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.

Amethyst24 you are so right.

Sunshineandsilverbirch yes 1984, here we come. Where nothing means anything, or everything!! We must not let it happen. But we must not forget that there are all kinds of people with real needs, so I hope we can be caring. As i am pretty sure those midwives would be!

Italiangrey it's a very difficult area which has been so politicised that it's hard to tread carefully.

I completely agree that individual should be treated with kindness and sensitivity.

Oh, I've lost patience with all this. He was having a baby, therefore engaging with the womanly facts of his body. Yes, I know that sounds weird but anyone decent would go with the pronoun.

People do stuff that's out of the norm. One of those things is to identify as a man but do something only women can do. Fine. Sometimes I use a loo labelled "men" even though I'm not a man. I own shoes marketed as men's; my tiny, adult nieces own shoes labelled "children's". Get used to it, fgs.

Actually ... rabbit hole.

If we eradicate all language distinguishing different categories of people, this author wouldn't be able to identify as a man, would he? He'd be identifying as a person, and all pronouns would be replaced with "they". Where's your transgenderism then, huh?

My take from this article is mostly how great it is that a significant group of midwives have objected to their guidelines removing the word 'woman' and replacing it with 'pregnant individuals'. It was a really really crap change, and yes it does erase women and that is a massive problem. When it comes to being pregnant/giving birth of course it is all about biology!

I also would have thought that the guidelines need a special section on trans people as they may well find pregnancy very difficult or have issues from the use of hormones or having had surgery. Is it really so very very hard for people to accept that they are in fact quite different and need special consideration rather than force changes that don't apply to the vast majority of other people and may actually harm them?

Interesting that this comes from transmen, but is still fundamentally all about attacking women.

When I was pregnant, I was labelled high-risk. I didn't identify as high-risk. I was subjected to some invasive and some highly inconvenient procedures because of this. I sucked it up for 9 months as it was probably in our best interests and I didn't have an awful lot of choice. You just get the fuck on with it.

It really does seem like language is more important in transworld than actual people and real impacts. Absolutely midwives and HCPs should be supporting transmen through their pregnancies, absolutely they should receive all the support they need to get them through what must be a period of severe cognitive dissonance and emotional upheaval. But women can't afford for women to be erased from this highly critical and often controversial area of our biology and our lives. Not everything is about sodding gender.

I'm another one who is really losing patience with this.

If you want to be referred to by your preferred pronoun, that's fine, and I'm sure the midwife would have been more than happy to accommodate.

Wanting the literature to change, because of a vanishingly small number of transpeople who give birth alongside the huge number of women who give birth every year?

I'm assuming he would pay for the change to be made and all the new leaflets to be printed, yes?

It just smacks of trying to erase women from everything. To be trying to erase them from pregnancy and birth is horrendous. I have never understood how you can 'feel' one gender or the other, as I have never felt "Oh yes, I am a woman now" - except for after giving birth. It is the one time I have felt strong and empowered as a woman, rather than as a human being.

If you have the bits to make and carry a baby, you are biologically a woman, and that is what the leaflets are referring to.

This kind of nails it for me:

I also would have thought that the guidelines need a special section on trans people as they may well find pregnancy very difficult or have issues from the use of hormones or having had surgery. Is it really so very very hard for people to accept that they are in fact quite different and need special consideration rather than force changes that don't apply to the vast majority of other people and may actually harm them?

I can't imagine any individual midwife would be anything but supportive for any trans indivudual in this situation, but the whole concept of making the entire lexicon and process of birth non-gendered as the solution for a small and specific population is just bonkers.

It makes me very nervous for the logical outcome of forcing our language and frame of reference down this path, because it's taking away the ability to name, identify and challenge the unique situations that come from being biological woman, particularly in the area of reproductive rights and it's not like there aren't enough people in the world already who want to shut down any debate on that topic.

I struggle to see how you could be willing to forego your male-centred identity enough to go through pregnancy and birth and all the specifically woman-y stuff that goes with it, and cope with all the upheaval to your identity that would surely entail, without also being mentally strong enough to be able to look at the literature and every time it says "pregnant woman", just add "and me" under your breath...

Ffs it is getting ridiculous now women (not always) are able to have a baby our bodies are designed that way men are not

Surely if you feel you are a man and you identify as being a man and wish others to do so then you do so and you have to give up your life as a women

It seems we are letting a few who have very complex ideas about themselves and their place in society dictate what is right for women it is so wrong. Why is this being allowed why is every whim being pandered too

Well I had my peak trans moment a while back, but if I hadn't, this would be it.

Trans ideology is a gift to patriarchy. It is a misogynistic, anti woman, woman erasing, gift. Wrapped up in a big empty box called "gender".

Gender is a system of oppression. It is man made nonsense constructed to justify the control, exploitation and oppression of females because we are the sex which carries and births babies. Thank God midwives and other sensible women are seeing this trans narcissism for the dangerous women erasing crap it is.

