Birthing People

[lafemme]

My local hospital trust have just posted this on their social media. (Photo attached)

Disappointed they've used the term 'birthing people' for a process that is exclusively experienced by women. A medical setting seems like a bizarre place to conflate language.

For the purposes of this poster I'd consider myself a woman in labour not a birthing person. Motherhood is not up for grabs.

Which hospital trust? I would complain

In the UK, lafemme? So dehumanizing.

F**king hell, this is getting beyond a joke.

Which hospital is it? I will highlight on social media.

Birthing people...I actually feel physically sick at how women are being discarded...are there really any transmen out there, pregnant, who would be offended by the term mothers to be. Or women who give birth. I mean, surely not.

I just want to do something about it..

It's a the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust

Urgh. This is getting ridiculous. I've seen the phrase "women and birthing people" used quite frequently, which at least uses the word women, albeit as a mealy mouthed compromise, but even that's better than this.

Utterly ridiculous to the point of being insulting. Definetly complain and share on social media.

Only one type of person in the process of birth there - women.

Salami slicing women into our respective body parts and, in this case, bodily functions - is grotesque.

People don’t die giving birth - women do - more than one a week in the UK.

Please all complain.

Stonewall Champions too.

I've never posted on these threads before, but "birthing people" is my absolute limit. I've recently seen two local social media profiles - a sling library and my lovely hypnobirthing teacher - use "birthing people" instead of (not in addition to) "women". I hate it, it's offensive and alienating.

Is this on their Facebook, I can't see it?

It's getting ridiculous now.

I am not a birthing person.
I am not a person who bleeds.

I am a WOMAN, and I don't want my identifying label to be stamped out.

It's on their fb 'RCHT'.

Their maternity pages also include this inclusivity statement which reads like a big apology for daring to use the word women at all..

I thought it couldn't get worse than vulva people. I was wrong

I thought it couldn't get worse than vulva people. I was wrong

Well, a couple of months ago, a US organization posted about black birthing people. Not sure it can get much lower than that to be honest.

I think it was black birthing bodies Wine, as discussed here

Wasn't Cornwall one of the tests that had the trans inclusive admission politicise that didn't get an equality impact assessment done prior to the change?

I had a male midwife, which was fine and I asked him what you call a male midwife.
He told me “midwife” means “ with woman”
So if that’s the case how can an individual who does not identify as a woman have a midwife?

I am so glad the correct meaning of the word " midwife" has been pointed out. It is such an important and fundamental meaning.
So many people get it wrong, even on mumsnet, of all places.

OhHolyJesus

It did bring us the clear voice of Karen David indeed!!

A birthing body makes me just think of some poor creature tied up somewhere being used as a baby machine. Just apparatus really. So insensitive to the process and to the women. Where will it end? I don’t think this is about offending trans men. In the grand scheme of things how many women give birth every week and what is the tiny tiny percentage that are trans men? I think this just pisses off the Tras who think they are mouth pieces for trans people.

I really hope this doesn’t catch on in other units. It makes me so angry- I’m currently arguing with management about the word gender instead of sex in relation to newborn babies! Our software asks for gender ffs. Social services also ask for gender of unborn child?! I’m beginning to get into disagreements as I just won’t accept this bullshit creeping into our language.
Midwife indeed means ‘ with woman’ only women give birth. We cannot let this language take our experiences away.

Complain. Ask exactly how many ‘birthing people’ they have ever has through their doors who weren’t a woman or girl?

And always carry a sharpie on your handbag. I once has a twofor in a uni ladies loo - a poster ;offering free tampons to students) referred to ‘people who menstruate’ and had a calculation of how much you could spend on tampons a year (and the maths was completely wrong). Both issues boiled my piss...

Even the current consultation about extending the home abortion provisions when (if) the pandemic ends, refers to "people" who are pregnant.

If the Government is talking like this, is it any wonder other bureaucracies follow?

Despite Liz Truss saying the woke agenda shouldn't be allowed to dominate.

I really hope this doesn’t catch on in other units. It makes me so angry- I’m currently arguing with management about the word gender instead of sex in relation to newborn babies

Surely they have no way of knowing the gender of a baby until it is old enough to be asked? (Or unbutton its babygro as a non verbal signal 🙄) - the only aspect they can reliably observe is the sex of the baby.

@gardenbird48

I really hope this doesn’t catch on in other units. It makes me so angry- I’m currently arguing with management about the word gender instead of sex in relation to newborn babies

Surely they have no way of knowing the gender of a baby until it is old enough to be asked? (Or unbutton its babygro as a non verbal signal 🙄) - the only aspect they can reliably observe is the sex of the baby.

This is interesting as I recently completed an NHD flu form for my older children and they asked my children's gender. I scrubbed it out and wrote 'sex not gender'. Then worried Social Services might visit!