Author:
Staff at the British Medical Association (BMA) have been warned not to call pregnant women “expectant mothers” as it could offend transgender people. Instead, they should call them “pregnant people” so as not to upset intersex and transgender men.
The advice comes in an internal document to staff outlining a raft of common phrases that should be avoided for fear of causing offence. “The elderly” should be referred to as “older people”, “disabled lifts” called “accessible lifts” and someone who is “biologically male or female” should be called “assigned male or female”.
The BMA said the document was purely guidance for its staff on effective communication within the workplace, not advice to its 156,000 doctor members on how to deal with patients. On pregnancy and maternity, it says: “Gender inequality is reflected in traditional ideas about the roles of women and men. Though they have shifted over time, the assumptions and stereotypes that underpin those ideas are often deeply-rooted.” It adds: “A large majority of people that have been pregnant or have given birth identify as women. “We can include intersex men and transmen who may get pregnant by saying ‘pregnant people’ instead of ‘expectant mothers’.”
Elsewhere, staff are told to substitute the words “surname” or “last name” for “family name”. “Mankind” and “manpower” should be avoided because it is “not good practice” to use a “masculine noun”, instead swapped for “humanity” and “personnel”, and listing prefixes for names such as “Prof”, “Dr”, “Mr”, “Mrs” or “Miss” should not be put in a particular order on forms to avoid a “perceived hierarchy”.The document, which was published last year, also underlines guidance on language that has long been considered offensive, suggesting staff do not refer to people as being “spastic” or “mongol” but that they should be called a “person with cerebral palsy” or “person with Down’s syndrome”. The BMA issued the guidance to reinforce the use of inclusive language as part of its commitment to equality and inclusion.
Comment by AP
There's occasions where too much political correctness is just wrong. Good practice is often a subset of common-sense. But really the suggestion that a pregnant person is better than expectant mother as the latter might upset transgender people - get a life.
I may be in the wrong - but I loathe extremism from or at any end of the spectrum. Sometimes 'normal' people are vile and sometimes components of the LGB, TIS spectrum get overexcited at what they perceive as deliberate unkindness when it's more likely to be ignorant stupidity.
Comments
Never a big fan
I've never been a big fan of PC. While I try to be sensitive to other people, I don't really make an effort to speak in PC terms. For the most part I think people really need a lesson in excusing other peoples short comings. When I was young, there was considerable effort to teach children to not be easily offended by others. Hurt feelings were something that we learned to get over.
Let's face it, it's a cruel world and the soon we learn, to borrow a British phrase, to get a stiff upper lip and get on with our lives, the better off we'll be. Rather than laying down rules of how people should speak, (PC the new speak of our age) we should foster compassion in our actions.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
I don't
I don't think this is silly at all.
I am AMAB, and I have two (mostly grown) children, and I think at some level I've always thought of myself as their mother. I think that, aside from the breast-feeding, I've mothered them far more than their bio-mom. It was so nice, once I transitioned, to hear both of them call me "Mom." I am no longer comfortable being referred to as a "Dad." (All kinds of not-me associations with the word.)
So I can imagine that an AFAB person who has always felt like he was a guy would feel invalidated or excluded by terminology that assumes that anyone who gets pregnant is a woman.
As for AMAB and AFAB instead of "biologically male/female," the biologists have already weighed in on the fallacy of the terms "biologically" w.r.t. sex. Also, the "biological" business bolsters the attitudes that lead to the practice of doing SRS on intersex infants, often without anyone's consent.
I think the real virtue of recommendations like this is to (hopefully) get medical providers, a notoriously thick-headed bunch, to consider the possibility that there are exceptions to the usual assumptions and they need to be ready to adjust their bedside manner -- and their medical treatements -- to fit the unique circumstances of their lives.
