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

@TheMobileSiteMadeMeSignup

Also, in legal terms, if it only refers to women and transmen, what about non-binary? Do they not get the same rights because they're not included in the wording? So we now change it to women, transmen and non-binary. Or we could refer to the birthing/pregnant parent and include everyone.

No you shouldn’t. As discussed in my post at 23.30, this will lose crucial legal and scientific data down the line and the language should be specific and consistent through both these areas to ensure full alignment and correct scientific analyses.

They can just refer to mother surely? After the quite infamous ‘sea horse’ pregnancy, the court ruled he has to be registered as the mother irrespective of his legal gender. The child came out of his womb and he is therefore the ‘mother’. Thus referring to mother would ensure everybody would be covered by the legislation regardless of legal gender.

For those who think it’s fine to give birth whilst living as a legal man, the judge in that case had other ideas by the way. The judge suggested that he obtained the GRC by fraud as he planned to become pregnant which is inherently a woman thing. The judge suggested the body that awarded the GRC might want to consider reviewing it on this basis.

Using mother in this context is not so legally robust, due to adoption, surrogacy, and other scenarios where the mother (in legal terms) is not necessarily the same person as the one who carried the pregnancy.

I see this wording as part of the current campaign to prevent us using the word woman to describe our biological reality. If we can’t define women we cannot campaign for our rights. Rights that are only required because of our female sexed bodies. This has to be seen as part of a bigger picture rather than just a single piece of legislation.

Bridezilla, can you share a source for this:

“ The judge suggested that he obtained the GRC by fraud as he planned to become pregnant which is inherently a woman thing. The judge suggested the body that awarded the GRC might want to consider reviewing it on this basis.”

Because I’m calling bullshit on that one.

@JustAmotherOne

Using mother in this context is not so legally robust, due to adoption, surrogacy, and other scenarios where the mother (in legal terms) is not necessarily the same person as the one who carried the pregnancy.

The legal mother is the woman who gives birth to the baby until another legal document such as an adoption certificate is issued.

@Thewithesarehere

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.

Alright withies, I’ll bite.

Your point about data integrity is a red herring.

Legal writing in this context does not affect data collection. At all. Not one tiny bit.

I can see you feel it’s a gotcha, but it’s really not.

The suggestion you are making that every sub-segment of “pregnant people” needs to be listed in the legal writing, is pretty much the opposite of how legal writing works in the real world.

If you’ve got a scenario where the term “pregnant person” could reasonably be misapplied then do share it though.

The word woman is not a dirty word.
The word man is not policed in the same way.

Oh here we go again wah wah wah not using the word women. It covers everyone who can get pregnant no matter their gender. I don't care about a word in legislation, doctors and health specialists accept transgender people, as much as you want to put your fingers in your ears and deny it. Yet to hear an actual reason how using inclusive language erases women. We're all still here!

If words are so meaningless why are some wah wah wah at the use of the word woman? It doesnt stop non binary or transmen existing so why remove it at all?

Using mother in this context is not so legally robust, due to adoption, surrogacy, and other scenarios where the mother (in legal terms) is not necessarily the same person as the one who carried the pregnancy.

You can define mother within the legislation to mean those who adopt etc also. Anyway, birth mother and adoptive mothers are both mothers legally and both are entitled to maternity leave I believe. Mother should therefore be sufficient.

• Bridezilla, can you share a source for this:

“ The judge suggested that he obtained the GRC by fraud as he planned to become pregnant which is inherently a woman thing. The judge suggested the body that awarded the GRC might want to consider reviewing it on this basis.”

Because I’m calling bullshit on that one.*

It’s in the high court judgement somewhere, I read it ages ago but feel free to read it yourself. To be clear when I say ‘suggested’ he didn’t make a suggestion that they should, I mean suggested in the context of he mentioned that the GRC is voidable for fraud and and he essentially lied to the panel to obtain it, he mentioned he had spoken to the body about whether they wanted to question the validly of it, which they didn’t. Clearly it’s a can of worms they don’t want to open. But the judge clearly suggests that they could on this basis.

Adoption leave is separate from maternity leave and so perhaps requires separate legislation for MP’s as well and in that case it may refer to both parents since there is no physical recovery or breastfeeding involved.

Adoption is not a women’s issue whereas maternity clearly is.

The legal mother is the woman who gives birth to the baby until another legal document such as an adoption certificate is issued.

Well they draft the rules in a way to include a prospective parent so those who gain rights within 6 months or something? So the same explanation can be used to mother as well as woman/ person right?

@JustAmotherOne
Are you here for winning an argument so you could feel like a winner?
I am not writing posts after posts to have a gotcha moment! I have actually worked in this field for years I can’t care to remember anymore.
That example of a tracker was a real example, which I don’t think you understood or you wouldn’t have asked me to share an example of how pregnant people can be misinterpreted.
So let’s discuss this tracker one more time: let’s imagine there is a tracker that the Royal Society’s policy scientists are developing in collaboration with a large pharmaceutical company and it is based on the data that the pharmaceutical company has just received from their latest clinical trial. The idea behind the tracker is that these clinical trial findings show a certain group of clinical trial trial participants at a distinct (statistically significant) disadvantage. Now the scientists want to do something about it so they create this tracker to understand how many different laws or policies have been brought up in the parliament in the last 2 years vs 4 years vs 10 years.
Now all they have is the blanket term ‘pregnant people’, which in no way explains how many laws were created for this particular clinical trial cohort because this cohort is now part of the blanket term ‘people’. These data from the parliamentary records of the last ten years are dirty, impossible to process and have given no clue whatsoever to these scientists. That is public money that has gone to waste (money spent on creating laws, on MP’s salaries, on legal advisors, etc etc etc.) and cannot be used in a meaningful way.

