14 weeks, 6 days: On Saying "Pregnant People"

I try to remember to say "pregnant people", not "pregnant women".  Here's why.

A story

Right around the time I found out I was pregnant, I created a profile on The Bump app.  I joined a message board, and spent an entire 5 minutes on it before I was done.  Here's the story of why.

When I joined the app, the first place I went was the November due dates message board.  How cool would it be, I figured, to meet people who were going to have babies around the same time as me??

First entry: "Hi everyone, I'm a FTM, due November 6th.  I live in such-and-such city, and my hobbies are blah blah blah..."  

Honestly, everything after the first sentence was a bit of a blur.  Because I couldn't hear it over the voice in my brain that was screaming, "that is SO GREAT that a pregnant trans guy is posting on this message board!  I can't wait to bond with him about our pregnancies."

I scrolled.  A few entries beginning, "hi ladies!" or "hi mamas-to-be!"  (Side note to all pregnancy industry professionals, seriously, stop calling me "mama".  I'm not a mom yet, and even if I were, I'm not yours.  And even if I were, I'd prefer you call me "mom" or "mommy".)

And I felt myself huff.  "Ugh.  So insensitive.  This person JUST posted that he's an FTM - have ever considered that maybe some people on here don't identify as ladies??"

More scrolling.  Another FTM?  What are the chances?  

And then... STM.  STM?  What identity starts with S?  I try to keep up, and as a person who works with transgender folks, I usually do pretty well, but I couldn't...figure...it...out.  Sapiosexual?  That's an identity that starts with S.  But it doesn't make sense in context.  I can't... think of anything else?  What am I missing?

And then a lightbulb.

In my world, FtM means Female-to-Male, as in a transgender man.

In The Bump's world, it's an acronym that means First Time Mom.

But there ARE pregnant people who don't identify as female

Thomas Beattie was on the cover of Time Magazine when I was in graduate school because he was a pregnant man.  He has since borne three children.  There are also TONS of people who identify as non-binary who become pregnant.  A lot of these folks talk about major dysphoria around issues related to their pregnancies.

And yes, the vast majority of people who become pregnant identify as women.  But shit, the last thing in the whole world I want to do is alienate people who are already struggling with what I can attest is a huge life transition with a lot of physical and emotional impact.

So I don't say "pregnant women".  I say "pregnant people".  It's inclusive, it's still accurate, and it does no harm to anyone.

14 weeks, 6 days: Why I'm Starting This Blog

I'm 14 weeks pregnant, and my primary symptom at the moment is insomnia.  It's 12:46 AM, and that frustrating symptom is the primary reason that I'm starting this blog, which I've been chewing on for awhile, right now in this moment.

But more broadly, I'm starting this blog because as I navigate the newness of pregnancy, I've been talking to a lot of people about a lot of things that are coming up for me.  Things like...

• How do I stop people from aggressively gendering my baby before he's even born?
• When I'm "showing" enough that strangers notice, will I cease to be anything but a container to the strangers I encounter, and will they treat me with about that amount of regard?
• What do the changes to my body mean from a body positivity perspective?
• What do the changes to my energy level mean about my perception of myself as an ambitious high achiever?
• In what ways are pregnancy and parenting a political act?

Some of the people I talk to roll their eyes.  (You know who you are.)  Others tell me that my experiences resonate with them.  And yet others tell me that they've never thought of things that way, but that it's an interesting way to think about things.

I've searched really hard...  I've Googled myself into oblivion, I've read articles, and in 14 weeks of pregnancy (only 10 of which I've known I'm pregnant), I've read 5 pregnancy books.

So I'm starting this blog on the off chance that I have something to say that might be worth hearing to some pregnant people. 

I named this blog really deliberately.  You may notice that the title of the blog is different than the URL I've chosen.  Following is my rationale:

Whimsical

There are feminist voices in the pregnancy writing world.  The most prominent of these is Angela Garbes, the writer of Like a Mother, which I finished reading about a week ago.  Another is the writer of a fantastic blog article I found when I was first (very briefly) pregnant a year and a half ago, before my miscarriage, when I started Googling "feminist pregnancy".  It's called, "On Being a Cerebral Pregnant Feminist: You Are Not the Only One".  I loved reading both of these things.

But there's something that permeates these pieces of writing... for lack of a better word, a darkness.  There are jokes in both the book and the blog article, but there's also an overall sense of deep ambivalence - about motherhood, about pregnancy, about the dark history of the medical industrial complex.  A lot of what I've read about feminist pregnancies says, "I wasn't really sure I wanted to be a parent... but here we are, so now I'm processing it."

That isn't my story.  I've always wanted to be a parent.  Back in 2017, I briefly wrestled with the question of how I would weather the ways in which this would change my identity, but it was never a question of "if".  On the contrary, my IVF doctor would tell you I was downright urgent about the transition to parenthood.

Plus, it's important to me to bring levity to the things in my life.  So I chose "whimsical" because I think there's room for lighter voices in the realm of pregnancy writing.

Pregnant

Okay, this part is pretty obvious.  I'm gestating a human life.

But also, this is where the title of the blog diverges from the URL I chose.  The blog title, in its current incarnation, reads "Whimsical Pregnant Feminist", whereas the domain name in the URL is "WhimsicalFeministMom".  I chose that because I want the option to change the blog title and keep writing on this platform, should the muse strike, once the baby is born.

Feminist

This is such a core value to me.  I can't separate it from pregnancy, I can't separate it from anything about myself.  It's the reason I believe that my son will be raised to feel his feelings, and that if I have a daughter in the future, she will be taught that she is powerful beyond all measure.  It's the reason the pink/blue dichotomy is a fallacy that drives me bananas.  It's the reason that pregnancy and parenthood feel political.

I don't stop being an autonomous person because I'm pregnant, and the core of everything I write in this blog will be from a feminist perspective.  If that's not your jam, I'm probably the wrong blogger for you.  That's okay (sort of), but it means we'll be best off if we part ways now.

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Thanks for reading this introductory article.  I'm excited to delve into some content in the next few weeks.