Black birthing people

[OverMoon]

I’ve just seen a post on instagram stating that “Black birthing people are still dying”. I had to do a double-take. Birthing people?

Black women dying in childbirth at a higher rate that women from other backgrounds is obviously a huge issue in the UK that needs attention, and thankfully seems to be gaining more attention recently. But how is it helpful to use language that makes literally no sense!?

A quick twitter search of “black birthing people” shows that lots of other people are using this phrase too.

I am genuinely not against trans inclusivity where it makes sense, but how many trans men choose to get pregnant and give birth? Given they have gender dysphoria and are usually on hormones that would preclude that. Surely the numbers must be vanishingly small?

Doesn’t saying “black birthing people” ignore the fact that it is BLACK WOMEN, a doubly marginalised group, who are affected by this issue? It is misogyny and racism that is causing this. But we can’t say women?

What’s a “birthing person”!? The instagram post features the sentence “The energy you’re given to George Floyd, give to Black Birthing people too”. Am I the only one that finds this so untruthful and distracting from the real issue?

It’s so insulting to women

Cringe. Not so different from calling black women broodmares. Sounds literally like terminology slaveowners might have used.

Has anyone seen with covid any press or anyone anywhere saying that ejaculators (or similar) are more at risk so BAME ejaculators are a particularly high risk group?

How would men feel about that. They'd day fuck off.

Black birthing people. Skin colour + reproductive function. It sounds awful.

Ejaculators. Penis-havers. Prostate-havers. Testicle-bearers. Testosterone-driven people. Facial hair-sprouters. Chest-hair growers.

Nup, I've heard and seen none of these kennings, just the boring, old-fashioned, three-letter word. Why?🤷🏼‍♀️

Cringe. Not so different from calling black women broodmares. Sounds literally like terminology slaveowners might have used.

Exactly my thought. It's dehumanising.

It puts me in mind of things I’ve read previously regarding the language used around birth and particularly in the language used to try to encourage ‘natural births’, sometime inadvertently making people who have needed interventional births feel shamed or inadequate.

Language matters and focusing on a process rather than the person - in this case a (black) pregnant woman/expectant mother/mum-to-be, devalues that person to a bodily function. Why can’t women be called what they feel comfortable being called rather than some neutral, inaccurate science speak.

I think the birth word salad is the worst as it takes the most momentous, life changing and sometimes traumatic thing in many women’s lives and reduces it to a functional verb, and once the birth is over, who are they then...?

Every person alive has been developed and delivered by a woman’s pain, endurance, worry and sadly sometimes worse. It strikes me as incredibly insensitive to claim to care about maternal outcomes for black women and not even name them.

I find it particularly offensive given that black women have had their womanhood denigrated and denied in majority-white countries for centuries, with (white) people saying black women "look like men" and similar.

I'm all for inclusion, so why not just say pregnant black women and trans-men?

In every. single. case, when they could have done that, they chose to erase women instead. You'd be hard-pressed to convince me erasing women isn't their goal. They keep doing this, and they keep telling women who object to go fuck themselves, not caring if we're offended, never mind we're 99% of their target audience.

Surely the way to avoid offence when talking about female only issues is to use “biological females/women”? As in “black biological females” instead of “black birthing people”? Gets the point across and it’s not excluding anyone as transwomen are not biological females (and can accept that they will never be able to give birth etc) and transmen are biological females regardless of their transition?

Or have I got this all wrong? Genuinely not trying to offend anyone here, my head is just a bit muddled with this. Between “birthing people” and the Metros constant references to “people who menstruate” I’m getting rather annoyed at never being referred to as a woman or female...

But transmen won’t welcome being reminded that they’re biologically female. It will be seen as literal violence and you will be accused of killing people by such language.

@JacobReesMogadishu sorry for my ignorance here, but surely transmen still need biological female health focused care if they’re choosing to not undergo a sex change? Which I assume they won’t have done if they wish to be pregnant and undergo a profoundly biological female experience?

I’d actually be really interested in hearing a transmans view on this, on if they’d be hurt or offended with that. Genuinely don’t want to make anyone feel like I’m invalidating them, I’m just unsure why it’s women that must be erased in this instance.

Haven’t RTFT yet (but will later), only the first few posts, but believe me - “birthing people” absolutely is referring to pregnant and birthing women, non-binary people and trans men. I work in maternity services. Using the word women is not sufficiently inclusive to non-binary and trans men, apparently.

I find it very problematic, personally. “Women and birthing people”... absolutely fine. Just erasing the word women completely? Not fine (to me, anyway). When I expressed (very mildly, as I know the risks of being labelled a TERF) that recently in a conversation, I was told “they’ll get used to it” (meaning any woman who objects to being henceforth referred to as a birthing person).

And isn't that just a perfect metaphor for the healthcase provided to women during pregnancy and childbirth? Women - an afterthought in the process from the perspective of a worrying, infuriating number of medical professionals.

@NearlyGranny

Ejaculators. Penis-havers. Prostate-havers. Testicle-bearers. Testosterone-driven people. Facial hair-sprouters. Chest-hair growers.

