It was a sunny afternoon in Santiago, Chile.
A Canadian man named Justin T arrived to "escape the West" where wokeness is abundant.
Where men can't be men and women can't be women.
A world full of male femboys and female tomboys.
Clown world.
Upon arriving to the Earthquake Capital of South America, Justin T soon found a seismic shift in his understanding of the culture down here that left him a tremor and an aftershock in his faith for his new country.
....Pun intended? Get it? Haha jaja haha jaja...
I'm just trying to make people laugh!" Wise words of Joker
So what was the issue Justin T had with Chile?
Surely, he was able to escape the wokeness of The West, right?
Well, upon sitting down for a nice date with a woman named "Moni," they have a few beers and get to know each other.
Starts out well.
But then Justin T said something offensive.
He compliments her by saying "eres una mujer linda."
And, in that instant, the look on Moni's face changes instantly.
The beer bottle shatters in her hand.
Her eyes become dark red.
And she glares angrily at Justin T with a determination to cut his throat.
To which she begins shouting at him.
"No soy una mujer. SOY UNX PERSONA MENSTRUANTE!! UNX PERSONA MENSTRUANTE!!! YA ENTIENDES, PENDEJO?!?!"
Justin T, in that moment, gets up from his seat and stumbles backwards towards the door horrified.
Moni's appearence begins to change to something demonic like you see in The Shining here.
The Shining Crazy Bathroom Lady Scene with Jack
And she begins laughing crazily while shouting "UNX PERSONA MENSTRUANTE!! UNX PERSONA MENSTRUANTE!!! UNX PERSONA MENSTRUANTE!!!"
Justin T then flees to his hotel where, to his unfortunate luck, can't even get a good nights sleep because there's too much truck honking outside.
Anyway....
He soon packs his bags and heads home!
Well, maybe he tries his luck in another person of the world.
A world that he hopes is "less woke" than his experience that unfortunate afternoon with Moni.
Perhaps Thailand or Ethiopia.
And thus ends Justin T's hopes for a life in South America away from wokeness.
But is it really THAT bad down here?
The Arrival of the Latin American Birthing Person
Now, to be fair, things up north in the US & Canada do tend to be "a little bit less woke" than Latin America at large.
Of course, it depends on what part of "up there" are you are comparing to what parts "down here."
Back home in small town Iowa, you really don't need to be worried about wokeness.
Plenty of deep red areas that'll make your typical liberal cry in horror if that's what you are looking for.
Of course, said areas are "a little bit boring."
And the small town areas like "Lone Tree, Iowa (population 1,390)" oddly enough doesn't have all of the big booty Latinas that drive so many men to come to Latin America (with another reason being to "escape wokeness).
So you might get lonely in "Lone Tree, Iowa."
Haha jaja haha jaja haha jaja....
So I get why the man looking to escape "wokeness" of the north might come down here as you can live in a bigger city with enough to keep you occupied while not witnessing wokeness on a daily basis.
Though, as I wrote in this article here, there's no shortage of social justice warriors down here and cancel culture does exist in some parts of Latin America as I wrote in the article cited above.
So, like with the US or Canada, your mileage will vary as to how much you are escaping "wokeness" from back home when you come down here.
As of recently, what inspired me to write this article was to simply document a recent change down here in -- you guessed it -- Chile.
One of Latin America's "more progressive" countries arguably when you compare it to most of the region.
Where their Congress has approved efforts to replace the word "woman" with "menstruating person."
Effectively, the "Latin American version" of the term "birthing person" in the US and Canada.
For an article on the subject, you can find one here.
Here's some key quotes:
"El Congreso chileno aprobó un nuevo proyecto que busca omitir la palabra «mujer» y reemplazarla por el término «persona menstruante», con dicha aprobación la iniciativa ahora pasa al Senado.
Con la idea legislativa se quiere imponer en el parlamento la «neolengua progre», gracias a la coalición del presidente Boric.
De acuerdo a la diputada Emilia Schneider, el término de «mujer» sería manipulado en favor de hombres trans, personas no binarias, queer, u otras variantes de género, quienes biológicamente han nacido con sexo femenino, pero no se identifican con él."
