Teachers' union conference discusses replacing the word mother with 'birthing person'
Director of the Center for Effective Education Dr. Terry Stoops joined 'The Ingraham Angle' to provide an inside look into what teachers' unions are trying to teach children.
Last week video from a fiery Senate hearing went viral which featured GOP Senator Josh Hawley squaring off against Berkeley law Professor Khiara Bridges over our latest culture war soccer ball, whether men can become pregnant. It is worth watching, and breaking down, because it perfectly captures the definitional stalemate we find ourselves in regarding gender and biological sex.
Hawley asked the witness if the term, "people with a capacity for pregnancy," meant "women." Bridges answered by laying out her position that some non-trans women do not have the capacity for pregnancy, and that some trans men do. But it is what happened next that is not only telling, but also chilling.
With a nervous and condescending laugh, Bridges interrupted the line of questioning to say to Hawley, "I want to recognize that your line of questioning is trans phobic. And it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing them." She pointed out high suicide rates for trans people and asked Hawley if he believes men can get pregnant, to which Hawley, echoing the views of most Americans, said "no."
WOKE LIBERALS PUSH TO REPLACE ‘MOTHER’ WITH ‘BIRTHING PARENT’ TO APPEASE TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY
According to Bridges and the American left to even question out loud if men can be pregnant is an immoral act of violence that must not be tolerated. But here’s the thing, the belief that men can become women or vice versa is just that, a belief, an opinion. You can line up experts from here to Timbuktu to gravely say that science says trans women are women, period, but it's still an opinion.
Is she a birthing person? In this photo illustration a laughing mother holding her baby on April 21, 2020, in Bonn, Germany. (Ute Grabowsky/Photothek via Getty Images)
The issue that the trans movement, and the Democrats by the way, have today is that fewer and fewer people, especially those in power, will be bullied into silence by vague accusations of bigotry. When we see male swimmers dominate women, when we see men in women’s prisons and shelters, we will no longer just say that women have to tolerate it or they are literally causing violence.
What was fascinating in the exchange was the total certainty with which Bridges scolded a somewhat stunned Hawley. It was not her opinion that he was trans phobic, it was a fact. Let us assume that the left is acting in good faith in trying to protect trans people, as we all should. Even if that is their goal, the implications of erasing biologically based gender for parents are deep, far-reaching, and absolutely must be discussed, not imposed.
According to a 2018 article in the journal Contemporary Pediatrics, parents surveyed preferred the terms "mom" and "dad" when being referred to by doctors over all options, including first name or title. Most parents can recall the birth of their eldest child, when a doctor or nurse called them mom or dad for the first time and that reality sinking in. I’m mom now, I’m dad now, not, I’m a birthing person or sperm provider, now.
It has been said that in very important ways language is not only the vessel of our thoughts, but also the driver. What chafes so many Americans about these antiseptic terms like "birthing person" is that they quite intentionally remove all of the cultural significance of the ancient term, "mother." The term implies no love or caring, just a body hosting a clump of cells. And of course, that is exactly how the left views abortion and surrogacy, a birthing person is not carrying her or his child, so much as a potential life that may as well belong to society or the state.
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Experts in ivory towers may have already decided that we should abandon thousands of years of calling parents mothers and fathers, words known in every language, but the American people have not. If the elites want to succeed in convincing the rest of us to use birthing person, or person capable of pregnancy, and let's hope that never happens. It will have to be through persuasion, not through the kind of moral bullying Bridges directed at Hawley.
The term emerging right now to capture almost all of the left’s sexual policies is "bodily autonomy." It is used to defend abortion, transgender surgery for kids, surrogacy, and sex work. These are all tied together now, in fact the hearing in question last week was ostensibly about abortion.
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Words matter, those which are ancient and cherished tend toward human connection and love, those newly created to redefine gender tend towards a scientism of disconnectedness.
The old words passed down for millennia that convey the true spirit of a mother and father’s bond with their children will not pass from our society. We need them, they are a deep and profound part of what makes us human.
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