Michigan Gov. Whitmer draws criticism for calling women ‘people with a period’
Locked in a competitive bid for a second term, Michigan's Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is facing criticism from her Republican opponent after a resurfaced clip of her referring to women as "people with a period" created a stir on the eve of the election.
On Monday, the popular Twitter account Libs of Tik Tok shared a 15-second clip of a video posted on Whitmer's TikTok account last November of her announcing that she signed legislation repealing the tampon tax in Michigan.
“People with a period” ????. I wonder if @GovWhitmer can answer “what is a woman?” pic.twitter.com/Ia6ub2by3X
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 7, 2022 Get Our Latest News for FREE
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In the clip, Whitmer makes her pitch to voters by touting a "bipartisan tax cut" that "will help reduce the economic burden of the cost of menstrual products, especially for low-income Michiganders." She insisted that the tax cut would result in "saving people with a period from paying taxes on up to $4,800 in spending over the course of their lifetime."
Whitmer's use of the term "people with a period" did not go unnoticed by her Republican opponent, conservative commentator and businesswoman Tudor Dixon.
In a tweet Monday, Dixon responded to a Fox News article highlighting Whitmer's apparent overture to trans-identified and "gender-fluid" individuals by stating "the word she refuses to say is 'women.'"
The word she refuses to say is "women".
— Tudor Dixon (@TudorDixon) November 7, 2022
Gretchen Whitmer continues to devalue the existence and reality of women by referring to us as "people with periods." https://t.co/GwnHnB4QK5
"Gretchen Whitmer continues to devalue the existence and reality of women by referring to us as 'people with periods,'" Dixon added.
Whitmer's comments about "people with a period" are the latest notable development in a hotly contested gubernatorial campaign. Political forecasters have divergent opinions about the trajectory of the Michigan gubernatorial election.
FiveThirtyEight's Deluxe Model, which predicts the outcome of elections based on polls, fundraising past voting patterns" and the opinions of political experts, gives Whitmer an 85% chance of winning re-election and projects a margin of victory of 5.8 percentage points for the incumbent governor.
The RealClearPolitics average of polls taken over the past week gives Whitmer a 1-percentage-point lead over Dixon.
The adjusted poll average, which considers the degree to which pollsters underestimated Republicans and Democrats in the past, gives Dixon a 1.2-percentage-point lead.
Whitmer was elected in 2018, securing 53.3% of the vote against her Republican opponent Bill Schuette, who received 43.7% of the vote.
Since taking office, Whitmer has allied herself with the LGBT community, an important constituency in the Democratic Party. Last year, Whitmer signed an executive order banning the practice derided by critics as "conversion therapy" for youth with unwanted same-sex attraction.
In addition to her LGBT advocacy, Whitmer has also emerged as an outspoken supporter of abortion rights. Whitmer's re-election campaign is taking place concurrently with a campaign to enshrine a right to abortion in the Michigan constitution.
As Michigan voters fill out their ballots Tuesday, they will be asked to weigh in on Proposition 3, which would restore the constitutional right to abortion established in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that the United States Supreme Court struck down in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization earlier this year.
If voters approve Proposition 3, Michigan would join 16 other states and Washington, D.C., that have established a right to abortion throughout most or all of pregnancy. The state has a pre-Roe abortion ban on the books, but a court order has blocked it from taking effect.
The outcome of the gubernatorial election and other statewide races in Michigan will impact abortion law there. If Dixon and the Republican candidate for attorney general win, they would likely push to enforce the state's pre-Roe ban as opposed to Whitmer and incumbent Attorney General Dana Nessel, who have fought against it.
Whitmer's statement is not the first time progressives have faced criticism for referring to women based on the characteristics of their reproductive system.
J.K. Rowling, the author of the famous Harry Potter children's book series, took to Twitter to express discontent with the headline of a 2020 Devex op-ed featuring the phrase "people who menstruate" in the headline.
"I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?" the author said, referring to the word "women."
Rowling sees the use of phrases such as "people who menstruate" as an example of "erasing the concept of sex."
The phraseology used to replace the word "women" also extends to well-respected educational institutions and medical journals.
Harvard Medical School's Postgraduate and Continuing Education referred to women as "birthing people" in a Nov. 8, 2020 tweet, while medical journal The Lancet faced intense pushback for labeling women "bodies with vaginas."
Supporters of such phrases view them as necessary to include LGBT people, but critics maintain that they are degrading and dehumanizing to women.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
