Birthing Person

Social Justice Usage

Source: I sit before you today as a single mom, as a nurse, as an activist, congresswoman, and I am committed to doing the absolute most to protect black mothers, to protect black babies, to protect black birthing people, and to save lives. –Representative Cori Bush (D-MO), May 6, 2021

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Source: Globally, ethnic minority pregnant and birthing people suffer worse outcomes and experiences during and after pregnancy and childbirth. These inequities have been further highlighted by #COVID19. … The webinar panelists used the term “birthing person” to include those who identify as non-binary or transgender because not all who give birth identify as “women” or “girls.” We understand the reactions to this terminology and in no way meant for it to erase or dehumanize women

New Discourses Commentary

A “birthing person” is a mother, as rendered in the ideologically sanitized Woke newspeak of Critical Social Justice, especially if that mother does not identify as a woman. The purpose behind changing the word “mother” to “birthing person” has a great deal to do with transgender ideology, thus with queer Theory and gender studies. Under these ideologies, it is often considered offensive, problematic, or even traumatic or violent (see also, violence of categorization) to misgender someone or to claim that only women are mothers because this would exclude trans men, who are supposed to be considered men, even though they (may) have the biologically female anatomy and therefore could give birth under certain conditions. It could also exclude non-binary and other gender non-conforming people who may not want to identify with the term “mother” (see also, identity). Because the word “mother” is generally coded as female, that word has to be avoided in order to promote greater transgender inclusion and belonging, thus necessitating the rather sterile and inhuman term “birthing person” for mothers under the ideological assumptions of these Theories.

Understanding this requires understanding some of the underlying social constructivist thesis upon which critical theories of gender, sex, and sexuality (including queer Theory) operate (see also, blank slatism). This thesis holds that some or all of sex, gender, and sexuality are social constructions that are imposed upon society and people within society by the norms, expectations, and discourses of society (see also, normativity). Thus, under social constructivism applied to sex, a person is not born a man or a woman but is assigned as a man or woman at birth, which is then reinforced by the expectations society puts upon them to be boys and girls and then later men and women (see also, man and woman). This may not suit them at the level of either or both of sex or gender, however, in terms of how they understand their own identities. A term like “mother,” which would then code them as female under the social constructions of motherhood, is therefore potentially problematic for people who accept a social constructivist view of sex (or, potentially, even just of gender).

To take understanding this bizarre line of thought to a deeper level requires understanding both a little of the Critical Theory and the postmodern Theory that underlie and inform the Critical Social Justice ideology. This is because this ideology proceeds using a tool known as critical constructivism, which combines the social constructivism from postmodernism (technically, poststructuralism—see also, Derridean, Butlerian, and phallogocentrism) with the critical methodology of Critical Theory. The Critical Theory line of thought present here holds that the usual expectations of society are problematic and uphold systems of oppression (here, for example, transphobia, cisnormativity, and cissexism). The postmodern (or poststructural) line of thought adds to this that this oppression is mainly generated, enforced, and maintained through the use of language (see also, discourse, Foucauldian, and language game). Thus, calling mothers “mothers,” which is coded female, would code all people who have or may give birth as female, thus generating and maintaining the systemic oppression they experience as a result of their existence. In this way, the term “birthing person” could be understood as a rather staggering example of what might be called “discourse engineering” (see also, political correctness), which names the attempt to change the underlying systems of power in society by changing the language used to describe things. It’s difficult to imagine thinking this way unless one is a critical constructivist, but adherents to Critical Social Justice are exactly that.

In a slightly more sinister vein that cannot be wholly neglected, one might also understand the application of the term “birthing person” to mean “mother” as a part of the broad Cultural Marxist attempt to undermine the institution of the family (see also, neo-Marxism, Critical Theory, aufheben, Gramscian, and long march through the institutions). The Albanian-Italian communist theorist Antonio Gramsci, often considered the father of Cultural Marxism, identified five key pillars of culture that must be infiltrated and subverted from within to make way for communism in the West (see also, hegemony and counter-hegemony). These are religion, family, education, media, and law. The concept of mothers, fathers, and their children are central to the idea of the family, however, so a linguistic deconstruction of any or all of these ideas, possibly most essentially “motherhood,” does some of the exact work that intuition suggests it would. The term “birthing person” conceptually weakens the idea of a core pillar of the family (an aufheben der Familie). Viewing the topic in this light suggests that the concept of trans and gender non-conforming inclusivity is, in fact, merely a conceptual cover for a more sinister objective. That said, the majority of the people taking up the term “birthing person” (though not all of them) will not be aware of this more sinister application and will do so under the assumption that they are improving inclusivity, not knowing they are dismantling the institution of the family (upon which healthy civilizations depends).

Related Terms

Aufheben; Belonging; Blank slatism; Butlerian; Cisnormativity; Cissexism; Code; Counter-hegemony; Critical; Critical constructivism; Critical Theory; Cultural Marxism; Deconstruction; Derridean; Discourse; Dismantle; Exclusion; Foucauldian; Gender; Gender non-conforming; Gender studies; Gramscian; Hegemony; Identity; Ideology; Inclusion; Language game; Long march through the institutions; Man; Neo-Marxism; Misgender; Non-binary; Norm; Normativity; Oppression; Phallogocentrism; Political correctness; Postmodern; Poststructuralism; Power (systemic); Problematic; Queer Theory; Sex; Sexuality; Social construction; Social constructivism; Social Justice; Theory; Transgender; Transphobia; Trauma; Violence; Violence of categorization; West, the; Woke/Wokeness; Woman

Revision date: 5/14/21

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James Lindsay