NHS staff invitation to menopause workshop to people who menstruate!

Not all NHS comms are clear on this point. Just seen on Twitter a thread started by a gay man about www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/who-we-are/our-staff/lgbtplus-network/donation-if-you-are-lgbtplus/.

The stem cell donation section includes this bit: For some patients, doctors prefer to use a donor whose gender assigned at birth is matched with that of the patient. Surely this means sex?

This is the bit the gay man was questioning.

Being transgender does not in any way prevent you from being able to donate. All donors are addressed using the title and pronouns of their choice. NHS Blood and Transplant considers all donors to be the sex and/or gender that they identify as, including nonbinary, genderfluid and agender donors.

Really? They consider the potential donor to BE the sex they identify as just because they say so? Isn't this potentially risky for the recipients of the donated blood etc?

Blood donation if you are transgender
As with all donors, a careful and sympathetic consideration of sexual risk factors is undertaken. The deferral for men who have sex with men applies to men only, regardless of whether you are cis or trans. It would not apply to you if you are a transgender woman or if you are a person of another gender or no gender.

I can't make head or tails of this paragraph. Does it apply to all biological males or not? When they say transgender woman, do they mean transwoman or transman?

Similarly, haemoglobin testing is conducted in accordance with the gender with which you identify. This is because the majority of transgender people undergo hormone replacement therapy which brings their haemoglobin levels in line with most cis people of the same gender.

(a) It's not HRT. The hormones being taken were never there to start with, unlike a menopausal woman.

(b) Is it true that most transgender people take cross-hormones?

(c) I await correction, but surely one big reason women have a different haemoglobin level from men is that before the menopause women lose a lot through menstruation. That's not going to be affected by any amount of hormone therapy.

And we know that you have no respect for other people's identities and the ways in which they wish to define themselves and the language they wish to be used in relation to themselves.

And the guidelines you keep telling us you have to follow, say
“avoid making any groups of people feel excluded”

By 'non-menstruator' do you mean man, transwoman, transman (who may not be menstruating due to testosterone), or post-menopausal woman?

Yes, all of those. I suppose it doesn't mean people who are between periods. I don't think you'd have to be actually menstruating on the day to attend, that wouldn't make sense.
But what about people on the pill or who stop menstruating? Or pregnant and breastfeeding people?

It's such a shame it's been hijacked like that. I remember being so impressed when I saw the MOD putting on similar workshops and how progressive I felt it was to finally be giving a voice to a unnecessarily taboo subject. Feels like 1 step forward 3 steps back to then have such a small proportion of the population need to bogart the language around it.

You have been told endlessly by numerous posters as to how your forcing of this language on others is dehumanising and why, why it is not inclusive due to the huge numbers of those who need these services will be excluded, you just won't accept it because deep down you just do not care for anyone other that your chosen select few.

Would it really matter if a non-menstruator turned up at the menopause workshop anyway? Maybe they want to support the menstruators in their lives.

By 'non-menstruator' do you mean man, transwoman, transman (who may not be menstruating due to testosterone), or post-menopausal woman?

Would it really matter if a non-menstruator turned up at the menopause workshop anyway? Maybe they want to support the menstruators in their lives.

Personally, the insistence that I be a menstruator would make me feel that my periods would be relevant somehow to the workshop. Rather than just being an impersonal information session it sounds like I'd have to get involved physically or menstruatingly in a group setting and I would rather not. I can't imagine hoards of non menstruators would be hustling to get into a menopause workshop anyway.

“Again, something that is gradually changing. It's not immediate.”
These seem like some of the most recently updated ones, a lot of the others were last updated in 2018/19

www.nhs.uk/conditions/cervical-screening/
Page last reviewed: 31 March 2020

Most women will not experience any problems, but there is a small risk of complications, such as:
www.nhs.uk/conditions/abortion/
Page last reviewed: 24 April 2020

Menopause is usually diagnosed in women over 45
www.nhs.uk/conditions/post-menopausal-bleeding/
Page last reviewed: 14 July 2020

But still
avoid making any groups of people feel excluded (from the guidelines you told us you have to follow)

I don't see why they can't just write women and others affected by these issues. Or women and trans men. Or just skip it altogether and write that everyone is welcome. Or maybe can the whole workshop because biology is so terribly divisive

ASugarr, what evidence do you require that it's dehumanising? Pages and pages of women saying they find it dehumanising and yet you still don't get it? Or do women's views just not count with you?

Asugarr This use if biologically based language to be 'inclusive' is a more general problem than one workshop by the NHS.

There is a general issue of largely middle class young professional people, operating from the best possible motives of course, understanding the oppression experienced by those who are gay or gender diverse, to a certain extent those who are black or of colour, and really not at all those who are disenfranchised by being in poverty, having learning difficulties or other disabilities, or being, for example, a person raised in a different culture who is here as an asylum seeker or as a new wife, who speaks little English and has a very limited social network.

If you use language to support the wellbeing of transmen but this then means that refugee women don't understand, or women with learning difficulties don't understand, then it's not really inclusive. Using language as simple and straightforward as possible is really important. Saying "people who menstruate" instead of "women and..." really does exclude people.

Is there a special course within health care provision training where they teach you to completely and utterly dismiss your target audience and deliberately make them feel unheard and like shite?

Because that would explain a hell of a lot.

I don't get how it is dehumanising when it's including all types of people.

Hopefully the OP has the information she needs to address this de-humanising language that I bet, like others have said, is not replicated in men’s workshops.

Just popped back with a reminder that the NHS guidelines kindly provided upthread states

avoid making any groups of people feel excluded

And
The NHS themselves use phrases such as

“ All women and people with a cervix aged 25 to 64 should be invited by letter.”

www.nhs.uk/conditions/cervical-screening/

And also

“The prostate is a small gland in the pelvis, found only in men.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/prostate-cancer/

And also in this scenario, two separate workshops might the best way forward

You might want to refer them to the NHS advice on menopause, @sunshineandhappy

www.nhs.uk/conditions/menopause/

It's also produced by NHS Digital yet manages to use the term "Woman" throughout. this is because the guidance has been interpreted correctly.

Women are not suffering

I think if a trans person was discussing feeling dehumanised, excluded, reduced to body parts, their choice of self definition and identity being rejected (exactly as women are here) you'd be quite vocal about the suffering involved and the importance of others caring about it.

Either these values apply equally to all, or what you're arguing for is just straight forward sexist discrimination against women.

"You can say that huge mouthful but people with uteruses/cervix/who menstrurate/etc means the exact same."

...and upsets two thirds of them by either reducing them to bodily functions or reminds them of bodily functions they find triggering. And also excludes women of limited education, bilingual women, and those with learning difficulties who may not know of understand that terminology.

It's ok to realise that what was devised with the very best of intentions doesn't actually work.

Meanwhile over in the discussions about men’s health campaigns

“So we’re calling it mens health?”
“Yeah”

Men go back to not giving the remotest toss about placating, humouring, who stroking and all the other support human functions women are just expected to do

Which is why the words man and men carry on pre eminently while women as always are expected to beeeee kiiiiiiiind and give up their words