To think that a new law on maternity leave (for MPs) should be able to refer to women?

[MForstater]

New legislation going through parliament to give ministers maternity leave for the first time. ...

It doesn't talk about "women" just "people who are pregnant"

The explanatory notes say: "The Bill does not refer to biological sex or use gender-specific terms when referring to a Minister’s pregnancy and maternity. This reflects common practice of avoiding gender-specific terms when drafting, further to drafting guidance first introduced in 2007."

.... the gender neutral drafting guidance says nothing of the sort. They say that legislation shouldn't use "he" and "man" when referring to a role that can be done by either sex.

Is it unreasonable for laws to refer to biological sex when it comes to pregnancy??

twitter.com/SexMattersOrg/status/1362744703322648576

Boredoutmymind
Also there maybe a time in the future where cis men can have a baby. There are advances in science and im sure there will be womb transfers or artificial wombs which means cis men will be able to carry a baby

I hope i'm dead before this time comes. It is unnatural and wrong.

Of course it is not unreasonable to expect that a law relating to maternity leave would mention women by name. We seem to live in Wrong Think times whereby biology and fact are being left by the wayside and replaced by feelings.

Case in point is a reply that suggests biological males will be able to have a womb transplant and become pregnant.

Everyone can feel anything they choose, but the cold hard facts are that only biological women can become pregnant and will require maternity leave.

I'm facing IVF and luckily there is no twisting of the truth when you're watching the required educational videos about what the process entails.

[quote ifitpleasesandsparkles]@InsideNumberNine

Yes. Mother is a non gendered term. Mother does not mean female, it means gestator. So, technically, you can identify as a man yet still be a mother

I'm starting to see why these discussions are impossible... [/quote]
Sorry, you may have misunderstood my message. In the recent case of the high profile trans man who gave birth and did not want Mother recorded on the birth certificate, the judge ruled that being a mother wasn't affixed to gender. It was affixed to the act of giving birth (gestating). Therefore, regardless of how you identify, if you gestate a child and give birth, you are the mother. Not the parent.

@Boredoutmymind

There is nothing wrong with using gender neutral words. This is to cover people who don't identify as women or female. Also there maybe a time in the future where cis men can have a baby. There are advances in science and im sure there will be womb transfers or artificial wombs which means cis men will be able to carry a baby. All this hate against gender neutral stuff needs to stop. We are all humans.

And when that time comes, we can alter legislation accordingly. But not preemptively.

It took us 100 years to have the word woman recognised in law, healthcare, employment, politics, sport and academia I will be damned if we give it up on the whim of misogyny.

Excellent point.

YANBU

There are advances in science and im sure there will be womb transfers or artificial wombs which means cis men will be able to carry a baby

There is more to getting pregnant and remaining pregnant than sticking a woman's womb into a male. It's illegal to do this, for one thing. The last male it was attempted on died. And it would involve endangering the foetus to an unacceptable level.

@araiwa

Yabu

Because transmen

So why is it not ‘pregnant women and trans men’ then? Surely this is more specific, clear and far more inclusive?

@Boredoutmymind

There is nothing wrong with using gender neutral words. This is to cover people who don't identify as women or female. Also there maybe a time in the future where cis men can have a baby. There are advances in science and im sure there will be womb transfers or artificial wombs which means cis men will be able to carry a baby. All this hate against gender neutral stuff needs to stop. We are all humans.

Jesus wept...

There are advances in science and im sure there will be womb transfers or artificial wombs which means cis men will be able to carry a baby.
Hollywood has a lot to answer for this.
One injection, one spider bite, one pill and one womb.

There is nothing wrong with using gender neutral words.
This is to cover people who don't identify as women or female

And the drive for this is because transmen are offended, however conversely many more women are offended at the removal of the word "woman" however their opinion is irrelevant apparently. If it is just a word why is it a problem for transmen to allow the word "woman" to stand.

Yanbu this is bullSh@t. You can say women or other pregnant people but don't erase my gender identity. I'm not a pregnant person I'm a pregnant woman. It cannot be ok to offend me but not trans / non binary people.

Plus women have fought for years to desexualise or body parts. For it to be acceptable to breastfeed out children in public without controversy. To be able to say vagina without it being a dirty word. Now we are told we need to shut up in case we offend other biological females who identify as another gender. Sorry, but that could send us back decades.

I have no problem with trans men being on maternity wards, not ensuring that they are addressed correctly. But I want the same treatment in return.

When someone says ‘trans women are women' I feel greatly offended, minimised and ridiculed by a system that is already so biased against me as a woman.
This is the absolute core of women-phobia!

There are advances in science and im sure there will be womb transfers or artificial wombs which means cis men will be able to carry a baby

Yet interestingly some males cannot even have blood from a women who had been pregnant. I seriously think that despite the possibility that males may have womb transplants, the very high risk to the feotus with the complex needs of hormones etc that carrying a feotus in a body that simply doesn’t have what is necessary and must rely on a massive cocktail of synthetic chemical substances may mean it will never happen.

