![]() I see commonality, not difference, in this struggle. That includes women, that includes transgender people, that includes nonbinary people. Historically, people have been punished for deviating from gender norms. Melling: In the spaces in which I find myself most commonly, people are really committed to talking about “pregnant people.” People are really committed to using gender-neutral language. Green: Within the legal worlds you run in-at organizations like the ACLU-is there consensus on the use of gender-neutral terms to refer to pregnancy? Or is there some remaining debate? My GYN just talked to me about this: “Oh, I just learned this,” and was really working to change her language. Melling: It’s interesting to me, for example, that the CDC website now speaks of “pregnant people.” With every passing year, it’s more pervasive. Green: This may be hard to summarize, but where do things stand-both in terms of how these terms are used legally, but also how they’re used in the culture? It is not only women who are seeking mammography and pap smears and other care. It is the reality that not only women seek abortions. ![]() So we have really serious consequences for transgender people-people who already are really in need of health care, who are often of lower income because of all the discrimination they face. If somebody is hostile to you, you’re not going to go back. It’s nothing short of heartbreaking to read about the experiences of transgender people seeking health care. And that’s incredibly important when we think about the kinds of discrimination that continue to be pervasive against transgender people and nonbinary people. More importantly, we’re not going to behave in a way that makes that person uncomfortable-that signals discrimination and unwelcomeness to them. If we talk about “pregnant people,” it’s a reminder to all of us to catch ourselves when we’re sitting in the waiting room at the GYN that we’re not going to stare at the man who’s there. Louise Melling: First of all, if we’re talking about “pregnant people,” that language says to people-to transgender men and to nonbinary people-“we see you.” It should do a fair amount of work to help address discrimination. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.Įmma Green: Why do you believe it’s important to shift our language around gender and pregnancy? Although she does not identify as transgender or nonbinary, she is one of the country’s most influential progressive legal thinkers on gender norms and the law. To understand the contours of the debate, I called Louise Melling, the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who leads projects on women’s rights and LGBTQ rights. When I texted a friend in a small, liberal-ish city about this topic recently, he had no idea what I was talking about. ![]() Ann Romney, the wife of Senator Mitt Romney, tweeted angrily in June, “The Biden administration diminishing motherhood to ‘birthing person’ is simply insulting to all moms.” It was the first time she had tweeted all year.Īnd yet, Americans who don’t mainline niche political or linguistic fights probably don’t even know this is a debate. Others, however, see this kind of language as exclusionary because it erases women and mothers as worthy categories of identity. It’s that simple,” the pro-abortion-rights group NARAL tweeted in her defense. “When we talk about ‘birthing people,’ we’re being inclusive. Representative Cori Bush of Missouri used the term birthing people in a hearing, causing a mini-uproar on social media. Only niche groups tend to care about how Americans discuss gender and pregnancy-including whether it’s better to use the term pregnant people instead of pregnant women. But to some people, the suggestion that a hospital where babies are born is for women is offensive, because transgender and nonbinary people who do not identify as women can also get pregnant and deliver babies. Its name, the Alexandra Cohen Hospital for Women and Newborns, might strike most people as innocuous or straightforward. Last year, a brand-new labor-and-delivery hospital opened on the well-to-do Upper East Side of New York City.
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