Across the United States, mainstream institutions such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and CNN are increasingly opting for gender-neutral terms such as “pregnant,” “abortionists,” and “birthers.” parent’ in favor of ‘women’ when referring to pregnancy, fertility and abortion. These changes in terminology signal an effort to include transgender and non-binary people who can also get pregnant. But the changes have also sparked backlash — not only from Republican politicians who are openly hostile to LGBTQ people, but also from some cisgender women (women whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth) who consider themselves LGBTQ allies and those who support abortion rights. “We’re not just talking about the same people we were before. We’re broadening the scope,” said Kristen Syrett, an associate professor of linguistics at Rutgers University. “And I think that’s where people are most uncomfortable because it’s so different from the way we’ve thought about reproductive rights and pregnancy for a long time.” Discussions of language can seem arbitrary at a time when so many no longer have access to abortion services at home. But at the heart of these debates are questions about who is targeted by restrictive laws and policies, who is affected, and who is included in the debate.
LAWYERS SAY TERMS INCLUDE MAKE ROOM FOR ALL AFFECTED
Using inclusive language to talk about abortion recognizes that not only cis women can get pregnant, said Gillian Branstetter, communications strategist at the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Program and LGBTQ & HIV Program. Some trans men and non-binary people can also get pregnant, as can cis girls and trans boys. This also applies to the opposite: Not all women can get pregnant. Some cis women struggle with fertility, while trans women don’t have a uterus. Choosing gender-neutral terms like “people” or “patients” allows for these nuances in a way that just saying “women” doesn’t. There is little data on how many trans and non-binary people get pregnant and get abortions, given that medical systems in the US track them as women. A 2019 study from Rutgers University suggests that up to 30% of trans men experience unplanned pregnancies, and a 2020 study by researchers at the Guttmacher Institute and Planned Parenthood estimated that between 462 and 530 trans and non-binary people had abortions in 2017 ( the CDC reports that about 609,000 total abortions were performed that year). As more adults identify as trans or non-binary, experts say such estimates are likely to be undercounted. But those numbers pale in comparison to the number of cis women accessing reproductive health care — a point often made by critics of more inclusive terms. Branstetter acknowledged this reality, noting that “99% of people who are going to get pregnant or need birth control or an abortion are women.” But making space for trans and non-binary people is necessary precisely because of the significant barriers they face in getting reproductive care, she added. “It’s important to remember that trans people don’t have the privilege of pretending we don’t exist.”
SOME FEEL GENDER-NEUTRAL TERMS ERASE THE ROLE OF SEXISM
Others worry that dropping the term “women” obscures what they see as the driving force behind attacks on abortion rights: misogyny. Carrie Baker, professor of women’s and gender studies at Smith College, considers gender-neutral terms such as “pregnant people” imprecise and imprecise. Theoretically, he said, “man” also includes cisgender men, whose bodies are unaffected by abortion restrictions. Baker said she recognizes the importance of being inclusive and tries to mention in her writing, whenever possible, the various groups affected by abortion restrictions. But because he sees cisgender women as the primary targets of the abortion ban, he said the focus should be on women. If we don’t, Baker said, sexist laws that seek to control women’s bodies are erased. “‘Pregnant people’ doesn’t say who we’re talking about. It makes (pregnancy) sound like it’s a gender-neutral phenomenon or a gender-neutral phenomenon,” she added. “I believe abortion bans are motivated by gender discrimination and prejudice against women and cisgender women or just femininity.” As some abortion rights advocates now look to the Equal Rights Amendment to establish a constitutional right to abortion, Baker said it is necessary to be clear about the role of sexism in abortion restrictions to challenge such laws. To do this effectively, in her view, is to name women. “I think we need to talk about it or we’ll basically be doing what the right is doing, which is trying to erase the significance of the discriminatory impact of abortion bans,” Baker said. Some have gone so far as to suggest that women as a class are being erased. Earlier this year, New York Times columnist Pamela Paul denounced the use of terms like “pregnant people” in an op-ed, writing that “This isn’t just a semantic issue, it’s also an issue of moral harm, an affront to our very sense of self.” The Atlantic’s Helen Lewis accused the left of “declaring war on saying ‘women.’ “By replacing people with women, we lose the ability to talk about women as a class. We dissolve them into pieces, into functions, into commodities,” she argued. Syrett, the Rutgers University linguist, understands where those concerns come from, but encourages people to think about what they’re signaling with their choices. “It seems natural for some people to (feel) that it’s taking something away or maybe not honoring a part of what they’ve associated with womanhood for so long,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for everyone, regardless of their own stance on reproductive issues or their own experience, to step back and ask what it means to talk about ‘women’ versus ‘females’ versus ‘people with ability reproduction”. .’”
OTHERS SAY THE DEBATE PRESENTS A FALSE DIOCH
For the ACLU’s Branstetter, claims that women are being erased are exaggerated. Progressive organizations co-opt terms like “pregnant” in their own public messaging campaigns, but no one is forcing women to stop identifying as pregnant, she said. Moreover, the word “women” continues to be central to many national debates about abortion — from the Women’s Health Protection Act that sought to codify Roe v. Wade to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization of Jackson who overthrew him. “I think the deconstruction of the word ‘woman’ is way overdone,” Branstetter said. “And I don’t think there’s any harm in making room for the many people who need that care who aren’t women.” Advocates of more inclusive terms also believe that such debates present a false dichotomy. Oliver Hall, transgender health director for the Kentucky Health Justice Network, said critics of terms like “pregnant people” miss the ways that trans and non-binary people are also hurt by misogyny. Recognizing what drives abortion restrictions and creating space for trans and non-binary people are not mutually exclusive, they added. “I think people feel that not just saying ‘women’ means we can’t talk about the role that misogyny plays in these laws,” Hall said. “But I think that also hurts trans people who are also affected not only by these laws, but by misogyny in general.” Including trans and non-binary people in the fight for abortion rights doesn’t mean we’re taking anything away from cisgender women, Hall said. Instead, a more inclusive coalition has the potential to strengthen the abortion rights movement. At the heart of abortion bans is a desire to uphold traditional gender roles, Branstetter said, comparing them to efforts to ban gender-affirming care. “What the effort to ban abortion and the effort to erase trans people from public life have in common is the imposition of a very strict gender binary based on the exploitation of reproductive labor,” she said. “This is a more complicated story than ‘They do it because they hate women.’ But it’s more real.”
