European Parliament report refers to 'menstruating individuals'

European Parliament approves report using 'menstruating individuals'

What does the European Parliament call women? In the women's health report approved by the chamber, the answer is a linguistic contortion: the text refers to menstruating individuals, pregnant individuals and breastfeeding individuals. The word 'woman' is diluted and replaced by a description of biological function. That vocabulary alone is enough to fuel yet another clash between institutional language and common sense.

What the women's health report contains

The document addresses the health of half the population and yet avoids naming it as such. It refers to those who menstruate, those who are pregnant and those who breastfeed, without using the noun that designates the group. The text has been circulating in quotes from the circle of the ECR parliamentary group, the conservative and Eurosceptic family in the chamber, which has turned the terminology into the centrepiece of its criticism.

This is not a cosmetic detail. A health report's practical usefulness depends on whether it clearly identifies its target population, and here the identification is made by physiological function. The paradox, pointed out from the very start, is that a text on women's health can be read from beginning to end without stumbling across the word.

Why the institution avoids saying 'women'

The rationale invoked for writing this way is to avoid excluding anyone who menstruates or carries a pregnancy without being a woman. It is the logic of inclusive language applied to a normative document: replacing the subject with a description so that the category excludes no one. The intention is to widen the umbrella.

The problem, its critics reply, is that by swapping the subject for the function, the report no longer defines anyone with precision. A health policy that does not know whom it addresses can hardly measure whom it benefits. Precision here is not a philologist's luxury: it is the foundation of any rule.

The criticism: a definition that does not define

The most repeated argument is elementary logic. Not all women menstruate —menopause, hysterectomies, treatments— and not only women menstruate. If the criterion for being the subject of a health policy is possessing an organ or performing a function, the category breaks on both sides at once.

From there it jumps to the most familiar reductio ad absurdum: if it is acceptable to describe someone by the organ they carry, any male would be a testicle-bearing person. The joke writes itself, which is why it has travelled further than the report itself.

Ridicule as a political weapon

Much of the response has been satire. A kind of legend circulates about the 'menstruating individual' condemned to repeat their cycle every twenty-eight days, changing land and life without escaping the curse. Others take the logic to its extreme: if the report defines by function, menopausal women would fall outside their own heading.

In parallel, the vocabulary has grown on its own. Alongside the official formulas, popular coinages about carried organs have emerged, and even a question is doing the rounds on social media: what exactly is a 'zona íntima-bearing' person? Mockery, in this case, works as an argument.

Why the terminology matters

Because it is not free. When an institution's language stops naming its subjects, citizens lose the anchor to demand accountability: you cannot claim what you do not know belongs to whom. The debate over words is, in reality, a debate over whom the rule protects.

And because it sets a trend. What is written today in a European report appears tomorrow in guidelines, protocols and forms. Anyone who thinks this is an anecdote confined to offices has never looked at Spain's Official State Gazette on a Sunday.

One thing deserves thanks from the report: it has managed to get half a continent talking about women's health. Though without naming it.