How many pregnant “people” are we talking about?

@R0wantrees Thanks for explaining, and I agree.

'I see 2 sexes - male and female. This is determined at birth and most people fall into one. Sex can’t be changed. I do see man/woman/girl/boy as identities. I probably used to see them in the same way as sex - boys and men are male and girls and women are female. But not now. Now I do see them as something that can be changed'

Accepting the disruption of the terms girl, boy and woman, man whilst clinging on to female and male removes the ability to recognise the difference between children and adults.
It is a very dangerous compromise, one which ignores the clear Safeguarding implications.

Girls are human beings who are female children
Men are human beings who are adult males

Radcliffe! Damian? Radcliffe is who I mean

My friend is doing a breastfeeding peer support course, and at the first session one of the other participants asked if they could refer to it as 'breast and chest feeding' to be inclusive. My friend is very much not one to get too bothered about these things either way, but even she was a bit 🙄 and wondered who exactly this was catering to. Of course she (and everyone else) was too afraid to say or ask anything.

When whathisname made his dramatic statement about how terrible JK Rowling was with her people have periods tweet he talked about how transwomen are women. Did not MENTION transmen. Who the reference to people with periods is meant to include.

Because imagine the shit he would have got if he'd been all inclusive about men get periods to....

Lifeaintalwaysempty yes it's exactly that. The word woman can be used when it can be shared with transwomen. But when it comes to things that can't include transwomen, such as periods, then they believe the word woman needs to be removed as it doesn't include all woman.

What also struck me about the Macmillan site and the tweet (about testicular cancer) is both had diagrams of the male anatomy. Where is the corresponding female anatomy? .... tumbleweed. Could be triggering maybe?

Health organisations know that removing the word woman is detrimental to many women. Any move to make health advice LESS clear goes against all the research and hard work that has been done over the years to improve clarity and accessibility of the information.

If the health orgs wanted to be inclusive of female people that would rather not be referred to as such the phrasing should be ‘women, transmen and female born non binary’ (or similar - we need some way to distinguish between the two types of non binary bodies), but it isn’t.

It is a deliberate move to decouple the word woman from biological functions that only women experience.

There is only one group of people who would benefit from that and it isn’t women.

The part that really concerns me is that the health organisations charged with looking after our health (including preventative health education) have bought into the ideology and are ignoring the needs of the very people they need to help and prioritising the wants of a tiny group of people who biologically have no relevance to the issues of women’s health.

They are ignoring everything they know about what is right and replacing it with an illogical fiction.
Sex is important, gender is not sex. Gender identity should not override sex based needs.

Intersection to hear someone say outright there's a movement on changing the words for women first as I'd say yes, women would be easier to persuade to 'be kind.'

I don't believe there will ever be terms such as prostate havers or ejaculators used as it highlights the uncomfortable fact that penises could be in women's spaces, given that many transwomen choose not to have srs surgery as it's such a major operation with awful consequences it it goes wrong.

They never ever say "ejeculators" or "prostrate owners" do they?

@NiceGerbil Thank you for explaining that. I didn’t know “ The words female and male are being increasingly used to refer to gender rather than sex.”. I thought that was one thing that was set in stone.

It is overwhelming when beginning to learn about terms, abbreviations, words changing their meaning or being used in a way you didn’t know. You think you understand and actually mean something, and then flaws in your line of thought show you clearly can’t agree your own thoughts at all.

Thanks to everyone taking the time to explain things.

Yy we were told it was an NHS strategy to

Change the language for women first as we don't complain
Engage with young people to educate them in the correct language so over time it becomes the norm

I mean that's a pretty scary statement tbh

@manatsu
I want an answer. Why women but rarely men?

Well, according to one recent prolific twaw poster it's a deliberate tactic; as women are less likely to make a fuss but men will kick up stink.
So it's to be done gradually

As said poster claims to work teaching teenagers RSE, I have a suspicion this may have been picked up at some policy meeting or strategy presentation.
Although it could equally have been spun from thin air...