Of course, there's more to the article with some specific provisions laid out regarding the significance of this legislatively in Chile that you can read more about by clicking on the link provided.
Anyway, out of curiosity, I wanted to see if other Latin American countries also use the term "persona menstruante."
A bit ironic it's supposed to be non-binary but you can find the word "men" in "menstruante.
Haha jaja haha jaja...
OK, OK, I'll stop with the jokes!
Well, from what I could tell, I guess it's a term used in Argentina as you can see on this government website here.
"Trabajamos para garantizar los derechos de las personas menstruantes
Participamos de la Mesa de Gestión Menstrual organizada por el Hospital del Bicentenario de Esteban Echeverría donde se debatió acerca de la importancia de generar políticas con enfoque de diversidad y derechos para las personas menstruantes."
Next we have Uruguay as you can see this proposal written up by a politican of the "Partido Colorado" discussing the issues of "personas menstruantes" and ideas to help them out:
Here's some key quotes:
"La menstruación es un fenómeno biológico inevitable que afecta a mujeres y trans de entre 12 y 50 años aproximadamente. Pese a que sea algo tan natural, el 48% de las mujeres uruguayas no se sienten cómodas hablando sobre menstruación con familiares o amigos del sexo masculino, según un estudio de IWHC y la app Clue. Esto /ene importantes implicancias a nivel social y cultural: el silencio y es/gma alrededor de este tema se vuelve una barrera entre las personas menstruantes y aquellas que no lo son."
Arculo 1°. Créase la canasta higiénica menstrual como prestación a cargo del Ministerio de Desarrollo Social (MIDES), cuyas des/natarias serán todas las personas menstruantes cuyos hogares sean beneficiarios de la Tarjeta Uruguay Social."
Of course, these are easy shots, right?
So far, we have looked at some of the more liberal countries in Latin America: Chile, Argentina & Uruguay.
Can we find any examples of this terminology used in less progressive countries of Latin America?
Well, I was able to find folks from Nicaragua using the term for example online but nothing within government policy.
And, on top of that, I was able to find info on Colombia and Mexico passing laws to help homeless women access hygene products.
Which isn't really the issue at hand as most of the online discussion these days revolving around the new proposal in Chile is more about the term "persona menstruante" than helping homeless women.
Still, while those laws mentioned in Mexico or Colombia do or do not use the term "persona menstruante" (I couldn't find out in 5 minutes), I did find such a law using the term in a more conservative country: Ecuador.
As you can see in this article here.
"Hoy, martes 15 de junio de 2021, las redes sociales se llenaron de comentarios sobre el Proyecto de Ley Orgánica de Salud e Higiene Menstrual, presentado por la asambleísta Johanna Moreira."
"Personas menstruantes
Este término llamó la atención de los internautas, pues se supone que quienes menstrúan necesariamente se identifican como mujeres. Sin embargo, ‘personas menstruantes’ se usa para abarcar también a hombres trans y personas no binarias que tienen útero y, por lo tanto, también menstrúan a lo largo de su vida fértil.
Según la definición del proyecto de ley, las personas menstruantes son “mujeres niñas, adolescentes y adultas, personas transgénero, intersex y personas no binarias”.
Still, similar to the US, you have plenty of people -- men and women -- who oppose such terms.
Be it the issues some people have with the term "birthing person" as you can see here.
To Latin Americans expressing issue with the term "persona menstruante" as you can see here.
Of course, issues transcend borders and the issues some folks have with these terms down here are similar to what you find back in the US:
- Some just find the terms themselves to be stupid.
- Some women feel it "erases women" (not just with the terms but also by letting women compete in male sports which I haven't seen down here happen yet).
- Some women just find the term "too odd" or "objectifying" perhaps? Or however they'd describe it.
- And also, especially here in Mexico City, you have "more traditional feminists" who hate trans women in general because they see them as just perverted men putting on a dress.
Still, regardless of what you think about it all, it's a classic example of how "wokeness" exists down here also.
The same wokeness that our dear Justin T was trying to escape!
Final Thoughts
And that's all this article is about: simply to document another example of wokeness down here that so many expats and aspiring expats think doesn't exist down here.
Personally, I don't really give a shit about these laws or what terms they want to put in legislation.
