Women’s rights groups have voiced their fury after council officials insisted pregnant women should be referred to as “people with ovaries”.
Green Party-led Bristol City Council officers demanded support for biological men wishing to engage in “chestfeeding” for their babies, alongside calling for the term “maternity” to be more inclusive to transgender individuals.
The demands were were made by the council officials in response to an Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) consultation surrounding changes to its guidance on equality, The Telegraph revealed.
The changes came after April’s landmark Supreme Court ruling which determined the terms “woman” and “sex” in gender legislation only refer to a biological woman and biological sex.
Green Party-led Bristol City Council officers demanded support for biological men wishing to engage in ‘chestfeeding’
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The objections raised by the council officers included calls for “she/her” pronouns to be avoided when talking about pregnancy – because not all “pregnant individuals” identify as women.
They added that gendered language risked causing “additional emotional and psychological distress” towards trans men and non-binary people.
The officers’ submission added: “We strongly advise the use of more inclusive language such as using ‘they/them’ to refer to all individuals or include other identities to reflect the diversity of individuals who access maternity or paternity services.
“This could include ‘people with ovaries’ or the term ‘people who use paternity services’.”
Council officers included calls for ‘she/her’ pronouns to be avoided when talking about pregnancy
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“The statement that pregnancy and maternity protections ‘apply on the basis of biological sex’ is too vague.
“It is unclear whether it refers to anyone capable of pregnancy, or only those who were assigned female at birth.
“If protections apply to anyone who can become pregnant including some trans men and non-binary people, this should be stated clearly.”
Feminist groups like the Women’s Right’s Network (WRN) have blasted the council officers for their “ridiculous virtue-signalling”.
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Heather Binning said: ‘In their efforts to be inclusive, they not only manage to be scientifically illiterate but also offensive to women’
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WRN director Heather Binning said: “In their efforts to be inclusive they not only manage to be scientifically illiterate but also offensive to women.”
Sex Matters chief executive Maya Forstater agreed with Ms Binning that the comments made in the submission was “offensive to women”.
She added: “The move to erase sex-based language for women around pregnancy, maternity and breastfeeding protections and services is not only nonsense from a scientific perspective, but deeply offensive to women.”
And Mara Ricoy Olariaga from the feminist FiLiA group said: “Reducing women to our reproductive organs is not inclusive, it is dehumanising.
“Many women do not have ovaries due to age, illness, surgery, or natural variation, yet they remain women.
“Defining us by body parts both excludes these women and obscures the material reality of our lives.”
A spokesman for Bristol City Council said the authority has since “undertaken to review relevant policies and procedures following publication of the updated statutory guidance from the EHRC”.