Haven’t RTFT but in case it hasn’t been said already, when terms like ‘pregnant people’ or ‘people who menstruate’ are used instead of the term women rather than in addition to the term women, as we are seeing on a very regular basis, that is not about being inclusive of trans men, it’s about not hurting the feelings of trans women by using the term women in the biological sense , as that cannot include them. This is all about a sustained untethering of the term women from its biological meaning altogether, so that it can include trans women.

That's just fucking grim.

I mean incest, barely legal, rape etc. Fucking awful but not surprised.

How many men even know that term and what it means? Plenty now seems like. I'd put money on it being code for rape.

Probably it was in response to this

'I see 2 sexes - male and female. This is determined at birth and most people fall into one. Sex can’t be changed. I do see man/woman/girl/boy as identities. I probably used to see them in the same way as sex - boys and men are male and girls and women are female. But not now. Now I do see them as something that can be changed'

The words female and male are being increasingly used to refer to gender rather than sex.

Disgusted and momentarily shocked and then not surprised that vaginismus is a porn theme. Excruciating pain from attempted penetration? Of course that's in porn.

Sickening. I wrote a post along the lines of 'what the actual fuck?!' but deleted it because, as you said, of course something that causes women severe pain and distress (often the result of being sexually abused or raped) is a porn theme. Of course it fucking is.

Don't even know why I was shocked to learn that, tbh 😔

'Disgusted and momentarily shocked and then not surprised that vaginismus is a porn theme.'

OMG seriously?

I shouldn't be surprised but I am. I have had this when I was young and it's so so painful. It's a psychological response to trauma etc. Vagina says no.

Is this how the ban on the major sites around rape is being got around?

That's an actual fucking disgrace. A category around a condition that means excruciating pain on anything going up there.

I have to NAMALT but what the fuck is wrong with men?

I've recently been in an NCT class entirely made up of heterosexual couples where the leader has consistently referred to "pregnant people" but still talked about Dads and very occasionally birth partners.

It pissed me off, not least because you could see her consciously making the effort to pre-correct what she was going to say instead of woman or mother, but apparently engaging with the Dads was more important. If we'd had a pregnant transman in the group I could maybe understand it but no, just bog standard women getting pregnant.

Man and woman are simply the words to denote male and female adult humans just like buck and doe or cock and hen etc etc.
Not identities to be picked.

I didn't choose to be a woman, my biology dictates it. I, like all females, can't opt out of the shit I've had to deal over the course of my life with due to that biology by identifying as something else and males cannot opt into, or appropriate female oppression.

I’d hate for a pregnant trans man to not feel included

So we should all be forced to not speak our words or use sex based language just on the off chance that once in a blue moon someone, somewhere might possibly get upset?

A pregnant trans man is naturally included due to their biology and they can simply ask their medical team to refer to them according to their identity.

The words woman/women should never be excluded. They are how almost all of the billions of females on this planet refer to themselves.

Children=snot monsters

Fact

@Riggsisadino

Poor guy. What a horrible story all around. I hope the pregnancy and labour go smoothly.

@NiceGerbil What do you mean? - “ Although- are you aware that male and female are under efforts to change meaning as well?”.

What would your solution be regarding the terminology used from pregnant women to pregnant people?

@GNCQ

Disappointed but not surprised that the NHS pages about women's health conditions by and large don't mention the word women whereas men's conditions mention men. Ditto Macmillan. Funny how even across the same organisations and sites women are erased and men are just peachy. Seriously, resident TRAs and Twitter screenshot hunters, I want an answer. Why women but rarely men?

Disgusted and momentarily shocked and then not surprised that vaginismus is a porn theme. Excruciating pain from attempted penetration? Of course that's in porn. I am not seeking out evidence but I hope to god they're acting and not putting a poor real woman with vaginismus through that torture.