even accept the duplicative format (Françaises, Français), which is hardly radical.

[sathari]

For the record, I maintain that the only reason to object to the phrase "pregnant people" is because you don't actually think anybody who can be pregnant is a person.

I love this. Thank you for saying this.

And, okay, I have another bone to pick with the person who suggests that talking about "pregnant people" or "people with uteruses" is somehow erasing women or reducing them to specific anatomy, because in addition to the entire universe of trans/nonbinary/genderqueer people, there are also ciswomen who cannot become pregnant; there are ciswomen who do not have uteruses. And if you're talking in the context of the current threats to abortion and contraception access, the people who are most affected by that are people with occupiable uteruses, regardless of gender identity--- it's not gender identity that's the... locus of discrimination, or power, maybe?... here, it's whether or not you have a uterus and whether or not it can be occupied against your will. So if this person is/was suddenly seeing a lot more discussion of "pregnant people" or "people with uteruses" in the wake of, say, that leaked draft opinion, that person needs to consider the overall context. (I could TL;DR about this one, but I think I've covered the high points so I'll stop here.)

[conuly]

Upvote +1

[cellio]

Of your two types, only the first feels like an anecdote to me. An anecdote is all about telling a story or a thing about someone's experience. The other -- "people say this" etc -- is a generalization, a claim, a saying, lots of other things, but to me it's not an anecdote. In case this helps you push the wrong kind of anecdotes away mentally...

I don't think I had noticed "pregnant people" or "people with penises" or similar until the last year or two. I've noticed the former more than the latter but that might be because of the current issues rather than a natural distribution. With derogatory terms, on the other hand, I hear male anatomy more than female (d*ckhead for example).

I've also heard "people who can get pregnant" and in a relevant health discussion that's fine (but verbose) but as a gender proxy I'm bothered by it. I am a cis woman. I have a uterus, two X chromosomes, etc. But I cannot get pregnant, having aged out, and that does not make me less of a woman. It means I have the privilege of knowing I won't have to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, but again, if we're not talking about reproduction, I find the phrase off-putting. That's not "defining me by parts" or the like, and if what you said is an exact quote then I don't think the speaker wants a thoughtful conversation, but I can see a path from the kind of discomfort I'm describing to legitimate discomfort over parts-based identity, if that makes sense. I'm sympathetic and I want language that includes all who should be included without accidentally excluding people either. That can take a few tries to get right; people of good intentions will work it out, but we might stumble a bit along the way. It can be really frustrating to be making your best effort in a changing dynamic and get called a bigot for being a phrase-change behind the accuser. (Which, to be abundantly clear, I am not in any way accusing you of. But I've seen it and I cringe because those folks are making it harder for the people they think they're allies of.)

[conuly]

Yeah, but I said anecdata, not anecdote :)

And no, that was a paraphrase, but it was the gist. Certainly "erasing women" and "defining women by their parts" was in there, if not in that exact comment then in others by that person.

I think it's *reasonable* for, say, an OB to refer to their patients as people rather than just running ahead with the word "women", and presumably if you're at the OB you are or intend to be pregnant, or perhaps recently were. Which is most of the context where I hear that phrasing - when we are, in fact, talking about people who are, intend to be, or recently were pregnant. (At least I think it is. Again, anecdata about this sort of thing is super unreliable.)

[cellio]

Oh! So you did, and I read right past "anecdata". Silly me.

To me, the tells in that (paraphrased) comments are "just" and "blah blah blah". That makes it sound dismissive to em, like the speaker is not interested in a thoughtful discussion.

Agreed on an OB referring to patients! To the extent I've heard this phrasing it's been "in the wild", not in a medical context, so I didn't realize that's what you had in mind.

[hashiveinu]

You're talking about your perception of how things are, and I actually *do* know from my own experience that people's perceptions of how things are, at least with regards to language, are very often wrong.

Word. A lot of early Language Log was about falsifying claims of this type.

[conuly]

It's not just language, either - people have the weirdest ideas about names, too. Admittedly there hasn't been nearly as much research done on the factors that make names more or less popular in any given year, but what limited data we *do* have suggests that anything that gets a name into new parents' heads will increase the chance that they'll give that name to a baby. So no, the name Katrina didn't tank after the hurricane, it actually had a slight bump. And while it's technically true that the name Adolf/Adolph in the USA declined after WWII, it didn't just fall down precipitously after we entered the war - it declined with all other German names as German-Americans increasingly assimilated and began giving their children modern American names instead of family names - so the decline starts around the 1920s and the name doesn't actually drop off the SSA top thousand list until the 1950s, iirc.

But people hear this and it fits their ideas of what makes sense and so they never check it. They do the same thing with quotations - "Oh, yes, of course that quotation comes from that famous person I've heard of!"

[silveradept]

Speaking from my own experience, people who are more likely to understand the need for inclusion are more likely to use inclusive language. A trans man who retains the ability to get pregnant often uses "people who can get pregnant" to make sure that includes trans men, for example.

If there were widespread discrimination toward people with penises, specifically because they had penises, regardless of their identity or presentation, then we would probably see more usage of "people with penises." For the moment, however, the bathroom panickers and the TERFs tend to be the ones going on and on about penises being in their spaces, and they're doing it not to be inclusive, but exclusive.