'Pregnant people'

@Mouldemort ‘Most pregnant people are women. Some are girls., Some are neither.’

ONLY women (and sadly) girls can get pregnant. “Some are neither” are MEN, and they definitely CAN’T become pregnant!

If a baby has two mothers, calling one the birthing mother makes sense.

Calling her the birthing parent, as if hetero or male gay parents can also decide which of them bears the child, is erasing from culture and conversation the reality of biological motherhood and which sex it is that bears that burden. This is not good for women whether they see themselves as women or not.

I can't believe this thread is still going on really.

I'm currently a pregnant person, I'm a person who's pregnant. Not sure what about this is offensive to anyone. Women are people. All this brouhaha over this sort of thing always manages to totally ignore the fact that language like "birthing parent" is nothing at all to do with trans people and everything to do with the fact that the second largest group of people getting pregnant, after heterosexual women, is lesbian women.

I do think that sometimes it is natural to use 'person' or other unsexed language interchangeably to refer to issues that only affects women.

The problem is the deliberate avoidance of sexed language when discussing issues that only affect women.

All pregnant people are female. In English the words in for the female half of humanity are "women" and "girls". Together in their original meaning those words cover every human female who ever has or ever will live.

The only way this becomes untrue is to change what those words mean by introducing personality limitations on who can be considered a "woman" or a "girl". This is simply sexist and as such of no benefit to female people.

And yet, even if a change in the meaning of the words we use to name ourselves is forced upon us, the original truth will still be true.

Not one person who would not have otherwise been called a "woman" or "girl" will be less able to be pregnant just because the words changed, and not one person who would otherwise have been called a "boy" or a "man" will become so. The same groups remain the same matter how much the language is futzed around them.

All that is actually achieved by this "women and other pregnant people" is the reification of sexism into our language and as a result, lack of clarity about the reality of being female and what that means for the half of humanity who are.

And, obviously...some non-binary people can get pregnant.

Do we have any clues as to which ones yet?

And, obviously, trans men and some non-binary people can get pregnant. Most pregnant people are women. Some are girls., Some are neither. "Women are not people" is a very weird hill to die on.

The one thing all these people have in common is that they are female, otherwise they couldn't be pregnant. The vast majority of pregnant people are adults and the word for an adult female person is woman. Women are 51% of the population and we deserve our own name and are reclaiming it.

In the example you give, their age would be very relevant to their care, so it would be appropriate to describe them as girls.

They certainly aren't any less women than any other woman.

And pregnant people who aren’t women aren’t any less pregnant.

A women, as gender critical people as so fond of saying, is an adult human female, so no pregnant person under 18 is a woman. Some girls get pregnant. “Person” covers everyone.

Ahh, thank you!

Women are female people.

Women are not less human because they are female.

and makes it more likely they will be taken seriously.

Why would the word 'woman' make it less likely that they would be taken seriously?

The NHS for example, will use the language that an individual prefers. No midwife is going to call you a pregnant person or talk about chest feeding unless you want it.

Have you read the thread? I don't think anyone is arguing against bespoke patient care. The problem is the avoidance of the word 'woman' in general language. It's the equivalent of expecting all women to cover their heads because some women do so for religious purposes.

Congratulations! 💐

Interesting username. I wonder what that could be a puerile reference to?

All 'pregnant people' are women. No man ever gave birth. Hope this helps!

So, I am currently a “pregnant person” then I guess. I find the term mortifying. Especially as someone who struggles with PCOS and had to go through fertility treatment. These are experiences that no biological male will ever go through!!

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.

This phrasing emphasises their humanity and makes it more likely they will be taken seriously. But it also describes, 12-year-old girls who get pregnant through rape. And, obviously, trans men and some non-binary people can get pregnant. Most pregnant people are women. Some are girls., Some are neither. "Women are not people" is a very weird hill to die on.

The NHS for example, will use the language that an individual prefers. No midwife is going to call you a pregnant person or talk about chest feeding unless you want it.

Can you point to where anyone has attempted to make you feel stupid?

All the responses to your post have been respectful and given in good faith. Your response to them is not to engage, which of course is your choice. But please don't pretend you have chosen not to do so because posters have been unpleasant to you - they very obviously have not.

Seriously?

You jumped in with a drive by scolding of the type we see all the time here, which you would have known if you'd spent any time reading before posting.

Your post brought nothing new but in your arrogance you didn't even bother to check if your points had maybe come up before.

Now you realise they have, instead of reflecting on how you got it wrong and considering whether you were maybe a little condescending and prejudiced about the women here, you switch to flouncing because we didn't pander to your ego by pretending it's all greatly insightful fresh new perspectives.

And you think we are the rude ones?

We know nothing about you and can only respond to what you post.

You posted "I am really shocked by the conversations on here" and other posters responded in kind.

Of course I am open to hearing the views of others and understanding different perspectives. Although the condensending tone and attempt to make me feel stupid is pretty off putting honestly so bye.

Gender = classifying people according to sexist stereotypes.

