Pregnant people?! It's 'women'

[BIWI]

Two links to surveys today, from Kings College London and Cardiff University. Both surveys wanting to speak to 'pregnant people'.

It's women who get pregnant and give birth. Male members of our society are unable to conceive, grow and birth babies.

Please, please, please - why are you accepting these requests? Do you not read them first? (Especially seeing as you allow them to post their links for free).

I'm appalled that Mumsnet is now complicit in erasing the word 'woman'.

How come trans-men are not vocally blethering on here about 'pregnant people'? It seems to be a segment of society looking for any 'chink in the armour' when there really isn't any armour at all.

The only people who can become pregnant are women and transmen who are also born women. No need for 'pregnant people' because they don't exist.

Agree with BIWI, the word woman is inclusive and it's not for men to take it away, it's our word to describe what we are. Women.

Using 'cis' on this site is insulting, we don't need it, we have our word. Women.

Pregnant people suggest those in addition to women can be pregnant. This is not true. Trans men are women, whatever they choose to 'identify' as.

"People" includes men.

Men cannot get pregnant, it's biologically impossible

Unless, of course, you're claiming that transmen are actually men.

But transmen are not actually men, since humans cannot change sex, any more than any other mammalian species.

Transmen are a subset of women, not a subset of men.

Therefore "pregnant people" is never correct.

To be recognised as trans you have to be living in your acquired gender, and intend to do so for the rest of your life do you not?

So how is giving birth doing that? Men cannot give birth.

yet trans men don’t identify as women, hence, ‘pregnant people’. Simple solution to a complicated issue

So you think all women should stop using the word woman in relation to pregnancy just on the off chance a female with dysphoria or a special 'gender identity' gets pregnant and might get upset by the word woman?

The number of transmen who get pregnant is minuscule and they can simply ask their own health care providers to use whatever words don't trigger them (whilst using their female body to do what only women can...) and stop dictating the language used by everyone else.

If they truely believed they were men, they wouldn't be having babies would they. Because men can't get pregnant.

So all of us women who have passed the menopause should stop calling ourselves women, because we can no longer get pregnant? What term should we use? Old crone, old hag?

Because it's part of the whole delusion about people being trans, and some of the nonsense spouted has only recently become part of the norm.
It goes along with TW saying they;
get PMT,
menstruate,
have periods despite not menstruating,
have a cervix&need to consult a gynaecologist,

that the process of taking hormones actually causes these changes and in addition they now have XX chromosomes.
In addition I have been told by trans men that I wouldn't realise that they had a neo-penis if I were to have sex with them. It's just the same as the real thing!
I really think I would know the last; I've seen enough penises in my time!
As well as that if we aren't clear about actual biology then we are heading for all sorts of issues/difficulties/misunderstandings. Being clear about who gets pregnant is part of the whole issue, and i expect medical professionals to stick to biology , as it is so obviously important.

... or you think trans men are women and that trans men don’t exist.

It is possible to think that trans men are women and that trans men do exist. In fact, the claim 'trans men are women' entails the claim that trans men exist.

A trans man is a woman who experiences themself as having a gender identity, and whose experienced gender identity is male. None of that is complicated if you take the term 'woman' in its ordinary sense - a person whose sex is female.

It is easy, also, to be inclusive and respectful of a trans man's needs during pregnancy and childbirth, whilst sticking to the definitions in the previous para, as I hope that all gender critical women would aim to be.

For example, NHS maternity-related or gynecological literature aimed at all recipients of care does not, in general, aim always to give voice to the particular needs of women with minority conditions that may require specialised language and approaches.
That isn't a problem, isn't excluding anyone, provided that these specialised needs are met in leaflets relating to the particular needs of those in these minority circumstances
Speaking from my own case, I have just the one ovary but I don't feel excluded or disrespected when NHS information leaflets casually refer to two ovaries, since this is the overwhelming norm.
It just isn't necessary or helpful for information aimed at huge numbers to caveat itself in tortuous ways in order to acknowledge minority variations -- let alone making those tortuous caveats just for some minority variations and not others, simply because those variations have become politicised to such an absurd extent.

If you have had the menopause, you're female. Men don't get the menopause because they're not. Why are you pretending not to know this?

Uterushaversnet.

I think Peregrina was actually making that point. Some obdurate posters on the thread are trying to find ways to twist women into agreeing that 'pregnant people' is a valid term.

For those posters then... pregnancy is not the only thing that makes us women. We have XX chromasomes which men (other than trans men) will never, ever have. When we are not pregnant we are still women. When we go through menopause and can no longer have children, we are still women. We will always be women and there's nothing that you can do about that.

Biology rules.

Ah, in that case, my apologies, @Peregrina .

hence, ‘pregnant people’. Simple solution to a complicated issue.

No thanks. Luckily KCL seem to have got the message and deleted their post.

Either you agree that trans men can get pregnant, too, or you think trans men are women and that trans men don’t exist. See?

No back to school for you for some critical thinking classes and logic training.

They exist, as a small subset of women. That's why they can get pregnant. Hope that helps!

So lets hear your argument

men can get pregnant, too, or you think trans men are women and that trans men don’t exist. See?

TM are men and men should have the right to an abortion.

You do agree that the right to not be pregnant is a mans right. Right?

The reason that this is really about male people, is because everything is. The demands of male people to access female spaces dominate trans rights activism. The aim is to completely make the link between female bodies and being a woman unspeakable.

I get you, LyingWitch but this is one of those terms that have been cast aside as misleading and frankly unkind.

