This one’s a real head scratcher!
Sometimes it’s a bit too easy to write ignorance off as stupidity or to believe that there are some concepts people just can’t grasp or understand.
Assuming low intelligence is the reason people hate things they don’t understand is both insulting and also giving those people a pass.
It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are, you may still be a victim of existing in a normal world and have fallen prey to all the trappings that go along with that. So when presented with a true alternative way of living, it will still seem wrong to you.
Unlearning can be just as hard, if not harder than learning.
So, my customer is intelligent, let’s call her Sue. She’s studying physics at university and wants to move on to higher levels eventually doing a PHD.
She’s in her 30’s, so not a naive youngster and yet we had this conversation.
Somehow we started talking about the event on BBC news, where the presenter disagreed with the autocue and used a different word instead.
On 22nd June 2025, when reading the autocue for a news report about a study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Croxal changed – “with emphasis and a slight roll of her eyes” – the words “pregnant people” to “women”.
My customer agreed with what the presenter said and didn’t think she should be punished or that what was said was controversial or in any kind of dispute.
I was curious to know why she disagreed with the use of the word ‘people’ and of course biology entered the chat.
She then said a few conflicting and confusing things at the same time as assuring me she has trans colleagues and gets along with them just fine! In the same way somebody who just said something racist tells you they have Black friends… cool.
She thinks that only women can get pregnant and have children.
She doesn’t like the idea that men can get pregnant because that’s taking something away from women. She feels like it’s an encroachment of some kind.
Lastly, she doesn’t accept that trans people can ever really stop being the gender/sex assigned at birth.
So although she wouldn’t be horrible to trans people and in everyday life would be polite and respectful, she believes they can never be the sex/gender they present as.
That’s transphobic by the way.
So in her eyes a trans man is still a woman. Regardless of how they look.
And yet if a trans man gets pregnant, that’s taking something away from women?
…
But she had also just stated that trans men still are women because she believes nobody can actually transition!
See what I mean?! In which case, nothing is being taken away. Nothing was being taken away in the first place!
It took me a minute to process those thoughts. Trying to understand another person’s conflicting beliefs is hard.
Those were her feelings, deeply rooted in traditional gender roles.
Clearly she hadn’t thought about it much before, if at all and we both went through the process together. She couldn’t articulate her feelings and there was a lot of talking around the issues.
I won’t get into biology or gender here, this is about exploring the conflicting ideas and feelings my customer was having around the concept of a pregnant man.
Personally I think the use of the phrase ‘pregnant people’ wasn’t an issue, there’s nothing false about those two sequential words. It’s inclusive of men, women, non-binary and anybody else that considers themselves to be a person.
But, it’s evidence that once again, the world has conditioned us to adhere strictly to binary gender roles and introducing a (it’s not new) concept to people who otherwise wouldn’t encounter it in real life was blowing people’s minds.
Just like men having periods or women with penises. People are largely unaware, because contrary to popular belief, the LGBTQIA+ community isn’t actually shoving it in your face all the time.
Understanding it is pretty simple really:
Every combination of human anatomy, sexuality and gender is possible.
That’s it!
Teach that to kids in school, teach it to adults now. Once that is understood maybe people would be less concerned with the details?
Having pointed out the conflict in her reasoning, the conversation with Sue moved on to other things. But I do wonder how she feels about it now and whether she’s been able to come to any conclusions or resolve the dissonance?
The problem with this way of thinking is that people like Sue don’t consider themselves to be transphobic, because they’re respectful and polite in person and aren’t out there protesting, attacking or using slurs against them etc.
They believe themselves to be good people.
But when laws and legislations get passed through Parliament that negatively affect trans lives, Sue actually agrees with them, because according to her trans people are the gender assigned at birth no matter what.
Her passivity and inflexibility of thought around sex and gender has led her to side with the oppressor.
According to Sue and the law, this person should use the female toilet…
Do you see the problem?
Lastly, are men really trying to take pregnancy away from women?
Erm, have you met men? Men won’t drink soy milk, use a pink tape measure or cry because they think it’s girly/queer and fear emasculation.
So no, I think it’s pretty safe to say that cis het men don’t want to get pregnant.
Scan to donate
Red Threads 