Beyond Women’s Health

P regnancy—as well as contraception, abortion, prenatal care, birth, postpartum care, chestfeeding or breastfeeding, and childrearing—are often presented as experiences of cisgender women. Cisgender is a term that describes a person whose current gender identity is consistent with the gender identity generally assumed for the sex they were designated or assigned at birth, which is typically based on external genitalia. For example, a cisgender woman is a person who identifies as a woman and was assigned female sex at birth (ie, the sex listed on their birth certificate). Yet, people of many genders—women, men, genderqueer, nonbinary, and more—can and do carry pregnancies.1,2 We, the authors of this commentary, are sexual and reproductive health advocates, counselors, health-care providers, and researchers with a range of identities, including those who are transgender and gender nonbinary. Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity differs from the gender identity generally assumed for the sex they were From Ibis Reproductive Health, Oakland, California; the Guttmacher Institute, New York, New York; the Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont; the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts; the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California; Lyndon Cudlitz Consulting, Education & Training, Albany, New York; the Community Advisory Team, Malden, Massachusetts; the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Edgewood College, Madison, Wisconsin; and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California.