The Republican wants credit for fighting for moms. So why did her office use 'Woke 1' terminology?
In an op-ed this week, Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama couldn't stop saying "mother." Moms. Dearly loved children. She quotes Scripture. She name-drops Hannah, Sarah, and the Virgin Mary. She wants you to believe in her as the senator standing up for women and motherhood in Washington.
But earlier this year, Britt's press release about the Maternal Health Awareness Day resolution used very different terminology straight out of "Woke 1": "birthing people."
The last few weeks in US politics has been consumed with Democrats trying to walk back weirdo language they used both before COVID and after it– favorite terminology included "Latinx," "unhoused," and "intersectionality."
As The Crimson Hub has documented, leftist celebrity politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was one of the worst offenders. Despite recently having suggested that "Woke 1," as she has termed it, was somehow linked to pandemic-era crazy, AOC was merrily tweeting about "Woke 1" hot topics and using pet "Woke 1" phraseology well before the pandemic. She and a lot of her fellow Democrats have continued using this verbiage right up until recently.
What's weirder and indicates far more pervasive wokeness across US culture and politics, though, is Britt's word choice just a few months back.
Britt's press release describes "community-based maternal health models that have been proven to improve the health of birthing people throughout the country" (Emphasis ours)
"Birthing people" is a term marketed by transgender and progressive activists who want to use language changes to signal not just the normality and acceptability but also the statistical significance of women who present as men carrying babies to term. That is despite the fact that the number of transgender individuals meeting these criteria constitutes a minuscule proportion of the overall population, making them neither "normal" nor "common" as a matter of statistics-- the core problem that has led to widespread eyebrow-raising, even among demographic groups that traditionally have strongly supported Democrats. For example, a 2024 Ingram Market Research study found that "nearly 93 percent of Black adults prefer the term 'mother' to the term 'birthing person'" ("chestfeeding" versus "breastfeeding" performs even worse).
It would seem that Britt's communications shop, if not the Senator herself, lined up with the other 7 percent surveyed, at least where this release was concerned-- an astonishing factoid considering that she is not just a self-described social conservative, but she also represents a state that is about 26 percent Black, and is the American state with the fifth-highest proportion of Black residents nationwide.
Even weirder, though, is the fact that that language isn't even in the actual resolution. It says "mothers." It says "women." The only time "birthing" shows up is in "birthing hospital."
Britt's bill is still just sitting in the Judiciary Committee. It hasn't gone anywhere.
So nobody made Britt's team use that phrase. Cory Booker didn't demand it as the price of putting his name next to hers. It's not in the legislation they're both touting.
Britt's use of the phrase might be the result of a simple copy-and-paste from Booker's press release.
But if Britt's team is cutting, copying, and pasting from a probable 2028 Democratic presidential candidate's press shop, that looks sloppy at best, and not authentically conservative, at worst.
In any event, running away from "Woke 1" appears to be not just a Democratic concern, but a Republican one, too. At least in Britt's office. As the saying goes, "personnel is policy." It seems that personnel is also press releases and performative politicking.
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