An attempt by the British Medical Association to avoid misgendering transgender maternity patients has backfired, with critics and tabloids lampooning the organization’s new glossary of gender-neutral terms, according to reports.

Doctors have been told to avoid calling their patients who are pregnant “expectant mothers,” so as to not offend intersex and transgender patients. The guidance suggests they be called “pregnant people.”

“Gender inequality is reflected in traditional ideas about the roles of women and men. Though they have shifted over time, the assumptions and stereotypes that underpin those ideas are often deeply-rooted. A large majority of people that have been pregnant or have given birth identify as women,” the guidelines say. “We can include intersex men and transmen who may get pregnant by saying ‘pregnant people’ instead of ‘expectant mothers’.”

The guidelines also state that someone who is “biologically male or female” should be called “assigned male or female,” that “the elderly” should be referred to as “older people,” and that the word used to refer to elevators reserved for the “disabled” should be “accessible.” ‘

Also, the words “mankind” and “manpower” should be avoided because it is a masculine word that erases women.

The guidelines recommend the term “Christian name” also should be avoided for patients’ first names, out of respect for those who are not Christian, and that medical staff should say, “last name” and not “family name.”

The British tabloid, The Sun, Fox News and others have mocked the BMA for these changes, announced late last year, as political correctness.

If you can’t call a pregnant woman an expectant mother, then what is the world coming to?? — David Adeola (@DavidAdeola) January 29, 2017

@DavidAdeola Seriously. No man has ever given birth. Never once in the history of the mankind #facts — Chris B Go Utes (@Pac12_UtahUtes) January 30, 2017

Those who claim no man has ever given birth have apparently not read about the first pregnant British man, Hayden Cross, who made headlines earlier this month with the announcement that he is four months pregnant. Cross is a transgender man.

And in the U.S., Thomas Beatie made headlines in 2008 for giving birth to his first child. The trans man had two more children by 2008.

Feminists and others hailed the new lingo.

The word "mother" is loaded and it's an identity that some people–cis women included–may not want thrust on them. — Another Angry Woman (@stavvers) January 30, 2017

So oh my goodness, I totally support dropping the hideously archaic "expectant mother" — Another Angry Woman (@stavvers) January 30, 2017

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