Gender Fluid and Pregnancy

[LouBlue1507]

Genuinely curious here..

AIBU to ask what happens if a woman who is 'gender fluid' falls pregnant? Do they not claim maternity leave/pay because obviously that's a female's right but if you don't identify as a female, should they claim it?

I would assume they'd demand that the term 'maternity' is exclusionary and bigoted, and it be changed. Any term which equates being a gestating mother with female biology is "cisnormative".

watching

Not commenting on the rights and wrongs of gender fluidity but isn’t it all parental leave now anyway? Same terms apply whether it’s a mother or father taking the leave and pay or whether it’s a same sex or male/female couple taking leave for adoption or a baby born via surrogacy.

Maternity pay is a "person carrying a baby's" right. That person may or may not identify as male or female....

Do they identify as a mother?

Sorry, my point is that it’s no longer a female thing when it comes to time off and pay for the birth or adoption of a baby.

I thought you meant amniotic fluid at first 🙈

Also watching with interest

Gender fluid is all well and good. You can be as gender fluid as you like. Because gender is a social construct.

Sex, however, is not.

So if you have a uterus and vagina, you can be pregnant.

If you don't, you can't.

Gender fluid makes me

Fgs just admit you don't conform to some/ many of societies gender based stereotypes and are happier that way.

Maternity pay is a "person carrying a baby's" right. That person may or may not identify as male or female

Wouldn't that be a brilliant walking contradiction. 'I'm not female but yes, I am pregnant' 😂

Well, you could identify as a male sea-horse and be pregnant.....

One would hope they at least take off the first few weeks. If nothing else it's a recovery period that every gestational living organism will need regardless of being gender fluid or identifying as a space alien.

Hang on. I have a feeling this penny has dropped late for me but: doesn't that mean that as soon as self-identification is a thing that firing someone for being or being capable of getting pregnant would be legal? Isn't the illegality of it dependent on it being indirect sex discrimination? Wouldn't that disappear if you could no longer say "this only affects women"?

Just one of many problems expotition.

I would assume that someone who chooses to get pregnant and has the plumbing to do so is a woman. If they dispute this and insist on not being treated as a woman, that's their choice and any whining is simply ridiculous.

They insist that any mention of women in relation to pregnancy is bigoted because "men can get pregnant too."

Nah, cos otherwise women in Ireland could access abortions. Sure in the law it just states about women having abortions.

Plus, they did the thing where even if you identify as a man you can't inherit certain titles.

I'm not sure. Basically, law covers itself where it needs to, businesses and posh people titles, it's just the rest of us wondering why Big Dave's got his cock out in TopShop and scared to say shit.

I don't get all this fretting over gender fluidity. I don't think much about my gender or my hair color. If someone feels strongly about either topics, good for them. It's just common decency to respect that. I would feel pretty hurt if people would ridicule and question the legitimacy of the elements that I felt are important to my identity, would you not?

It's all very well saying that until you get people telling lesbians they are bigots do not wanting to suck cock - apparently it's a lady penis if the owner decides he's a woman.

I'm also not keen on the erasure of women - to "menstruators" and "pregnant people" or "non men"

This seems like a ridiculous question. They'd take whatever leave they were legally entitled to and might or might not insist on referring to it as something other than maternity leave. Maternity leave can already be exchanged for parental leave in order to share it with another parent anyway (I did this - we had six months each).

A previous poster raised the issue of indirect discrimination. Using childcare as a precedent as long as pregnancy disproportionately affected woman discriminating against pregnant people would still be indirect sex discrimination. In this particular area a change to the law would change nothing.

Honestly though the idea that gender fluid people would refuse to engage with necessary basic social services and entitlements because they dislike the language used is absurd. Might they launch a campaign to change the standard language? Perhaps. Might that piss people off? Probably. But suggesting they'd fuck themselves over rather than dealing as best they can with what's available seems deliberately obtuse.

Surely if you decide to become pregnant in the first place you are celebrating your womanliness in the most blatant way possible? How you could be pregnant (through choice) and claim to be gender fluid is beyond me.

Surely if you decide to become pregnant in the first place you are celebrating your womanliness in the most blatant way possible? How you could be pregnant (through choice) and claim to be gender fluid is beyond me.

This exactly. I can't get my head round trans men who keep their wombs etc. so they can have a baby. To me being female means the ability to carry a child - all the societal gender stuff on top is the problem.

Balloon - I'm not gender fluid in the slightest and viewing pregnancy as a "celebrating" womanhood makes me cringe. Not all pregnancies are through choice. Some people with gender identity issues still want kids. If you have a womb and ovaries, pregnancy is the easiest and cheapest way to achieve that. I'm not sure why that's confusing.

Clarification: it makes me cringe because I hated all the bullshit gender essentialism around pregnancy and maternalness. It was just a biological process to me and not on I found pleasant.

Fishfingers There are bigots, narrowminded people everywere. There are religious fondamentalists that think that women should have as much children as possible no matter the cost, that does not mean that everyone or even a majority of that faith think like that.

They insist that any mention of women in relation to pregnancy is bigoted because "men can get pregnant too."

Are you serious? Who is saying this???