Mick Hartley

It's the article we've been waiting for. Gender-inclusive language in midwifery and perinatal services: A guide and argument for justice. The abstract:

Effective communication in relation to pregnancy and birth is crucial to quality care. A recent focus in reproductive healthcare on “sexed language” reflects an ideology of unchangeable sex binary and fear of erasure, from both cisgender women and the profession of midwifery. In this paper, we highlight how privileging sexed language causes harm to all who birth—including pregnant trans, gender diverse, and non-binary people—and is, therefore, unethical and incompatible with the principles of midwifery. We show how this argument, which conflates midwifery with essentialist thinking, is unstable, and perpetuates and misappropriates midwifery's marginalized status. We also explore how sex and gender essentialism can be understood as colonialist, heteropatriarchal, and universalist, and therefore, reinforcing of these harmful principles. Midwifery has both the opportunity and duty to uphold reproductive justice. Midwifery can be a leader in the decolonization of childbirth and in defending the rights of all childbearing people, the majority of whom are cisgender women. As the systemwide use of inclusive language is central to this commitment, we offer guidance in relation to how inclusive language in perinatal and midwifery services may be realized.

Yep, they've really drunk the kool-aid.

The notion of childbearing having a necessary or logical belonging within the nuclear two-parent family initiated by heterosexual couples whose gender has a normative relationship with their sex assigned at birth is a recent development in our human history, and one still inconsistently observed around the globe. Indeed, community and extended family are often as, if not more important. Yet, more recently and particularly in the Global North, perinatal and midwifery services have been positioned as “woman” centered and understood exclusively in heteropatriarchal and cisnormative terms. There is increasing recognition that such understandings are colonial in nature and do not acknowledge gender diversity. Thus there have been calls for reform through the development of inclusive guidelines and policies to be reflective of all who birth. However, there is a conservative counter-resistance calling for the continued use of “sexed language”. In this paper, we will illustrate how such a move inadvertently reinforces the structures that presently oppress all birthing people, the majority of whom are cisgender women, and midwifery itself.

I have nothing to add.

[Via Ophelia B]