It seems that anywhere you turn, the political correctness craze continues unabated. The last assault on reality comes from the other side of the Atlantic, where the British Medical Association is instructing physicians to stop calling pregnant women “expectant mothers” because it may offend the transgendered. Somehow.
Pregnant women should not be called “expectant mothers” over fears it could upset transgender people, it was claimed.
The British Medical Association has urged for them to be known as “pregnant people” so it can include intersex or transgender men.
The advice was published in a BMA internal leaflet entitled “A guide to effective communication: inclusive language in the workplace”.
It suggests “the elderly” should be referred to as “older people”, “disabled lifts” as “accessible lifts” and someone who is “biologically male or female” known as “assigned male or female”.
In the guide’s pregnancy section, it states: “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.
“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’”.
This sounds more like something you’d read in The Onion than an actual news item.
Maybe it’s now time to talk about limits to this nonsense.
If someone is born female but presents herself to the world as a male, I’m fine with treating that person as a male .. for the most part.
The same for someone who is born female but looks and acts like a male.
However, if someone is born a male and has a beard, I’m not going to trip all over myself to call him “ma’am” even if he is wearing a dress. If the person chooses to get offended, that’s on him.
Also, if a woman is pregnant then she’s going to be a mother regardless of whether she “identifies” as a male or not. After all, the term has much to do with biology.
Further, if a biological woman is having heterosexual intercourse with a man and gets pregnant, one is justified in wondering just how much she truly identifies as a male.
Muddying the waters and claiming that all women who are pregnant should be called “pregnant persons” is taking all of this to such an insane degree that it becomes impossible to take any of this mess seriously. By any metric we choose to use, someone who carries a baby to term inside her uterus and then delivers that baby in any way is that baby’s mother. Trying to change that accomplishes nothing except making you the subject of mockery.
But if the BMA want’s to be mocked, this is a fine way to make sure it happens.
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