Metro story about male breast cancer survivor 'refused access to support group'

The FB group should have dealt with this significantly better. I'm assuming they have an admin, who should have removed unwelcoming comments, and posted instead a sympathetic message, which also signposted other sources of support (just as they might do for woman who had a different disease, or did not fit the group for some other reason)

I mean, obviously you've read more on this, or are privy to more information than we are, because that's quite a detailed and cruel scenario you have described there, @AuntieStella, when all the actual story says is:

Facing a mastectomy, and being left to feel as though ‘real men’ don’t get breast cancer, he turned online to try and get support. But, he was told that he could not join because he was a man and it would prevent other members from opening up about their own concerns. He said: ‘I was made to feel like I was muscling in, but the last thing I wanted to do was jump up and down saying, “Look at me I’ve got breast cancer too”.'

He was told he couldn't join because it would upset the women. He never got to post because he didn't meet criteria. I sympathise that he found that hard, but what else should they have said? He couldn't join. Women had shared already, safe in the assurance it was single sex. There was no alternative answer to give him.

Mods won't know other sources of support for men with cancer because they themselves are fighting as women with cancer. They're patients themselves, not universal cancer social workers. And he never got to post, or be met with unwelcoming comments, because you can't join closed Facebook groups without answering questions first.

In many breast cancer support groups, you can't even join until a mod account has friended yours and checked you out carefully first. Which is one of the reasons we feel safe using them.

Why are you so tenderly concerned for this bloke that you invent supportive scenarios, and so contemptuous for the women dealing with cancer who offer their time to help others, that you assume cruelty and incompetence and complain that they don't educate themselves on how to help a demographic to which they do not themselves belong?

I am trying to imagine going to the media because I was not allowed in a FB group.

Nope.

There are limits to the human imagination.

If women can simply use a group for support when they need it, so can a man.

Yes, he can use a men's group.

He wants support when he needs it. As might any one of us. The work in setting up and maintaining resources, so they are there when you need to turn to them is done by others. That's the essence of charity. And those needing support when facing cancer are, I think, deserving of charity.

It's not a charity, it's a Facebook group.

That paper twisted the story into a more clickbaity headline, and the tweeter then ran with the headline. If you read the story in full, his main aim is to raise male awareness, which is laudable. He's just using the Facebook group as an example of how isolating it can be for men, who have such a rare form.

I've yet to meet a survivor who isn't keen to get more people to check their breasts. It's natural that a man is concerned for other men. We all identify with the interests and needs of our own group. But I note nobody is attacking him or deeming him exclusionary of women for that focus, despite breast cancer being so hugely more common with women. It is, quite rightly, just taken for granted that he will see this from his own perspective, and focus on people like himself. All fine. But why is that not fine when women do it?

The work in setting up and maintaining resources, so they are there when you need to turn to them is done by others. That's the essence of charity. And those needing support when facing cancer are, I think, deserving of charity.

That's not how these groups work. They're set up and run by fellow cancer patients, as peer support. Some are securely in remission, but some are Stage 4. (That's incurable. 90% of women die within 2 years of that diagnosis or restaging. There are offshoot groups for my own support group, and one is Living With. That's for the women whose cancer has spread, for whom there can never be a cure. All mods for that area are Stage 4 themselves.) And the nature of cancer is that a lot of the mods actually want to put it behind them and move on once a year or so has passed and they remain NED, so new mods tend to be drawn from active members still in treatment. It's not about charity. It's about 'friends in your pocket'. (Anyone who fits that awful criteria, ask to join the secret group. It's a godsend.) We were all in it together, and that sisterhood is priceless.

Nobody has the right to demand their time, work and focus.

The reality is that before you join one of these groups there's generally a series of questions that check out that you are who you say you are. He will never have got as far as the actual posting stage - he'd be turned away before then, explaining that it's women only.

A woman trying to join a man's breast cancer group would also be turned away, and rightly so. It's a rare demographic, peer support is important, and men can discuss their bodies and the impact of this disease psychologically in privacy, with dignity and confidence. As can women. Sex does matter.

The FB group should have dealt with this significantly better.

See here's the thing. It's a facebook support group, set up by women with breast cancer for women with breast cancer. Not the NHS, Not a cancer charity.

The group don't owe anyone anything.

How DARE you stop him (and I just love the ways Fogg calls women "terfs" for good measure - proving it's use is a term of abuse for women who give any man exactly what he wants!)

There do seem to be some common atitudes towards women who say 'no'.

Yeah this reminded me of Hackett too.

A man wants to enter this clearly, politely signed all-female space - how DARE you stop him.

A man wants to enter this all-female FB support group. How DARE you stop him (and I just love the ways Fogg calls women "terfs" for good measure - proving it's use is a term of abuse for women who give any man exactly what he wants!)

I'm very sorry for this man who has breast cancer - my mother has had it twice. It's an awful disease - but there are male breast cancer support groups. Sometimes women need to be with just women.

The FB group should have dealt with this significantly better.

I don't think we know anything about how the FB group dealt with it do we? Just that he wasn't very happy.

If women can simply use a group for support when they need it, so can a man

Online peer support groups arent just 'used' by individuals, women support other women within them. There are a whole host of things that one has to manage, understand & cope with. The groups offer invaluable support which is very different to that which NHS and even close family & friends can do. Its always a reciprocable relationship between members.

Its why peer support.
The same will be true in male cancer specific peer support groups

He’s not being held to a tighter standard because there are already male breast cancer specific groups on Facebook. I posted two of them earlier in the thread.

Attempting to shame women standing up for women's breast cancer groups providing peer support is pretty low.

@R0wantrees I don't know how you've read that into what I posted. My point was that he's being held to a higher standard than all the very many women who've benefitted from other women's work in setting up a group. If women can simply use a group for support when they need it, so can a man.
But @AuntieStella made my point better.

