Louise O’Neill: ’So, tell me. What are your concerns about allowing trans women to be called women?’

JK Rowling arriving for the opening gala performance of Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, at the Palace Theatre in London.

In the middle of a global pandemic and a long over-due reckoning with the systemic racism that underpins our societal structures, JK Rowling, the author of the phenomenally successful Harry Potter series, decided to share an article on Twitter titled, ‘Creating a more equal post-COVID19 world for people who menstruate’. “People who menstruate,” she tweeted. “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people… Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” 

In the article itself, the journalist wrote that “an estimated 1.8 billion girls, women, and gender non-binary persons menstruate”; and while it is clear they used this particular heading for brevity’s sake, it was also accurate. Intersex people may menstruate. Trans men may menstruate, but they are not women. And really, is this how we are going to define women from now on?