BBC presenter corrects pregnant people to pregnant women

The language was always ment to confuse. A great way to stop debate

I know what you mean, but it's more like "man who identifies as woman" and "woman who identifies as man". Either sex can wear dresses or trousers!

That's why it's clearer to use the terms "male transexual" & "female transexual" as then there is no ambiguity about their sex. Transexual is the word used in the legislation. "Trans man" & "trans woman" have no legal meaning.

My first language is English and I still get muddled. Trans man should be man in a dress, trans woman should be woman in trousers.
!

Bottom line for me is gender-inclusive language actively disadvantages other vulnerable and marginalised groups like immigrants and people with differences of cognitive development who need plain language in public health communication. I don't think the right of TMs and enbies to be visible in language trumps the need other vulnerable groups have of accessible language.

It'd be more inclusive to offer full sign-language interpreting for all tv news broadcasts and I bet there are more Deaf people who are pregnant than there are TM or enbies.

The moment at which any transman discovers she is pregnant, she knows 100%, without a shadow of a doubt, that she is a woman.

She doesn't need any language-mangling to understand that, from then on, the words pregnant, mother, maternity, childbirth and breastfeeding belong to her.

I'm completely bewildered that transmen (ie biological women) seem to think that if they get pregnant they fall into a special little category of pregnant not-women.

TBH if they'd rather put their health (and their baby's health) at risk than acknowledge biological fact then I kind of feel that isnt my issue.

They are biologically female, as only females get pregnant. And women, for equality purposes.

Did you miss the Supreme Court judgment ensuring that TM get maternity protections because biologically they are women?

Trans men are women. So they are included.

How's your Reddit threads going?

Trans men are still biological women though, especially if they get pregnant. Men do not get pregnant!

Wow, she changed a term to make sure trans men were excluded, what a shero, how very brave of her, as a member of the media, to engage in the media moral panic 🙄

Good!!! Women get pregnant, men don't. When is this stupidness going to stop

How about this - a proposition someone cleverer than me made:

If you are going to choose to modify your body so much that it makes people around you uncomfortable, either by having devil horns implanted in your forehead, or by being a woman but taking so much testosterone that you look enough like a man that you intimidate other women, respectfully, that is a you problem. You need to deal with the consequences of your choice.

And one consequence, if you are a transman, will (or should) be that the onus is on you to be aware that you are biologically a woman and therefore you are included when signs say “women.”

Interestingly, once upon a time, one of the criteria for being eligible for “sex reassignment” surgery was that you had to acknowledge that you knew that it would not actually change your sex. And that the world would not actually treat you as the opposite sex. People who couldn’t acknowledge that were not considered good candidates for the surgery, because they were seen as delusional.

I find this mangling of words in maternity policy profoundly offensive. While I can appreciate that it may have been done with “good intentions” in practice it’s actually alienating & de-humanising the vast majority of women. I completely support an adult’s choice to identify out of being a woman - but at the point where they are doing the ultimate act of womanhood - making a human - they need to just accept that there are certain words that go with that. If they’ve got a problem with that biological function then choose not to do it!!

In other words, about 0.02 % of UK births

I tried looking up the numbers. None are available but extrapolating from other countries, we are probably talking low hundreds of pregnant people who don't ID as women.

Think we both ranted! And bloody deserve to too.😀 glad you’re fine, not an easy thing to do.

I’m absolutely fine now, thank you. Apologies for the rant.

warriorN sorry you’ve done the cancer thing, it’s pretty cr::p. It does my head in that not only do we have to deal with unimaginably gruelling and painful and stressful treatment while people tell us to be strong and wear pink and run bloody marathons, but you’ve had to deal with it while everyone is falling over themselves to incorporate what must be a teeny teeny percentage of the population. The medics work hard enough as it is, and money could be much better spent on actual medicine that actually cures people not panders to their vanity. I wasn’t transphobic At all but seeing all those flags and stuff while having treatment that made me feel sick, has weirdly linked to my brain and now I actually feel sick when I see a flag!( or eat ginger!)
as for just being a woman, not only do we put up with a LOT more pain than those men and men in frocks, but we should be revered - we create actual life. Not a bad trick .
here’s to getting and feeling better as soon as xxx

I did and got really quite fed up with seeing so many posters in changing cubicles trying make sure “people who can get pregnant” weren’t actually pregnant for treatments, whilst attempting not to offend anyone and being as widely inclusive as possible. With a ton of flags and virtue signalling decor for good measure. I understood why it was important to make sure people who were confused about sex and gender didn’t get confused about this but it did grate rather.

I was just a woman and I had to get on with it.

They'll have been working on the new guidelines for months, with all sorts of input from different departments at the BBC. The Beeb does not move quickly!

"The new editorial guidelines, updated roughly every five years, have been embraced by BBC director-general Tim Davie."

And that makes them more interesting. Times are clearly changing.

My carpet fitters were talking about Martine yesterday. Laughing about the fact she'd had to use pregnant people and then correcting to women. One of them saying 'these old higher ups have got a bit above themselves' and then 'do they know we exist'.