'Pregnant people'

[StickySundew]

I know there are more important battles, but this pisses me off and we've learned that gender-centric language is used as a wedge.

Only women get pregnant. Don't try to erase the relevance of female sex. This doesn't happen to men - all the info my friend with prostate cancer gets refers to men with prostate cancer, not 'people with prostate cancer'. There'd be outrage and a lot of hurt if someone tried to set up support for 'people with prostate cancer'.

This time it was the Food Standards Agency, issuing a reminder about the groups most at risk from salmonella poisoning.

I just wanted to let off steam.

So that I have a bit more excuse, let's have an utterly pointless voodoo poll to see how many enablers and TRAs are hanging around.

It’s awful. The same with “people who menstruate.” Only women can!!

comment was deleted but I basically said it's not silly cause words are powerful. idk what got my comment deleted so I won't say more.

Pregnant people to me is inclusive of women and girls. It’s quicker than saying that.

I feel angry about it. Women make babies, and every human was made in a womans body, by a woman. It is a perfect design, the glory of ourselves and we have so little - I will not share.
I also feel angry about milk thou - only mammalian females make milk, break milk, cows milk, nanny goat milk, ewe sheeps milk, almonds do not make any fucking milk - fuck off!!! it is nut juice, oat juice. Every time a man does something he puts a sign up.

I read your comment. There was NO reason for it to be deleted!!

Why isn't your user name personjulian then?

I also read @dinodart's deleted comment and agree. It rather reinforces her - and my - point that language can be powerful and that it does matter in this situation. It also reinforces the fact that we have a battle on our hands if such an inoffensive post can still be deemed to have broken a rule.

Chest feeding 🤮

And birthing people!!

People with a cervix was one I came across this week when booking a cervical smear 🤨

There's no need to say pregnant people (ridiculous wording) or pregnant women and girls, as only females can get pregnant, regardless of what they wear or do to their hair. Just say "if you are pregnant" - job done.

Oh jeez. The world’s gone mad hasn’t it

Felt really angry about this when I was pregnant. I heard the word “unmothering” and that’s exactly what it felt like. I was no longer a mother, pregnant woman, I could no longer breastfeed only “chest feed”

I thought what is the fucking percentage. What is it. It’s got to be such a small percentage of women who transition and get pregnant. Why are they saying I’m a “pregnant person” when I’m a WOMAN? Gods sake.

@dinodart made a good point about how using the word transwomen makes you think they’re women. (She explained it much better.)

Definitely!!

There are so many ways to erase women when they are expecting babies, and this is just another one.

In my day, many of the health professionals didn't even bother to remember my name at appointments. They don't read your birth plan when you're in labour. They don't listen to women when they say they need help or that they're on the point of giving birth – they just wave them away. The stories from the various maternity scandals are heartbreaking – mums begging to be listened to and being overridden by medical staff, leading to tragedy.

Refusing to even refer to us as women dismisses and erases us still further. When women's healthcare in this country – and particularly maternity – is in such a shocking, shocking state, it's the height of complacency and arrogance. You think you can improve women's healthcare just by taking out the word 'woman'?

@dinodart you're absolutely right, words are powerful, they have meaning, and no one should have the right to appropriate words simply because they WANT them. Toddlers want whatever they want, and want it now, but we teach them that this is not how society, and adults, operate. You don't always get what you want.

In the human species, only the female sex can become pregnant. The words in English for the pregnant female sex are "woman " and, occasionally, "girl" NOT "person" or "people." This dilution and misappropriation of the English language has to stop.

It's coming from pure misogyny. If anyone was trying to erase "man" or "men" from the English language, you can bet that they would be

a. laughed at
b. ignored
c. pilloried on social media
or simply

d. non-existent, because it would never happen.

Perhaps read this quickly, if you care to, because yes, the most innocuous of statements seem to disappear rapidly in August.

I haven’t come across “unmothering.” It sounds awful. Only women can become mothers.

@SirChenjins
The quote that irritated me (given below) refers to several groups of people and using nouns is quite standard in this context. One could rephrase the whole thing to avoid nouns altogether, but why bother?

Jacquelyn McCormick, Head of Incidents at the Food Standards Agency, said eggs which are thoroughly cooked and handled hygienically should not present a food safety risk.

She advised: "Infants, young children, pregnant people and older adults should only eat runny or raw eggs if they have a British Lion mark or are produced under the Laid in Britain egg assurance scheme."

People handling eggs, eggshells or egg packaging should wash their hands thoroughly with soap and water, she added.

How long and how much pressure is it going to take for the government to communicate to its departments and various quangos that style guides need to be changed?

I'm not going to give up on this and it's heartening to see that there's a willingness to fight to undo the stealthy steps the trans ideologues/men's rights activists used to impose their agenda and attempt to shift societal norms away from appreciating that biology matters and sex matters - which, of course, paves the way to the undermining of women's rights and women's and girls' achievements.

I agree. I HATE it. DH's niece said there will be alcohol free booze at her wedding, as 3 'pregnant people' are coming, and it really jarred me. I said 'women! Pregnant women!' She just looked at me like >>>

Awful phrase. I will be glad when all this ludicrous nonsense comes to an end!

It is awful. There was a lot of "pregnant people" in the discussions of the impact of the Dobbs (overturned Roe) decision in the US and it drove me nuts - pretending this decision actually impacted the health of "people" when in fact it only impacted the health of women. I wrote to a few NPR/PBS programmes about it and complained. Anyone who has media training uses it - that and "pregnant folks" which is even more enraging.

In fairness even my TWAW young adult daughters (we don't talk about it anymore - hoping they will find their way to sanity) were enraged by it.

This all day long.
When medics can't even use the correct language for women, you know that misogyny and hatred of women dominates their thinking.

Enraging and depressing in equal measure

Oh yeah, I found nothing worse during my pregnancy than being referred to as a person. Awful!!!!

So glad there are feminists fighting this important fight.

Isn't it because trans men can biologically become pregnant so there could be a ftm trans person who identifies as male but is pregnant. Also non binary or gender fluid individuals could be pregnant and again may not identify as women but just a person.

So therefore it is inclusive of all people who could be pregnant rather than just those who identify as women.