Breast is a breast is a breast is a breast

Abstract

The Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) Trust, in England, recently published an inclusive language guideline for its maternity services. The guideline calls for the removal of female-only terms such as “breast milk” or “mother”, in order to accommodate transgender men who can become pregnant. Along the guideline is a “language preferences” form, on which patients can list their preferred terms for clinicians to refer to their anatomical parts and healthcare procedures. In this paper, we discuss the BSUH guideline. From this discussion, we reflect on inclusive language initiatives in specific contexts. We explain why we believe some of these initiatives to be counterproductive and to respond more to policy managers’ fear rather than to an actual demand from the groups concerned. We also believe that medical terminology is not subject to individual patients’ intimate feelings, nor to their gender identity, but is a shared scientific heritage belonging to a profession and, ultimately, to the entire community.