About a year or so ago, Inside Your Pregnant Body, Stages of Labor, Stages of Labor from Baby’s Perspective, After Baby’s Born, and Hormones Naturally Produced in Labor were all updated to ensure gender neutral language.

In light of Pride Month and recent events including the Supreme Court prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and the Trump administration finalizing a rule that would remove nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people when it comes to health care and health insurance — we’d like to reiterate why this evolution of our work was so important.

As we continue to grow (especially in this new section of our site) we look forward to centering the voices of parents, professionals, and other folks within the LGBTQIA+ community — speaking to the many topics that we so rarely speak to.

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why does gender neutral language matter? for who?

Gender neutral language is for everyone. It is not a rejection of feminine identities, or masculine ones. Rather, it seeks to recognize and respect the broad spectrum of identities held in our communities by excluding none.

why does The Educated Birth engage in this conversation?

Because it impacts the providers and birth workers who use our materials as well as the people our materials are created to speak to — who are trying to conceive, are pregnant, are giving birth, and are beginning their journeys as parents (link; link). Everyone deserves to feel welcomed and to be treated with compassionate, high quality care — language is a part of that.

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