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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask you not to tolerate the term "pregnant people"

305 replies

flashbac · 26/06/2022 22:21

It might seem harmless and kind but it is not harmless. I'm seeing the term alot at the moment due to the horrid state of affairs across the pond.

Pregnancy, abortion, menstruation, menopause. These are issues that affect women and reasons why men have sought to control us, to control our bodies. We are seen as vessels, chattels, playthings, property, servants, and then, when we can no longer get pregnant, as useless rubbish. All due to our biological function. If you tolerate language change so these things are seen as 'people' rights issues that affect both 'men' and women we lose the truthful and valid argument that bad and oppressive practices, laws, policy decisions etc, e.g. banning of abortion, are rooted in misogyny, which of course they are.

Abortion bans are because of misogyny. Especially in countries where there is no free maternal care, no statutory maternity leave or pay, no shits given about the children once they are born. This is a women's rights issue, a sex based one. And we, as a sex class, must never take any rights we have for granted.

OP posts:

SnackSizeRaisin · 28/06/2022 17:53

DiscoBadgers · 26/06/2022 22:48

IT IS NOT ABOUT MEN NOT HAVING PERIODS. It is acknowledging that people who were born female and now live as male or as non-binary still have a uterus and therefore can still menstruate and get pregnant. This isn’t about men claiming to be women to access changing rooms and blah blah blah, the usual MN trans hysteria.

Ditto chest feeding. And the language isn’t used for everyone, it’s allowing people to have the option of language that’s more inclusive to them if they wish it. I was a pregnant woman, and I breastfed. I have been involved in the care of people who now identify as male and have given birth and chosen to chest feed. It doesn’t take anything away from my experience by allowing them to have theirs.

Someone who has chosen to live as a man would not choose to have a baby and breastfeed. That would be the very definition of living as a woman. The most womanly thing it is possible to do.

SnackSizeRaisin · 28/06/2022 18:07

Agree

SnackSizeRaisin · 28/06/2022 18:08

babyjellyfish · 28/06/2022 10:49

I think we should distinguish between the use of the term "pregnant people" in the context of maternity care, and in the context of abortion.

I totally agree with others who say that if you have chosen to get pregnant and have a baby, you are doing the most female thing it is possible to do - in the sense that getting pregnant and having a baby is basically the only thing female people can do and male people can't do - and so your dysphoria about your female body cannot be that bad. You do not need sexed language to be removed from women's healthcare communications in order to avoid triggering you. The people demanding this, such as Freddy McConnell, are on an ideological mission and must be told no.

When it comes to abortion, I think it is more nuanced. If somebody who identifies as a man or non binary has an unwanted pregnancy and needs an abortion, these services should be inclusive of them. If you are a pregnant person who does not want to be pregnant, labelling you "woman" if you find this upsetting is only going to add to your trauma, especially if you do have severe dysphoria about your female body and are already finding pregnancy very triggering. That doesn't mean we should remove the word "woman" from abortion healthcare, or pretend for even a single second that it is a people's rights issue rather than a women's rights issue, but I can see the logic for having additional inclusive language to support people with trans and non binary identities who are seeking an abortion.

Agree

SnackSizeRaisin · 28/06/2022 18:15

FemmeNatal · 27/06/2022 11:40

If you are male but believe yourself to be female then there is an error in how your brain processes information. It is not your brain recognizing that you are the wrong sex, it is your brain making an error.

If you believe that there is a dragon under your bed, there is an error in how your brain processes information, there is not really a dragon under your bed.

Why would you think a psychological issue changes physical reality?

Do you believe that if someone with no athletic ability believes that they can run a ten second 100m that they therefore can?

How is that any different to someone believing that they are not “really” their sex?

Show quote history

Yes. Being trans is a psychological issue rather than reality. Saying that transwomen are really women is like saying anorexics are fat. Or saying to someone with a spider phobia that spiders are all deadly if you even look at one.

I think we are going along with it purely because they have allied with gay people, who were oppressed for so long. Whereas in reality being trans has nothing to do with being gay.

ddl1 · 28/06/2022 18:25

lifeturnsonadime · 28/06/2022 17:11

It is the Supreme Court, not the president or Congress, that has made the decision.

Obama, having promised to codify abortion laws, failed to do so. Biden has also failed to take the opportunity preferring to focus on enshrining the rights of males to enter women's spaces on the basis of claims of gender identity.

There is no point in denying that the inaction of democratic presidents has enabled SCOTUS to repeal Roe v Wade. If it was codified, as it should have been had the democrats really focused on women's rights, then SCOTUS would not have had the power to make this decision.

I agree that most Democratic leaders have been rather ineffective on this issue, as on the gun issue: but I don't think it's because they are too 'woke' about 'pregnant people', but because they are running scared of the powerful Christian Right lobby, as of the gun lobby. And most of the time, Democratic presidents have either a very narrow majority in Congress (it hangs on just one seat in the Senate at the moment) or none at all. Plus the fact that most Democrats aren't particularly left anyway; they're just to the left of Republicans, which wouldn't be difficult.

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