Speak Truth To Power

We know the power of language. The words we choose can, at their worst, subjugate, obscure, erase - and language today often reinforces and perpetuates oppression. But in intentionally choosing our words, speaking truth to power disrupts and reshapes our reality. 

This is what we’ve experienced firsthand in the last few weeks. This Pride month, we saw uprisings around the world in support of Black Lives Matter; the simultaneous lack of visibility of violence against transfolx and activists’ deliberate care to center Black trans voices; ignorant and violent statements from a popular author; a 6-3 Supreme Court victory for LGBTQIA workers. This is the power of language. 

At this moment, we want to explain the intent behind our choice of language. We’ve deliberately made the choice to use the terms “childbearing” and “non-childbearing” rather than mother and father in all our work. This language matters to us, because there is a whole spectrum of folx who can be parents and who can experience the different aspects of starting a family. 

We’re choosing this language, despite being aware that our mission to close the gender pay gap most directly impacts cisgender women. That’s what our society thinks about, when we think about the pay gap. But that’s also because our society has, for hundreds of years, imposed colonial ideas of binary genders. And that’s also because we have a stunning lack of data on the experiences of trans and non-binary folx. 

In using the term “childbearing,” we want to honor that transmen can be childbearers. We want to recognize that not all ciswomen may want to be childbearers. There’s a whole spectrum of possibilities, if we move beyond the binary of mother and father. And for us, moving beyond the binary creates so much potential to change gender norms and expectations: that it’s normal for men to cry; that strong is beautiful; that women can and should lead; that our gender identity is our lived, felt, recognized, honored, perfectly normal identity; that men recycle.

We’re going to be part of the change, and that starts from the very beginning of our company in how we choose to recognize, acknowledge, and speak.