So, a historical question - did these terms such as “pregnant person” get introduced by administrative diktat or by gradual evolution? I’m curious about the provenance of such terminology.
Administrators have elsewhere made changes like renaming manholes “maintenance holes”, is this mostly rolling back such decisions (in a characteristic bulldozer/chaotic style of course)?
The difference is that police officer and firefighter are roles that can be occupied by people of either sex, so the change of language from policeman and fireman made sense in that context.
By contrast, pregnancy is a state of being that is by its very nature female-only. Males cannot become pregnant, as by definition they lack a female reproductive system.
The "pregnant people" terminology implies that pregnancy is something that affects all people, male and female alike. But this is of course not true at all.
It's also not inclusive - consider that much of the sex-based oppression women experience goes back to the ability to conceive children. "Pregnant people" discards and downplays all of that.
Some people have unusual chromosomes, ie. Not women or men's, and they can still get pregnant. Other people transition but still have kids. Sex or gender; the language can apply just fine to anyone who gets pregnant and is appropriately vague. I am fairly certain the term isn't one of disrespect to women's rights or accomplishments.
Regardless of sex chromosome aneuploidies or a desire to be the opposite sex, everyone who is, who could be, or who has ever been pregnant is female.
Another point against using the phrase "pregnant people" instead of "pregnant women" is that it leaves no way to talk about women who aren't pregnant. "Non-pregnant people" includes every man and every prepubescent child.
> Regardless of sex chromosome aneuploidies or a desire to be the opposite sex, everyone who is, who could be, or who has ever been pregnant is female.
That is _your_ definition, and it is very debatable.
>Regardless of sex chromosome aneuploidies or a desire to be the opposite sex, everyone who is, who could be, or who has ever been pregnant is female.
Nature disagrees with you. There are many animals out there that can change sex. Sex, gender, etc etc don't have a perfect universal definition because nature doesn't work that way. The scientific literature is trying to capture the observed variety we see in humans and it will continue to evolve as our understanding evolves.
This whole line of argument reminds me of the history of pi and the governments that tried to legislate it to fixed values. Just because you want things to be simple doesn't mean that reality backs you up.
We're talking about humans. That some other animal species have a reproductive strategy of sequential hermaphroditism is not relevant to the conversation.
Both expressions "pregnant person" and "maintenance hole" came from DEI directives and have not organically evolved through time. To borrow your analogy, they bulldozed over existing expressions because of ideological reasons, hence generating great resistance from the population which didn't agree to such forced changes.
In my experience, it's never been an administrative push, but a desire to be more precise, more inclusive, or both, or to reflect the stated preferences of the populations we work with.
The only time I've had to fight with a scientific publisher about a term was when they errantly applied a ban on causal language to a study I was part of.
Administrators have elsewhere made changes like renaming manholes “maintenance holes”, is this mostly rolling back such decisions (in a characteristic bulldozer/chaotic style of course)?