Many of us assumed that everyone had agreed this was bad in the 1990s, but apparently not.

There is also research that shows brain scans of people who identify as another gender have brains more similar to the gender they align with than the one they were born as

There isn't, but if there were, wouldn't you just conclude that classifying brains according to gender is bollocks and that people have a wide range of brains?

Who is to say your sex organs are more important than your brain in defining gender?

You are the one suggesting that people's sex organs are relevant to their brain.

Do you really work in education?

Change happens but nobody can change sex.

I sincerely hope that you are not telling the teenage girls you work with, some of whom will be navigating puberty and starting their periods, that they need to 'listen to and support' teenage boys who wish to use their toilets and changing rooms. I especially hope this in the case of girls who are living with abuse or who have been sexually assaulted.

'Humans [can] view gender' however they wish, but the unassailable fact remains that sex can't change, and neither do the cultural, historical, medical and day-to-day practicalities and realities associated with your sex. To tell teenagers that this isn't so is doing them a terrible disservice, particularly in a world where misogyny is rife. And make no mistake that misogyny is at the heart of All This. A teenage girl who is coming to terms with being gay does not need to be told that teenage boys can also be lesbians, and therefore she must be open to dating them or else she's a bigot/Nazi/genital fetishist. That's the message you're sending when you're telling girls to 'listen to and support people'.

How about we 'listen to and support' teenagers to be themselves? To reject harmful gender stereotypes completely - if you're a boy who likes to wear makeup and dresses or a girl who wears suits, go for it and celebrate it and know that what you wear or what you like isn't defined by your sex? That if you're a 14 year old girl who prefers trousers and girls, or a teenage boy who likes boys and nail polish, you don't need healthy body parts to be amputated and to be pumped full of hormones in order to comply with gender stereotypes? Why is encouraging major invasive surgery and a lifetime of medication the 'kind' option?

I don't understand why you're 'shocked by the conversations here'. Women on a parenting forum talking about an ideology which has its roots firmly embedded in misogyny, one that is harmful to children, can hardly be 'shocking'. Also many of us have first hand experience of living with partners and children who have been captured by this ideology and have had their lives shattered as a result. Many of us are SA, rape and DV survivors who have lived in refuges or used rape crisis facilities and are horrified at the idea of sharing those spaces with men.

Perhaps read through some of these conversations again, and take your own advice - listen to people. Really, really listen.

@peetieswie

You say "I am no expert but I believe listening to people and supporting them is more important than rigid thinking and refusing to acknowledge or listen to their views."

Are you brave enough to take your own advice and really listen to the women here, to learn what we actually think and why we think it, what we believe about sex and about gender and why we think it matters for women that the reality of our sex is being overwritten by the personal choice of gender before you jump in to tell us why are wrong?

Sigh.

Bodies exist. Our physical sex has physical and social consequences, especially for those of us who are female.

Women and girls, in the original female sense of the word, historically and in many places still today have been literally lesser citizens simply because of our sex. We have been property. We have been banned from education, from owning property, from voting or holding positions of power, from rights over ou own children. Our bodies have been sexualised and exploited for sex and for domestic labour.

And even though these things may not be legally enshrined in most (not all) countries any more, nevertheless their deep roots in our culture still affect how we are seen and how we are treated, and how we see ourselves and interact with others.

These things are facts.

Deciding that the words "man" or "woman" actually mean something mental not physical doesn't change any of the above.

All it does is take away the language and connections to our cultural history that we as women (in thd original female sense of the word) need to share and make sense of our common experiences of sexism, and destroys the rights, resources and protections that were intemded to mitigiate the challenges of be8ng female in a default-male world not be homestly arguing for their removal but by debasing the language in which they are written.

So it's great that you are starting to think about this. But please don't assume the women here just haven't thought about things deeply or are less aware than you.

If you had done a search you'd know that the supposed "gender difference" brain scans shown by some research are well known and do not show what some claim they do. Brains are plastic - their structures are changed by how they are used. So these differences seen in scans (which by the way don't show gender differences at all, they show sexuality differences, and once those are acclunted for the brains of trans people aren't any different to the rest if their actual sex) can just as easily be the results of thinking a certain way not the causes of it.

But again, even if the scans had shown what you thought they did, all that would means is that there are some mental commonalities between the sexes. It wouldn't undo physical sex or the consequences of it. It doesn't mean a person with a male body is "really" female, really "a woman", unless you also change what those words mean.

If you think there's a good argument to group humans by personality or character as well as or instead of sex then great! Make that case.

But make it from first principles.

Don't just appropriate the existing words for sex as if sex and its consequences are something we can just shrug off. As if how a man thinks makes his male body in the real world, somehow magically interchangeable with a female one so much so that women who do not know him will experience his eyes in a shared space as female eyes, his body as a female body, his hands touching her for intimate personal or medical care as female hands because he somehow has a "female" personality.

Women are more than a personality trait or a feeling in a man's mind. We are the female half of the human race is all our diversity and we have the moral right to be recognised as such.