There is a kind of language floating around today that sounds gentle on the surface — soft, neutral, inclusive. Words like: “birthing people”
There is a kind of language floating around today that sounds gentle on the surface — soft, neutral, inclusive. Words like:
“birthing people”
“people who give birth”
“the body that menstruates”
“parental carriers”
“pregnant bodies”
“we are one”
“we’re all the same”
“everyone experiences this the same way”
But here’s the truth:
This language may sound progressive, but it produces erasure.
And erasure produces danger.
Especially for Black women.
Because when you have lived long enough, when you have been to enough appointments, when you have compared the way you were treated with the way the men around you were treated — you know exactly who loses when the language gets foggy.
I do.
Black women do.
⭐ Diluted language hides the patterns that put us in harm’s way.
When I go to the doctor, I see the difference immediately.
The men in my family — same race, same community, same education/trade level — are treated with ease, respect, and immediate belief.
Their pain is valid.
Their symptoms are urgent.
Their questions are welcomed.
Their presence is taken seriously.
But once I walk in as a Black woman?
Until you find the right doctor, things may first become a merry-go-round of debate and unspoken tension.
My pain becomes “stress.”
My concerns become “anxiety.”
My questions become an inconvenience.
My symptoms become something to wave away.
And this is why I will not allow anyone to file me under terms like “birthing people” or “pregnant bodies.”
That language disguises the very thing I am fighting for: how Black women are treated — specifically.
As a disability advocate, I advocated hard for individual paralyzed women who were very specific about their hygiene and intimate care needs. They took matters to the top of the agencies and those agency owners told the women that they were being “difficult” and “ungrateful”. *Ms Ella called me because she did not want to stink to high heaven post wash and they were telling me that she was being difficult.
She called me at the office. Endured the humiliation of reviewing how to properly clean female parts because the carers they sent did not think it mattered much because she was female, in her senior years, and paralyzed. She needed to vent.
Ms. Ella was concerned about hygiene, overcall quality of care, and preventing female reproductive health infections that would require another cumbersome gynecological exam. She was concerned, angry, and tearful because she is human yes. But also because she had specific human needs.
So this is not about young women exclusively. Women of all ages have specific health and safety needs
⭐ Neutral language makes accountability impossible.
If I cannot say “woman,” then how do I talk about:
the gendered dismissal
the racial disparities
the specific danger Black women face
the specific medications that work differently in women’s bodies or even people from various regions of the world.
the specific bias attached to our pain
the specific stereotypes projected onto Black women in healthcare
I cannot hold a system accountable if I am not allowed to name who it is harming.
Specificity is survival.
⭐ “We are one” language feels spiritual, but it silences real suffering.
I LOVE unity.
I believe in humanity.
But I have lived long enough to know that “we are one” is often used to avoid confronting the truth that:
We all do not experience danger equally.
We all do not experience health care equally.
We all do not experience belief equally.
My survival depends on being able to speak plainly.
⭐ Black women have the right to name our own experience.
We are not abstract beings.
We are not softened categories.
We are not “uterus owners.”
We are not “birthing units.”
We are women —
with specific risks, specific histories, specific traumas, specific bodies, specific wisdom, and specific needs.
When the language blurs us,
the world forgets us.
And when the world forgets us,
we die painful deaths at higher rates.
That is why I resist neutral language.
Not out of exclusion or an overflowing abundance of love for others —
but out of survival.
Not out of stubbornness —
but out of clarity.
Not out of division —
but out of the fierce, sacred responsibility to name what is happening to Black women so it can be stopped.
Because healing requires truth.
And truth requires naming.
And naming requires language that actually recognizes who we are.
Survivors of violence and abuse know all about the terror that comes with being specific about naming what is true. Many of us also know, life can grow better for you once you do.
And truly, no woman should ever ask another woman to stay quiet about the specific realities of her pain or her health.