Politically correct inclusiveness leads to a lot of sillyness
I am with Patricia and Ashe, in that mandating politically correct speach is extremism -- and might even be considered a form of extrem intolerance. We all - and everybody else - need to be tolerant of how others express themselves, and grow a stiff upper lip. Erin's three rules for this site/community sum that up very nicely. On the other hand, when my conversation partner makes his personal feelings about certain terms known, I should do my best to respect that and adapt my speech pattern acordingly. Especially when there is a pronounced unequallity in (physical and/or emotional) vulnerability between the partners, as is the case of health care provider and patient.
Also, in many languages the gramatical male form ethimologically is at the same time also the inclusive form of speech. And forcing or mandating the "inclusiveness" of adding the gramatical female form, has the tendency to become acward and imped the flow of speach and writing. The plural form of many gramatical male words has traditionally been considered gender-inclusive, and the female plural was only used for an exlusively female collective.
I can not think of an English example right now, so I will use a German example to illustrate some of the (to me) sillyness:
Traditionaly a mixed gender student body would be addresse as "Werte Studenten", but in a political correct mandate that would become "Werte Studenten und Studentinnen", or even worse "Werte Studentinnen und werte Studenten".
In some cases where a profession has previously been virtually single gender, there might be a need to evolve the name of the profession. Though that seems to happen more often for traditionally female professions than vice-versa. Comming back to the field of health care: Traditionally the person to watch and care for a patient was a female and called Sister or Ward Sister, though this seems to have been more prevalent in british than in american English. That is a very definitle female designation! Today that profession is designate with the gender-neutral Nurse, though some insist on the use of male Nurse for a male practitioner of the profession. And the political correct police would be horrified at the use of "dear nurses" when addressing the whole nursing staff, insisting on the acward "dear female nurses, dear male nurses".
On the other hand, there are languages with very distinct terminology depending on whether you are addressing men or women. One such example is the native language of the Enlhet people in the heart of the paraguayan Chaco in South America. And that is a completely different kettle of fish.
Jessica Nicole
Well said
I refuse to use the PC 'co-workers' and use Colleagues instead. Quite why my preference is not PC I really don't know but there you go. It takes all sorts.
Thank you for allowing me to learn something
I stand corrected on my English language example. Sammi pointed out to me in a PM that "nursing" is definitely a female verb, since it means to sucle and nurture the babies. I have thanked her in privat, but I also want to thank her in public, for offering me a learning opportunity.
This, to me, is what our community here at BCTS is about: The opportunity to learn from one another. And as many other commenters below have stated, manners and respect go a lot further than most of the PC stuff.
Agreed!
There's such a thing as too politically correct, and it makes my skin crawl, especially because it gives bigots ammunition and allows them to scream "Censorship!" even louder, when the vast majority of people subjected to PC culture are stuck in the middle and just want equality
I want to be called female or woman, not "tranny" or "shemale" for example, but not "LGBTQPAMAB", either.
I don't need an entire alphabet soup attached to my gender, or to be called "assigned" anything.
And when I'm 90, you bet I'll be "elderly". I'm also legally blind, or disabled, not differently abled. There's nothing different about it. I flat can't see as well as someone else. That's not a different ability. It's a lack of ability.
The whole thing just sets me in the wrong state of mind honestly. It goes too far, and then the pendulum swings back the other way. Anyone who's read Poe knows what that's a bad idea ;-)
Aint nobody
Advocating hte use of the T-slur (tranny) like fudge that. Also why does -it bother you the LGBT extended to be more inclusive? LGBT I is for intersex, A is for Asexual/Agender, Q is for questioning/queer. You can use a + after the Q because some people don't feel things like Two spirit fits in the LGBT as it is a strictly Native cultural experience something that non natives would not understand.
