Birthing people

[HaddockDiem]

Just listened to Woman’s Hour and feel offended by what I’ve heard. My usual take is ‘identify as what you want and I’ll go along with you’ whilst finding the entire trans debate bewildering. However the term ‘birthing people’ has touched a nerve with me.
trying to articulate why it has so offended me - I think it’s the number of women who die in childbirth, the number of women damaged and who have health problems related to this ( a friend with preeclampsia died of kidney failure )… and I just feel outraged!
please help me make sense of why this is so triggering

I know you'll get replies stating 'but women are people too' as I did the last time I objected to such terms, but I understand where you're coming from.
There is so much that needs addressing in modern maternity care and terms like 'birthing people' should fall way behind them

An improvement in outcomes for black and brown women is imperative.
Better post-natal care is definitely needed.
Better mental health care; both ante and post natal
More midwives
I could go on

I know you'll get replies stating 'but women are people too' as I did the last time I objected to such terms, but I understand where you're coming from.

True. But we aren’t allowed the same level of candour by saying “male people who pretend to be women”

You're not wrong, OP. It's a land grab via stealing even our words.

For contrast, consider the comms around, eg, prostate cancer.

It's fake, disengaged language that is disconnected from the female sex. It feels like it devalues what women go through in this whole process. There's nothing wrong with the words "mother" and "woman" - they actually mean something.

This poem nails it 🎯

What does that poem have to do with prostate cancer?

The poem nails the appropriation of language and the female experience

Women's Hour should be renamed as it's certainly not for women. It is a disgrace.

Love that poem!

Many years ago I pointed out a science magaizine we got in article mentioned "pg women and pg people". I got piled on for having an issue with that - though TBH I just found it jarring. We stopped getting the magaizine - it was getting really light on science.

Multiple posters called me ignorant for not knowing transmen got pg - which I knew as I read about few cases where transmen had presented at ERs in US and been suprised having unprotected penetrative sex with their male partners came with pg risk. Couldn't help thing they'd been massively let down by people not being clear round biology maybe being too kind.

Saw similar push back with the 1 in 10 people get endometriosis - not the correct 1 in 10 women do or I suppose one in 20 people do but half aren't at risk at all. A condition it takes usually 8-10 years to get near a diagnosis and very possibly longer.

It's sort of dehumanising - birth giver - vagina holder rather than women. It like we can't have that word and we can't talk about things that affect over half the population who that word traditionally applied to even if they are doing things only that sex can.

What was the context OP? You could complain to the BBC.

Comms around prostate cancer almost always use ‘men’ as opposed to ‘people with prostates’ or ‘prostate owners’.

@BoeotianNightmare it was an article about lack of home birthing in Gloucestershire and the interviewee kept referring to ‘birthing people’.

Indeed. Notice anything?

It removes the language that women need to defend their rights while implying that anyone talking accurately about sex is making a judgment about identity.

It wouldn't be so galling if they didn't refer to people who have treatment for prostate issues "men"
And I said that before I saw the screenshots of the difference between ovarian cancer and prostate cancer wording.
They just can't see why we don't like this sort of thing, like "cis", it isn't our language it's theirs and we don't seem to able to use it without causing offence. But they never appreciate how offensive it is to us.
Complaint time I guess.

😬 Black Birthing Bodies 😬(circ.2018/19)

By a US doctor in maternity services about how the medics failed to see the woman only a birthing process to produce a baby and probable race based bias.

Both resulting in much poorer outcome and avoidable deaths within the Black community.

I take issue with the term 'birthing people', but not 'birthing partners'. The latter can refer to husbands, boyfriends engage to be husbands, close friends, family, mum and dad etc. Anyone who wants to be mother's support pillar during child birth.

'Birthing people' clearly refers to the mothers, but the language is very dehumanising, I find.

Which "people" birth?

Women words are being erased, not mens. It's so jarring and obvious when you see it like this.

Its so obviously a misogynistic movement.

Such a clear example of the capture.

To point out bluddddy¹ obvooousss
🙄

The most frequent treatment is the removal of the organ as it removes the cancer.

So "Body without Organ¹" or "Non-Menstruating¹ Body" or "Non-Birthing¹ Body"

They just can't see why we don't like this sort of thing, like "cis", it isn't our language it's theirs and we don't seem to able to use it without causing offence. But they never appreciate how offensive it is to us.

They absolutely do know how offensive it is, that's why they use it. Just another part of the ideology that was designed to divide.

Birthing people and chest feeding. Honestly it's one of those things where I'm a bit you do you about it....if someone wants to identify a certain way and say they're a birthing person who chest feeds crack on, but please do not remove my right to say I am a woman who breastfed !

I had a letter recently for screening that had to point out you didn’t need to book an appointment if you were born a male, apparently trans women actually have booked gynie appointments and the drs are fed up with them doing so, waste of time thus resources. I have no issue with what name you take, what clothes you wear, even if you want surgery and to take drugs, do whatever you want but remember you cannot change your chromosomes so need medical care based on them