Mail on research re health risks of desexing language

[Abitofalark]

"Greater use of gender-neutral terms can have 'unintended consequences that have serious implications for women and children', according to a paper due to be published this week [in the journal Frontiers in Global Women's Health].

While the authors said that language meant to be inclusive of transgender people was appropriate in some circumstances, they argued against removing references to the sex of mothers in research and medical information."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10458159/
Experts-warn-health-fears-replacing-mum-birth-giver.html

This is the paper they have referenced. It's a great resource, clear, easy to understand and thoroughly well researched and referenced.

Really pleased to see the DM has picked up on it.

internal-journal.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full?fbclid=IwAR1GmMyg9yC58i3SargXSSpsw1NgaVoD6raB8cz40YuEgx9VxFTr5A4m4OQ

Fantastic article!

‘Desexing the language of female reproduction has been done with a view to being sensitive to individual needs and beneficial, kind and inclusive. Yet, this kindness has delivered unintended consequences that have serious implications for women and children.'

They added: '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.' (Ha! Yup.)

It’s all so ridiculous. Trans women, trans men and non-binary people (the correct usage of people, meaning men, women, boys, girls, etc.) know they are either male or female. It’s all about slowly taking our rights.

Guarantee if they were stood in a line and males were free to go and females were shot on the spot they would know if they were male.

I guarantee that any gay male couple know exactly who is able to be a birthing person for their "baby by surrogate" and who is not.

This could be fun. I guarantee when they flash a boner at a women’s refuge they know they are male.

As usual what I didn't get about this whole sorry mess is why, if you don't feel like a woman or think you're female, you would be interested in getting pregnant anyway? One of the only times I've ever 'felt like a woman' was while pregnant.

This was highlighted on the Today programme on R4 this morning as being one of the stories run in today’s Telegraph.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/30/replacing-word-mothers-birth-givers-may-put-womens-health-risk/

I think you have to subscribe to read the whole article.

It's really fantastic this is getting wide coverage. I knew that paper would be an important one and it's getting picked up and used for a big pushback in language. Bloody brilliant.
If you are a pregnant person woman and not happy with the language used st your hospital please print it off several times and take it into hospital with you and shove a copy under the nose of any HCP who uses the wrong language for you.

@mennex pregnant transmen ‘reframe their experience’ - one last year announced on Twitter something like that pregnancy was the toughest hardest thing they’d ever done, there was nothing at all feminine about it. Similarly this (not particularly recent) paper shows a strong identification of this shit is hard, so why on earth do people think of it as a female thing?? (The incredibly sexist thinking that women don’t do hard things despite all the evidence saying this has been a solely female experience for millenia is singularly unaddressed). scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3356&context=theses

web.archive.org/web/20220131014626/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/30/replacing-word-mothers-birth-givers-may-put-womens-health-risk/ this is the archived Telegraph version

I wonder if Professor Jenny Gamble saw that recent front cover of the British Journal of Midwifery?

Excellent. Thanks for the links.

The most 'upvoted' comment also makes a good point - from a mother who adopted children. She is not a 'birth-giver', she says, but she is no less of a mother. Reducing women to their bodily functions and body parts is so dehumanising.

That is really infuriating timeisnotaline
Honestly they can F right O with that.

As an aside a well known person who would like to be known as father despite giving birth to two babies also seems not to understand that top surgery = double mastectomy = no milk producing equipment.

The lack of basic understanding of human bodily functions and level of ignorance is one of the things I find most appalling about all this.

Sorry, I forgot the screen grab.

@Mennex

As usual what I didn't get about this whole sorry mess is why, if you don't feel like a woman or think you're female, you would be interested in getting pregnant anyway? One of the only times I've ever 'felt like a woman' was while pregnant.

Or when I've had such terrible cramps from period pain I've been curled up on the floor, even after mainlining Feminax.

Also when glared at from male colleagues because I've had to leave a meeting early to pick up the kids from after-school club because dickhead ex told me he can't do that because his job is too important.

Ah, thanks for posting an update and link to the research paper, FannyCann. Didn't know it was out already.

This research is much needed and I hope it will make a difference.

I’d be interested to know what our self-appointed monitors think of it.

Some very clever people on the list of authors here. International, too.

What a great article. This really is the crux of it, the language “circumventing entirely the need to indicate who experiences these states.” You decouple women from birth and suddenly birth isn’t a women’s rights issue.

This paragraph stands out:

“ Desexing the language of female reproduction has been done with a view to being sensitive to individual needs and as beneficial, kind, and inclusive. Yet, this kindness has delivered unintended consequences that have serious implications for women and children. These include: decreasing overall inclusivity; dehumanising; including people who should be excluded; being imprecise, inaccurate or misleading; and disembodying and undermining breastfeeding. In addition, avoidance of the term ‘mother’ in its sexed sense, risks reducing recognition and the right to protection of the mother-infant dyad.”

@FannyCann

Sorry, I forgot the screen grab.

So much for the quality of "counselling" before surgery and informed consent if Freddy thinks that all that is needed to enable lactation is re-attachment of the nipples to the remaining skin after surgical removal of both breasts.

The anatomy of the lactating breast: Latest research and clinical implications
2007

Knowledge of the anatomy of the lactating breast is fundamental to the understanding of its function. However, current textbook depictions of the anatomy of the lactating breast are largely based on research conducted over 150 years ago.

This review examines the most recent literature in an effort to update the current knowledge of the anatomy of the lactating breast. These findings provide insight into breast function and the breastfeeding process and have significant clinical implications that will ultimately allow for improved support of the breastfeeding mother.

PDF download:

www.infantjournal.co.uk/pdf/inf_014_lbt.pdf