Is Mother now a Gender Neutral Term Following the Lords Announcement? Trans Peeps think so!

[MishyJDI]

Is Mother now a Gender Neutral Term Following the Lords Announcement? Trans Peeps think so! Came across this piece doing the rounds, with the main proposition being:

The final legislation is said to use “pregnant mothers” instead, this is perfectly in-line with the legal definition of “mothers”. This because an unintended side effect of making the legal definition of the word “mothers” include transgender men and non-binary people is that now, in a legal sense, “mothers” is a gender neutral term.

This issue was cemented when Freddy McConnell took the UK to the High Court and subsequently the Court of Appeals and did not manage to win the case. Freddy, who is a transgender man that gave birth, wanted to be registered as the father on the birth certificate rather than mother. He lost his case because the UK argued “mother” isn’t a gendered term and refers to any person who grows a child in their womb."

Well....not sure on the response to this to be honest. I guess if someone wants to identify as a mother, they are welcome to it, if they give birth, so not sure I see a problem. Still interesting how anything can be spun this way....

That's the main thrust. Be careful with the link below though, as not gender critical supportive in the main if you want to see the full article:

medium.com/@notCursedE/the-uk-rules-mothers-is-a-gender-neutral-term-c91d6e75b486

Freddy is female, just like every other member of the human race that has ever given birth. Unless things have changed radically in the last few days and the male of the species can now carry and birth children, then mother still means female, and only female.

God this is all so tiresome.

I have no interest in what Twitter troll and MN PBP CursedE thinks about anything, but just to clarify that it's not an issue that mother is "gender neutral", as long as it isn't sex neutral. Which it isn't.

God this is all so tiresome.

Isn't it.

It is "gender neutral" (in the sense that GC feminists understand gender) and always has been.
Because motherhood has nothing to do with stereotypes, pink brains, or "feeling like a woman".

Every mother is biologically female. Sex is relevant, not gender.

Mother is sex specific, it relates to females however they identify is my understanding. So it is a biological term that relates to the women that carry a baby and give birth.
The world mother also has a social meaning and so can be used in a social context. E.g an adoptive mother is just as much a mother of an adoptive child ( although not the biological / birth mother)
I can’t think adoptive mothers would campaign to have birth mothers removed from the birth certificates of their children and replaced with their own names. The birth certificates belong to the child.

It is not a Sex ‘neutral’ term.

Gender hasn’t been legally defined so I fail to see what bearing it has.

Is Mother now a Gender Neutral Term Following the Lords Announcement?

It already was, if you're using the word "gender" to mean "the thing that isn't sex that people change".

The 2004 GRA was explicit that status as mother/father was not changed by a "gender reassignment" under that act.

Freddie McConnell lost their case because of that.

And the wording for that bill was able to happily use "mother" without any arguments because of the 2004 law, and its reinforcement in the McConnell case. There's no change.

Freddie is a mother because Freddie gave birth to a child. Which Freddie could only do because Freddie is female. It's sex-specific, but gender-neutral.

We also think "woman" is a gender-neutral term, but sex-specific. Adult Human Female.

We think everything should be gender-neutral. That's why we criticise bringing gender (whatever it is) into policy. Hence the name "gender critical".

Mother has always been a gender neutral term as it refers to sex.

What makes someone a mother rather than father is their female sex, not their gender identity.

This because an unintended side effect of making the legal definition of the word “mothers” include transgender men and non-binary people is that now, in a legal sense, “mothers” is a gender neutral term.

Yes mother is a gender-neutral term but not a sex-neutral term if used in a legal sense. That is the point.

The best that can be assumed of the person who wrote the medium article is that they have limited understanding of the issue.

In accordance with s12 of the GRA 2004 (which the McConnell judgment confirmed is compliant with the Human Rights Act), you can identify out of womanhood but not out of motherhood. "Mother" remains the correct term for a female parent, regardless of whether they have a GRC. It is an accurately-sexed term.

Mother being a purely sex-specific role with no gender element is a good thing. If genders exist but are nothing to do with the sex of the body, then gender has nothing to do with physical motherhood.

Adopted children do get a new short form with their adopted parents names so they can use it without flagging their adopted status if they chose not to.
However the long form certificate makes it clear that it is an adoption.

Adoptive parents are very clear they are not biological parents. The majority of the time it doesn’t matter. Where it does e.g. medical appointments or pupil premium discussions with school then we make sure the relevant people know. What they don’t do is insist that other parents have to change their own language so as not to upset them.
E.g. We’re not campaigning for maternity services to be called something else because “not all mothers give birth”

If genders exist but are nothing to do with the sex of the body, then gender has nothing to do with physical motherhood.

And we need to keep pushing this through to other areas, eg female sports. Women's sports (and men's sports) are gender-neutral.

How can gender have anything to do with anything if it can't be defined or measured? You can justify limited discrimination on grounds of objective sex differences. Doesn't work for gender.

@SquishySquirmy

It is "gender neutral" (in the sense that GC feminists understand gender) and always has been. Because motherhood has nothing to do with stereotypes, pink brains, or "feeling like a woman".

Every mother is biologically female. Sex is relevant, not gender.

This.

Of course it bloody well is. As used in the MOMA Bill, "mother" is a term that refers to a female biological parent. Individuals with any sort of gender identity (or none) are a mother if they are a female parent. I hope that the view expressed in the Medium becomes widespread as it will save a lot of grief! If only they might come to consider "woman" as a term that can have a sexed or gendered meaning and we'll be pretty good on the language front!

Everything is gender neutral because gender isn't a real thing. The only people who want gender specific things are TRAs. They WANT gender separation. THEY WANT gender recognition.

The rest of us don't give a shit about the gender of anyone. We care about sex instead.

Mother is, as it has always been, a sex specific term. It remains thus. It's an acknowledgement that all mothers are female. Literally female, not 'legally female'.

What we have here now is a legal tension between the word mother - which has held fast to it's literal meaning, and the word female - which has legally departed from the truth. Which means at some point the legal fiction of "this female person, this mother, is now legally male" is going to eventually break.

What we're seeing is the line beyond which the law will not extrapolate the lie. The lie that female people can 'be male' can't be taken all the way to its conclusion. The law has decided that mother is literally-female-specific despite the GRA deciding that 'female' itself is not literally-female-specific.

It's a wall the law has decided not to breach. I think it's evident that the lie will be pushed backwards from here.

Isn't it obvious?
Gender identity alone has no bearing on whether or not you can get pregnant. Does it need to be discussed in sex ed? I feel like we're going backwards.

Yep, they can fill their boots with gender neutral. Everything can be gender neutral.

Mother however, is a sex-specific term when used to refer to the act of carrying and giving birth to a child and the provisions in law needed for those of us who do these things. With our sexed bodies.

transwomen claiming to be "female," thus trying to make "female" a sex-neutral and gender-specific word, can't get around the facts of life...

We gotta keep pushing back on the lie...

@Mycatismadeofstringcheese
Hear hear. Spot on.
Because it involves putting the child first, not their own feelings.

Lord. It's always been gender neutral. It's sex specific.

And I'm all for celebrating the fact that gender does not refer to anything sex specific.

@Datun

Lord. It's always been gender neutral. It's sex specific.

And I'm all for celebrating the fact that gender does not refer to anything sex specific.

Yes quite.

I need to read the rest of the replies but great!! Mother is gender neutral! If we could just get woman to be declared gender neutral as well we would be well on the way to not having gender stereotypes imposed on us..

I'm not sure why anyone would think otherwise. You call Freddie a mother, me a mother, and any number of women on here mothers. You cannot call a transwoman a mother, or a transman a father.

Sex specific.