TEDx London replaces 'women' with 'womxn' to promote inclusivity, gets blasted on Twitter

Back towards the end of June, we talked about the 'Gaming MeToo' movement that shed light on various regrettable incidents. A plethora of women came forward and accused men in certain important positions of harassing and misbehaving with them.

The indicted included various streamers and other men who hold important positions in different organizations, including Twitch. Furthermore, you might have heard about the 'TEDx' events that are basically conferences where speakers talk about their inspirational stories and experiences.

While the MeToo movement at its very core is not gender-driven, and there have been male victims as well, a majority of these accounts inadvertently involve female victims. This, in turn, has lent a rather unflattering image to the entire gaming industry.

Regardless, we recently saw the official Twitter account of the TEDx London chapter get widespread criticism for a rather interesting term that they tried to 'coin'.

TEDx London is an independent, volunteer-led organization which works to share ideas that are inspired by TED, and the city of London. The organization manages various TEDx talks that are held regularly in the city.

TEDx London replaces 'women' with 'womxn' to promote inclusivity, gets blasted on Twitter

On 5th September, the TEDx London Twitter account posted the following tweet on their wall. As you can see, they tried to coin a new term for people who are usually called, well, 'women'.

According to TEDx London, the term 'womxn' is more progressive and inclusive, and sheds light on the various struggles that they have endured throughout history.

Why we're using 'womxn'No, that's not a typo: 'womxn' is a spelling of 'women' that's more inclusive and progressive. The term sheds light on the prejudice, discrimination, and institutional barriers womxn have faced, and explicitly includes non-cisgender women.
— TEDxLondon (@tedxlondon) September 5, 2020

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However, most of the internet was not pleased with TEDx London for the term. According to both men and women, there is no such thing as a 'womxn', and most people wanted the organisation to stop with their attempts to coin the term.

Others thought the term itself was very non-progressive, while some wanted to make fun of TEDx London for even attempting to create such a definition for the gender.

As it often happens, TEDx London found itself bearing the brunt of criticism, as people said that their ideas were stupid and terrible if they ended up with such term-coinage.

Moreover, we saw various content creators comment and criticize TEDx London for the term. This included notable YouTuber 'Pegasus', who thought that the word was useless, and actually discriminatory against women.

While that appears valid, people on Twitter made sure that TEDx London would not forget this incident for a long time to come!