It’s just one small example.

I am not here to create gotcha moments for tripping you or any other TRAs. I am here sharing examples of how things can go wrong if we continue down this path.
Just the idea that you think it is a gotcha moment for me shows how disrespectful you feel towards me and my input.

Adoption leave is separate from maternity leave and so perhaps requires separate legislation for MP’s as well and in that case it may refer to both parents since there is no physical recovery or breastfeeding involved

Good point, I drafted my response before I saw this, apologies

Nobody is erasing the word woman? Try telling that to Hobo Wardere attacked for using the words women and girls to describe the victims of the appalling mutilation of FGM.
Here is her reply to them.

mobile.twitter.com/khadidjatu/status/1363078973383725056

Hibo

If anyone other than a biological woman can give birth, then surely anyone who is struggling to conceive or carry to term due to female factor infertility issues could ask a transwoman to act as their egg donor and/or surrogate.

Let’s see how that works out, shall we?

@NotABridezillaToBe

* Bridezilla, can you share a source for this:

“ The judge suggested that he obtained the GRC by fraud as he planned to become pregnant which is inherently a woman thing. The judge suggested the body that awarded the GRC might want to consider reviewing it on this basis.”

Because I’m calling bullshit on that one.*

It’s in the high court judgement somewhere, I read it ages ago but feel free to read it yourself. To be clear when I say ‘suggested’ he didn’t make a suggestion that they should, I mean suggested in the context of he mentioned that the GRC is voidable for fraud and and he essentially lied to the panel to obtain it, he mentioned he had spoken to the body about whether they wanted to question the validly of it, which they didn’t. Clearly it’s a can of worms they don’t want to open. But the judge clearly suggests that they could on this basis.

Here you go Bridezilla your memory serves you well.

It was raised in the judgement in relation to the fact that when the person was in front of the GRC panel undertaking ‘I intend to live full time as a male until death’, they had already stopped taking testosterone in preparation for a pregnancy.

The judge commented on whether this was compatible the the terms of the GRC and asked the question about fraud.

The full judgment if anyone is interested.

www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/TT-and-YY-APPROVED-Substantive-Judgment-McF-23.9.19.pdf

Also, in legal terms, if it only refers to women and transmen, what about non-binary? Do they not get the same rights because they're not included in the wording?

"Non binary" isn't actually a legal concept. Non binary people are the sex they were born, unless they get a GRC in which case they have the legal fiction of being the opposite sex. There is no third sex position in law.

Bridezilla....

“ It’s in the high court judgement somewhere, I read it ages ago but feel free to read it yourself. ..... he mentioned he had spoken to the body about whether they wanted to question the validly of it, which they didn’t.”

So the judge explored that angle, and found that it was not considered fraud and the awarding body had no issue with it.

But you still think it’s fine to present it as if this trans person was a fraud for becoming pregnant whilst trans.

And you aren’t willing to cite your source properly either so that anyone could see what was actually said.

I’m calling bullshit on calling trans people frauds and liars for becoming pregnant.

Gardenbird’s selective crop of the image of the judgement handily cuts off just before the judgement confirms that there was no challenge to the validity of the GRC.

From the rest of section 45 of the judgement....

“ ....At a preliminary hearing, I enquired whether there was to be any challenge to the validity of the GR certificate in the light of the close chronological alignment of the GR certificate application with the Claimant’s IUI treatment. Having taken instructions, Ms Sarah Hannett, on that occasion acting both for the Secretaries of State and for the RG, confirmed that there was to be no such challenge and that the judicial review proceedings would proceed on the basis that the certificate was valid. This position was confirmed by Mr Ben Jaffey QC at the final hearing,...”

Misrepresentation, incomplete information.... the position that trans men are “lying” or “fraudulent” when becoming pregnant after gaining a GRC is completely wrong.

Repeating this false claim on mn again and again doesn’t make it true.

It is fake news, and is being used to position trans people in general as fraudulent liars.

Ok perhaps I should have been more careful about the way JG was worded bearing in mind the sensitivity of the issue so for that I apologize. I said it was in the case and you found it so I don’t accept this idea of source non disclosure.

I disagree with your interpretation though. The judge did suggest that it raised an issue of fraud and he specifically questioned whether the body wanted to challenge the validity. You see the point there right, that in his view they clearly could consider this?! The fact that they didn’t doesn’t change the fact that the suggestion was there. I simply repeated this comment as there had been some discussion in the thread of whether such an action could be considered incompatible with the GRC and some claims that that was nonsense. Clearly the judge didn’t think it was nonsense.

Similarly the court found that the person who gives birth is the mother. So really the whole case was quite relevant to this topic, not some cloak and dagger dig and trans men giving birth.