It doesn't impact my daily life.
Even if I was to go to one of those more progressive countries like Chile, Argentina or Uruguay, I'm pretty sure not one single woman I would go on a date with or even interact with in public would refer to herself as a "persona menstruante" and be pissed if I didn't use such a term to describe her.
Very confident that isn't happening anytime soon (I'll let you know if it changes in 20 years).
And especially in less progressive places of Latin America, such discussions are not really had or make the news as much except maybe in Ecuador I suppose.
Which again shows you the importance of geography when discussing how Latin America varies from country to country and even city to city within any specific country.
On top of all of that, we have other examples of language outside of "birthing person" or "persona menstruante" that make the rounds in discussions.
For example, we have the classic "Latinx" which not many actual Latin Americans (maybe 0.1%) actually use.
A topic I wrote more about here.
Though, interesting enough, the article about Ecuador that I cited did use the "progressive x" as you can see here.
“Imagínense la menstruación para las personas en situación de calle, en movilidad, sin acceso a agua potable, sin servicios de salud sexual y reproductiva. Gente para quien ese dólar que a algunxs les parece nada, es la diferencia entre comer o no, entre alimentar a los hijxs o no”, publicó por su parte la tuitera @silvilunazul."
Though I'm not a native Spanish speaker (and definitely not one well accustomed to adding the "progressive x" in my words), I think this person isn't being consistent?
Shouldn't it be "lxs personas" and why is "la menstruación" feminine with the "la" when they assert that non-women can menstruate also?
WHAT A BIGOT! CHANGE THE LA TO LX NOW!!!
Finally, while we are on this topic of how "progressive" Latin America is becoming, what about pronouns?
In telephone calls with my sister about life back home, I remember her telling me that she has been asked about "her pronouns" at work before in Iowa.
Granted, she lives in a more liberal part of Iowa but it's still Iowa.
Not Portland, Oregon or San Francisco.
Well, while I don't have a formal job down here in Latin America for employees to be asking me my pronouns, I have never actually been asked them ever in my life down here.
....Nor up there actually. Has the US changed this much since I left for Mexico in 2017?
Though you do have folks down here who probably do have pronouns but insisting on anyone who isn't trans to identify their pronouns -- in the workplace of all places -- isn't something I've ever heard of happening down here.
But, as we see with the term "persona menstruante," don't think it won't ever come down here eventually.
While not everything makes its way to Latin America from the US, plenty of it does (even slowly with that whole mañana
time as I wrote about here).
Though I wouldn't necessarily blame this on the US for the arrival of this terminology.
I know a lot of more conservative expats like to bitch about "gringos" bringing "wokeness" to Latin America and, in some cases, they do.
But these conservative expats also often ignore the fact that the "wokeness" in many situations wouldn't translate or hold water if there were not more progressive locals supporting it and in agreement with it (and who might've brought the "wokeness" themselves to the country because they felt a need to based on their beliefs and issues they want to address).
Still, if you wish to delay living in a society where you will be asked your pronouns for as long as possible, I can only recommend you visit one of the poorest and more conservative countries down here if I had to guess.
Probably a place like Guatemala, Nicaragua or Paraguay will take their sweet time getting around to it.
Either way, it wouldn't surprise me if "pronouns" do make their way down here to most of Latin America someday in maybe 10 or 15 years but who knows.
All we know is that -- from what we have seen with "persona menstruante" -- more "woke" terms and "wokeness" are not entirely kept away from Latin America.
Those gringo expats who wish to escape it from back home will usually find a society down here "less PC" and "less woke" than back home but they won't likely escape it entirely.
Though, if they don't speak Spanish, don't care about local politics or read the local news, then I guess they won't hear about any actual examples of "wokeness" that do exist down here right now.
Sometimes ignorance makes folks happier.
For those expats, best to just grab a drink, sit on the beach and relax to the easy life.
But try not to claim that there is no "wokeness" down here.
Not as extreme as in the US but it has some existence in some pockets of Latin America.
I always find it ironic when some expats claim it doesn't exist down here at all. Clearly, they do NOT open a newspaper down here.
That's all anyhow.
Got anything to add?
Drop a comment below.
And follow my Twitter here.
Thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Matt