Plainly put, what some people want is for women to continue to be oppressed because we birth babies but for us to not be allowed to have a collective identity as the sex that births babies because it upsets their delusion. Girls and women are harmed, abused, tortured, imprisoned, sold, raped, mutilated, controlled and subjugated the world over because we have a reproductive capacity that men do not. And some fuckwits want to invisibleize all that because it hurts their feelings and shines a light on their cognitive dissonance and spoils the transgender delusion.

Radical Feminists have been predicting this since the 70s and getting called mad extremist haters for their pains. Now transgenderism ideology enthusiastically embraced by patriarchal society is hitting the mainstream and I pray that women will say no.

'Why is this being allowed why is every whim being pandered too'

We know the answer to that, I believe. Because it's such an effective way to make it difficult for women to talk about oppression.
Who does it benefit - those already in the dominant position.

Exactly. It isn't being allowed because society is progressive or because trans ideology is progressive.

It is being pandered to because it bolsters male supremacy. Because it is deeply conservative, gender supporting, woman hating, homophobic and patriarchal.

Transpeople are being used.

"Gender is a system of oppression. It is man made nonsense constructed to justify the control, exploitation and oppression of females because we are the sex which carries and births babies. "

I agree.

Because it's such an effective way to make it difficult for women to talk about oppression.

Exactly that. Here we have a feminist library facebook page, where women are being censored and silenced. It's working

Was thinking about this other thread in case you haven't seen it.

What idiocy. I'm sure most people would not want to be referred to as a "birthing person".

And I particularly take issue with the author's demand that they need more time with midwives/health personnel. If they're equal, then suck up the five minute slot along with every other pregnant person.

I really really can't understand why someone who "identifies" as a man, would get pregnant and give birth to a baby anyway. It just doesn't make sense.

Pleased you posted this - i almost posted the open letter to MANA yesterday. I'm in London, where the feminist movement is very trans-orientated, and apparently because I find the idea of removing the word woman from birth then I am transphobic.

I am therefore transphobic, and proud because I believe in the existence of our shared biology (when it comes to the being the sex that carries and delivers babies). I also don't believe that male-bodied women should be allowed in female-bodied spaces. So there.

I didn't realise until last night that trans activists are asking for the opposite of what they say they want. Removing gender from our language (including biologically related topics) is a gender critic's dream, apart from the biological bits - which could easily be worked round.

So your transwoman is no longer a woman labelled 'she'. They are a person that wears dresses. Like any other gender critic, I'm happy for people born with penises to wear dresses.

Your transman is a person wearing trousers. In the case of the trouser-wearing person who was born with ovaries, there is no distinction from me.

Being "treated as a woman" no longer means anything. Everyone's a person - and, if style of dress affects the way people are treated, then we can adopt appropriate dress as needed. Which we already do.

Trevor MacDonald says they want to be treated as a person giving birth. Well - they were treated as such. They say they want language to be non-gendered. I'm not sure this is true. Because that means Trevor MacDonald is not a man or a transman, they're an individual with a cervix. Just as they've always been.

Transpeople are being used.

Absolutely.

It is a gift to the patriarchy isn't it? This is probably a bit garbled as I'm still thinking my way around this.

I was thinking about MTT issues the other day, and how the dominant ideology around trans rights demands that women make the concessions, give up the space, adapt and welcome, whether it's about space in feminism, on feminist platforms, in areas previously reserved for women like changing rooms or whatever. And I thought, it's the same old same old outcome of what feels like very male privilege, it's the MTT lobby that is so vocal and it's women who get shafted. We don't hear so much about FTT demanding concessions from men and trampling all over men's spaces, do we? Then I read this article, and I thought, hang on, this is FTT now and fuck me if it isn't women getting shafted again! How did that happen?

Well, because patriarchy.

It's women being asked to budge up again, it always is, whether it's the MTT or the FTT doing it, it's always women who have to move to let our space be occupied.

So this is a person who wants to be a man, except when he/she wants to be a woman.

Humpty Dumpty said it best: “When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

Sometimes I feel as if I am occupying a parallel universe.

It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious.

It feels like all you have to do is mention TERF and transphobia and any discussion is thereby muted because you're not being 'supportive.' This smacks of the Twitter campaign a while back when people claimed that it was transphobic to try and highlight the issues surrounding access to clean sanitary products in third world countires.

Also, God forbid we mention our vaginas.

This is stupid, there should be common sense applied to the issue. It's a biological fact that women give birth. Why erase that word? I expect the vast amount of the general public would raise an eyebrow on this issue and go 'you what?'

We don't hear so much about FTT demanding concessions from men and trampling all over men's spaces, do we?

mmm...yes....Its certainly not a burning issue with the lads down my local.