Then i think you must be missing the point. Your language is less accurate and less precise, although it is more traditional.
“People” = Every human on the planet
“Women” = Human females on the planet
The latter is roughly half the first group so more precise.
I submit “women” narrows it more since we refer to pre-pubescent people as boys or girls. “Women/men” are post-pubescent.
“Pregnant women” narrows it further.
Is there a word, in English, for “a person who has female reproductive organs”? It used to be presumed that “woman” was that word, and also presumed that “woman” was the word for “person who identifies as female”, because it used to be presumed that those were the same thing.
Now that those two definitions are not regarded as equivalent, and the word “woman” is considered to have the latter meaning, but not necessarily the former, should we have a new word for “person with female reproductive organs”?
OK, I’ll ask: What function does the uterus perform in a non-fertile body? The ovaries, sure, those produce various hormones, in addition to eggs, but what else does the uterus do?
Oh, and I don’t think that “biologically female” is the proper term for “has a uterus, ovaries, etc.”. Psychology is part of biology, too, after all. Maybe “somatically female”, or “anatomically female”?
True, and also a few who are temporarily off it.
Not necessarily, unless you are defining the term “woman” to strictly imply “biologically female”. Which many people do not, opining instead that women can be cisgender (biologically female) or transgender (biologically male).
“Biologically female” is a descriptor about biological sex (and even then isn’t entirely well-defined, because of the biology of many intersex people). “Woman” is a descriptor about gender and/or gender identity, which many people regard as different from biological sex.
Ooh, i like “anatomically female”. I may steal that. Thanks.
Again…the OP is about pregnancy.
Consider the definition as a person who is pregnant.
Tell me how your (general “your”) identity changes that.
It “provides structural integrity and support to the bladder, bowel, pelvic bones and organs as well”, along with playing a role in sexual pleasure. (It serves those functions in reproductively fertile bodies also, of course.)
You might want to ask somebody who’s had a hysterectomy how and to what extent the removal of the uterus has changed their experience with bowel and bladder functions. (Then again, of course, you might not.)
Yeah, I agree with puzzlegal that “anatomically female” is a useful and descriptive term.
The “definition” of what, exactly? Yes, the definition of a pregnant person is a person who is pregnant (fairly tautologically).
No, that definition is not affected by gender identity, and AFAICT nobody is arguing otherwise.
I think the point of the OP is that “pregnant women” is somehow dismissive of other possibilities.
That if you are a person who can carry a baby to term but identify as male (or at least not female) you are somehow being oppressed by saying only “women” can have babies.
Hm. People who’ve never had a uterus seem to do OK with supporting their internal organs. I guess it’s just that, since all the other innards are shaped around there being a uterus there, that the lack of a uterus causes those shapes to not work as well?
Not to mention many thousands of women who have had hysterectomies and get on just fine with life.
The classic definitions are:
- Female - denoting the sex that typically can bear offspring or produce eggs
- Woman - an adult female
It’s gotten a bit more complicated because these new definitions also exist:
- Female - a person who identifies as female
- Woman - a person who identifies as a woman
These latter definitions are not independently meaningful since the person who identifies as a female or woman is doing so according to their own personal interpretation. Someone who identifies as a female/woman may or may not meet the stereotypical expectations of what society thinks of as a female/woman in general. But we still refer to them as female/woman because they prefer to be referred to that way.
Someone who identifies as male/man but still has a functional uterus may be offended by articles which say “pregnant woman” since that person can be a pregnant man. Saying pregnant people avoids this mixed gender situation and is typically less offensive.
Extrauterine abdominal pregnancies with a viable fetus delivered via surgery are very rare but not unknown. Technically, there’s nothing much preventing a man from having a fetus implanted on his peritoneum, no uterus required. If it hasn’t been done yet, I expect someone somewhere will figure out how to make it happen. If a guy did this, would he be a woman? Does pregnancy fundamentally change biological sex? Or can we all just agree that it’s most logical to use gender neutral language in any discussion of a general class of persons rather than an individual whose gender presentation and pronouns can be simply determined and categorized by a couple of simple questions?
Technically, I suppose it could be taken to imply as “dismissing” the possibility that one can be pregnant and yet identify as a (transgender) man.
IOW, even if you have a beard, a male name, male pronouns, a male appearance (except for the baby bump), a male gender identity, you’re required to call yourself (and accept being called) a woman when it comes to your pregnancy. Because in the context of pregnancy, we’re insisting that “woman” and “anatomically female” must be treated as synonymous.
I can see how a pregnant transgender man might be uncomfortable with that implication, and that’s why I’m supportive of more inclusive language like “pregnant people”.
But I think everyone in this thread has acknowledged that using “pregnant women” as a colloquial approximation to “pregnant people” is well understood and generally acceptable.
Seriously?
There are edge cases…and then there is this.
The question of whether edge cases are objectively worse than sweeping generalizations is the topic of another discussion entirely.
Not really. The OP is asking about two ways of saying something.
One is common usage. The other is an edge case. And here we are 50+ posts and running discussing it.
Very true. Are you suggesting that that means the internal support provided by the uterus doesn’t count as a “function”?
Sure. There are lots of people who’ve had various other organs, or parts of organs, removed from their bodies and got on just fine with life.
That doesn’t mean that those organs weren’t performing a function within the body: it just means that the human anatomy has a lot of redundancy and a lot of adaptability, so it can typically tolerate a fair bit of internal rearrangement.
To be clear:
Having a functioning uterus or even having a uterus does not define being a female.
But to the OP, you need one to be pregnant and to do that you absolutely must be a female.
We’re not discussing “unchangeable biological realities.” We’re discussing the use of language. You apparently object to the use of the term “pregnant people,” claiming “pregnant women” is sufficient.
The problem with this is that not all pregnant people are women. Trans men can also get pregnant. Trans men are men, not women. Thus, to replace “pregnant people” with “pregnant women” is either unnecessarily excluding trans men, or, worse, asserting that trans men are actually women. A health organization has no desire to do either one of these.
Of course, the average person might be ignorant of this. The issue I suspect is most common is not knowing that trans men can get pregnant. People assume trans men all take hormones that would make that impossible, and would never try for a kid. But this is not always the case.
It’s important to trans rights that trans men be accepted as men, and trans women be accepted as women. That’s the whole reason they choose to transition. To misgender them is to create the same dysphoria (extreme distress) that led to them identifying as trans in the first place.
It’s also been historically used to discriminate against them, or to assume they are sexual deviants or out to “trick” people, and has resulted in tons of violence against them. In that way it’s similar to slurs, like the n-word.
And that’s the answer to your question about this “small minority.” We always avoid doing things that hurt minorities. People of color explain why certain things are racist, and we don’t do them. Gay people explain why some things are homophobic, and we don’t do them. Bi people explain why certain things are bi-phobic, and we don’t do those. And trans people have been saying for a long time why misgendering is transphobic, so we don’t do that.
What you apparently assumed was this little frivolous thing is actually considered a civil rights issue. Using terms like “pregnant people” is a way of saying to trans people that we accept they exist (as medical science does at this point) and that we are not excluding them. They matter.