Nup, I've heard and seen none of these kennings, just the boring, old-fashioned, three-letter word. Why?🤷🏼‍♀️

Exactly. I can only think it's because all the loud shouting and threatening is one-sided, and objecting women are easier to fob off than men.

@ShinyFootball

The context at a guess is the appalling maternal death rate in the USA for black women.

The maternal death rate for Black woken is 5 x that of white women in the UK, it’s not just a problem in the USA.

JoinTheMicrodots

My issue as a non medical person is the term birthing people does sound like the people around the woman when she gives birth.

It isn’t a matter of getting used to it. It is about using terms that are completely ambiguous or misleading.
I think for a lot of people who hadn’t heard the term before would think like I did when I first heard it that birthing people referred to the midwife/nurse/birthing partner. All the people in the delivery room helping to deliver the baby

Controlling the narrative by controlling the words used is not as easy as people seem to think.
Just as many people still think that a transwoman is a woman who transitions to a man and not a man who transitions to woman, so will many people think "birthing people" refers to people who assist females of various species in giving birth.

Shame on anyone who goes along with this shit. 'Woman'/'women' are not swear words.

Hello. I am new on this site though I have lurked for a couple of years and stand in awe, most of the time, given the erudition and debating chops you all have. Well, sit in awe at my computer.

On this particular topic my understanding of the background is that activists argue the use "woman" is exclusionary, because there is a small number of people who have female reproductive systems, who can get pregnant, who menstruate, and so on, but who do not wish to be called "women," because they have re-defined "woman" to mean just an inner feeling only accidentally correlating or not with one's biological sex. If it happens to correlate, then one is a cis woman (and bloody privileged!), if it does not correlate, then one is either a trans man or a nonbinary person.

Using "woman" in the context of things which have to do with the female biology is then seen as exclusion. Inclusiveness is now what the wokerati require, and so "woman" was first replaced by "egg-producers" or "menstruators" or "uterus-havers," but lots of people previously known as women found that terminology insulting. So now it is just "people" who have female bodies, even though that decision means that the female body is de-gendered and in the process of being eradicated.

Many reproductive rights organizations in the US talk about people needing abortions, but they do take care to talk about Black people needing abortions or poor people needing abortions. It is just any word relating to female biology which needs to be erased. So out of the three major (in terms of the numbers affected by them) axes of oppression (sex, race and class), it is the woke feminists who are erasing the label of the sex-based axis.

The desire to be inclusive is applied here, to horrible effect, because it is about Black women. Whoever created that sentence doesn't want to exclude those Black people who give birth but do not identify as women or wish to be called mothers once they have given birth. But that person obviously doesn't care about the possibility that most women identify as women for the very reason that they live in female bodies and others treat them differently than they would be treated if they lived in male bodies. All those people get their "identities" totally invalidated, and that may be one reason why all this so grates on me.

If I cannot identify as a woman because of my female body and the experiences it has given me, then how am I a woman at all? So the current inclusiveness might actually exclude billions of women from the class of women.

If I cannot identify as a woman because of my female body and the experiences it has given me, then how am I a woman at all? So the current inclusiveness might actually exclude billions of women from the class of women.

Exactly that.

Congratulations on the delurk!

Another midwife here. Sadly “birthing people” is definitely a thing. It drives me nuts. Theres a certain midwifery journal that has completely drunk the koolaid in regards to this, they’ve even had drawings commissioned of bearded (wo)men giving birth to illustrate articles with.

For me I think the term birthing people isn’t just about excluding the words woman/women from the vocabulary but that the term actually means something it isn’t.

Just on a health and safety point I think unless you are into the dogma surrounding this terminology or had to have it explained to you what the term refers to I think will be lost on an awful lot of people and if women read stuff that refers to “birthing people” they are likely to think it doesn’t refer to them and are likely to ignore any advice or instructions and it could put them at an even greater risk than we have now.

It is quite frankly dangerous.

What I can’t get my head around is if someone truly believes they are a man then how do they become pregnant in the first place?

If you believe yourself to be a man then along with that you must think that you don’t ever become pregnant.

I agree that while some of the terms used are erasing and unnecessary - pregnant person comes to mind - this one is actively misleading and a lot of women just wouldn't realise it referred to them. I'm not fully sure what it means - are you just a 'birthing person' in labour, or throughout pregnancy? Surely using terms people recognise is non-negotiable in patient communication?

I was told “they’ll get used to it” (meaning any woman who objects to being henceforth referred to as a birthing person).

Ugh. Not sure how much more of this level of idiocy I can take. Women have to just get used to their erasure? I don't fucking think so.

How wonderfully progressive to dehumanise black women in the name of 'inclusivity'.

Seriously.

How many pregnant black females are identifying as transmen or non binary?
I'd guess close to zero.

The vast majority of trans identified females are white, middle class students.

They're writing about an issue affecting, in fact killing, pregnant black women, and erasing black women when talking about them, with a privileged white audience in mind.

It's discusting.