“Women and birthing people. “

[Riapia]

Who said that?
A doula on the PM Programme on BBC R4 tonight between 5.40 and 5.45.

Laughable and ridiculous but at least she didn't erase women altogether I suppose.
I wonder what sex these 'birthing people' are...?

I don’t mind this, in the grand scheme of things.

It acknowledges that women give birth, while accommodating those who identify differently.

Quite different to replacing ‘women’ with ‘birthing people’, as I have seen on occasion.

I thought the same as you I think. I was trying to understand what she meant - midwife? The team who assist with the birth? And then it dawned on me she meant the one giving birth, the pregnant woman.

With the recent findings on maternal care all over the news, I kinda wish women would be treated like PEOPLE.

I'm not over the moon about it but I'm grateful that at least the word women made it in there

I heard this and rolled my eyes so far back in my skull I could see my own brainstem.

Doesn’t really worry me too much tbh. It’s good they included the word women - I don’t think there’s a problem with referring to trans men etc as “birthing people”. And yes, if it means we get treated like people that can only be a positive!

That is the term i would use at my current trust because we legitimately have a population of maternity service users who dont identify as women. Before now, I have never found it necessary because all of the Queer parents identified as female. Even the surrogate for two gay men was a gay woman.

Nobody has ever minded anyone referring to the whole group as people though. People dont usually resent being referred to as a person.

Does anybody have the stats for how many men, aka transwomen, aka birthing persons, have actually given birth in say, the last 3 years? How many people are we pandering this nonsense to?

Grateful for the crumbs, we deserve better.

I havent had that experience in 17 years of midwifery

I know it's a bit bread-crumby but at least it wasn't 'birthing bodies' which I've been hearing in some circles.

@MrsKwazi it wouldn't really matter because presumably a pregnant women who identifies as something other than a woman will still know that the reason they can be pregnant is only because they are a woman however they identify.

How silly. I wonder if standards in maternity care might improve now men are using it?

I did a course recently (being purposefully vague) and we were told we could not have the question: “Mother’s name?” on any postnatal documentation and instead we’d have to use the question: “Birthing person’s name”.

(And this is just for standard paperwork, nothing specific to surrogacy where I can see there might be a need for this to be considered).

I did roll my eyes!

I imagine over 99% of women who give birth refer to themselves as the baby’s mother.

I had to turn the radio off when I heard the doula make a point of using that phrase.
Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. Maternity services are dying, but do let's accommodate the tiny number of women who can tolerate the archetypal female experience of giving birth but can't tolerate being called women.

The word may have made it in there but that's fuck all use to most of us subce the context means it's been redefined from "adult human female" to "fluffy pink ladybrain." I refuse to "identify" as a woman, since that would mean identifying with woman/gender, and I don't.

My preferred solution would be what the BBC does rather successfully in articles on migration - one overarching term, asterisk, footnote: "The term "migrant" [insert:women] is used to include both x and y."

How did the establishment become so scientifically illiterate? It's so depressingly stupid.

The doula was an independent birthing supporter (from Brighton!!), not a representative of any organisation.
I thought she was remarkably sensible and apart from that one clarification she referred to women's bodies throughout.

I just don't understand why anyone who is so adamant they are not a woman is getting pregnant in the first place.

Maternity services in many parts of this country are appalling with so many horror stories from women and midwives

and yet time, energy and resources are spent on placating the literal handful of women who don’t think they are women or identify with womanhood abd would find being referred to as “mother” as an act of violence whilst simultaneously doing the one thing that only women can do.

for.fucks.sake

This.

Only women can give birth. It's literally the biological clue as to which sex you are.

I think the quote was referring to transmen, not transwomen

The irony is,that giving birth is the first step on these 'birthing people's' journey of realising with absolute solid certainty that they are systematically disadvantaged not on the grounds of gender identity or cis/trans status but on the grounds of being ... what is the word for it? You, know, ... those people who not only give birth but are hamstrung by mental load during the entire fucking duration of their offsprings' dependent state, and beyond?? Begins with w; sounds a bit like binmen??