'Pregnant people' now being used by my local trust's maternity dept.

[musicalfrog]

As well as the awful 'chest feeding'.

It makes me angry and sad although I can't really articulate why. What percentage of the population are we appeasing by sacrificing the word woman?

0.01%

It’s madness and anyone you speak to will say the same. It’s gone too far.

How awful that you don’t identify as a birthing person! I can’t imagine coming from a minority group of pregnant mothers who don’t identify with being a birthing person. It sounds like you feel very unseen and devalued by the department’s exclusion of you.

I'll never be pregnant again but if I could be, I would kick up the biggest stink at the clinic or Hospital if anyone dared to refer to me as a pregnant person. I'm livid about this.

Complain! Or put the name of the trust here and many of us will complain for you. It's awful, dehumanising language and must be called out. Did you see the copy of the Lancet where they described women as 'bodies with vaginas'? How dare they!

Are pregnant women not also pregnant people? What about including transgender men and non binary people do you dislike? Inclusivity isn't about appeasing anyone.

Can understand the dislike of the term chest feeding. Everyone has breasts, regardless of sex or gender.

@deleteasappropriate

Complain! Or put the name of the trust here and many of us will complain for you. It's awful, dehumanising language and must be called out. Did you see the copy of the Lancet where they described women as 'bodies with vaginas'? How dare they!

I still can’t get over that Lancet cover. As I said to DH it doesn’t differentiate between a living or dead woman. The raging misogynists might not agree, but I’m more than a voiceless lump of flesh with a (fuck) hole. Utterly dehumanising.

@ReluctantNurseMaid

Are pregnant women not also pregnant people? What about including transgender men and non binary people do you dislike? Inclusivity isn't about appeasing anyone.

Can understand the dislike of the term chest feeding. Everyone has breasts, regardless of sex or gender.

"People" can't get pregnant overall.

Less than a quarter of "people" can get pregnant.

You can only get pregnant if you're a woman, or a woman who identifies as a ... / ... (don't forget my pronouns or else).

The term "pregnant people" erases women.

I shared this on the BJM thread yesterday but it really is excellent and the authors are well respected. Anyone making complaints to trusts might like to link this or quote from it.

www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full?fbclid=IwAR1GmMyg9yC58i3SargXSSpsw1NgaVoD6raB8cz40YuEgx9VxFTr5A4m4OQ

Bleugh. Utter nonsense, unthinking parroting…

Ignoring your odd choice to put the word people in quotation marks, a pregnant women is also a pregnant person; that is an undeniable fact. A pregnant non-binary person is not a pregnant woman.

What is the issue of referring to the collective as pregnant people and individual people by their preferred pronouns/gender identity?

For all the talk of young people these days being offended about everything, people seem to be incredibly offended about something that doesn't have any real effect on them...

So how come I have never seen anything written about prostates or penises that avoids the word ‘man’ like the plague?

Anyone would think that the word women is a sweary word…

@ReluctantNurseMaid

Are pregnant women not also pregnant people? What about including transgender men and non binary people do you dislike? Inclusivity isn't about appeasing anyone.

Can understand the dislike of the term chest feeding. Everyone has breasts, regardless of sex or gender.

But only women can get pregnant, regardless of how someone might "identify" if they're pregnant they must be a woman.

On a slightly related note, I've always wondered why a Transman would want to be pregnant or give birth. It's not really "living as a man" to go through possibly the most female experience, I can't think of anything more female than pregnancy and childbirth.

transgender men ??
Do you mean a male person who identifies as a woman or a female person who identifies as a man.?

Are pregnant women not also pregnant people? What about including transgender men and non binary people do you dislike? Inclusivity isn't about appeasing anyone.

Aren't babies also people? Maybe we should talk about people giving birth to people, and people feeding other people with their bodies.

@ReluctantNurseMaid

Are pregnant women not also pregnant people? What about including transgender men and non binary people do you dislike? Inclusivity isn't about appeasing anyone.

Can understand the dislike of the term chest feeding. Everyone has breasts, regardless of sex or gender.

Can you explain how it is inclusive to avoid the noun that 99% of the cohort would use to describe themselves.

A pregnant non-binary person is not a pregnant woman.

