Decoupling Gender from ‘Midwifery’: A Utopian Vision

This chapter examines how the professional title ‘midwife’ is predicated on the understanding that people who access their services have a normative relationship between their gender and assigned sex and why this is problematic. As trans and nonbinary people increasingly require access to midwifery services, this chapter proposes an alternative professional title which is inclusive and liberates midwives from continuously reinscribing the sex/gender binary in their nomenclature. Using Levitas’ ‘utopia as method’ framework, this chapter proposes the title of ‘lead perinatal practitioner’. It is argued that this title signals a trailblazing contribution toward the eradication of gender inequalities in the reproductive arena by uncoupling the profession from patriarchal oppression inscribed in the sex/gender binary which has hitherto been positioned as the sine qua non of midwifery.