It would be ridiculous to approve a law based on this.

There is nothing wrong with using women and transmen if that is needed.

To put this in perspective, by 2017, 2 transmen had delivered babies in the UK. I don’t think it will have seen a dramatic increase by 2021.

Women and transmen.

@TaraRhu

Yanbu this is bullSh@t. You can say women or other pregnant people but don't erase my gender identity. I'm not a pregnant person I'm a pregnant woman. It cannot be ok to offend me but not trans / non binary people.

Plus women have fought for years to desexualise or body parts. For it to be acceptable to breastfeed out children in public without controversy. To be able to say vagina without it being a dirty word. Now we are told we need to shut up in case we offend other biological females who identify as another gender. Sorry, but that could send us back decades.

I have no problem with trans men being on maternity wards, not ensuring that they are addressed correctly. But I want the same treatment in return.

Hear hear! We're in a place now where you're not allowed to offend people.

First of all: no one has the right not to be offended. That doesn't exist.

Secondly: why are we not allowed to offend some people but they can trample over others?

It's because they believe in an intersectional hierarchy. So move aside women because here's someone who deserves more rights than you do.

I wonder whether the OP will come back to contribute, and maybe explain what it is that she objects to here.

In the meantime, it would be nice to not have the thread derailed into general dissing of all things trans.

Gender neutral language is considered best practice for clarity in legal writing.

Pregnant person is completely clear and can’t be misinterpreted, as it will not and cannot apply to anyone not pregnant.

This particular instance of inclusive language isn’t harming women.

Gender-neutral language in legal writing is enormously important to equality. To fight against it, as a woman or a feminist, is to cut your nose off to spite your face.

This particular legal bit is to make sure that pregnant women high up in government get maternity leave. They haven’t had it before because women weren’t expected to ever be allowed to be in such positions of power as to become ministers.

Let’s not make it harder for this progress to happen.

The OP of this thread is politically and personally invested in finding ways to leverage public opinion to be less supportive or welcoming towards trans people, due to court action she is involved with.

This thread is stirring up a lot of generally anti trans comments, that are negative, dismissive and hostile towards trans people in general, and towards trans men who become pregnant in particular.

Is this really what mumsnet should be like and feel like to be a part of?

Thewithesaerhere...

“ So why is it not ‘pregnant women and trans men’ then? Surely this is more specific, clear and far more inclusive?”

Because “pregnant women and trans men” is not clear or precise at all.

It can be interpreted to mean (pregnant women) and (trans men)

And because you would have to have a solid definition of trans men.

In what way do you think “pregnant people” could possibly be misinterpreted?

It’s clear, specific, uses fewer words, and works within the guidance for legal writing to use gender neutral language.

Pregnant person is completely clear and can’t be misinterpreted, as it will not and cannot apply to anyone not pregnant.
What is wrong with ‘pregnant people, including women, trans men,.....’?
Surely that is far more clear and inclusive?

Saying "women and transmen" won't offend women or transmen - why would it? Only women can be pregnant, and even if transmen opt to present as men, they are still biologically female.

@JustAmotherOne

Thewithesaerhere...

“ So why is it not ‘pregnant women and trans men’ then? Surely this is more specific, clear and far more inclusive?”

Because “pregnant women and trans men” is not clear or precise at all.

It can be interpreted to mean (pregnant women) and (trans men)

And because you would have to have a solid definition of trans men.

In what way do you think “pregnant people” could possibly be misinterpreted?

It’s clear, specific, uses fewer words, and works within the guidance for legal writing to use gender neutral language.

It will lead to loss of crucial scientific data down the line. Science and law must absolutely align if women are to achieve real equality in future. By not being clear, you are at a huge risk of saving about 10 words’ worth of ink for loss of crucial statistical analyses down the line. At some point, for those analyses to work, you WILL have to use the words ‘women, trans men and .....{insert non-binary or additional identities here}’. It’s in the best interests of everyone that scientists have clean, tidy and categorised data and their descriptions from the start and to stay consistent from there on. It’s also in the best interests of everyone that science and law essentially align on those terminologies and their uses so data could not be lost in any way. Imagine you have an Excel-format tracker of data on ‘people’ and then imagine you have a tracker that has been programmed to classify data by ‘women, trans men and ...’. Which one is more clear and easy to store and process? The second one.

And I have used just one, very basic tracker as an example.
Imagine you are working on systems biology? Imagine you are working with the scientific advisors in the government who need to dig out data on the female-specific cancers only?
There are so many complexities and loopholes that can arise out of not using specific words and categories that going in that sort of detail here is hard.

Therefore, it is crucial to ensure we use specific, clear categories to ensure we get the maximum out of all available information. Anything else is sub optimal and ‘dirty’ data which leads to either false positives or false negatives.

Mother is a non gendered term. Mother does not mean female, it means gestator.
So now I am a gestator. What next? Poo-cleaner? Breast-feeder? The 24-hour servant?
Hugely and deeply offensive!