'Pregnant people' now being used by my local trust's maternity dept.

No more nice girl.

@KittenKong

Well I’ve heard (on twitter) that the clitoris is just a teeny tiny penis… so I guess anything is possible…

There comes a point to just back slowly and tactfully away.

I'd complain

Complain. Why should the words "woman" and "mother" be taboo? This isn't happening to men.

Well I’ve heard (on twitter) that the clitoris is just a teeny tiny penis… so I guess anything is possible…

Many people can get an erection. Many people can have a period.

How do we define which people we are talking about here? Is it the same kind of person who has both a period and an erection? Surely it’s easier to say men and women and avoid making the sentences incomprehensible.

As a wise woman on Twitter would say

^"Removing women's ability to describe themselves as a group is the ultimate act of male oppression."^

@CorneliusVetch I think thats exactly the point

How on earth is it dehumanising to refer to women as people? Literally the very definition of 'people' is humanising, unless you think there's non-human people wandering around the planet

This spectacularly misses the point. To say people when you are speaking only about women severs the link between having female anatomy and being a woman. It distances maternity and obstetric care from being women’s issues, and makes them people’s issues.

No one would tell any other oppressed group that they couldn’t refer to themselves as a group for the purposes of issues which affect them.

@BlueberryCheezecakenwould you complain if it referred to female people or are you saying you can be pregnant without being female?

To what purpose? To protect the feelings of those born male.

Who loses? People born female.

Sexism. And male supremacism.

Are we all good with this? Because I'm not.

I have said it before and I will keep saying it, until we act like men and threaten and bully, we will not be listened to as we are seen as weak and thats the heart of the matter, power struggles are just that, ita about power and that comes from deeds not numbers, they will walk all over us and feel safe doing so until we show them otherwise.

thats how it worked in the past the suffragettes had to commit mass vandalism and arson etc to be heard because its a mans world and thats the only language they know.

If 'people' can die in childbirth were my NHS trust negligent in not monitoring DH during my labour? No of course not because the 'people' who die in childbirth have something in common don't they?

If terms like chestfeeding are being used as supplemental language (eg “breastfeeding and chestfeeding”) or context specific (eg advice tailored to transmen) then I have no problem with it.

Are any NHS settings actually substituting these terms (ie actually erasing terms like breastfeeding from use and replacing them with chestfeeding)?

Reclaim your language and words and don't settle for anything less.

This is exactly the attitude I'm taking from now on. It was my New Year's Resolution.

If we have no name for ourselves as a collective, then we don't have a way to protect our specific rights.
And we DO have specific rights.

A non binary person who gives birth is still a woman.
A female who "identifies" as ANYTHING and gives birth is still a woman.
Woman is a scientific term. It can only include the half of the population who are adult human females.

You cannot identify out of your biology. Especially when you use that biology to have sex or get inseminated, conceive a child, grow that child in your body and then give birth. That makes you a woman.
Female.

Because they may never, or have never experienced the sexist discrimination that others have.

And I mean ‘they’ as in those posters happily giving away language that is needed by many.

I mean those pithily saying ridiculous mantras like ‘pregnant women are- people’ like it is some fucking brilliant gotcha that has never been uttered before.

It is a great article and should be read by everyone. But if you have already been indoctrinated to believe it is the ‘inclusive’ approach, you are not going to really change your mind until it becomes personal for you.

It IS personal for me in that I, as a woman (my sex, I have no gender identity) have been dehumanised enough in my life by the health system.

Like when male doctors continued to tell me to get over myself and that millions of women deal with periods and morning sickness and other female issues, why couldn’t I?

When I have always suffered debilitating period pain, and I discovered after discussing my pregnancy with other expectant mothers in my group, the nausea I felt wasn’t what they all experienced at all.

Should I continue to be dehumanised and further disassociate from my female body now?

