Most Americans REJECT woke terminology like 'chestfeeding,' 'pregnant people': poll

A New York Times online quiz that set out to discover how people feel about alternatives to potentially offensive words such as "chestfeeding," "pregnant people," and "Latinx" has revealed most people aren’t willing to play along with the language games of the left.

The quiz, titled "You Can’t Say That! (Or Can You?)," had been completed by a representative sample of over 4,000 Americans before being published in the outlet’s opinion section, so users could see how their answers measured up to those polled.

According to the New York Post, one of the least popular politically correct new terms was "chestfeeding," a word trans activists have tried to force upon society to appease the vanishingly small number of adult females who reject their birth sex but wish to breastfeed the child they grew in their female reproductive system. 90 percent of respondents indicated they would not use the term.

The majority of respondents rejected the term "birthing parent" with 86 percent saying they would use the term "pregnant women." 66 percent specified that they would not use "birthing parent."

Most participants refused to replace "master bedroom" with "primary bedroom." A note from the Times informed users that there has been a push to do so recently due to negative "connotations associated with the 'master of the house.'" 

"Latinx" also proved to be thoroughly unpopular, with only 22 percent claiming to use it. 70 percent of participants use Latino or Latina.

Completing the quiz reveals comments from the New York Times opinion team giving their thoughts on the terminology.

Former investigative reporter Matthew Foldi tweeted some of the comments, suggesting they were evidence that the New York Times staff was "wildly out of touch with America."

The Times graphics editor Quoctrung Bui recalled debating with colleagues about whether to use "pregnant people" over pregnant women for a recent story on abortion. 

"On the one hand, we wanted to be inclusive of trans men who can get pregnant, but we also didn’t want to erase women, given the vast majority of abortions are had by women and how important this issue was for women historically," Bui explained. "Interestingly, the general public is very clear on the usage. ‘Pregnant women’ is the dominant term."

Another editor recounted the story of using the term "pro-life" but then "quickly corrected" herself to "anti-abortion, which is the current turn of phrase preferred by the left."

John McWhorter, a Times opinion writer, explained that the term "master bedroom" didn’t originate as a term for the room where the slaves’ master slept, but is instead a real estate term from the early 20th century. Bui found it "interesting" that over 80 percent of Americans still use the term despite the attempt to replace it with "primary bedroom" in the wake of George Floyd’s death in 2020.

Bui was also surprised to learn that Americans were still using the term "illegal alien," despite The Times style guide advising against it from 2013 onwards.

"'Illegal alien' was another curveball in this survey, at least for me. I thought most people had stopped using this term," Bui said.