Why can’t we say “pregnant people” anymore?

Every time a famous person, journalist, or organization even hints at trans inclusion by using language like “pregnant people” or “people who menstruate,” it kicks up a social media storm. The quickest and easiest way to get ratioed on Twitter these days is to commit this mortal language sin, seemingly.

Trans inclusive repro language is meant to include trans men and non-binary people into repro space, areas that had previously felt alienating for the trans demographic. Trans men have repeatedly been questioned, or embarrassed, or even outright barred from needed gynecological care all over the planet, simply because they don’t match up with the sex stereotype that providers and other patients expect to need those services.

The proof is in the data. According to a Center for American Progress report from earlier this year, nearly half of all trans people reported having been mistreated by a medical provider. A 2016 study reported that 30 percent of trans people said they avoid doctors and needed preventive care for fear of facing this discrimination. Mistreatment of trans people has led to tragic results.

In the late 1990s, trans man Robert Eads went for a standard ovarian cancer screening. A few weeks later, a nurse from the oncologist’s office rang up Eads, asking him how he was handling his diagnosis. Confused, Eads asked what they meant. His screening had turned up a tumor, and no one had bothered to call and inform him.

After tracking down the oncologist himself, the doctor told Eads that his first instinct was to refer Eads to a psychiatrist, not for treatment. A trained cancer doctor felt that Eads’s transness was more critical than quickly advancing cancer. To make matters worse, Eads called around to other cancer specialists within transport distance, only to be turned down by each and every provider.

He later died of ovarian cancer in 1999.

(You can watch Eads’s story in the 2001 documentary “Southern Comfort,” YouTube link here)

His case may be the most extreme example of medical transphobia against trans men, but lesser forms of medical discrimination still exist today. The clarion call that emerges from it is a desperate need for inclusiveness in what has traditionally been thought of as “women’s health.” In response, trans men, non-binary people, and trans-affirming medical providers have begun to use less gender exclusionary language like “pregnant people” to refer to a large pool of patients who are pregnant.

All admit that the vast, vast majority of those folks will be women, but it’s still important to signal that a health provider sees trans men and non-binary people for who they are, and won’t receive the Robert Eads treatment.

This, apparently, is too much for gender critical people, who maintain that trans men are just deluded lesbians in need of therapy (the same belief as Eads’s oncologist, it should be pointed out). A recent Toronto Star editorial asking why we can’t say women anymore, complains that women are being erased when the existence of trans men is acknowledged.

The primary example used in the editorial was a study about menstruation that used the phrase “people with vaginas” once and “women” four times. This was not enough for the angry writer of the article, who claimed this was a primary example of the “erasure of women.”

Even one mention of people besides women capable of menstruating was enough to prompt a prominent writer to go on a rant about language. It’s a bit ridiculous, no?

Other examples given in the piece include a fake viral story generated in the British press about a Brighton hospital that allegedly banned the term “breastfeeding” in favor of a more gender neutral “chestfeeding.” As my previous work on this specific incident has shown, nothing of the sort was done. “Chestfeeding” was meant to be an additive term used only when a specific patient wished to use it. This too was too much for the transphobic activists.

In their world, all references and recognition of trans people in language must be wholly stamped out. They are completely unreasonable, and impossible to have a level-headed conversation with. They are trying to return to a world where trans people were only spoken of in hushed tones in the dark, or featured at the circus as the dancing bearded freak.

But society has advanced so far beyond them on this that they know they are on their last rhetorical legs. While accusing trans people of being “language police” or “authoritarian,” they throw their twitter hordes at any semblance of trans inclusivity. They are hypocrites, the lot of them.