It is?
In general, I’m against being vague. Although, as I’ve repeatedly said, I don’t mind tolerating a certain amount of vagueness as a shorthand approximation for accuracy and precision.
But I don’t buy arguments that vagueness is better than accuracy and precision.
I’m all for inclusive language, but it isn’t a hot button issue for me. Someone wants me to us he/him or her/her I have no problem with that. I understand some men get pregnant. Some woman get prostate cancer.
But since I don’t really keep up with the language wars, it is hard to keep up with some times.
My understanding, last I looked, was that gender and sex were two different things.
But I do think there should be a word for “homo sapian with xy chromosomes” or “homo sapian with a prostate” “homo sapian that can carry a fetus”. Homo sapian that menstrates" that isn’t as clunky as those.
at least for biological/medical discussion.
As for the specific us of Pregnant People, I agree that sufficiently narrows it down to homosapians with XX chromosomes post puberty/pre menopausal and any other qualifiers you might add.
Good greif.
Ok…ITT…
Should we say:
Pregnant People or Pregnant Women?
We have established that there are more people than women (about twice as many).
We have established that ONLY females can be pregnant no matter how much someone claims to be male or whatever.
This is some really weird parsing of language. We know what “women” means and we know what “people” means and, while subtle, I am not willing to give up this fight.
I think these words mean something and are important.
Almost everybody here that you’re arguing with (not sure about BigT) has been saying all along that we personally prefer the term “Pregnant people” as being more accurate, inclusive and supportive, but we don’t have a problem with the more traditional term “Pregnant women” being used as a colloquial approximation for “Pregnant people”.
On the contrary, there is substantial disagreement about the meaning of the term “women”.
Some people, such as you, insist that it must mean all those and only those reproductively mature people with anatomically female reproductive systems.
Others, such as most of the rest of us in this thread, consider its meaning to be more about gender than about anatomical sex. So we prefer to say, for example, that a transgender man who gets pregnant while identifying as male, despite the fact that he has biologically female sex organs, is a “pregnant man” rather than a “pregnant woman”.
Evidently. But I don’t think you have a chance of winning it. Insisting that reality needs to conform to existing linguistic usage instead of the other way around is typically a hopeless rearguard action.
I’m reminded of all the people twenty years ago and more who similarly insisted that a man couldn’t be another man’s “husband” and a woman couldn’t be another woman’s “wife”, because that was contrary to the traditional meanings of those words, and “words mean something and are important”.
Well, guess what: the words “husband” and “wife” still mean something and are important, but their meanings are mostly no longer restricted in the way that those no-hopers were stubbornly insisting on.
The term under discussion is “pregnant people” vs “pregnant women.” You don’t have to parse that term by narrowing the groups down in an inversely sequential manner, as you are parsing it. I.e., from “women” to “pregnant women.”. If you do, though, you wind up being unnecessarily imprecise. You’ve left out a few people who don’t identify as women. You can choose to do that, though. No one is going to force you to say the words that make you unhappy.
But there’s no way that “pregnant people” is somehow vague. It is as precise as you could be if you want to identify the subgroup of humans who are pregnant. It includes all who are pregnant, and excludes no one. You’re just wrong about this.
Referring to “pregnant people” isn’t “changing language”, though. That’s literally a phrase that my great grandparents would have understood the same way i do. It’s a completely cromulent English phrase.
Most of us think both of those are okay.
And we have also established that there are about twice as many women as there are women of childbearing age.
And we’ve also established that girls, non-binary people, and transmen can give birth.
Yes, words matter. “Pregnant people” is more accurate than “pregnant women”. But for most purposes, either will get the right meaning across.
Weird thing. I myself have said in this thread, more than once, that I felt either phrase was fine. I think I was pretty clear about it. I am less clear that you and “everybody here” has been as explicit.
How many transgendered men who are pregnant are out there? How many “conventionally” pregnant people are out there? Please compare and contrast that difference.
What do you think I am arguing against? The people I love most in this world are my brother and his husband. I was Best Man at their wedding shortly after it became legal in the US. They each only invited one family member. Truly a highlight in my life.
I’m going to guess that both pregnant girls and pregnant non-binary people outnumber pregnant men.
I note you skipped the second part of what I wrote/asked in that same paragraph you quoted.
You wrote an awful lot of things. Which “second part” did i skip?
How many transgendered men who are pregnant are out there? How many “conventionally” pregnant people are out there? Please compare and contrast that difference.
I don’t care. I’m trying to be accurate in my language, so I’m not excluding the girls, non-binary, and male pregnant people, even if there aren’t a huge number of them.
Then what exactly are you talking about when you declare in post #84 that you are “not willing to give up this fight” because you think “these words mean something and are important”?
If you are fine with referring to “pregnant people”, then what on earth do you think you’re fighting about?
I already told you the available numbers (for Australia in 2014) back in post #69. But what does it matter, since you have declared that you’re fine with referring either to “pregnant people” or to “pregnant women”, irrespective of what percentage of pregnant people are women?
I don’t think you have any clear idea, frankly. You apparently have some ill-posed resistance to using traditional gender and sex descriptors in any way that’s inconsistent with the strict binary sex classification traditionally associated with them, but so far you haven’t managed anything like a coherent argument for that position.
You are conflating accuracy with precision. And you are doing neither really.
ISTM you are suggesting as long as there is ONE example then you are being more precise by being vague. You suggest that as long as you can find one exception you have been more clear in your language.
I think that is bogus reasoning.
Indeed. What does it matter? By your numbers in Australia:
311,000
vs
54
That is a difference of : 0.00017%
Why do you think that is a significant number? Why do you think that is sufficient to change our language?
I am not being vague. I am naming exactly those people who are pregnant, no more, no less.
You seem to have some weird idea that if you use a noun that describes fewer people, you are being “more precise” even if the adjective completely describes the relevant limitation, and the noun doesn’t quite fit.
I’ll also point out that you keep harping on the small number of pregnant transmen, quite ignoring the rather large number of pregnant girls.
(And i have no idea how many pregnant non-binary people there are at any moment, but I’ve known a few, and i bet it’s many times more than the number of pregnant transmen.)
Huh?
(I really don’t follow what you are saying here…see post just above yours)
Honestly, I really don’t get it. 100% on me (really).
My bad:
0.017%
I don’t agree with Whack a Mole.
But in the Do women wear pads and tampons all the time, or only during menstruation, or what? thread, gendered language is used freely.
Nobody challenges the use of “women” to describe “people who menstruate”. There isn’t long arguments about teaching your “son” how to use a tampon.
It’s just an informative thread for those of us who don’t know the finer points of menstruation and hygiene products that we didn’t learn in junior high sex class.
So without agreeing with Whack a Mole. I think there should be a simple non qualified word for Homo Sapians who bear children that doesn’t discriminate against Homo Sapians that don’t bear children but acknowledges the difference when it comes to medical or biological discussions.
Disagree all you like.
ANY person who can bear a child menstruates.
MADE-UP EXAMPLE
No matter how convinced your son is that he is a woman he will never menstruate. He will never get pregnant.