If Australian government records are to be believed, 55 men gave birth to babies in 2014-15.

Those are the official Medicare records as reported by The Australian newspaper on Thursday.

Now if that sounds strange, don’t be alarmed. The Australian’s journalist provided this helpful explanation:

‘That’s possible because not everyone’s gender identity matches the reproductive organs they were born with.’

Well of course! Wait. What?!

I think what the journalist meant to say was:

‘That’s impossible because men can’t give birth. It’s a case of Woke health bureaucrats wrongly recording women as men, either in a misguided attempt at kindness or in a concerted effort to placate an ideological political perspective that leads to medical inaccuracies in health records.’

The story was revealed after a new mum complained about being handed a government form describing her as ‘birthing parent’ rather than ‘mother’.

Sall Grover complained on Twitter about the Medicare form.

‘Attention women in Australia: On the form to put our newborn baby on our Medicare card, we are referred to as “birthing parent”. Enough is enough. This absolute bullsh*t is exclusionary, alienating and derogatory towards every woman wants to be and is called “mother”.’

Clearly Ms Grover wasn’t buying the whole mantra, ‘Not everyone’s gender identity matches the reproductive organs they were born with therefore you have been reclassified as a birthing person rather than a mother. Now are you ready to try chest feeding?’

Ms Grover’s tweet went viral and – credit where credit is due – Government Services Minister Bill Shorten acted immediately.

He tweeted:

‘They will be replaced with new forms that use the word mother, not birthing parent.’

But hell hath no fury like the Left betrayed by its own.

LGBTQ+ activists and ABC journalists – but I repeat myself – immediately flew into the kind of rage usually reserved for January when they discover all over again that Margaret Court’s name has not been replaced at the Melbourne Park tennis centre.

Mr Shorten was variously described as ‘embarrassing’, ‘disappointing’, and of course ‘transphobic’. He was accused of ‘weaponising language’, ‘keeping the war on trans people going’, and ‘pandering to right-wing zealots’.

That last one was my personal favourite. In the Topsy-Turvy world of progressive leftism ‘mother’ is now a conservative word, and a person ascribing to basic biology is a right-wing zealot!

‘So what happens if you are a man, non-binary or intersex and you are pregnant? You get called mother? Seems inaccurate for those people. Does accuracy not matter?’ Tweeted one activist, rather bewilderingly.

Insisting that men can be pregnant and, in the same breath, that accuracy matters is oxymoronic.

It is precisely because accuracy matters that people (by whom we mean women) who give birth are called mothers. That this needs to be explained to the most educated generation history is genuinely astonishing.

Another gender botherer taking Mr Shorten to task wrote:

‘It hurts exactly no one to use inclusive language. You know this. You should do and be better.’

See, here’s the thing about nouns. Their purpose is not to be inclusive; their purpose is to identify things so that we can communicate clearly.

And what is ‘inclusive language’ anyway, other than ideological obfuscation? It’s neither clever nor kind. It’s the deliberate muddying of language until it no longer describes reality.

Speaking of which, ABC TV and radio journalist Patricia Karvelas complained to Mr Shorten:

‘Probably might be a good time – especially after the last election – to think about the experience of others. Trans men giving birth is something that is happening in our community. Trans people are tired of being the source of others outrage.’

Well sure. And people following the science are tired of being the source of LGBTQ+ activist outrage. 

Besides, if trans men insist on giving birth then you have to question their commitment to being men!

To quote Monty Python (who let’s face it were way ahead of their time):

‘Where’s the foetus gonna gestate? In a box?’

Karvelas continued:

‘Imagine if instead of fighting we just found a solution. One where everyone’s identities were respected. Including women who embrace the word mother and people who are not women but can have babies. What a kinder world.’

Karvelas is not advocating kindness or respect – especially if the reaction from the majority of women online is anything to go by.

And to think these people mock Christians for believing in the virgin birth. At least the Virgin Mary was a woman! And at least Christians, unlike activists, have the honesty to admit their worldview requires miracles.

Karvelas wants us to imagine a world in which men can have babies because it would be kind. I want to imagine a world in which everyone eats take-out and never gets fat because that too would be kind. Except it isn’t the real world.

The overwhelming majority of Australians could care less how someone identifies. But unrealities should not be promoted on government forms, or in government records or, dare I say, by the national broadcaster that claims to value truth.

You can follow James on Twitter. You can order his new book Notes from Woketopia here.

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