[Ads-l] Venus symbol is for gender not sex

[Barretts Mail]

I’m pretty sure I got this wrong and that Linnaeus’s designation holds.

As per https://tinyurl.com/yy4toxl6 <https://tinyurl.com/yy4toxl6> (“Always Sanitary Products Remove Feminine Symbol in Move towards Inclusivity," Joanna Whitehead, 21 Oct), inclusion of the symbol on the products was a decision "that [transgender customers/activitists] felt excluded transgender and non-binary customers who do not identity [sic] as women, but who also use the items.” So the Venus symbol does indeed stand for sex not gender.

And while sanitary products are for female-sex-based needs, perhaps there are non-female-sexed people who use them.

My apologies for the spam.

Benjamin Barrett (he/his/him)
Formerly of Seattle, WA

> On 2 Nov 2019, at 10:50, Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> CNN reported last month that tampon brand Always will no longer have the female/Venus symbol on its package in recognition that not all tampon users associate with the symbol. This is an interesting development from what was surely a biological sex symbol to a gender symbol. 
> 
> 1. https://tinyurl.com/yxsw8k94 <https://tinyurl.com/yxsw8k94>
> Always is taking the female symbol off its packaging to be inclusive of transgender and nonbinary customers
> Elizabeth Wolfe and Michelle Krupa, CNN
> 23 October 2019
> 
> ####
> Always sanitary products will remove the Venus symbol, historically used to represent the female sex, from its products to be inclusive of transgender and nonbinary customers.
> 
> Transgender activists and allies had publicly urged Procter & Gamble to redesign its pad wrapper without the gender symbol, a circle atop a cross. Among their arguments were that not all people who menstruate are women and that not all women menstruate.’
> ####
> ####
> 
> Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_symbols#Venus <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_symbols#Venus>) provides a citation that states that Linnaeus first used the copper/Venus symbol for biology. 
> 
> 2. https://tinyurl.com/y3l3dgtx <https://tinyurl.com/y3l3dgtx> (PDF link)
> The Origin of the Male and Female Symbols of Biology
> William T. Stearn
> Taxon, vol. 11, no. 4 (May 1962), p. 110
> 
> I have added the planet names next to the symbols in case the symbols do not come through properly. 
> 
> ####
> Their first biological use is in the Linnaean dissertation _Plantae hybridae xxx xxx sistit J. J. Haartman_ (1751) where in discussing hybrid plants Linnaeus denoted the supposed female parent species by the sign ♀ [Venus], the male parent by the sign ♂ [Mars], the hybrid by ☿ [Mercury]: ‘matrem signo ♀ [Venus], patrem ♂ [Mars] & plantam hybridam ☿ [Mercury] designavero’.
> ####
> ####
> 
> Benjamin Barrett (he/his/him)
> Formerly of Seattle, WA


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