I get it feels the acronym is getting bigger. Instead of feeling that way though, look at it as we go down this journey we found other people along the path who also were getting trampled on by the cishets. Other oppressions we didn't notice before, but we do now and now we're trying to help them too. Now it's true Asexual doesn't get nearly as much oppression as other things, it still deserves to be in the LGBT.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
more PC bull
It always seems funny to me how PC slang (that's how I view it) seems more offensive than the words they're trying to replace. While those in the PC crowd seem to think it's less offensive, using PC slang feels like you're drawing attention to the subject. The PC culture's insultingly prevalent in schools. Case in point, kids who play hockey from ages 5-10 at least, the games score isn't kept because the kids on the losing side will feel bad. This is probably more to curb the more rambunctious parents, but the official reason is stupid. You're basically conditioning these kids that no matter how hard they work or how little they work, you won't get recognised for you're achievements and if you continually do poorly then nothing bad will happen. And then they enter the real world where there are winners and losers and they don't no what to do. For years they've been told it's ok to wallow in a form of stasis, that they don't have to exert themselves or try to better themselves and then they toss the poor kid whose now all grown up into the real world and they get beaten down and emotionally crushed.
This is obviously a hot button for me based on my rant just now, so I'm going to stop before I say anything further. Suffice to say, I found PC slang to be insulting and will do more damage than whatever "good" it would do.
Political Correctness needs to die in a fire.
When and where I grew up, we had a simpler philosophy that, more importantly, ACTUALLY WORKED.
It was called, Manners and Respect.
The Poles and the French cordially hated each other, but would still exchange a "Good Morning" and a tipped cap where appropriate. They didn't exchange much more than that, mind ... but other than unfortunate rendezvous in the local pub, that was as far as it went. If someone "took offense" ... apologies were exchanged, and the matter simply dropped at that point. And NOT revisited.
Whatever PC was intended to do, what it has created is a society fracturing on every possible fault line.
Yup
Just a bit.
As long as an organization is being reasonably accommodating and not stuck in the 50's it's best to give them the benefit of the doubt
Words Matter - Very Much
Maybe it's coincident but I just finished Michael Lewis' latest book . . . The Undoing Project. Michael Lewis is one of my favorite author's. This book may be one of his best.
Here's the description of the book from Amazon: Forty years ago, Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original studies undoing our assumptions about the decision-making process. Their papers showed the ways in which the human mind erred, systematically, when forced to make judgments in uncertain situations. Their work created the field of behavioral economics, revolutionized Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made much of Michael Lewis’s own work possible. Kahneman and Tversky are more responsible than anybody for the powerful trend to mistrust human intuition and defer to algorithms.
What their studies proved, beyond any doubt, is that our decision-making process is greatly influenced by words and pre-conceived notions. They showed that even this simplest of logical decisions will be made incorrectly if the question is asked in a certain way that plants a bias.
To say the PC isn't necessary is a lot like saying climate change is a hoax. It goes against pure science.
Some attempts to be PC are better than others. There's no argument there, but to toss out the notion that we should try to say things in a way that is the least harmful is contrary to the Golden Rule which is embraced by almost every major religion and most people in general.
Please don't get caught up in nastiness that is currently rampant and fear-based.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Thank you
For posting this, people just are ignorant.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
Thank you
For posting this, people just are ignorant.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
PC
I wouldn't get too wound up.
A few years ago an edict was issued to our local bus drivers not to use certain terms when talking to 'customers'. Now hereabouts the terms 'ey up me duck', and addressing any adult as 'love' are just part of day to day life, maybe a bit confusing to incomers but that's it. Given most of the vehicle operatives and customers (drivers and passengers to you and me) are long term residents this edict by a clever boy from't smoke was effective for about a week. No was offended before, no one's offended now but we aren't PC hereabouts!
Nah then, if all't energy put inta this was put into patient care we'd all be a bit 'appier.
All reet, let's get back t't summat that matters.
Mads
Madeline Anafrid Bell
PC At it's most ludicrous.
If this is the case what about once we have become Mothers? Are we to be called female parents of offspring? I'm proud to have been an expectant Mom. I expect others will feel the same way. Every day courtesy is all the PC we need. I tell my kids respect others and treat them as you expected to be treated. I sometimes think that every Government has. Employed someone somewhere to think up these stupid ideas. I'm still having problems with my own Political party. For thinking up the idea of putting that Idiot Trump in the White House. He sure isn't MY President
Yes
You are proud to be an expectant mother and called that. Not everyone is, using neutral language hurts no one and is more inclusive when the past... well 400 years or so we have not been very inclusive of people who do not fit the gender binary, IE: Non-binary, Gender fluid, or Agender.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
PC encourages us to think
Yes PC can produce silly results but we are a silly species too often amazed by the offence taken when we open our mouths to spout thoughtless drivel. Until I read this BMA document I'd not given a moment's thought to how I might refer to a man who was pregnant should I meet one.
