NYT Admits Activists Are Erasing ‘Women’ From Medical Language After Promoting ‘Menstruators’ And ‘Pregnant People’

NYT Admits Activists Are Erasing ‘Women’ From Medical Language After Promoting ‘Menstruators’ And ‘Pregnant People’

Laurel Duggan on June 9, 2022

A Wednesday New York Times article complained that transgender activists are erasing women from medical language with gender-neutral phrases, but the outlet itself has frequently used similar language in the past.

The NYT article observed that progressives and transgender activists have successfully pushed medical professionals and pro-abortion groups to avoid the word “women” and instead use phrases like “bodies with private partss” and “birthing people.” The NYT has previously used gender-neutral language to discuss women’s health issues in numerous articles.

“From Planned Parenthood to NARAL Pro-Choice America to the American Medical Association to city and state health departments and younger activists, the word ‘women’ has in a matter of a few years appeared far less in talk of abortion and pregnancy,” the article said. “Driven by allies and activists for transgender people, medical, government and progressive organizations have adopted gender-neutral language that draws few distinctions between women and transgender men.”

An author in the NYT used the phrase “menstruators” to refer to women who have menstrual periods in a January article. The author used the gender-neutral “their” in place of feminine pronouns and did not use the words “woman” or “female” at any point.

The outlet ran an article about the safety of vaccines during pregnancy in October 2021 which referred to pregnant women as “pregnant people” and did not use the word “women.” Authors have used the phrase “pregnant people” in numerous other NYT articles since at least 2020.

Every day, Black birthing people and our babies die because our doctors don’t believe our pain. My children almost became a statistic. I almost became a statistic.

I testified about my experience @OversightDems today.

Hear us. Believe us. Because for so long, nobody has. pic.twitter.com/rExrMXzsSQ

— Congresswoman Cori Bush (@RepCori) May 6, 2021

Prominent Democrats including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cori Bush helped popularize the terms, and Democrats pushed to end the use of gendered terms like “father” and “daughter” in government documents in late 2020. Democratic Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver famously closed his prayer to open up the 117th Congress in January 2021 with “amen and awoman.”

The New York Times did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.