Quillette Podcast Desexing the Language of Motherhood
Oct 9, 2025
Dr. Karleen Gribble is an Adjunct Professor at Western Sydney University, specializing in maternal and infant health. She shares insights on the rise of desexed language in women's healthcare, linking its origins to transgender inclusivity in clinical settings. Karleen argues that the COVID-19 pandemic hastened this language shift, affecting public health messaging. She questions the rationale behind using desexed terms for trans men in cervical care, highlighting gaps in body knowledge among young people and the challenges of clear communication in reproductive health.
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Explosion Of De-Sexed Terminology
- A wide variety of de-sexed replacement terms for 'woman' emerged in health language.
- Many of these terms are precise but often sound absurd or dehumanizing in broad communication.
Origins In Clinical Accommodation
- De-sexed terms began among clinicians around 2015–2016 to accommodate transgender patients' preferences.
- The practice was initially limited to individual clinical interactions, which was largely uncontroversial.
Pandemic Accelerated Broad Adoption
- The shift from individualised respectful language to broad public health messaging escalated around 2020.
- That wider adoption created significant problems because it removed necessary specificity about sex-based biology.
