@SapphosRock
I really can't see why women are feeling upset and erased by being referred to as people.
Does the word 'parent' erase mothers and fathers?
Does the word 'partner' erase husbands and wives?
Should lesbians be forced to refer to anonymous sperm donors as their children's father in case it erases fathers?
I don't think forcing people to refer to themselves as women when they don't identify as women is a great solution.
But as you mentioned earlier Sapphos it is quite possible to keep all the generic language in maternity care woman centred whilst respecting the needs of individuals and using language that the individual feels most comfortable with.
The numbers of transmen choosing the most obviously female thing to do across mammalian species- give birth, are tiny. We would never normally change all language across the board for such a small minority especially given the negative impact on the majority. However we should always listen to individuals about what helps them.
It doesn’t matter if it is a rare medical need or a rare cultural need health professionals can respond on a case by case basis.
However as many of us suspect the push to change language across the board is not about making 2 or 3 transmen feel comfortable it is about separating biology from what it means to be a woman.
As I believe that biology is indeed the only thing which places me in the category “woman” naturally I am opposed to any agenda which tells me that if I were really a woman I would go out and buy some make up and high heels to prove it, the trappings of sexist stereotypes in the Western world for approximately the past 100 years. In a different time it might have been a corset and crinoline.
Woman is not a dirty word, it is not an offensive word and the vast majority of those using maternity services continue to be women and to find woman centred care and woman centred language beneficial.
We only just managed to start using the word woman in maternity care after who knows how long of referring to women as “ladies” or “girls”.
The word woman was too vulgar, too earthy, too strong perhaps but we reclaimed and there is once more an agenda to paralyse us when it comes to talking about our bodies and our life stages.
Once the words that describe us and our anatomy become taboo they become shameful.
Men can be proud of being men but what about the other people? Oh they are just the other people. We used to call them, whisper it “women” but then we got woke and realised that that wasn’t the right word for those type of people since it is offensive to those who we now call women.