[quote MissMoped]Maybe Pumpkin. But see Motorola’s link, lots of advisors, perhaps even a majority, on the Maternity Gender Inclusive NHS document are “trans” men. Why are they getting a say on how mothers should be addressed or described is a bloody mystery to me.
www.bsuh.nhs.uk/maternity/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/01/Gender-Inclusive-Language-in-Perinatal-Services-BSUH.pdf[/quote]
They’ve been consulted because they are transmen who have given birth and who can offer some perspective on how they might have liked to be addressed during their own birth experience, as ‘mother’ probably doesn’t fit them.
If you actually read the whole thing, you’d see that the document aims to set guidelines for how to address people who do NOT identify as female and who do not want to be referred to as ‘mothers’. At no point does the document dictate that ALL people receiving perinatal care will be referred to as ‘pregnant people’; it acknowledges that cis women are the majority and continue to be marginalised, and also that gender-neutral language will only apply to those who don’t identify as women.
In short, nothing this document proposes will change anything at all for cis women, but a small number of people who don’t identify as ‘female’ but who are accessing perinatal services may have a more positive healthcare experience if language that they are comfortable with is used FOR THEM, on a case-by-case basis.
So, ‘Mary’ who was born female and identifies as such would be known as ‘mother’, with ‘she/her’ pronouns, and if she chooses to breastfeed it would be referred to as such. ‘Birthing parent’ wouldn’t be an appropriate term.
‘AJ’ (one of the names in the document) may be non-binary, so might be referred to as ‘birthing parent’, ‘they/them’ and ‘chestfeed/breastfeed’ depending on what term they wanted to use, which could be identified simply by asking them. ‘Mother’ wouldn’t be an appropriate term to use without asking first.
Could you please explain why you wouldn’t want people to feel comfortable when they’re giving birth, which is arguably of the most vulnerable situations of their lives when it has no impact on you or anybody else? If you wouldn’t want to be known as ‘birthing parent’, why would you want someone who has had a hard time with their gender identity to be called ‘mother’ when they don’t want to and when there is an easy solution to make them feel more comfortable?