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!!

Can MN not just remove the offending word from a post instead of deleting the whole thing??

Deleting posts like that is awful. Things just keep disappearing and unless a bunch of detectives on the thread can work out why, you never know.

There's no explanation of the current word ban list or what might now be a thought crime.

This isn't okay @mnhq - please can you at least start clarifying why you're deleting things in your deletion messages?

Yes, I'd like to understand too, why a single word can't be removed if it's really so triggering. Feels like a kick to the stomach to see that post deleted. Upsetting.

Also, there are detrans people on reddit who use words like "mutilate" to describe what happened to them.

So why are they/we being told that's not okay now?

Removal of healthy tissue or surgery on healthy bodies would be a better options. Words like 'mutilate' bring so much baggage with them, so they are better being used by those who have had surgery, but it would be good to have guidance.

That is a very good post.

The third screenshot in OP's tweet especially.

Good woman.

Impressive fortitude shown there.

Going to quote the second bit of Kaiserin's very thoughtful post about the experience of being treated as less than a person because you're a woman giving birth (before the quoted text disappears too), because I think it's too important to lose).

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)

(Also on board with her comments in the first part of her post, which I don't think was inflammatory at all. I wish we had better counselling so people who felt gender dysphoria could make peace with their bodies - and also that society would be more tolerant of gender non-conforming behaviour, while at the same time actually accepting that sometimes sex matters and we segregate spaces according to sex rather than gender identity.)

@CaraDuneRedux thanks for quoting that important insight from @Kaiserin. I think you are absolutely right about the potentially thought-provoking effects of strategically using "person" to highlight how we expect women to put up with pain, risk, inconvenience and discomfort that just wouldn't be tolerated by men.

I'm just about to start going through the process again with maternity services, and frankly, I am dreading it. As a (male) consultant said to me last time around "if men were having babies, they wouldn't put up with all that - they'd be queueing out of the door for a cesarean." At 30 weeks, he was the first person I saw throughout the whole process who I felt spoke to me as an adult, as an equal. Ironically he was also the only man I saw throughout the whole process too.

It is far, far too common for women's concerns and fears about giving birth to be routinely dismissed, or for misinformation provided. You only need to look at the pinned post about the Montgomery case at the top of AIBU, or read the thousands of stories that have been posted on here over the years to know that misogyny is indeed entrenched in maternity services.

Thank you for making an important point.

I’ve followed Milli on twitter for some time because I feel there’s a real lack of conversation in feminism around how women are treated in pregnancy and childbirth, despite it being a massive issue for a huge number of women.

Give birth like a feminist is absolutely brilliant and I recommend it to anyone, it articulates and describes the issues so well.

It’s a massive shame to see arguing and divide happening over trans issues (I’m sure I’ve seen milli tweet before that she’d received criticism about her book for not being trans-inclusive enough) because it just detracts from the issues of childbirth that aren’t discussed enough as it is!

As someone who works in the birth world I have seen first hand how they replaced breast with chest feeding and birth mother has been replaced with gestational carriers. Also a rather large organisation insisting on putting everyone through trans ideology training
Please join Arm here's hoping more people speak out only women can give birth that's the biological norm.