Rhona McCloud
You just did
A man who is pregnant. See? Easy. Pregnant man, or pregnant people if you aren't sure.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
I am of two minds on this
First, i can understand how calling someone who looks male (be they trans male or intersex) an expectant mother could be an issue for some. so i can understand that, but couldnt it just be taken on a case by case basis? this directive is JUST a suggestion, not requirements so that helps.
as a transwomen, i dont understand why a transman would want to have a child in that way, most males dont think that way, right? i mean i did, but i am not male, and never was "normal". no offense meant, etc, just dont/cant understand it from my perspective. someone who is intersex, totally different, especially if they had no knowledge before hand, etc.
just my two cents, if someone can shed some light from the trans male perspective i would love to hear it (even if you want to pm it)
Teresa L.
Some men
Want children to pass down their genes, and that's the only way to do it, so they'll become pregnant. It's up to them really. Heck some Trans women are perfectly okay fertilizing a womb just fine, I'm just not one of them. I fully respect anyone who does though.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
Considering how non-PC the medical profession usually is
This is pretty well groundbreaking, though I suspect it's unlikely to be observed everywhere or by everyone. Having said that I have to admit that I've been treated with respect by everyone I've dealt with in the health service, surgeons, GPs, nurses and even my own profession have always treated me as female since I transitioned. When I had surgery in 2007 for my back - I had two herniated discs pressing on radicals (nerves coming off the spinal chord), they even checked with me that I wasn't pregnant because the procedure was being done under X ray. They obviously hadn't read my notes very thoroughly, the surgeon considered that my 'floating' first sacral vertebra was more interesting than my gender history. (Floating means the vertebra wasn't fused to the other sacral vertebra as it is in most people - I just like to be different).
Angharad
Saddened by the lack of empathy
I'm saddened by the number of commenters who agree with the OP and are happy to blast what they see as "PC."
If someone were to read a TG story and comment, "that's a lot of PC silliness. The main character has a penis, so he's a boy (or man), he's just being silly to imagine he's a woman," I think they'd get a lot of pushback. Because a lot of people here know what it's like to have your inner sense of gender invalidated. (Well, if you're binary M2F, at least.) Nobody here would accept the idea that recognizing someone's gender identity was "PC silliness."
Yet I see very little sympathy for the sort of people for whom these so-called "non-PC" terms are hurtful and invalidating, perhaps because they aren't the bog-standard binary M2F TSs or CDs that everyone here is assumed to be. The view seems to be "it doesn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you, and if it does, you're just being silly."
I have to say, my experience IRL and on-line is that when people are dismissive of what they call "PC", it turns out what they want to do is dismiss the feelings and situations of people who aren't like them, and that often turns out to mean dismissing what I've gone through. Most of the terms mentioned in the OP seem perfectly reasonable to me as recommendations and some of them are entirely routine in the circles I hang out in. To see so many people disparaging them out of hand makes me feel like I am not among friends. (Having one active member of this community respond to one of my blog posts, one where I bared some of my emotions, by saying she'd like to slap me didn't help, either.) It's the sort of thing that (among other things) permantly alienated me from masculinity.
I'm an alien here myself
I don't live in a place where "too much PC" is any kind of problem. People here in my locale and socioeconomic strata are so racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic etc etc and just plain fucked up that I'd much rather they would err on the side of PC any day than have to hear their nigger, fag, bitch and tranny-freak jokes. I mostly just stick to myself.
And I can't disparage your feelings, you're way ahead of me in so many ways in RL, I'm in awe of anyone who's being herself full time. Gender? Hell, I've barely got the "human" thing down. So hey, you've got at least one friend here who doesn't want to slap your face (but I really don't think the person who wrote that meant that as anything more than a expression of frustration. She impresses me as being very supportive, not hostile or violent or unfriendly; unless i'm missing important social cues again. As an alien I do that sometimes...).
