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Comment by SilverBirch | Hacker News Reader

I saw this article posted earlier and was going to comment but thought “you know what, this is obviously not HN material, I’ll just flag it”. 12 hours later, loads of upvotes and hundreds of comments. Fine.

HN news is discussion about technology, start ups, and creating stupid moral panics to stir up hatred against groups you want to oppress.

In this case I actually have first hand experience of this topic, my wife is currently pregnant. Not once have I seen any price of advice or information that in any way has been less useful because of inclusive language. This whole article is attacking a problem - using inclusive language - that only exists if you hate the people being included and don’t want them included. Which apart from being obviously morally repugnant is also something that seems like an odd discussion to have on a tech website. I guess we’re interested in ethics in game journalism again…

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Why would or should men be included in something they are excluded from by nature, by biology, and by logic? Especially when it's regarding medical information.

For example, you're not included in my family, not legally, not biologically. If you ask/demand to be in my family simply because you say you feel like you are I'll say no but it will not mean I hate you, you're just not one of my family. My saying you're not is not anti-you or you-phobic. Your saying it wouldn't harm anyone to allow you and/or others to identify as being part of my family is simply nonsense, especially if my family disagree.

Thus, I'd like to see some justification for your claims.

And yet adoption exists. When a parent comes with their adopted child to the doctor, we don't expect the doctor to say "No, this person is not your dad, he's your guardian. You don't have the same chromosomes, you can't make me deny this biological reality." If the doctor insisted on saying that and on refusing to use the word "parent" or "dad" when referring to the father, we might indeed infer that the doctor is adoption-phobic.

> Why would or should men be included in something they are excluded from by nature, by biology, and by logic?

If we're including "trans men" in the category of "men" (and I think there are good reasons to do so, the same way we accept adoption as real parentage), then there indeed exists an edge case of people in the category of "men" getting pregnant.

I included legally so the whole bit about adoption is moot, and hence the rest of your argument based on it. That’s a child, that’s an adult male, he’s the legal guardian therefore he’s dad. There’s a pregnant adult female, she’s not dad. Why? Because men can’t get pregnant, for one.

> I included legally so the whole bit about adoption is moot, and hence the rest of your argument based on it.

Oh, my mistake. I thought we were trying to exchange arguments in good faith to better understand other people's perspective, but we were actually playing the "my argument destroys yours with facts and logic" game.

Here, let me adjust.

> Because men can’t get pregnant, for one.

Except trans men can get pregnant, so your point is moot, and hence the rest of your argumentation based on it.

Transmen are women who want to be men. The fact that some can and have become pregnant is because they are women.

If you were arguing in good faith then surely you’d use the argument I’d presented already, and not ignore it for your convenience.

Since we’re playing the logic game (and it would be strange if we were playing some game without logic - I fear that you may be), trans-men are a sub-category of women, not men, so you’ll need to expand on which part of my argument is moot.

> Why would or should men be included in something they are excluded from by nature, by biology, and by logic? Especially when it's regarding medical information

I think you made the classic mistake of assuming that terms such as “birthing parent” are a way of including trans women. They aren’t. They’re for the benefit of trans men and non-binary individuals who are able to give birth. This isn’t about including people incapable of giving birth. It’s about including people who ARE.

Thanks for pointing out the mistake, but since the people giving birth are women and only women can give birth then what is the need to change the terms? They're included.

That’s a nice tautology you’ve got there. Regardless, looking at people who explicitly say “we are not women” and then saying “they’re women” seems a bit rude and dismissive of their life experience if you ask me. Personally, if a person with a full beard, an imposing physique, and a deep voice says “I’m a man”, I take them at their word. I guess you might ask them to drop their pants to see if they’re really a “woman”, though.

The only reason it can be a tautology is because of the fact that women are the only ones who can get pregnant, it’s an observation that accords with reality.

I’m willing to go along with a lot of things an individual wants, calling them a name of their choosing, not bringing up the obvious incongruities in their appearance etc all out of respect, so much of it is simply breaking gender norms that why wouldn’t I? But I’m not the one breaking the spell here, they are, men can’t get pregnant, that’s not breaking a gender norm, that is an impossibility and I’m not willing to go along with such clear nonsense. If they want to continue the charade then don’t get pregnant. That’s not on me or anyone else.

Not all women can become pregnant but if someone is currently pregnant then that proves they are a woman.

What is the information given when someone states "I am a woman/man"?

You do realize this is about transmen not transwomen.

Transmen can and do get pregnant if they keep their reproductive system intact.

All these angry people haven’t even taken the time to learn about the subject.

My point was that transmen aren’t men but it was easier to continue the subsequent posts as if it was a mistake because I wanted to hear that person’s point instead of get caught up in something they probably wanted to avoid.

The fact is, it works either way as my position adheres to biological reality. Is there some reason I should not speak the truth? Really, I’d like to hear your reasoning for that.

It's kind of sad that in response to an article which initially talks about women's feelings, the actual feelings of women aren't talked about at all.

An extremely good point made by another commentator is that the article turns into an attack on trans women with little discussion on trans men.

That is what I came away with as well. We just went through a pregnancy and the last thing we had a problem with was inclusive language.

Also for non native speakers, we have non native websites and youtube channels which provide a lot of material.

If you have to design a databse schema for gender this is a tech topic.

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