The reality of losing sex based language

[Justme56]

https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/f4b617ac-7549-4cd7-b4e7-52dca0fd0c22

Listen from around 16.32.40 onwards.

I want to give that woman a hug 😢❤

Same.

Very moving.

I respect and admire Ciara so much for being able to stay composed and speak her truth.

https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/f4b617ac-7549-4cd7-b4e7-52dca0fd0c22?in=16:32:34

It starts at 16.32.40 but I hope this time stamp helps. This is so distressing but very necessary. Listen to women.

I listened from a bit earlier, and I found the use of ‘parent’ by the woman before jarring in places. Ciara is right. The maternal and paternal experiences of pregnancy, birth and caring for a newborn are vastly different.

Of course the experience of being a mother and father differ. They are different roles in the child's life.

There's been a push for a few years now to pretend that they are interchangeable and this is one more way of removing the importance of biology.

I'd like to give her a hug her too. Her words were powerful and important.💐

The part about the visit to her home. And the re-trauma through language which obviously felt as if her end to end experience was being minimised in service of the needs of people who weren't in the room.

She was in the room. She needed respect for who she was, what she was going through, and language that made her feel comfortable.

I'd not heard of Ciara Curran's Little Heartbeats before today. It's excellent and sad that so many women across the world are in touch with her because they need to be seen, acknowledged and listened to by someone who understands.

I worked with a guy whose baby died in the womb, close to term. His wife, the baby's mother had to go through labour to deliver...a corpse. No man will ever have to do that. They will experience loss and grief but they will never have to do that.

I was horrified when he told me this, my heart went out to them, but I had no idea until I had my own children. I think I am empathetic but it took having my own babies to show me I really didn't have the foggiest. I don't think anyone can unless you've been through it yourself. to all the women who experience this.

I feel it underlines how unlike mothers tw actually are. How lacking in compassion, how selfish, to remove or debase those words. To take away any little crumb that will help a mother deal with her ordeal.

It was a moving and very important speech. People need to know that erasing “woman” and “mother” is deeply damaging. It’s not some small act of kindness to a marginalised group, it’s a bloody sledgehammer through the lived experience of the female sex class. It’s causing misery, pain and anguish to women going through the darkest time of their lives. That’s indefensible.

Thank you Ciara. That was so powerful and moving. Those words should be compulsory listening for every empathy absent medic who fails to use accurate sex based language.

Yep. Why is it women who are expected to give everything up? Our language, our words, our spaces, our kindness.

The absolute cruellest bastard thing is to try to insist we give up our most meaningful words to appease the identity crisis of a tiny handful of people with identity issues.

No. Fuck off.

Good story from the DM that captures the power of Ciara Curran's testimony:

Ms Curran, from Chinley, Derbyshire, said that seeing the words mother and woman being erased from healthcare communications reminded her of that traumatic experience.
She said the removal of such terms, part of a wider woke movement within the NHS, was incredibly hurtful to other mothers who have also lost their babies.
Demanding sex-based language is preserved Ms Curran said: 'It is extremely important for women who have experienced pregnancy or infant loss are recognised as mothers and not just a generic parent.
'To refuse us this status of mother in language is incredibly hurtful.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13108207/Grieving-mother-gripping-teddy-memory-late-daughter-slams-dehumanising-NHS-erasure-terms-like-mother.html

Bumping this because it's relevant to threads about inclusive language.