'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.

I think unmothering means like we are having our motherhood taken away from us, we’re just a “person” now. Not a woman or a mother. That’s 100% what it felt like after reading these words. A lot was in my PALS complaint after my pregnancy, and this was one of them.

No. This is just the excuse put forth. The REAL reason is that butthurt men playing dress up as women don't like to be reminded that only women can get pregnant. And we mustn't upset them.
No one cares about "transmen" or female NBs because they're women.

Thank you for explaining it! Did PALS listen to you?

It drives me mad too @StickySundew and this - together with terms like cervix havers or menstruators - effectively excludes non-native speakers and women with learning difficulties from really important health messaging. Inclusion anyone?

Deny that there are conditions and experiences tied to female biology ('pregnant people')
Deny that women are a sex class (TWAW)
Then
Conclude that women don't need sex-based rights and protection against sex-related discrimination (no single-sex spaces or services).

The agenda is clear.

Do girls get pregnant? Do we tend to talk about "pregnant girls"? I'm pretty sure the pregnant people referred to are women and not little girls.

The only reason transmen, females who call themselves nonbinary, etc. can get pregnant is because they're women.

"Pregnant people" sets my teeth on edge every time I hear it, and never ever would I say or write it myself. Likewise with cervix havers or menstruators. How can anyone bring themselves to repeat such nonsense?

Anyone who can get pregnant IS a woman or girl - a female human being. Inner identity is secondary.

If you can get pregnant you are a woman - an adult human female - however you choose to identify. Why women as a sex class should be erased because of a tiny minority who might not identify with the word woman is beyond me.

So is "pregnant mammals".

Would a pregnant 15-year-old agree with you? There are plenty of very young mothers, unfortunately.

Not calling women, women because of transman or non-binary identifying women is just mental gymnastics. For one thing, one issue here is the conflation of sex, and gender as an identity. Language in this arena has become so corrupted that it's hard to even talk about it with sense.

A woman identifying as a man, as a transman or non-binary is their gender. This gets conflated with sex not only in discussions about it, but also in the fact that they want to be treated like the opposite sex and even the government will recognize this in many places allowing these people to change their sex markers on official documents to a gender.

But it's still a gender. That's what they identify as. It's a belief, and one they can identify as on a whim with no conditions. Their sex is still woman/female.

Actually, trans women are included in all prostate cancer health messaging. The charity Prostate Cancer UK gives them advice and welcomes them. Anyone with a prostate must feel able to access screening services.

Trans men and nb parents exist, and need to be encouraged to trust their healthcare providers. Lots of them avoid care because of fear of encountering hostility.

Gynae care especially. If you aren't sure you can trust someone who will examine you so intimately, then you will be put off from attending.

So many of us have had really bad experiences especially with smears, womb exams and other intimate procedures - so I hope you'll understand the fear trans men feel when considering such procedures.

That includes pregnancy care.

Inclusive language tells trans men and nb people that they will be respected, cared for and safe. It addresses a reality - that more trans and nb people are out now, and require care.

Erases no one, and ensures the safety and dignity of all.

Trans men aren't women. Nor are nb people. Addressing them the way the rest of the world does is basic respect.

Inclusive language is also critical for trans women. There is so much hostility to them, and they suffer medical misogyny as well - can you imagine how difficult it must be for them to trust doctors with prostate care? Inclusive language reassures them. It's necessary to save lives.

I agree - trust is so important and it's vital that women have the right to say no to men doing intimate examinations on them (regardless of what those men wear), that those rights will be upheld by the NHS and men will respect those women's choices.

@TransParentlyAnnoyed
'Women' is a sex class. Trans-identifying women are still women. Coin nouns to refer to gender identity classes if you want to argue that gender identities should be recognised and taken account of. 'Woman', 'female', 'she', 'her' and 'hers' and the opposite sex equivalents refer to sex and it's important that that remains the case.

There are clear arguments for recognising sex in law and society and a long, long history of doing so. It serves no one to make those terms ambiguous - except the men's rights segment of the heterogeneous group of people deemed to come under the trans umbrella.

Well said. The incessant whining that women's identities must be erased in order to pander to the miniscule % of mentally vulnerable women who deny their sex is so tedious. The fact that the NHS has spent so many ££ & staff hours intent on erasing the word woman is shameful. Hopefully they're creeping back to reality and sanity after so much push back.

Transwomen should be nowhere near maternity care or policy - unless of course they're doing that manly thing of getting a woman pregnant and becoming a father. They have a clear role there - but that is all.

The NHS has an appalling record of harming women and babies via dangerous maternity care - resolving that should be their only priority.

@TransParentlyAnnoyed Inclusive language is also critical for trans women. There is so much hostility to them, and they suffer medical misogyny as well - can you imagine how difficult it must be for them to trust doctors with prostate care?

Trans women are men if they need prostate care. NO women have a prostate!!

It doesn't need to be inclusive. It's a given that pregnant people are biologically female. Why not just say that.

@TransParentlyAnnoyed “Trans men aren't women”

Do they have a prostate? Only men have prostates.

Do they have the ability to become pregnant and give birth? Only women can do this.

No men call themselves a trans man. They are just men!

NO women call themselves a trans woman. We are just women!

This is it, exactly, in a nutshell. Very well put. Welcome to "inclusion."

A potentially 'pregnant person' over on Reddit.

If this girl suffered such crippling dysphoria that she had to pump her body full of hormones to cosplay maleness, how on earth can she contemplate being pregnant and giving birth? Doesn't get more female than that.

It's almost like it's a load of old bollocks.

@TransParentlyAnnoyed

Gynae care especially. If you aren't sure you can trust someone who will examine you so intimately, then you will be put off from attending

Do you include rape and SA survivors who are put off from attending potentially life-saving medical appointments for fear of being intimately examined by a trans identifying male in this?

Trans people as you describe them clearly have disordered thinking, in fact I would go as far as to say phobias, about the words thst apply to human sex.

I get that it must be very distressing for them.

But trans men are women. Trans women are men.

The only way to make this fact untrue is to change what those words mean. But even then, the underlying reality they label remains the same.

That trans people have taken words that only ever had the simple, clear meaning of physical sex and applied their own personal, and quite frankly sexist, ideas about what type of minds align to those word is, frankly, their problem.

On an individual basis we should be treating them with compassion (well, some compassion - in the same way a dementia patient shouting racist beliefs gets some compassion because of their dementia distress) but we absolutely should not be allowing their sexist and disordered ideas about what type of personality aligns to the words Woman and Man to change what those words mean, any more than we would think it reasonable to support arachnophobes by eliminating spiders from existence.

I wish we lived in a world where little girls didn't!