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

Even if that were true, you still have not been dehumanised by being referred to as your child's parent.

I work for the NHS and they use “ people with a uterus”!Really bugs me because they don’t say people with a penis when describing a male!

How rude

Because Stonewall has induced them to shell out a lot of money for their ‘education’ in such matters?

Of course Freddie is the mother! I hope that we see an end to this insanity in the next few years.

How is 'birthing parent' more inclusive!? All this obfuscation and messing about with language has erased critical thinking facilities. None of this has ANYTHING to do with lesbian couples. Please engage your brain.

This is a great example why birthing is always an important part of it
My wife is the biological mother of our child, but she did not birth them. Biological doesn't equal birthing. They aren't always the same people and wording like yours is what they seek to avoid

Historically some of the vagueness meant that in two woman relationships you could both get mat leave, companies wised up to this and made it more focused on birth

Regardless of your views on gender, it is the child who should be centred not the identity of the parent,

It beggars belief that someone who claims to 'live as a man' goes on to do something that only women can do.

It's all a load of nonsense anyway.

Freddie McConnell is a woman who identifies as a trans man who brought a legal challenge on this point. The court found that even though Freddie has a GRC so is legally a man, that the status of mother is protected.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49828705

So every woman who gives birth, regardless of how they identify is legally the baby's mother.

Only women can give birth.

In what way is someone who gives birth not a mother? I find being cooerced into someone else’s delusion deeply offensive. It’s as offensive as ‘cis’

Well done you!

I actually had this come up last year a month before I was due to go on maternity leave (so was already quite hormonal) and without thinking I fired off an email saying how I was deeply offended, I was NOT a birthing parent, I was NOT going on parental leave and I felt by removing the words of Women, Mother or maternity leave they were EXCLUDING ME from their policy and wording. I stated that as a women I have no problem with being inclusive of others but I did object to having my identity deleted for the sake of one or two people who would NEVER need to use this policy as they physically can not give birth to a child! (Yes before you all jump down my throat I understand that there are transgender men who could give birth but in my hormonal state I was just trying to point out that I was unhappy with the use of female language being erased).

Anyway, I started panicking after sending the email and wondering I was going to be pulled into a meeting and told off or worse. Instead the next day I received a response from HR apologising that they had offended me and that they had never meant to erase female language or minimise the experience that women went through in childbirth. They said they had reviewed the policy and would be reverting back to the “original” wording 😂

One small win but I was happy to take it. I have NO problem with people living their best life and being whoever they want to be. I do however have a problem with having my identity ignored/removed under the pretence of inclusivity.

Isn't this exactly why mail merge was invented? If you are female and identity as female, the letter should say birth mother and if you are female but identity as anything else, it can say birth parent.

Again wrong any woman who gives birth is automatically a mother even surrogate mothers are still legally the mother and a judge has to agree to the removal of her rights and responsibilities to grant them to another person.

Please look at the law and how its written not at the interpretation of it by stonewall et al

Women - sorry, uterus havers - stop worrying about silly little things like the erasure of womanhood, sacrificed at the altar of ‘inclusivity’… 🙄🙄🙄

☺️

Again wrong the word mother ie woman who gave birth comes with legal responsibility to do the feeding and caring for the child or find a suitable person to do so. So its not irrelevant infact its very relevant and giving birth is not the pertinent part of it as the women's MATERNITY and PREGNANCY rights kick in the moment she gets pregnant hence why birthing parent is nonsense and obviscates the rights of pregnant women

No you are the mother with all the legal duties that go with that word and no other person has.

The problem is that this parental leave policy covers both maternity leave and parental leave these are two different laws with two different sets of rights and employers obligations. Mixing the two together is a mistake and leads to confusion add to that the mangled legally nonsensical language used means the policy is not fit for purpose and is deliberately confusing and risks discriminating against pregnant women and new mothers who dont speak English as a 1st language, have learning disabilities or just cant understand the made up language and makes people like adoptive parents think that they have rights that they don't have (as can be seen on this thread).

Oh dear. You are very fixated in your personal subjective view. Which rather proves my assessment.

No there's not as legally only 1 is the mother and thats the woman who gives birth.

Maternity leave is legally mandated and the law uses specific terms and language, any policies based on that law should use the same language and terms.
Many people on this thread seem to think that language can/should be mangled to prevent upsetting a very small number of people, forgetting that the majority matter more than the few and it causes confusion as can be seen on this thread. Adoptive parents, are not covered by maternity laws nor are men or the 2nd woman in a lesbian relationship or people who buy babies through surrogacy as such how they feel about the language in a maternity and pregnancy policy is irrelevant, the language needs to be clear and legally accurate to truly be inclusive.
You also shouldn't lump maternity and pregnancy in with general parental leave as they are two different things covered by two different laws and only pregnancy and maternity are a specific protected characteristic that only covers pregnant women and new mothers (mother being the legal term for women who have given birth) and should discuss all the legal rights of pregnant women and new mothers. Policies that don't use the correct legal terms or mix in other parental leave laws will not survive a legal challenge

Yes they are. All birthing parents are birth mothers, by definition.

Actually this is an interesting point. All birth mothers are birthing parents. But not all birthing parents are birth mothers.

In the context where “birthing parent” is used, e.g. parental leave, post natal care, etc., the fact that the person feeds and cares for their baby is irrelevant. It doesn’t exclude all these parents that raise the child they brought into the world. It just focuses on the activity that is pertinent: the birthing.

Yes, you were a birthing parent. But more accurately, you were the birth mother. A woman.

If you are a parent and gave birth, you were a birthing parent.

Isn’t it more concerning about the rest of the message? If this was in a parental leave policy, how much leave you’re entitled to, how much pay etc., than the wording used?