Sociolinguistic Artifacts

“It’s also easier to think about pregnancy as a manly activity if we butch up the language we use. I trained midwives, a doula, Ob/Gyns, and even a lactation consultant to talk about “pregnant people” not “pregnant women,” or “pregnant ladies.” A number of ciswomen friends had also complained that when they became pregnant they went from being “women” to “ladies” and they found the prissiness of the word uncomfortable. They too found “pregnant person” a better fit, especially if it meant not being referred to as a “lady” all the time. If we talk about “nursing,” focusing on the action of providing for one’s child rather than “breastfeeding,” focusing on a body part assumed to be feminine, even this activity can sound more manly.   Pregnancy made me a dad. Pregnancy has been making dads out of men since about nine months after sex was discovered. I know fine men who have become dads in a variety of ways, some by love, some by adoption and fostering, some by other means, and I do not believe that there is any one traditional way of going about it. There are more common and less common ways, but all of them have a history and tradition. I became a dad through pregnancy and birth. Along the way, people who love me created the language of “bearing father” and “seahorse papa.” We’re queers, and we are well versed in creating the language we need to describe our realities. We will bring our world into being through words, as we bring babies into being through our bodies." [Published on 2010]