Humans are gonochoric, like others mammals. If someone is born with both ovarian and testicular cells/tissue this does not suggest they can successfully fertilise AND give birth. It will be one or the other (but very very rare).

From a paper We Used to Call Them Hermaphrodites by Edward Vilain from 2007, he explains that patient advocacy groups were not keen on the words used to label them as a group (intersex, hermaphrodite, pseudohermaphrodite) and they were alerting people in the field of this thirty or so years ago. Finally in the early 2000s an Endocrine conference settled on DSDs (disorders of sexual development) to describe the congenital abnormalities that result in atypical sexual presentation.

From the paper: "There is something eerie about being called by the name of a monstrous fusion of two divine creatures, Hermes and Aphrodite. The fantasies attached to the word “hermaphrodite” have also given rise to a whole industry catering to individuals with paraphilias, looking for sexual gratification with a mythical image of a Man/Woman."

Notorious TRA J Yaniv claimed to have both sets of genitals in a Human Rights tribunal (nobody wanted to verify!) Imagining having both sets of genitals or a sexual partner with breasts and a willy is a porn soaked man's fever dream.

ILikeDungs, It sounds horrifying to me and, if there are individuals with both sets of genitals then I feel nothing but abject pity for them. I didn't realise that the term had negative connotations and I won't use it again, thanks for the info.

As a woman, I feel intense pressure to keep stating that we do no need other terms to describe women as we have the all encompassing term of woman/women which is what we are. I do no believe that men are or have ever been, under any sort of obligation to prevent the term man/men being misused.

Ah, in that case, my apologies, @Peregrina.

That was my point. Apology accepted.

No human has ever been born with a functioning set of both genitals.

People who are born with a DSD (difference of sexual development) are almost always very clearly male or female, which is why the outdated term 'intersex' is rarely chosen by them.

I don't know when the words transman and transwoman were first used. Not that long ago, surely? They certainly didn't enter the mainstream until 10 years ago at the very most. I wish there had been a lot more kickback when they were first introduced, as they are massively confusing words, and I have to assume that was the intention.

In English, words that end in -woman normally refer to female humans. A lot of those words are very old-fashioned or obsolete now - washerwoman and policewoman, for example - but the odd one is still used, e.g. Frenchwoman, countrywoman. Transwoman was therefore either coined by someone who had no grasp of how language works, or it must have been designed to make people think that it referred to a female person.

There was a very recent survey that showed that a lot of people do indeed think that transwoman is the word for a female human who identifies as a male. And of course if you think that and hear people talking about whether transwomen should be in women's changing rooms, prisons, refuges, sports etc you will probably think 'What's the problem? No matter how a woman identifies, she belongs in the women-only spaces and services, not the men-only ones, for reasons of her own safety and that of other women, and for privacy and dignity.'

However, transwoman was coined as a word for a male human, i.e. a man, who identifies as a woman. This can't be repeated often enough, along with the vitally important connected fact that the vast majority of transwomen don't have genital surgery, so have a fully functioning penis and testicles.

It remains mystifying to me why these small but vociferous groups and their allies have been allowed to dictate to the rest of us how we should talk about them. They would probably say this is like people with disabilities rejecting terms that have been used in the past as insults. However, those aren't the only groups who've asked to be able to choose their own names, and the rest of us don't always agree to do it. Paedophiles, for example, are keen to rebrand themselves as minor attracted persons or MAPs. Most of us don't go along with that.

Nothing wrong with maternity services changing their language based on the person sat in front of them. If they’re providing care for a transman (or anyone tbf) who finds the word “woman” not relevant to them and wants to be referred to as something else, whatever really, we make allowances for all sorts of scenarios.

But the official language and the default needs to refer to biological sex.

”People can get pregnant if they have unprotected sex”.
”People will start periods during puberty.”
”People should regularly have cervical smears.”
“People will go through the menopause.”
All of these rely on an existing understanding of what particularly subgroup of “people” is applicable. If we remove sex based language then that existing understanding will eventually cease to exist.

But all of these are true

”People can get pregnant if they have unprotected sex”.
”People will start periods during puberty.”
”People should regularly have cervical smears.”
“People will go through the menopause.”

The type of people who can do this is female people.

People keep wittering on that the only people who can get pregnant are women, when that is simply and straightforwardly not the case unless you take the stance that people who become pregnant are automatically adults neatly linguistically bypassing the need to confront the abuse of children because that 12 year old is a "pregnant woman".

I am old enough to remember when woman was rather impolite, instead female people were ladies - you had the Lady Doctor and the tea lady, and the Tampax Lady who came to give you the talk on sex education befitting for the lady that you would become. Of course lady was something that someone aspired for you to be, no climbing trees, or getting dirty or using bad words, which would mark you out as "not a lady". Only a lot of female children didnt want to be ladies and sit nicely, be quiet and act as the family waitress, they just wanted to be children. They looked at the "ladies" that they were being forced into becoming and thought "fuck that".

Just like many female children are taking a look at what women are today and thinking aint no way I want to grow up to be one of them. Because women is a man-made ideological concept, not a material difference of biology.

Why cant female people be people. Bring on the "10% of people have endometriosis". There is never this discussion when men are referred to as people (despite being limited in their human functioning through their biology - unable to conceive, gestate or birth and somehow they are still somehow seen as the default human!).

@Cailleachian of course it’s technically true… but if you say “people” and don’t specify which subset of people then we won’t know which “people” it refers to.

“You can safely eat meat without cooking it all the way through.” Relevant for steak but not for chicken breasts, so let’s be specific.