As I also experienced detachment from my breasts due to being ‘touched out’, and I know I am certainly not the only one who has this, using the term ‘chestfeeding’ would cause further disassociation. I doubt I would have breastfed for anywhere near as long had the term been used.

From seeing other mothers mention this on MN, I would expect that the numbers of women experiencing this issue is higher than those disassociating from their sex. So, who gets their needs prioritised here?

As someone who developed these issues, I have rarely even seen it acknowledged that it damn well happens! It certainly wasn’t mentioned in any book on parenting I read, or mentioned in any class or sessions anti or post natal.

Yet, here are people like blueberry cheesecake and others casually ignoring that there are many aspects of pregnancy and motherhood that already cause females to be dehumanised or feel dehumanised. Because they may never, or have never experienced the sexist discrimination that others have.

That article has a very relevant sentence.

Am I engaging in cultural imperialism or improper use of privilege by requiring others to use language in a particular way?

Well, may posters hand waving the dehumanising effect of this change in language are doing as this sentence suggests.

Inclusive? To whom? To me after my experiences with male doctors about health issues ONLY women (because common language still used women to denote a female who has reached adulthood despite some people believing otherwise) experience.

And inclusive to me? When I struggled with disassociating with my breasts through breastfeeding? You don’t think MY issues warrant using language that would assist me? You can just ride roughshod over my needs?

Why? Because I don’t fit under the trans umbrella?

people seem to be incredibly offended about something that doesn't have any real effect on them...

This seems a bit ironic

It is absolutely ironic and is undeniably crazy that we can not offend 0.01% of the population but it's fine to offend 50.59%.

Everyday sexism/masogyny still at the expense of women.

Could those who think "pregnant people" is a useful term read the paper linked above and explain which bits they disagree with?

Great article highlighting the dangers of confusing language when dealing with female health issues. It is scandalous that the health of women can be put at risk merely to allow a group of people of the male sex to validate their gender identity.

Sorry, I see the article has already been posted and quoted.
It's bears regular repeating though.

Here's what it has to say about "chest feeding":

"The term ‘chest feeding’ can cause confusion because its meaning is often unclear. Some understand it to restrictively describe a situation where someone who has little or no breast tissue feeds a baby with infant formula or donor milk using tubing taped to their nipple. Others use it more broadly as simply another term for breastfeeding. In the midst of this confusion, the health consequences of not breastfeeding may be diminished if tube feeding infant formula is categorised as ‘breastfeeding/chestfeeding.’ The word ‘breast’ is a sex-neutral term which refers to the mammary glands of males and females and referring to ‘chests’ rather than ‘breasts’ is medically inaccurate. The ‘chest’ in medical terminology refers to the ribcage and everything within it and does not include mammary tissue (97). Chest pain may signify a serious heart or lung condition, whereas breast pain may signify a breast condition such as mastitis.
Desexed language can make it unclear who is being referred to. Does ‘breastfeeding people’ mean mothers, infants or both? Are ‘postnatal people’ those who have just given birth or those who are providing postnatal care? Using the phrase ‘breastfeeding parents’ rather than ‘breastfeeding mothers’ or ‘women,’ both suggests the partner is participating in the act of breastfeeding and makes invisible the sex of the person breastfeeding the child. In this way, desexed language obscures the practical and power imbalances in relationships, decision making, and economics that breastfeeding mothers may face because they are female (98-102)."

This very new article (10/1/22) is just what you need OP.

Print it off. Highlight large chunks. Take it with you every time you attend your hospital along with a few spare copies to hand out to the professionals you see and maybe the odd other pregnant woman in the waiting room.

Send it to the head of Midwifery, the PALS office and anyone else you can think of.
Reclaim your language and words and don't settle for anything less. I'm sure most of the staff will be entirely supportive.

internal-journal.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full?fbclid=IwAR1GmMyg9yC58i3SargXSSpsw1NgaVoD6raB8cz40YuEgx9VxFTr5A4m4OQ