~hugs, Veronica
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
Too many
Lack empathy, and have forgotten what it means to be human. It's sad really.
Because the truth is, the moment the human race stops empathizing, stop caring about others, stops helping the marginalized, is the moment the human race deserves to die.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
*pounds head on table*
*pounds head on table*
Mother, like father, is both a noun and a verb.
An expectant mother is _one who can bear offspring, and is doing so_. One who fathers cannot bear offspring. Expectant meaning 'in progress, waiting'. One can 'mother' someone without being gender specific, although there is an expectation there. One can also act as a father without having fathered anyone.
This would be like saying that we can't use the term 'expectant hush', because it might offend someone for implying pregnancy in silence. Ooh, and we can't use the term "pregnant pause".
Please, people. When you see idiocy like this, PLEASE hit the person over the head for the good of the average IQ of the world.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I kind of wish we could just make a bargain
For every minority, those outside the minority will try not to intentionally give offense, and those within the minority will try not to take offense where none is intended.
The world would be so much of a better place, PC would be gone forever and nobody would miss it, because there would be no need for even proto-PC.
Such a beautiful dream.
Even simpler would be if
Even simpler would be if people would just quit taking offense at innocent words, rather than the intention behind them. Instead of attacking a person for his or her attitude, which would make ANYTHING sound bad, they attack the language itself.
Here's an example.
Retarded.
I'd bet there are a number of people that will read that word, and immediately start in with the 'It's mentally handicapped!' routine. Which is absurd. These people weren't handicapped - they were born that way. It simply means 'slow to learn'. It doesn't mean they can't learn at all. I've worked, a bit, with a number of them. Retarded fits best. It's just a word describing slow. Retarded growth, retarded performance, etc.
Interestingly enough, many of the words that we use as insults were simply designations for intelligence levels. Idiot. Moron. Retard. You get the same thing from other descriptions people now have decided are evil. Negro or Negroid. As words, that's no more insulting than Caucasian and Caucasoid, or Mongol/Mongoloid (used to describe the Central and East asian populations - the tripartite division of Humanity. Sometimes 'Asiatic') I've also seen Australoid, but I don't know that you can separate the indigenous populations that far from the three core divisions.
So, look at the people and their intentions, and leave the words alone, unless they were _designed_ from the start to be offensive. (Leaving those out)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Words matter.
The science is against you, sorry. Angela Rasch proved that above you.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
Demented
When I saw "BMA" my first thought was Basic Martial Arts. No, that can't be it. Body Mass index or something, another screed about fitness, diet, and the like. Then I read the article. This isn't even PC, it's just stupid. I'm going back to Basic Martial Arts. That's sensible, and actually useful. Everyone is entitled to go to hell in their own fashion, but this isn't my bus.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
That depends on the pregnant person
As I have written elsewhere, a raped FTM would appreciate not being called "expectant mother" but I think that the majority of pregnant people would prefer being called "expectant mothers".
I think that "pregnant people" should include people that want an abortion but "expectant mothers" shouldn't include them. A pregnant FTM could be called "expectant mother" if he expects to be a mother.
epain
The fudge?
Trans men can become pregnant through many different ways, through artificial insemination, sexual intercourse, ect. Like... it doesn't only have to be rape...
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
AMAB
FYI Assigned male at birth AMAB/CAMAB, Assigned female at birth, AFAB/CAFAB was terminology CREATED by trans women. It's designed to give us back our power, because it puts the blame on society and the doctor that decided we were boys or girls just because of our genitals. Genitals don't have a gender, they don't matter.
"Biologically male or female" is a social construct same as gender. Pre colonialization aka before white christians decided to fudge up the world there was far more than just two genders and transgender people have been here since the beginning of time. They tried to destroy all proof of it, but archaelogy and anthropology have proven time and time again they are very very wrong.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D