Scot Gov remove the word mother

[MamsellMarie]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3c959dba-2d2e-11ec-a548-f9bb1ebf6985?shareToken=97ed5650046188361a991b6c6cf63275

LGBT activists get word ‘mother’ axed from Scottish government policies
These are the gov maternity policies
I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread on this. The link is to the Times but I am not subscribed so can only link to the initial part of the article.
I feel really sad about this. I chose to be a mother as did my DDs they didn't sign up to be a pregnant person who gave birth. Why can't we just have pregnant transman or transman who gave birth. Why do words associated with women need to be struck from our language.

There is a good discussion on Stephen Nolan's BBC Sounds podcast
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09yjmph/episodes/player
episode 6. I am stunned that no one seems concerned!

Yep and civil service documents too.

No one gives a shit. It's crazy

I'm absolutely gutted. The women interviewed on S Nolan's prog said something along the lines of 'Aww well, the transgenders need support' what?????? I think at the most one transman had a baby in Scotland last year but because of that one person (for all I know it could be 0 persons) the word mother which applies to the remaining couple of million mothers in the country have their descriptor removed from the language!! With NO DEBATE !

The world has gone crazy.
But then, whatever I am described as in some public document, I will always be the Mother to my children. They happily call me mum.
LBGT can't take that away from me.

It's being done almost by stealth. Thread on FWR www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4375395-Word-Mother-removed-from-Scottish-governement-Policies

The few people I've mentioned it to had no idea and have been 'What? Why????'

Thanks bogey I hadn't seen that thread

Scottish assembly does whatever it wants and goes unchallenged. The bill to increase the number of women on public boards also includes transwomen in the wording of its definition of women, but not biological women. I wrote to every MSP to challenge this and received zero responses.

And women (and mothers) vote for this?????
Do we have words generally associated with men also being removed?

I assume father is removed too.
How sad.
It appears other countries are doing this too, or at least putting parent on forms instead of mother and father but i'm not sure they are doing it in maternity services.

This has been discussed on the feminism and sex and gender boards.. any attempt to discuss this on the main boards is quickly moved. In real life.. anyone talking about the erasure of the word is shouted down and silenced... JKR, Mariin Millar, Kathleen Stock. Women are scared to speak.. and no, there is no corresponding removal of the word 'men' from anything.

According to Stephen Nolan's podcast The Scottish Gov have paid 400,000 to Stonewall (taxpayers money) - thing is the more changes and demands that Stonewall makes the more the Gov needs their expensive 'advice' and 'help' to implement their recommendations. It is going to be a bottomless pit. Once they've changed the language I'm sure there will popup some other thing that they must help the Gov to implement. And we mugs will pay for without any debate.

I do care, Mamsell, and will be writing to my MSP about this. Thanks for the thread - I think it's important Scottish mumsnetters know what's going on - in particular, Scottish government splurged £400,000 on advice from Stonewall? That is utterly shocking.

I don't get this. The Scottish Government is paying huge sums of our money to Stonewall so that Stonewall can then tell them what to do (with such gems as removing the word 'women' from Smear test campaigns, or 'mother' from maternity services). Why?? What possible good does this do for anyone except a small minority of transactivists (I refuse to tar all transpeople with this) who are triggered by any reminder that sex matters in the real world?

What difference does it make?

@FreshFancyFrogglette

What difference does it make?

Maternity and pregnancy are protected characteristics. Motherhood is part of that. If we cannot define mothers and motherhood, we cannot protect our rights as mothers.

If it doesn't make a difference, why is stonewall so keen to expunge it from our lexicon?

Fresh fancy, not using the word woman in cervical cancer campaigns means that women who have poor literacy or are not native English speakers may miss out on screening because they don't know who screening applies to - and that can have devastating consequences.

I am sympathetic to trans people and not bothered about the addition of phrases like people with a cervix or whatever but I think it should be an addition. The removal of these terms is appalling.

Yes mother or transmother. woman or transman with cervix.
Do we change language for other groups of society - avoid the use of the word colourful in front of blind people, avoid the use of sprinting with people who cannot walk far? Not use the term 'listen up' in articles that deaf people might read? What am I missing??

@Yepnothatfeeling

Fresh fancy, not using the word woman in cervical cancer campaigns means that women who have poor literacy or are not native English speakers may miss out on screening because they don't know who screening applies to - and that can have devastating consequences.

Ditto ovarian cancer - these cancers can have vague symptoms that can be confused with other illnesses. Missing out the term woman means a man with prostate problems might believe it applies to him as some of the symptoms (weeing often) apply to him.

@forfucksakenett

I am sympathetic to trans people and not bothered about the addition of phrases like people with a cervix or whatever but I think it should be an addition. The removal of these terms is appalling.

This would be a sensible approach and would be inclusive to all sections of society.
Why on earth was this not done🤷🏼‍♀️

Why on earth was this not done🤷🏼‍♀️

Because they followed Stonewall's advice which they paid lots of our taxpayers money for.

This is all about the men who are so angry that they can't become women that NOBODY is allowed to be called a woman anymore, (unless they're a man).

There has been a lot of discussion about this on the fwr section of mumsnet both this and the importance of language.

The Scottish government is so down the rabbit hole of trying to appear “progressive “ women are actually being thrown under the bus and those who dare to challenge this are called transphobic or even attempted to be cancelled.

It is really quite a frightening time for women in Scotland.

The problem is that the whole thing is now so toxic that there is no way to attempt to challenge this without being labelled a bigot. I would have thought that transwomen wouldn't want this either given that many will adopt children and presumably would want to be called mother. I genuinely can't think who would want this?

Yes the debate is very toxic and it doesn’t help when you read the in most people’s minds fairly innocuous posts in this thread and according to the trans right activists are transphobic. That entrenches views and I’m not sure where we go from here.

I thought I lived in a society where all people are equal and one person's rights did not trump those of another.
As far as Scotgov is concerned "progressive" = unequal