New Statesman article - justifying "individuals with a cervix" message

"trans men are roughly half as likely to have had a pap test in the last year as cis (not trans) women"

Is it any wonder, when everyone from the NHS to the New Statesman goes along with the idea that these young females are men?
The NHS has been recording gender (identity) instead of sex for years now. I don't know who demanded it, but I doubt it was 'cis-not-trans-women.'

That should’ve been bold not italics.

nepeta
So it appears that transwomen are women, transmen are individuals with a cervix.

Inclusive!

🙄

Oh oh oh I know! Is it because he’s a misogynistic arsehole who hates women?

How can OJ be supporting that article. She's not a doctor, she's not an expert on trans health.

Two faced .

Even aside from all the other issues, it’s not accurate.

Some women who’ve had hysterectomies and had their cervix removed still need smear tests. Some just once, others regularly until they are 65.

So it’s not just “individuals with a cervix” who need it.

No use of 'ejaculators' or anything similar.

"There’s a new iteration of the bitter public debate in the UK over trans rights..."

Trans rights and...? No, just trans rights.

The author has not really followed the field if she doesn't know that many of the vocal activists demanding inclusive language are nowadays nonbinary persons with cervices who don't experience gender dysphoria (if I got that right).

But the argument in the New Statesman to use the individual with a cervix to benefit trans men is very wrong.

First, even if every single one of them read the piece and then immediately got a pap smear, the total number of people in that group would still be a lot less than the likely total number of women who don't go to get the smear because they don't know what a cervix is.

Second, trans men do get sent an invitation to a cervical cancer screening if they have registered as female with their doctor.

So probably it is the dysphoria they feel from doing so that is the real problem. It could well be that different campaigns should be aimed at trans me and that health care workers should learn how to take the sample from trans men without distressing them.

Oh FUCK OFF, Owen!

"We have a woefully immature standard of public discussion around trans issues, which has yet to catch up with the legislative accommodations for trans people."

We also have institutional capture which has far exceeded legislative accomodations for trans people, so swings and roundabouts, I guess. I'm glad she acknowledges though that "A concern around more complicated language and the erasure of women in what is broadly a women’s health issue with a major uptake problem is undoubtedly the more sensitive and sensible end of the objections to CNN’s wording."
I'm quite surprised LOJ has commended the article given he absolutely denies any clash of rights...

And what about prostrate cancer? Are those campaigns inclusive?

Immature argument?

Subscription cancelled. Not paying to be lectured.

Admittedly if you change your marker in NHS databases you will miss getting the mail shots every five years but that argues for retaining and ensuring databases note sex as well as gender.
The other and obvious check would be via a GP with whom trans people would surely have some regular contact for repeat hormone prescriptions/injections/implants?

A few quotes. The first one is idiotic.

What???? I think people who have a cervix pretty well realise that they have one by the time they need their first cervical screen

Does anyone consciously know they have a cervix before their first pregnancy? You know you have a heart, lungs and stomach because they do things you notice. Women clearly will notice they have periods but that in itself doesn't mean one is aware one has a cervix. Everyone has a large intestine and a small intestine and a colon but unless they aren't working properly I bet no one is consciously aware of them. They are all just part of the body that deals with that function. The cervix is part of the body which deals with sex and babies.

And these 2 very sensible comments.

What screams out at me from this article is that there needs to be a cervical cancer campaign aimed at trans men. Because those are terrifying stats and the only way to solve it is to clearly talk to trans men. ‘People’ make it sound vague and weird for everyone

If they choose to change their sex marker surely they need to take some responsibility and ensure they are screened? They haven’t changed sex and in medical matters sex is very important and very relevant

That's an excellent post wellbehavedwoman
The internalised fawning misogyny from so many women on the left is enraging - throwing their less privileged sisters under the bus without a thought.

The thing is, this is nothing to do with the interests of trans men and everything about removing 'women' as a term for female people. If it were truly about the best possible cancer care, this attack would encompass the messages around men's care, too. After all, transwomen retain male biology. They are affected by public health messaging around male cancers. Yet there has not been a single effort to force the words to change around prostate cancer. Why? Because focusing on language there would not be an attack on women's rights to define ourselves, that's why.

If this were about cancer care, then the same pressure would be applied to the word 'man'. It's not. Because this is about removing any way for women to talk about our own lives, and experiences, and how our bodies impact the way we are treated in this world. And at a time where rape has been effectively decriminalised, porn culture is everywhere, women are made redundant in pregnancy as a commonplace and the reform promised on that since 2017 is yet to happen, and a girl is raped on school premises every day of the school year... then that's rather a major fucking problem. And how can you name that problem, if you aren't allowed to name the group affected in any but the most dehumanising of ways?

Apart from anything else, in terms of cancer care half of all women don't know that they have a cervix, but every trans man and non-binary female knows that they have a woman's biology. So if the real concern was the noble desire to save 'even a single life' then they would want the word woman used, to protect all individuals with a cervix who don't actually know what a cervix is. Using the language that best communicates accurate meaning to the largest number of people saves lives. They don't want or care about that, because it's just part of the same concerted effort to detach the very language to describe women, as individuals and as a collective, from women, so that men can insist upon denying us any workable, definable, non-dehumanising category of our own.

This has nothing to do with improved engagement with cancer screening, and everything to do with misogyny.

The word woman is inclusive. It includes all women. I don’t even need to fall back on the needs of women with English as a second language. Woman is the word.

Here we go with the 'inclusive' stuff again. It is inclusive to trans men but exclusive to all women who base their gender identities on having female bodies. The two sides are reverse images, because trans men don't want the female body called female and women do want that.

So a clash of rights exists and we need a term for biologically female people.