Independent/Chrissy Teigan/birthing parent

[LajesticVantrashell]

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/voices/chrissy-teigen-john-legend-miscarriage-baby-pregnancy-instagram-abortion-anti-choice-b742546.html%3famp

I read this as I understood there was a bit of a Twitter spat yesterday regards insensitive comments around their choice to share this news, so thought I'd read this (it came up on my MSN feed). I'll admit, it took me a while to notice the erasure of the word woman (except when referencing WOC) or mother, although they DO mention fathers.

As someone who has experienced a missed miscarriage, this enraged me. I knew this was happening, but to have the word woman erased from an experience which is so fucking devastating for every woman I know it's happened to, seems like the final tipping point for me. It feels incredibly, incredibly insensitive.

I can’t read the link as it’s something I try not to deliberately expose myself to yet (two miscarriages, multiple failed IVF cycles, unsolvable infertility) but I have said it before when this topic has come up...

I personally have never been more defined by the biological reality of being a woman than when going through invasive infertility treatment and miscarriage.

Bloody wish I could identify my way out of that shitshow.

Yeah, that's really strange. First time the article mentions "birthing parent" I was ready to disagree with you, OP, because I thought it was referring to both the mother and father. But then as you get through the article it just gets really clunky. In this sentence, "birthing parents of color" is clearly meant to contrast with "white women". Clumsy writing.

"For birthing parents of color, who are not seen as being soft and vulnerable like white women are, this judgement becomes even more intensified..."

And then this sentence is just plain weird:

"Birthing people are always judged in our society. Whether they choose to have lots of children or choose to have none, whether they choose to have an abortion because of their circumstances or carry their child to term regardless of their circumstances..."

How are you a "birthing parent" if you choose not to have children?! WOMAN!

Shame - because it's an important issue, and basically a decent article (if a little bit lightweight), and it smacks of an editor who has hastily gone through it with an Inclusivity Red Pen.

And LadyScience.

Thank you BlueBrush, much appreciated

"Birthing people are always judged in our society. Whether they choose to have lots of children or choose to have none, whether they choose to have an abortion because of their circumstances or carry their child to term regardless of their circumstances..."

It's painful to realise that the author understands logically that there are sociological and political consequences to being a 'birthing person', but can't use the word 'woman'.

How do you write policy and legislation to protect the sex based rights that women need when words like 'sex' and 'woman' are taboo?

Sorry - sociological, political and PHYSICAL consequences to be being a 'birthing person'.

and it smacks of an editor who has hastily gone through it with an Inclusivity Red Pen.

Does the Independent still employ editors?

I was under the impression that its business model now only values clicks.

The only way that sentence makes sense is if they did a find and replace of "woman" with "birthing person" and then failed to engage their brain to see if the sentence still worked. And it doesn't work, because "birthing person" is not synonymous with "women".

When you fix the sentences it does make sense - "women are always judged in society, whether they have lots of children or choose to have none..." or "women of colour, who are perceived" etc. I wonder if the only reason they left the other occurrence in is because the phrase "white women" is definitely a thing to certain very woke people, saying "white birthing people" doesn't send the same messages.

Wait, by referring to a woman who is childless by choice as a 'birthing parent' because she has the ability to be one despite her choice not to partake in any of that, THEY are doing the old reducing women to their biology that they accuse us of by saying that women are people who have female bodies and any personality/interests/strengths.

...I shouldn't be surprised...

I note the use of 'father' is still just fine. It's 'women' that must not be allowed.

It's horribly dehumanising. And I'm another woman who has been through this who recoils to see that descriptor. I'm a woman. I'm a mother. And not all of my babies survived.

Why are our feelings irrelevant, and the sole interest serving the feelings of another, tiny minority? Infant loss is a hugely common experience for women. Trans men losing babies really isn't. Why is it that the language around women is taken from us, while the cry is that all should be able to identify as they choose, and failing to use their preferred terms is literal violence?

Are we not even allowed it here - here, in a realm of life, and experience that is uniquely intense, both in terms of emotions and physical experience, and which is inherently, fundamentally bound up with biological sex?

If I'm infertile what am I? I'm not a birthing person who has chosen not to birth, nor am I a sperm-maker... so I'm a... hang on... there used to be a word.....
I read a devastating thread on Twitter about a woman who's had multiple miscarriages and someone told her off for excluding trans people from her experience. Ffs. I think the only people she was excluding is narcissists. I can't think that any right minded trans person would deny or try to muscle in on a woman's experience of miscarriage any more than I'd join a mother and baby group and insist that they included me.