If he was really bothered he could set up his own Facebook support group for men with breast cancer

Maybe, when he's securely in remission, he might do this. Depending on where you are in your treatment, you may well not be able to face doing anything much at all.

Or does he just want women doing all the work for him?

He wants support when he needs it. As might any one of us. The work in setting up and maintaining resources, so they are there when you need to turn to them is done by others. That's the essence of charity. And those needing support when facing cancer are, I think, deserving of charity.

The FB group should have dealt with this significantly better. I'm assuming they have an admin, who should have removed unwelcoming comments, and posted instead a sympathetic message, which also signposted other sources of support (just as they might do for woman who had a different disease, or did not fit the group for some other reason)

Most of the women in these groups didn't do 'all the work' of setting up the groups either. You're pretty desperate to find fault with the guy if you'd stoop to this.

Attempting to shame women standing up for women's breast cancer groups providing peer support is pretty low.

Its not so much the setting up which is the issue its having women who keep the groups running smoothly. Given the nature of cancer treatment, there tends to be a need for a number of people who at one point have stepped forward & shared some of the responsibility.

Most of the women in these groups didn't do 'all the work' of setting up the groups either.

No, but ALL the groups are set up and run by people who are, or who have been, breast cancer sufferers.

Don’t complain about stuff people do for free, it’s assholish.

Yes thank you.

'Dr' Liam Hackett founder & CEO of 'Ditch the Label' charity.

Independent March 2018
'Anger at hospital's ban on men in breast screening clinic waiting area
'It implies that men are there for the wrong reasons. The point is there is no reason for it'
(extract)
Mr Hackett, who waited for Ms Jones outside in the corridor, said: “It just seems very strange. I can’t begin to imagine to think what it would be like to have to go on your own. Pain and fear are ever-present in healthcare, the NHS should consider the patients,”

He urged the hospital on to “immediately review and revoke” the “dated, sexist & disgusting” policy, which he said had caused “offence, upset and embarrassment”, in a post on Twitter

“Am I not allowed to comfort a friend when she is feeling vulnerable?” he added.

A spokeswoman for the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS said it was “not a case of men not being allowed into the breast centre, but very specifically one interior waiting room.”

“Men are welcome in the outside area but women have to take their tops off, just put one layer back on and walk through that small waiting room to go through for their scan,” she told The Independent.

“In feedback, patients said it makes them feel uncomfortable when there are men in that waiting room, so we instigated the policy to protect the women who are using that facility. It is to make them feel safe secure and dignified and that they are treated in a place where there interests are put first.” (continues)

www.independent.co.uk/news/health/men-ban-breast-screening-clinic-waiting-area-hospital-brighton-anger-a8243666.html

Liam Hackett also was one of the first wave of outspoken men who targetted Prof. Kathleen Stock when she started writing about sex & gender identity.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3299191-A-new-member-of-the-Leftie-Misogynists-club

If he was really bothered he could set up his own Facebook support group for men with breast cancer. Or does he just want women doing all the work for him?

That's ridiculous. Most of the women in these groups didn't do 'all the work' of setting up the groups either. You're pretty desperate to find fault with the guy if you'd stoop to this.

Hackett.

It reminded me of the chap who runs the big 'anti-bullying' charity who a couple of years ago tried to use his online power to bully a female only breast screening service into letting him into the changing room.

He'd been told no males were allowed into the small changing room where women were semi clothed waiting for the breast screen & was so affronted he didnt stop to consider why this mattered to women & the running of the service.

I cant remember the chap's name.
Liam?

It's Ally Fogg. One of the ultra progressive men who is forever alert to identify the wrong kind of women so he can scold them and get applause from similarly-minded men. He's been at this for years.

He's a horrible misogynistic man. I've argued with him online before.

No, I don't accept the women were at fault here at all. They have a facebook group, and he couldn't join it. He decided to go to The Metro and have a moan about that like it's an actual problem, rather than a boundary he simply wasn't permitted to cross, for perfectly valid reasons.

Nor do I. I set up a Facebook group once. It's very little effort to run, I'm the sole moderator and it now has 3500 or so members. He could have started one rather than criticising women.

This is as the EA states, it's ok to have a support group just for women if women will be put off seeking support by a male person. That even applies to MTFs. But this isn't even about gender identity.

Incidentally, the admins of these facebook groups aren't just volunteers. They're cancer patients themselves. They're offering their time to support a specific demographic, for free.

Why does Ally whoever he is think their time is his to command?

The group I was in when I had breast cancer treatment was only for women under 45. It's rarer in younger women, and their needs and concerns are different from older women. Most of us either had kids, or wouldn't be able to have kids due to treatment (not all, obviously some were childless by choice).

The honesty was overwhelming and really comforting. Bluntly, losing breasts is a big deal to women. That's not the same concern for a male patient. The hormonal implications are likely to be different, too, in a wide range of ways. And chemo affects all parts of your body, which can be grim on the dignity front. A lot of us talked about symptoms we'd never have done outside that group in a million years. Relationships, too. Self image. All sorts of ways in which being vulnerable and rawly honest was the norm.

I'd not have joined, far less posted in, a mixed sex group. And I completely sympathise with men who feel the same way, and want their own. I'm really glad that they have that.

Lived experience matters. Solidarity matters.

And what on earth has it to do with trans? Why is this man even raising that? It's just to do with the need for suitable single sex provision. I'm really glad he has that, or mixed sex groups, available to him. I'm really glad older women have support groups available to them, too. I wanted one that understood what it is like to be a woman having breast cancer young. My group gave me that. By definition, if it took older members, or men, it couldn't.

It's okay to have places that meet the needs of specific demographics. Not everything's for everyone.