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

[flashbac]

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.

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.

I'm amazed anyone falls for this lie. Erasing female language has NEVER been about inclusivity for transmen. It has always been about uncoupling the word woman from the language used to describe things that can only happen to a female body. It is about not drawing everyone's attention to the fact that transwomen are not women. The loudest and most dominant trans group are transwomen because they are...

Thank you for starting this thread OP. We absolutely have to insist on the right to use female language, it belongs to us. Without acknowledging sex we cannot talk about sex discrimination and without the word woman there are no women's rights. Women are adult human females. Not every woman will need an abortion but only women will ever need one. This applies regardless of how that woman may identify.

If a woman experiences gender dysphoria to the extent that they feel the need to transition then I would imagine the word woman would be the least of their concerns should they find themselves pregnant. For the safety and well-being of anyone seeking transition healthcare it should be a prerequisite that they understand human beings cannot change sex and therefore they will not cease to need sex specific health screening or intervention after transition.

Very well said. You can't protect the rights of a group without naming them.

It is very simple, if you have a uterus or ever had one you are a biological woman. No need to use any other language. Transpeople can dress as they please and I don't think anyone cares what clothing a person wears but if you have a penis or ever had one you are male and if you have a uterus or ever had one you are female.

Gender is a social construct. Biology is reality. Your gender, should you feel you have one, is irrelevant when it comes to pregnancy. This is an odd poster tbh. People of all religions, eye colours, sports team supporters and musical tastes can get pregnant but so what?

I feel sorry for all the people in the world struggling to figure out their place that have an extra layer of having people tell them they’re wrong and aren’t allowed use the terminology that makes them feel a bit better about themselves

So are you saying it's only women that are wrong to want to define their terminology?

The decision to strike out Roe v Wade is religiously- backed sexism of the most extreme kind, and that really focuses my mind on this compelled language issue.

We (women) can’t allow others to reframe us in language, because when we can’t name our sex, we can’t name sexism against us. Everyone knows that human beings can’t really change sex. And everyone knows that women are oppressed by sexism in specific ways. Even if they don’t like to admit to it.

The truth is, we are all born into one sec or another, it isn’t actually possible to ‘identify’ out of womanhood (and therefore to individually get away from being the object of sexism yourself) just by renaming yourself of a different gender identity. You will still always be a woman physically. That physicality is what the sexism revolves around, as others have said. Losing the language we need to name sexism and to defend ourselves doesn’t work for us. Sorry that some people find that fact unpalatable, but there it still is.

I was already very suspicious of people who claim they can’t (don’t want to) see sex, because that means they can’t (don’t want to) see sexism. But they shouldn’t get to both be sexist AND also remove anti-sexist language from women, like our name. We need to have that to name the things that happen only to women, which is a way to protect ourselves, to educate ourselves, to organise, to fight against the sexism of the legal kind we have just seen inflicted from the highest court in the US, or the everyday illegal things like female deaths from domestic and sexual abuse, against rape, or to campaign on childcare issues, women’s rights and pregnancy, fertility issues, menstruation and menopause at work. To name just a few.

So I feel that people who still really really want women not to be able to do any of this, because they would rather take women’s language for themselves without themselves ever being at risk of experiencing any of the biologically based ways in which women are discriminated against themselves….. are giving off a massive, actively sexist red flag warning about themselves to women .

’Women’ had always been, and remains, an inclusive term for anyone born female who is human and adult (however they may wish to identify afterwards). All women, and all men, are gender non-conforming to a greater or lesser extent, because gender stereotypes (ie ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’) are sexist harmful ideals, inapplicable and inappropriate to any individual living a real life. Women remain women in reality. Men, men. As PP have said, because gender is culture and biology is reality.

The problem with saying ‘pregnant people’ is that it totally invalidates who can get pregnant, who may need an abortion. Pregnancy and abortion affect women and girls. Zero males. If you wanted to be inclusive of transmen you could say female, but if they’re living as men, why would they want to get pregnant. Testosterone would not be good for the baby so surely they would have to stop taking it for the duration of the pregnancy? I totally resist pregnant people, cervix haters and uterus Havers. How is this not demeaning to women but referring to a transman as female is?

@FOJN I am literally saying I know and work with FTM transgender service users during pregnancy. I have firsthand knowledge and experience. Do you even know anyone transgender?

Why does it matter if people know trans people or not? Are women expected to define ourselves around trans people now, we’re not even allowed the courtesy of being able to define ourselves in our own terms? Why should a trans persons feelings be more important than the feelings of a woman?

I’m so tired of being ‘educated’ by righteous people.

I'm amazed anyone falls for this lie. Erasing female language has NEVER been about inclusivity for transmen. It has always been about uncoupling the word woman from the language used to describe things that can only happen to a female body. It is about not drawing everyone's attention to the fact that transwomen are not women. The loudest and most dominant trans group are transwomen because they are...

Absolutely. Can’t be said often enough.

Because if they truly identified as men they wouldn’t be doing the most female things you can do ie. get pregnant and breast feed.

wanting to have a biological child isn’t exclusively female. And it’s a powerful urge.

Yep! Or 'anyone with a uterus' 🙄

This. 100% this

Then they have difficult choices to make. They either live as men with all that entails, or they accept they are not men and have children.

And actually, suggesting that getting pregnant and breastfeeding is”the most female thing you can do” is pretty offensive to those women who cannot do this.

Last time I checked, women are people.

I'm absolutely fine with the term

I’m currently planning on baby number 2 and have already decided to correct anyone who uses these nonsense terms to me at the fertility clinic, hospital or any appointments I have.

The world has gone mad!

Does it not concern you that the language is not changed around mens conditions eg prostate exams/treatment? It may well not bother you, in your performative bid to be inclusive but when you take into account that only women's language is being removed it becomes rather more sinister don't you think?

For the love of god it is not trans people who are taking away women’s rights to abortion or taking away our contraception. You are directing your anger at the wrong people and on the wrong issues. This is not helpful. get a bloody grip!!

👍🏻

If you don't care enough about even being defined as a sex class then no one will believe you suddenly give a shit when you realise your rights are being removed.

When you are nameless amd faceless amd something that cannot be spoken of, written out of your own suffering and your own lives , it on paper solves every problem. We don't have to solve a problem we just remove the language to describe it.

Do not give it away. Ever.

Why do they have to make that choice though? Cos you said so?

For the love of god it is not trans people who are taking away women’s rights to abortion or taking away our contraception

And absolutely no one said it was.

Are you not capable of understanding the issue actually being discussed?

If language is unimportant then we can just go back to using man and woman in the biological sense, just as the majority still does.
no need for pregnant people or any of that, provided the genderists get back in their box. They started the fire, they don’t now get to tell us it’s all an irrelevance until they put the matches and petrol away.