Someone has posted a beautifully succinct summary of the other Guardian journos who have not come out of this smelling of roses (thanks to Diana@TheMoominmama for this very helpful summary):
The uk charity for parents who experience stillbirth and pregnancy loss - Sands, tried to be inclusive of the tiny minority of trans men who ever gave birth in a tweet describing all those who give birth as birthing parents.
Women who have lost babies through miscarriage and stillbirth explained to the charity that we did not want to have the words we use to describe our relationship to our dead children minimised or erased. We prefer to be called mothers.
Women have had to campaign to be recognised as grieving mothers by the medical profession and society after pregnancy loss. Sands campaigned. It hurts us deeply to be diminished and dismissed as ‘not mothers’. Language matters.
We explained to sands why it matters. We told of our losses. Experiences. Grief. Children.
Freddy McConnell decided to attack us for wanting the word mother used, & for having feelings on the subject & daring to explain why it matters to us. Freddy says no one is allowed to have or express any issue with not being called a mother. It’s transphobic. We are bullies.
Freddy went to court and wrote about their experience in the guardian for the right not to be called mother of their child’s birth certificate.
Words and being a parent matter a great deal to Freddy. But no one else is allowed to care about words, or being a mum.
Elle Hunt also freelance Guardian writer. Decided to join in. Calling the women disgraceful.
Mums who lost babies are disgraceful for wanting to being called mums.
[Elle Hunt has protected her tweets so this no longer shows up - but she hasn't taken the tweet down, as far as I know. So she's still calling mothers disgraceful, but is too cowardly to say so in public.]