But she is. It's a biological fact.

I think this is why it sits wrong with me. It's denying science.

Ignoring your odd choice to put the word people in quotation marks, a pregnant women is also a pregnant person; that is an undeniable fact. A pregnant non-binary person is not a pregnant woman.

And yet a person with prostate cancer is always a man despite the fact that transwomen and non binary people born male can also have this cancer. Why is there no inclusive language here,? Could it possibly be that the erasure of ' woman" in anything to do with the female body/ reproductive role is necessary ,not to be inclusive of non gender conforming female born people but rather to not exclude males who wish to identify as women? Why else would pink ' pussy' hats have been banned from the Women's Marches in the US and why else would someone like Monroe Bergdof tell women not to discuss female health matters on the London Woman's March. This is not inclusion but rather the Patriarchy telling woman what they can do and what they can call themselves.

@ReluctantNurseMaid

Ignoring your odd choice to put the word people in quotation marks, a pregnant women is also a pregnant person; that is an undeniable fact. A pregnant non-binary person is not a pregnant woman.

What is the issue of referring to the collective as pregnant people and individual people by their preferred pronouns/gender identity?

For all the talk of young people these days being offended about everything, people seem to be incredibly offended about something that doesn't have any real effect on them...

From the article I linked

“ However, the addition of terms like ‘birthing people’ or ‘breastfeeding parents’ changes the meanings of ‘women’ and ‘mothers’ from sexed terms that include all female people and all female parents, to gendered terms that may be confusing or inappropriately inclusive. For example, what does the phrase ‘women and birthing people’ actually mean? This construction could be interpreted in a literal way as meaning that ‘women’ are not people. Another interpretation occurs if ‘women’ is meant or read in a gendered sense so including males with the gender identity of ‘woman’ who cannot be pregnant or give birth. It is not always clear from the context. The change in meaning of ‘women’ from a sexed term to a gender identity can also mean that those women who do not have a belief in gender identity as a concept do not see themselves reflected in the gendered use of ‘women.’ ”

Pregnant transmen know they're women, otherwise they wouldn't be pregnant. I wonder if it's really genuine transmen who are pushing for these language changes or just the Stonewall transactivists who seem to want to do anything to deny women their rights to anything. Forcing nurses and midwives to use "he" and "him" when they're trying to bring a child safely into the world seems to be the ultimate narcissism....

For males who identify as women it is essential that the word woman is never used in the context of female biology, as they are then excluded from the category of women. If there were any other reason, like inclusion, they would also be campaigning for the erasure of ' man" on anything to do with male health and biology.

a pregnant women is also a pregnant person; that is an undeniable fact.

A square is also a rectangle. It posseses all of the properties of a rectangle. That's an undeniable fact. A square is also a parallelogram. That's an undeniable fact.

Nonetheless, we don't call what everyone can clearly see is a square, a "parallelogram" or "rectangle", because everyone knows what a square is.

If we go around all like "but this square is a parallelogram" people just start to get pissed off.

It is not 'inclusive' it is very very intentionally exclusive. And massively disrespectful, and gynephobic. We are talking about a tiny percentage of female people who prefer not to be called women or mothers for their own reasons; they can crack on with whatever makes them happy, ask for whatever language they prefer, and leave everyone else alone. This is achieving nothing at all except pushing all this to increasing anger and breaking point which is emphatically not in the best interests of anyone.

Name and shame the trust

And as has been pointed out countless times on here, it is only language to do with women which is being changed. Men's language remains the same. The only men's health service we have been able to find who use 'inclusive language' is Prostate Cancer UK who include a list of 'those with a prostate' on their website but sensibly, use men on their campaign materials.

For those who have no issue with 'pregnant people' because it is 'inclusive', why do you think men's language remains unchanged? Why is only women's language being changed to be 'inclusive'?

This comment in particular stood out to me - inclusivity isn't about appeasing anyone. It absolutely is. Any organisation or business which dares to use the word woman get a pile on which is why there are such terms as menstruators being used by sanitary protection companies.

Have you seen the same for condoms? Erectile dysfunction medication? Are Numan, who are currently advertising ED pills on TV being told that they should be using 'prostate people' or 'sperm people' instead of men? If not, why not?