Milli Hill author of Give Birth Like a Feminist surprises TRAs by being a feminist.

[ToesAndFingersCrossed]

Milli has tweeted on the topic of children never being born in the wrong body, especially not girls. She’s also retweeted and liked posts in support of JKR, thus causing shockwaves in the crunchy birthing/doula community who previously used her books to support women in making birth choices that were right for them. For some reason they are surprised that a woman who has made it her life’s work to centre woman in their birthing experiences would centre woman in other issues too.

She’s also apologised for not speaking out on the issue sooner. Go Milli!!

Brilliant. Well done her.

This is great to see

What a good read her twitter is. It's distressing that so many women involved with birthing insist on the dehumanising of women (pregnant people, cervix havers etc) in their desperation to centre unhappy men.

Well done her - and of course Mermaid's / tra's spectacular own goal (we never said anyone was born in the wrong body) have helped enormously.

absolutely go Milli!! if I was on Twitter I would follow her.

Blimey it’s good to see people speaking out. We are now safe to say it out loud. I’m still getting TRAs online telling me that no one was ever pushed down the affirmation route.

Well done Milli. A rock of common sense.

Really glad to hear this. I was losing hope that the birth/maternity rights world had all succumbed to the "pregnant people" nonsense. Great to see Milli speak up.

Good for her.

@WhereAreWeNow

Really glad to hear this. I was losing hope that the birth/maternity rights world had all succumbed to the "pregnant people" nonsense. Great to see Milli speak up.

I'm sure lots of them have succumbed, but this gives us a leg up

highhame I’m in a few local doula groups and there has been a lot of banning and deleting today because of this. One group has even banned everyone who liked a post supporting Milli, whether or not they actually said anything in her favour. So only the wails of despair and accusations of bigotry remain. But their numbers are already so much lower. And those banned will probably start reading on this issue a lot more. A lot of lightbulb moments to come I think.

Good for her!
☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

OP I do see the light shining brighter. It's a pity those who accuse of bigotry are often more likely to be bigots.

I'm sure new groups will grow.

It's making me a bit hopeful that women will become a stronger force because we really do have to start growling and gnashing our teeth a lot more

Whoop! The more people stand up to them the better. Things are changing, women are sick and bloody tired of all this bullshit. It's becoming more transparently anti-women by the minute.

Oh wow, as a midwife and a Milli Hill fan, this has made my day. She is a huge figure in the birth world, and we desperately need more influential people like her to speak out. Midwives are overall a bit more reluctant, but doulas in the UK have been totally captured by this ideology.

@Kaiserin

I'm 100% on board with "no one is born in the wrong body" (chilling to think young individuals uncomfortable with stifling gender social norms can end up being convinced that the cure to all their woes is to mutilate their own healthy bodies in order to fit in!)

Sadly, though (completely independently from the trans debate), I also feel there is a lot of entrenched misogyny in maternity services, and sometimes, reminding everyone that women are indeed people (not just baby carrying vessels, or some strange alien creatures) might be useful.
I remember my own experience through the maternity system, and the literature and language that surrounds it, and I often felt that my experience as a person was dismissed or reframed "because all that stuff is normal since you're a woman" (in the same way, say, that period pain is routinely ignored or minimised). And that if you took that dismissive language, and replaced "women/woman" with "people/person", suddenly the icongruity (in expecting a person to put up with crap such as no pain relief, etc.) would look obvious, and it becomes easier to fight for our rights.
In other words: I strongly believe (through personal experience) that some people (including women) are conditioned to see women as less than human, and (strategically) using terms such as "person" (in certain contexts) can help break that conditioning. And it can be particularly relevant in the context of giving birth.
(However, dehumanising crap like "uterus havers" has no place anywhere)

Heard and understood - personally, I favour the idea of stressing that Women are People too, not defective or secondary humans, and I suspect that many of the well meaning who have adopted the 'Pregnant people' are coming from that perspective. Sadly it has been thoroughly hijacked by the dehumanizing crap. But we can still push back. We're getting very good at that.

Toesandfingers. Will it have been obvious to group members that people were disappearing from the group just for liking a post? I really hope so.

For anyone turning up here wondering what's going on, as well as checking out this site, there are relevant posts on the breastfeeding & birth blog called "full cream" (which is American). And one or two others from the world of maternity & birth have spoken up, including Katherine Hales of the association of radical midwives.

teezletangler glad to hear sensible midwives exist. Currently a student and being treated a bit crappily by my mentor after she went on a TWAW rant and I replied with a noncommittal “mmm”.

Glad to hear about Katherine Hales, I’ve been considering joining the ARM I think I will now :)

Why was Kaiserin’s reply deleted??? Nothing against talk guidelines???

So, Kaiserin's thoughtful post has been deleted, and as I quoted it in full, I suspect my post will follow down the memory hole. So I c&p'd my response just in case, and I hope you can glean the gist of her post, because it was actually an valiant attempt to try and dialogue with the ideologues. Guess it wasn't obsequious enough.

I said- Heard and understood - personally, I favour the idea of stressing that Women are People too, not defective or secondary humans, and I suspect that many of the well meaning who have adopted the 'Pregnant people' are coming from that perspective. Sadly it has been thoroughly hijacked by the dehumanizing crap. But we can still push back. We're getting very good at that.

Hold on a minute, did a woman talking about her birth experience, on Mumsnet, a site for mothers, just get her post deleted? Who exactly is objecting to women, on Mumsnet, talking about their birth experiences?

There is nothing inflammatory or unkind in that post. Nothing.

You're supposed to be here for us, Mumsnet. For exactly this.

The monitors (not mnhq mods!) are extra tetchy at the moment. Understandable.

Toesandfingerscrossed oh dear that is worrying to hear about your tutor. I get the impression that the mindset has infiltrated the younger student cohort, but I'm worried that it's coming from lecturers too! I have noticed that The Practising Midwife has gone woke and talks about birthing people now, but at least they use the term as an add-on to women, not a replacement.

Unfortunately there's a very strong "be kind" mentality running through midwifery (I think as an antidote to the bullying and lateral violence that also plagues the profession). That means that a lot of midwives will just blindly accept this. I swear there are a lot of us still out there though who are sane!

Great. I was thinking of buying her book and now I shall definitely do so!