Across the United States, mainstream organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and CNN choose gender-neutral terms such as “pregnant,” “aborted,” and “birth parent.” trend is intensifying. Supports “women” when referring to pregnancy, fertility treatments, and abortion.
Kristen Sillett, Associate Professor of Linguistics at Rutgers University, said: “I think people will be more uncomfortable because it’s so different from how we’ve thought about reproductive rights and pregnancy for a long time.”
Advocates say blanket conditions leave room for everyone affected
Jillian Brunstetter, communications strategist for the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project and LGBTQ & HIV Project, said using blanket language to talk about abortion reminds us that not only cis women can get pregnant. says he recognizes it.
Just like cis girls and trans boys, some trans men and non-binary people can get pregnant too. Not all women can get pregnant. While some cis women struggle with fertility, trans women do not have a uterus. You can express nuances that you cannot.
Still, these figures pale in comparison to the number of cis women accessing reproductive health care. Branstetter acknowledges this reality, stating that 99% of those who become pregnant or need contraception or abortion are women.
Some feel that gender-neutral terms obliterate the role of sexism
Others worry that not using the word “woman” obscures what is driving the attacks on abortion rights: misogyny.
Carey Baker, a professor of women and gender studies at Smith College, believes that gender-neutral terms such as “pregnant person” are imprecise and imprecise. This includes cisgender men whose bodies are not affected by abortion restrictions, she said.
Baker recognizes the importance of being inclusive and strives to refer to different groups affected by abortion restrictions when possible. She said she emphasized emphasizing women because she considers them to be the main targets of the abortion ban.
Otherwise, Baker said, the underlying sexism in laws that seek to control women’s bodies will disappear.
“The term ‘pregnant person’ does not indicate who we are talking about. It sounds like,” she added. “I believe abortion bans are motivated by sexism and prejudices against women, cisgender women, or simply femininity.”
“I think we need to talk about it, or I think we need to essentially do right-wing actions that are trying to erase the significance of the discriminatory impact of abortion bans,” Baker said. rice field.
“By replacing women with people, we lose the ability to talk about women as a class. We break women apart, into functions, into commodities,” she argued.
Sillett, a linguist at Rutgers University, understands where these anxieties come from, but encourages people to reflect on what they’re communicating with their word choices.
“For some, it seems natural to feel like this is taking something away, or maybe it’s disrespecting some of the things that have long been associated with us as women. “It’s an opportunity to take a step back and ask what it means to talk about ‘women’ vs. ‘women’ vs. ‘people of reproductive potential,’ regardless of your position or your experience with reproductive issues.” .'”
Others say this argument presents a false dichotomy
For ACLU’s Bran Stetter, claims that women are being erased are exaggerated.
Progressive organizations are choosing terms such as “pregnant” in their public messaging campaigns, but who are forcing women to stop describing themselves as such? Neither, she said. Moreover, the word “woman” has been used in many national conversations about abortion, from the Women’s Health Protection Act, which sought to codify Roe v. Wade, to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Agency Supreme Court ruling that overturned it. remains at the center of
“I think the demise of the word ‘women’ is greatly exaggerated,” Branstetter said. I don’t think there will be any harm.”
Proponents of more inclusive terms feel that such arguments present a false dichotomy.
Oliver Hall, director of trans health for the Kentucky Health Justice Network, said critics of terms like “pregnant” miss the way transgender and nonbinary people are also hurt by misogyny. Recognizing what limits abortion and creating spaces for transgender and non-binary people are not mutually exclusive, they added.
“I think people feel that just saying ‘women’ doesn’t tell you much about the role misogyny plays in these laws,” Hall said. “But I think it also penalizes not only those laws, but trans people who are affected by misogyny as a whole.”
Including transgender and nonbinary people in the fight for abortion rights doesn’t mean taking anything away from cisgender women, Hall said. has the potential to strengthen the rights movement of
“What the efforts to ban abortion and the efforts to exclude transgender people from public life have in common is the enforcement of very strict gender dichotomies based on the exploitation of reproductive labor,” she said. said. “It’s a more complicated story than ‘I do it because I hate women.’ But it’s more true.”
