Article in Huffpost about transphobia in midwifery

[TribbleNamedDave]

I've read this several times now, and I honestly don't know what I think about it all.

link

Will now read and revert.

Apologies... You had already linked. Forgive my nincompoopery.

Personally I have no time for this.
I totally understand that people may want to identify as a different gender in all social life.
But when it comes down to ob/gyn medicine if you have female physicality I think you just have to accept the use of the term "woman" as shorthand for "person with uterus" in literature aimed at the general population of people with uteruses (uteri?).

It's a difficult one, as there can't be a huge number of transgendered people that are pregnant or giving birth. I would hope that it remains ok for midwives to address their work as serving women and talk about the issues around pregnancy as "women's issues", as for me, this was a helpful part of pregnancy, labour and postnatal care.

Fucking ridiculous that you can't even call people who are pregnant and giving birth women.

"Women and transmen/female-bodied people who don't identify as women(?)" if really necessary, but not removing all reference to women and mothers.

These things always make me want to go for a lie down.

It's down the rabbit hole, it really is.

I don't think that it's wrong to use the word Motherhood, or say that Motherhood is a part of Womanhood. I think it is erasing Women to suggest that because transmen can also carry children, we should not use those words to describe something that is a key aspect of being a woman.

I think here's where we hit that redefinition problem again, where woman is the right word, but woman is used as another word for feminine, rather than another word for female.

This type of thing makes me really angry. How dare anyone try and remove 'women' from childbirth? People can identify as whatever they like but that does not change biology.

If you are capable of conceiving and bearing a child, then you have a uterus and ovaries, and hence biologically you are a woman.

Socially you can identify as whatever you want, but for the purposes of the biological function of reproduction, you are female. There's something really bonkers about calling standard biological terminology offensive just because some people identify with a social gender that doesn't match their biological gender.

I just don't get why a trans man would want to give birth? How would that experience fit in with identifying as male?
I am a pregnant woman. That's what I wish to be identified as. Pregnancy is a woman's issue. If some pregnant women want to called sir then that's fine but you can't expect 99.99% of the population to change language to suit you.

Moreover, Trevor McDonald changed since I last saw him.

I've thought that Katie. If being misgendered for example is so painful*,
surely pregnancy and birth must be infinitely worse.

*I don't think it's right to misgender someone. Just using it as an example of comparision.

I've read a bit of the authors blog, and it was a bit less inflammatory than this article was and there was a plea for a 'middle ground' so to speak. I agree, I think it's bonkers to erase women from the language of birth and pregnancy.

I would hope though that anyone who is in a situation where by they are pregnant, and not identifying with the word woman finds themselves having access to professional and compassionate care.

I'm sure a pregnant person who identifies as male in terms of society must have to do a lot of work coming to terms with the clear discord between their sex and their gender. Maybe the removal of the word woman from literature would help with this but that has to be weighed against the harm that does to women in general who benefit from the positive use of the terms woman and mother to describe the experience they are going through.

I wonder whether all this might lead to a bit of a semantic shift, where woman/man comes to be used to describe identity, and female/male to describe biology?

So "I am a female-bodied man" or "Midwives offer care to females of all genders" etc.

And feminism ceases to be about women's rights but about female rights.

woman/man comes to be used to describe identity, and female/male to describe biology?

I think I could cope with this much better than things like "women identified persons" and "birthing individuals". The whole article made me feel old and confused.

Why would you not accept use of the word woman while giving birth? I don't profess to understand the gender politics at all but if you managed to get pregnant and are prepared to go through pregnancy and childbirth, even if you've transitioned to being a man at some point (presumably not surgically and hormonally) is it really such a stretch to accept that you at least have womanly traits during this period of time even if you leave them behind you as soon as labour is over.

Is it really so horrible to be a woman even if you are choosing to do things that only women do?

I find this strange set of assertions about identity, divorced from any connection to biological facts, to be a bit unsettling. It's all a bit special isn't it.

I'd be happy referring to "pregnant people" rather than women if I was asked. If someone with a womb prefers to use male pronouns it doesn't bother me at all.

How is "female-bodied man" any kind of a meaningful utterance?

FFS

How many trans men actually choose to get pregnant and give birth? A vanishingly small number. So much so that Thomas Beattie was on the cover of time magazine or something wasn't he?!

This kind of thing has real consequences. Here in the United States, we've already had a case where a judge decided that discriminating against a breastfeeding woman wasn't sex discrimination, because they'd have discriminated against a breastfeeding MAN, too, so why are you crying about it?

Being unable to describe these issues as "women's issues" takes away an ability to discuss why and how female people are being oppressed in the area of reproductive control.

Utterly ridiculous and totally insulting to imply that midwives should not have the right to sign a letter on such an important issue. It is highly offensive.

If Trevor wants to be called a man, fine, I am suer midwives would happily do so, but do not erase the word 'woman' or pregnant woman' from literate for the benefit of a tiny minority who are using their female bodies to give birth.

It's the emperor's new clothes!

PS and I don't think it helps trans people who need support and encouragement, this just puts people's backs up (IMHO).

No134, I don't disagree, but it would at least make clear the murk there currently is about sex, identity and gender. In an ideal world, of course, there would be no murk, but given that there is, and people use the word "gender" when they mean "sex" and women feel their identity is being appropriated, surely there's a case for just drawing the lines differently? Surely no transwoman, however strongly she identified as a woman, would lay claim to female biology?

So if we just start framing FGM, abortion, childbirth, menopause etc as "female" issues, in which gender plays no part, we might find ourselves able to step away from the appropriation of "feminine" as a gender identity claimed by males who want to have it?

(I'm very new to all this - I'm sure such arguments have been discussed at length by people far better equipped to discuss them than I am.)

The politics are complex and I haven't consolidated my thought processes around this subject area yet.

However while I would absolutely expect that anyone who is pregnant should be treated with kindness and respect regardless of how they identify I have deep misgivings DS about the erasure of the term 'woman' from something as central to womanhood as giving birth to a child.

There must be a way to deal with the (presumably) tiny number of cases in a sensitive way without throwing the metaphorical baby out with the bath water.

I am also clear that I am not a Ciswoman, I am a woman.

I have no problem with trans men and women. I believe it must take tremendous courage to transition and would be happy to be supportive to any friend, family member or colleague who chose to embark upon that journey.

But I remain concerned that we are heading towards an Orwellian type of Newspeak, (an ideologically purified dialect).