“Birthing parent” language in work policy – inclusive or erasing women?

This is easily fixable:

1. Mother/woman
2. Mother/woman’s partner
3. Paternity Leave OR Maternity support leave

Anything else is utter rubbish.

The above is both accurate and inclusive.

Anyone who is about to give birth and is offended by anyone else referring to their female-ness really does need support with their mental health first and foremost.

Words matter. If you can't define who it is about, in language that everybody understands, it's all a bit pointless. Maternity rights have been hard won. Diluting the language, obscuring who it's about and why and when risk all those rights.

If you want a post about the wording of a Maternity policy, crack on. The op is just as entitled to have a thread on a specific part of the policy that affects her.

What the fuck does it literally mean?
I await the pile on!

I see! You are referring to trans men, because you are using gender identity ’sex’ as real sex. I on the other hand was referring to reality which is the crux of the topic of giving birth.

I mean this causes confusion. Please see my original post about language being important.

Trans identifying females call themselves transmen but using the word men or man now has a double meaning.

Men - meaning a woman who has an identity as a ‘man'
Men - meaning biological men which is most definitely not a woman.

How do we differentiate between the two meanings using the same word?

The only thing you need to be a transman is to be a biological woman.

you’ve lost me now. Sorry

Only women can give birth ffs

Yeah I was talking about the OP and anyone else reading the policy. Isn’t the message of the document, whatever it is, more important than the specific wording?

Otherwise known as WOMEN

Fuck me, this crap is sounding so dated it's almost laughable. Except the laugh is, as always, on women.

Eh? The OP is about the phrase and who the policy relates to. Not the content of the policy. Which is a whole other issue, but not provided. So having a view on the rest of it is not possible.

A trans man who is giving birth is most definitely living as a woman during that time.

Excuse me. You don't get to decide things like that for me.

It absolutely excludes me. That's my lived experience, my identity, etc <insert other appropriate phrase>.

If you were only talking about cheetahs, then no “savannah animals” wouldn’t work. But “birthing parent” doesn’t only talk about women. That’s why it’s not a true analogy.

Replacing cheetah with “fastest running animal” would be the equivalent of replacing mother with “female birthing parent” - which isn’t what has happened.

Let me find a hair to split...

It would ignore the existence of and abilities of cheetahs. And imply that a species other than a cheetah could also do it. Maybe an elephant?

Women (sometimes girls) give birth. It is a uniquely female thing. Absolutely include others eg a lesbian couple with terminology. But don't exclude women as a class.

But Savannah animals include a variety of species elephants, giraffes, lions, zebras, and cheetahs. So we would not know we were talking about a cheetah. hence why I said language is important.

If we replaced the word cheetah with fastest running animal it is the equivalent to replacing mother with birthing parent.

If you know a birthing parent has to be biologically female then you fully understand what the term means but it requires the prior knowledge that only biological females give birth.

If you know the fastest running animal is a cheetah then you fully understand what someone is saying but it requires prior knowledge to fully understand.

I think birthing parent is absolutely fine. What if it was a lesbian couple? Mother may exclude the non-birthing mother.

Birthing parent is to the point and inclusive. I say we should pick our battles, this is a non-starter.

The equivalent would be us saying “savannah animals” instead of cheetahs, and this wouldn’t erase the existence of cheetahs - regardless of what animal they identify as, cheetahs or otherwise - to use your example.

Such nonsense. Only women give birth.

I think language is important.

It’s like saying 'fastest running animal' instead of ‘cheetah' whenever referring to a cheetah. We can’t erase the word cheetah to describe a cheetah because some cheetahs identify as pandas.

I'm not very informed on what's been happening with gender and trans issues. I probably should read up on it more. However from what I have seen, there has never been an instance of the word man being removed or deemed offensive, right? I've only ever seen woman or mother being removed in case it upsets someone.

If being known as a birthing parent is very important to some people, I don't see why the guidance can't encapsulate everyone and say "mothers or birthing parents" or something along those lines.

Do trans people even really feel this way? If I was trans, I think I'd be offended at the idea that I can't bear the idea of female words existing.

Is the language inclusive? Is it inclusive of adoptive mothers? Inclusive of people who struggle with English or reading? Inclusive of women who disagree with erasure of words such as women, mother or maternity?

My preference would be using the clear commonly used terms such as maternity leave etc. which are defined in law. You can also have a statement about recognising not everyone identifies with these terms and how the document applies to lesbian mothers.

It doesn't exclude you.

You are innately included because you are a parent and have given birth. You just don't like it, which is different.

You can't identify out of the fact you are a parent and that you gave birth to your child.