Birthing People - inclusive or offensive?

So your sentence in the document would read, "mothers, birth mothers, surrogate mothers, and birthing persons" when birthing persons covers them all. It's just ridiculous and all because you see some sort of threat to the word mother when none exists.

So the birthing people who are part of the eventualities which weren't even thought of until very recently can use the term "birthing people" and those who are continuing the old eventualities (which have been taking place since the first cavewoman to bear a child - or it may have been Eve - was called a "mother") can still think of themselves as "mother" and be addressed as such. If it is their choice to be a "birthing person" instead, then they can use the new term.

She is a surrogate mother as she gives birth to a child that has grown in her womb, although not genetically related to her. The phrase 'Surrogate mother is also two words and sums up quite neatly exactly what she is.

Rosie51so what would you call someone who was a surrogate birthing person? Who never intends to be a mother to the child, who has no genetic connection to the child as it was the result of an embryo from the father's sperm and the mother's egg, but who gives birth to the child? Or someone who gives birth to a child knowing it will immediately be adopted?
It's ridiculous to go on about changing the vocabulary or complicated words and phrases. A simple two word phrase covers a lot of eventualities which weren't even thought of until very recently.

I dislike the term birthing person intensely. It doesn't feel inclusive of me at all. The only sex who can gestate and deliver babies have female anatomy, science cannot be denied. Women can identify as men if that is their preference but their anatomy is female. Cumbersome phrases instead of accurate words will not change that, and is offensive to very many women and men.

The word 'mother' like so many words has layered meanings. It means the person who physically gives birth to a child as well as any biologically or putatively female person who brings that child up or acts like the understanding of that word means to a child. What the child or the person in the role of mother calls themselves or each other is entirely up to them.

Regardless of gender everyone is clear what a mother or father's role is. Complicated word phrases and explaanations only obfusc forms and make them difficult to read and understand and I think are part of a deep fascist plot to push us towards the world shown on Orwell's novel. 1984.

If there was a poll in the country the vast majority of people would vote for talking about mothers, fathers, maternity, breats feeding and so on. This with no disrespect to those who think differently and will always be free to use their own preferred vocabulary.

Are you sure Elegran?
If it's not a compulsory term yet there will soon be demands that it should be.

(The OP was about America - who knows what they're up to.)

that is fine for the person who would rather be called a birthing person than a mother. Those who would rather be called a mother are concerned that they will end up in the position that the "birthing person" was in before this move to give them the name they want.

The facts are that the staff in "birthing units" (as they could be referred to by those who find "maternity" too motherly a term) now have an "official" term available in their guidelines to use on the non-mothers giving birth. There is no regulation that says EVERYONE who gives birth must be called a "birthing person"

Well as far as I can see birthing person covers all the possibilities in two words.
That person may not become the mother because the child may be adopted and the adopive parent may prefer to use that title. That person may be acting as a surrogate and the child will have no genetic or perhaps a complicated genetic link to the birthing person who has no intention of being the child's mother, That person may be a trans man who does not want to be called mother.
To sum all that up in two words seems pretty clever to me. The world is neither as simple nor as straight forward as some seem to imagine.

Does Biden refer to sperm donors? Whether present in a child's life or not, that would be an accurate description of the male input. No of course not, men's opinions count, and their handmaidens reinforce this at every opportunity.

It doesn't matter who cares/doesn't care, language is being changed by governments and legislation put in place whether we object or not.

The majority of people take no notice of these 'angels on the head of a pin' arguments by small groups of the urban elite.

Most people will continue to 'mother' and 'father' and 'breast feed' and leave these little groups to squabble away.

The word mother has many cultural reverberations, not just in the English language. Various phrases spring to mind: mother country; mother church; mother wit; mother Earth; mother nature; mother of God; mother of parliaments; mother's apron strings and even mother's ruin. It is not going to be obliterated by dictate.

trisher

M0nica so who will be "majorly disadvantaged" by the term birthing person? I can't see it harms anyone, it's simply more inlusive.

Not it’s not. It’s erasing a whole group of people who are proud to call themselves mothers. Why should the vast majority of women be forced to bow down to a tiny minority of women who want to call themselves something else? I don’t care what they call themselves, tbh, but they have no right to force a change onto me.

As for the health aspect of this - some adoptive mothers want to breastfeed their children and need appropriate care to do so. Why should they be excluded from being able to call themselves mothers simply because they are not birthing people?

I can quite understand the whole born in the wrong body thing, if I had continued as I was preteens I would probably have loved to be male. What I don't really understand is why someone would go to a lot of trouble to be accepted as a man and live as a man and then decide to have a baby. Surely you would be trying to forget that your ovaries and uterus had ever existed.

I really like you but you have some very odd ideas about your own sex.

Some transmen choose not to be called that.

Don't think so. What is so offensive about the word Mother?

Gossamerbeynon1945

Both my grandchildren are adopted. My daughter is definitely their mother and by the way it is sex not gender. Gender is a social construct.

So the person who gave birth to them is their birth person and not their mother ?

They can call themselves anything they like, momenclature is neither here nor there.

So your friend's children have the right to call her what she wished M0nica but transmen don't have the same privilege?

Both my grandchildren are adopted. My daughter is definitely their mother and by the way it is sex not gender. Gender is a social construct.

Trisher. The fact that my friend's children did not call her 'mummy' doesn't mean she isn't a mother.

What people call themselves is entirely up to them. But a human being is a human being whether they want to be called that or not.

Callistemon precisely.

Jennifer Eccles
I'm not. Can't, for once, blame Trump.