"Pregnant people" and "birthing people"

[AnotherEmma]

I am pregnant and I KEEP coming across these phrases, it's driving me crazy. I swear it wasn't like this in my first pregnancy a few years ago.

I am a pregnant WOMAN and when I give birth I will be a WOMAN.

Erasing women when we're doing the one thing that women can do and men can't seems to be the ultimate insult

And for what?! To please a minuscule minority of trans men and other biological females who do not identify as women - but are comfortable enough with their female biology to go through pregnancy and childbirth?!

Aarrrrggghhhhhhh.

Just keep crossing it out and innocently asking what the phrase actually means in English.

I'm pregnant too and I haven't come across this yet. But when I do, I will kick up a fuss. Birth belongs to women. Only women can do it.

It hasn't come up in any of the letters or other paperwork (not that I've noticed anyway), but it's in announcements shared by my maternity hospital on social media - obviously there are quite a few at the moment due to Covid-19 and various changes to services. I also follow various pregnancy and childbirth related things, including a group of local doulas, and it was a doula's post/blog that annoyed me. I just feel that if anything should be women centric, it's maternity care and the support of a doula. I just get the impression they are so "right on" and woke that they have deliberately made the choice to use this language at the risk of alienating ACTUAL WOMEN who pay for their services FFS.

That would really piss me off, too.

Play them at their own game. Write and tell them to stop it because you find it triggering and it invalidates you as a woman. Outwoke the woke, see how they like it!

It's not about appeasing transmen.

It's about appeasing transwomen, who don't want the word 'woman' to be linked to something they are biologically incapable of doing.

Yes I think that makes more sense. Enraging.

I met a lovely nurse when I'd had my baby who also ran some private yoga sessions. She said she had to start using 'pregnant people' in her promotions as one of her clients pointed out she may be offending lots of people by saying 'pregnant women'. She said I would never want to offend or upset anyone so I have had to do it. She was honestly the nicest lady and I told her she really shouldn't have to appease such a small ridiculous minority but there we go. There is zero chance a trans woman will be using these services

But isn’t she offending lots more people by saying ‘pregnant people’? - Except of course they are not the people who shout the loudest.

Completely agree (also pregnant with my second). Some examples from just the last few days on my local hospital’s maternity page:

‘During labour the birthing person will need to stand up out of the water occasionally’

‘We have made the decision to temporarily stop doulas attending women or people who birth’

‘This zoom meet up is open to people at any point in their breast/chestfeeding journey’

I suppose at least the second example refers to women. But the third - breastfeeding isn’t even written out! There are so many examples of this. I’m not a birthing person, I’m a pregnant woman, ffs. And there’s no such thing as chestfeeding.

I’ve started to notice this as well, I’d read about ‘people’ being used on here before but never actually saw any evidence. However I’ve started noticing it myself now with all the maternity info/COVID-19 stuff on social media shared by hospital trusts and other organisations. It’s made me realise it’s definitely becoming more ‘mainstream’ in maternity language now.

It's absurd. If you believe yourself to be a man, despite female biology, surely being pregnant and having a baby is the last thing you'd want to do? How can there possibly be enough trans people doing this to justify changing the language used by everyone?

Women get pregnant, give birth, and breastfeed. Not all women do all or any of these things, obviously - but no man ever has. If I were pregnant, I'd try to avoid anywhere talking about 'pregnant people' as they seem to be prioritising ideologically-motivated activists over actual pregnant women. And common sense.

" If I were pregnant, I'd try to avoid anywhere talking about 'pregnant people'"

Absolutely impossible when it's your large local maternity hospital doing it, and it would make no sense to give birth anywhere else.

Maternity units are getting bombarded by trans rights people and being loudly told to change their literature, posters, guidelines, leaflets, etc.

Some comply for an easy life and think they’re being PC. Others with perhaps a bit more critical thought say no, they’re not changing.

I think the NHS is over a barrel here to be fair

It's also potentially very confusing to women who don't have English as a first language, or who may have difficulties with comprehension. "Cervix havers" and "birthing people" are confusing even to people with a decent grasp of the language, let alone those who struggle.

Well if pressure by TRAs is what’s causing the problem, the answer is obvious. Women need to apply pressure themselves, and in far greater numbers, to protest that we find this offensive and insulting, that we do not accept being erased and we want correct language used to describe us.

I don’t see the same for male-provided care or equipment. Funny that.

Took the words out of my mouth there, Babdoc. Time to stop being nice, people, women!

I agree about protesting, but I think we need to be mindful that this is about institutional capture, and that sheer wight of numbers might not therefore be as powerful as it should be.

Why don’t we beat them at their own game by saying we regard this erasure of our biology as hate speech?

Excellent suggestion by babdoc at 20.33

As someone much cleverer than me said on another thread:

Someone's right to exist should not be up for debate.