“We want gas and air to be available for women and….”

Do trans women really expect to be part of a dialogue about analgesics during childbirth? They're the male of the species. They know this, deep down.

Facts and science don't actually change that 'women and birthing people' includes all females. They haven't said 'all women, including trans women'. That would be a statement against fact and science.

That's fine. They said women.

Yeah 😂

I see what you did there with the 'they'...

BluebellBlueballs · Today 12:00

I'm diabetic and should be very completely totally offended to see recipes for cake with sugar as an ingredient. How dare they not change it to canderel for me and my diabetic comrades!

You have mis-sweetened my pot of Stevia. They is now a weeping puddle of snot and tears. I suppose you're happy now, eh?

Oh, sorry. Not clear! 'women and other birthing people' implies that in some sense women are not people, birthing people are people. Semantics, I suppose, but the erasure of women as people seems to be one intention. I am reminded of a story by Joanna Russ, when a group of men from Earth arrive on a planet where there are only women (parthenogenesis - birth without male input to conception - is involved), look around, see no men and then ask where all the people are. That's where I am coming from.

Well we all know the real reason. That would upset the TRA/ TW agenda to separate all female biological functions from the word woman.

This isn't about transmen at all IMHO

Please explain 1: why not people (having a receptive language problem, )

Yes, and thanks!

And I had one particular autistic in mind...

... Me!

and betting dd would be similar. (Also autistic)

If inclusion really is the aim then why don't they use 'Women, regardless of how they identify'?

Yeah, women do not have to be grateful for their inclusion in a discourse about childbirth, thanks all the same.

I can live with this language. It is a bit clunky and seems a bit silly and repetitive, but in this argument has always been about inclusion, not just about the erasure of women from the public discourse. When women aren’t specifically named, we don’t feel included. Here we are. It also keeps are the word women in the discussion of birth.

while I think women is a neutral term that covers anyone who might give birth regardless of how they personally identify and they think that birthing people fills the same role, there is no getting the two groups to agree on this, so clunky language may be the only compromise.

What a load of nonsense. Plenty of women have discovered and improved the kinds of medicine that are used for births - without any input from men.

I know it's 'that section' of MN, but turning it all around on men negates the amazing discoveries and work women have done in this area of medicine IMO.

They said 'women and other birthing people', which implies two things. 1, women are not people and 2, other people than women give birth.
The first is misogynist and the second is a falsehood.
Not having it.
Not all women give birth but only women give birth and anyone pushing a baby out of a vagina she was born with from a uterus she was born with is a woman, whatever daft nonsense she believes.
And don't anyone suggest that men could have vaginas and uterii retro-fitted because you need more than a uterus and a vagina to carry a child within your body.

100%

This is presented as 'merely a small shift in language'.

Having a baby is not a 'small shift'. It's fucking huge. It will impact you for the rest of your life.

'sweetning product'

Please do. And thanks for pushing back.

Don't tell me you are trying to police what I call myself?

Because the illusion is then extended the next step. This is why the insanity of 'look, I'm a man having a baby, a miracle has happened, now men give birth too'.

No love, they really don't.

The obvious harm of enabling personal realities where unwanted facts are put aside and anyone mentioning them are 'haters', and of endlessly indulging one minor thing because it's kind and makes them happy and does no harm - just leads to the next step. And the next. And yes, accumulatively it does a fuckton of harm to everyone involved.

Although I might laugh and make fun at the word contortions, I also think it's imperative that girls are made fully aware that they belong to the sex that gets pregnant and gives birth, and that this applies regardless of how they identify. I don't see anything benign in using language that fudges this.

“For some autistics”

nice.

I think Susan is autistic herself and that's the term she chooses to use.

Surely, if you are a transman, you want to be a bloke.

So, WTF are you doing having a bloody baby? It is the most female of female things to do.

This whole sodding charade reminds me, yet again, of Stan Loretta in The Life of Brian.

To me, that headline reads as…
Women should have gas and air available, whilst in hospital I guess,
Also, ‘birthing people’ i.e. women, should have gas and air available,
So, regardless of women who are giving birth, or not, women can have gas and air,
Wow, just think, all the female patients (no matter why they are in hospital), and all female staff, entitled to gas and air!