Mick Hartley

The NHS may be erasing women, but there are still a few people around with some sense:

The government has overturned an attempt to introduce gender-neutral language on a piece of legislation that had referred to “expectant people” instead of mothers.

Downing Street acted over the Ministerial and Other Maternity Allowances Bill, which was designed to make provision for ministers on maternity leave.

Before it received royal assent the bill was amended to replace gender-neutral nouns with gendered ones such as “mother”.

New guidance has now been issued by the government to ensure similar language is not repeated in future bills.

A government source told The Times: “The government is ensuring that sex-specific language continues to be used in the drafting of legislation where appropriate. This is crucial to ensure that the experiences of women are not erased while drafting legislation and reflects ministers’ concerns that militant Stonewall guidance has crept into the civil service with a political agenda to erase women and the concept of biological sex.”…

Downing Street has come under increasing pressure from within the Tory party to resist moves by pro-trans campaigners to impose gender-neutral rules….

Baroness Noakes, a Tory peer, criticised “an increasing use of language that eliminates women. People who challenge this in public are often labelled transphobic”.

“I am proud of my own record on LGBT issues, both in your lordships’ House and in the organisations with which I have been involved, but I am not prepared to be erased as a woman.”

Baroness Gale, a Labour peer, added: “Considering that only women can get pregnant and give birth, I cannot see any reason why ‘woman’ cannot be used. I believe in using gender-neutral language where appropriate, but I do not believe it is appropriate in this bill.”

Baroness Hayman, a crossbencher, said: “The price of so-called gender neutrality in this bill is an awkward and ugly distortion of the English language and an affront to common sense.

“Far from encouraging respect for language and the recognition of diversity, to which I am fully committed, it risks bemusing and alienating the public and damaging the very causes that passionate advocates of such language espouse.”

She said: “There is no malice in wishing to maintain the biological facts of womanhood and the lived experience of women, which includes menstruation, childbirth and menopause. That view happily co-exists with respect and concern for transgender people.

Can someone please tell the NHS.