Womxn

The word woman is derived from the Old English wīfmann ("woman-person"), which is formed of the roots wīf- (later becoming the modern wife), then meaning "woman", and -mann (which became the modern man), then meaning "person, human", originally without connotations of gender.[9] Man took on its additional masculine meaning in the Late Middle English period, replacing the now-obsolete word wer. This has created the present situation with man bearing a dual meaning—either masculine or nonspecific.[10]

Dictionary.com, which added womxn and 300 other words to its dictionary in 2019,[11] defines womxn as "a woman (used, especially in intersectional feminism, as an alternative spelling to avoid the suggestion of sexism perceived in the sequences m-a-n and m-e-n, and to be inclusive of trans and nonbinary people)."[2]

Brandeis sociologist Keridwen Luis states that feminists have experimented for decades to devise a suitable alternative for the term identifying the female gender. Such terms have included "wimmin" (in the 1990s), based upon the original Old English term, and "womyn" (since at least 1975).[12][13][14]

The Boston Globe calls the term "a powerful, increasingly popular label, encompassing a broader range of gender identities than 'woman'—or even older feminist terms such as 'womyn' ... a nontraditional spelling for people whose gender identity doesn’t fit in the traditional boxes".[12] Jennie Kermode, chair of Trans Media Watch, stated that the organization would not use the term, considering that women already includes trans women.[3] The New York Times stated that while womxn was difficult to pronounce, it was "perhaps the most inclusive word yet",[13] using a similar approach to the term "Latinx". Sociologist Nita Harper praised the term's ambiguity in pronunciation, saying that it forces users to "stop and think".[12]

Womxn's March on Seattle, 2018

In 2017, the Womxn's March on Seattle chose to use the term "womxn" to promote the march. Elizabeth Hunter-Keller, the event's communications chair, told The New York Times that they chose it based upon the recommendation of a core organizer, who was a nonbinary person, and to reflect the organizing group's diversity. Hunter-Keller reported that although there were some questions, most supporters encouraged the choice.[13] In January 2018, Portland held the Indigenous Womxn’s March, dedicated to missing and murdered indigenous girls, women, and transgender people.[15]

In October 2019, the Wellcome Collection, a museum and library in London, made an announcement through Twitter using the term to demonstrate their goal of including diverse perspectives; after complaints from hundreds of followers, the museum later apologized and removed the term from its website.[13][16] Labour Party politician Jess Phillips responded to the incident by saying, "I've never met a trans woman who was offended by the word woman being used, so I'm not sure why this keeps happening".[3] Clara Bradbury-Rance of King's College London conjectured that the push-back was because the use of the term was seen as too simplistic and a "fix-all".[3]

• Feminist language reform
• Fourth-wave feminism
• LGBTQIA+ linguistics
• Transfeminism
• List of transgender-related topics