Smear tests should not refer to women says study

I'm going to re-post that as I'm feeling paranoid today but I'll leave the original post up too:

It's inaccurate. No other sex has a cervix or gets cervical cancer and I think it's asking for big trouble further down the to conflate sex and gender identity in this particular context.
I think the NICE paragraph is much better.

Soz further down the line

What is wrong with women and people who have a cervix?
It's inaccurate. No other people have a cervix and I think it's asking for big trouble further down the to pretend that there are - this is how we got into this mess.
I think the NICE paragraph is much better.

Why does nobody ask women their opinion before they erase our words? What is wrong with women and people who have a cervix?

But I assume someone with a medical clue thinks it is, or they wouldn't be being asked the question? Can anyone fill me in?

This is a sensible option that is being piloted in a trial because so many women find the screening inconvenient or have difficulty being confident that a smear will be carried out in a trauma informed way.

www.england.nhs.uk/2021/02/nhs-gives-women-hpv-home-testing-kits-to-cut-cancer-deaths/

Run as a collaboration between Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and Kings:

www.kcl.ac.uk/research/cptu

This is the paragraph that NICE seem to be inserting in their pregnancy and women's health guidelines which seems a good compromise to me ( tfrom the Postnatal care guideline)

"The guideline uses the terms 'woman' or 'mother' throughout. These should be taken to include people who do not identify as women but are pregnant or have given birth. Similarly, where the term 'parents' is used, this should be taken to include anyone who has main responsibility for caring for a baby."

If there needs to be specific material aimed at transmen then that should be produced and promoted to that group, not exclude other vulnerable groups by only considering one.

If you have not attended cervical screening because of your gender identity, what are the reasons? (n= 52)

Don’t associate with/like thinking about that part of the body: 41 (79%)

Disclosure of gender identity: 28 (54%)

Where would you prefer to attend cervical screening? (n= 134)

Trans-specific health clinic (any): 86 (64%)

So if the reason that most of the participants that were eligible but hadn’t been screened was that they didn’t associate with that part of their body and/or didn’t want to disclose their status, and a majority of all respondents would prefer to deal with a trans-specific health clinic ...

... isn’t the answer obvious?

Having a male gender marker was identified in the thematic analysis as a barrier to screening for TMNB.

No shit Sherlock.

Apparently a trans man was without his knowledge reclassified as a man on his medical records so didn't get an invitation for a smear test.

Thats not an issue that would be affected by this though.

Thats a totally seperate, but also important issue. That transpeople should NOT under any circumstace, be put down as the opposite sex on medical records. Sure add in a 'this patient is trans and would prefer he/him' or similar i their notes, but changing females to male., and vice versa, is insanity! As I understand it though, its TRAs pushing for trans people to have lies in their medical records though, because 'feelings'?

The left hand doesnt know what the right is doing.

''Doctors have been told to stop mixing up sex and gender because it can end up with people getting the wrong treatment.''
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/02/doctors-must-stop-mixing-sex-gender-patients-undergoing-wrong/

A whole 137 people - only 64 of whom were eligible for cervical screening.

In answer to Necessary's question about self-swabs, there is a trial to look at just that possibility: www.england.nhs.uk/2021/02/nhs-gives-women-hpv-home-testing-kits-to-cut-cancer-deaths/

They are being prioritised over immigrant women with English as a second language, women who are functionally illiterate, women with additional needs that make understanding English more difficult, Deaf women who's first language is British Sign Language and who often have poor literacy due to educational barriers. Not to mention the older generation of women like my grandmother who left school at 14 and wouldn't have a clue what or where her cervix was or if she even had one!

The consultation on women's health services is still open if anyone wants to take it and address the above! I highlighted this issue specifically in my response as I am greatly concerned at vulnerable groups of women finding it even more difficult to access vital health info and services due to this erasure of female pronouns.

FFS Just when there is some light at the end of the tunnel you realise it's an oncoming train.

Yep, this.

Just over half (n = 71/134, 53%) stated they would like the option to self-swab for high-risk human papillomavirus.

Okay, is that a sensible option? Doesn't immediately sound like it.

But I assume someone with a medical clue thinks it is, or they wouldn't be being asked the question? Can anyone fill me in?

I'm just having flashbacks to some of the things that Action for Trans Health were in favour of. It's made me a bit sceptical about asking certain groups for their ideas about healthcare.

Results In total there were 137 participants; 80% identified as transmasculine,18% as non-binary, and the remaining participants reported other noncisgender identities. Sixty-four participants (47%) were eligible for cervical screening and 37 (58%) of those had been screened. Only 34 (53%) of those eligible felt they had sufficient information about cervical screening. Just over half (n = 71/134, 53%) stated they would like the option to self-swab for high-risk human papillomavirus. Only half (n = 68/134, 51%) of participants were in favour of an automatic invitation for cervical screening. Thematic analysis identified a number of additional barriers to and facilitators of screening.

So only half of those surveyed were in favour of an automatic invitation for cervical screening?

Plus the modal group (53% of participants) were aged 18-24, so hadn’t yet been reached the age threshold to be called for a cervical smear?

As genderwang word salad goes, it's not that bad

So it was mostly transmasculine women, some non-binary women, and a few women with other noncisgender identities.

All women though

("Some women are transmasculine. Some women are non-binary. Get over it!")

The following genderwang word salad from that report:-

"Results In total there were 137 participants; 80% identified as transmasculine,18% as non-binary, and the remaining participants reported other noncisgender identities."

If you are cross about this, then I highly recommend that you take yourself to this survey

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/womens-health-strategy-call-for-evidence/womens-health-strategy-call-for-evidence#how-to-respond

And explain to them, in installments of not more than 350 words at a time exactly how exclusionary this policy actually is.

I hope you find it as therapeutic as I did

I find it astonishing that the authors of this research did not consider the negative impact on women if language is changed to be "gender neutral". Especially when it is known that a large percentage of women don't know where their cervix is or what it does. www.jostrust.org.uk/node/666780 This is the same Jo's Trust that was involved in this new research.

Never mind issues with literacy and EAL. Just jumping straight to a recommendation to change all screening literature to remove references to women/she/her etc.

Useful further extracts about the respondents to the survey.

Participants were recruited from the GIC’s waiting list and 56T’s list of TMNB service users at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust sexual health services. Inclusion criteria were: female sex assigned at birth; trans man, masculine, or non-binary gender identity; aged ≥18 years; and UK resident.
…

Participants were invited by email to participate in the online questionnaire if they had previously given consent to be contacted by email by either the GIC or 56T.

As per PP, there's no involvement from groups representing the communication interests of women with learning disabilities, cognitive disabilities, communication needs relating to deafness or minority languages etc.

Some interesting answers and survey analyses that demonstrate, as ever, there is no one size fits all for the overall aspiration of personalised health care.

Women have enough trouble accessing examinations without this garbage.
Multiple studies have shown that using gender neutral language excludes up to half of all women as they don't know the correct names for their own bodies, or dont have English as their first language.
And they have completely ignored the fact that its common for controlling men to prevent their partners going for medical exams. To deal with that, the practice needs to offer the test at a set time and date, not invite women to attend. The abuser needs to know the practice expects to see her and will chase her up if she doesn't appear.

I'm having a FB about this very thing at at the moment and am being torn down over my objection to being called a cervix haver!

Apparently a trans man was without his knowledge reclassified as a man on his medical records so didn't get an invitation for a smear test.

No one cares that the problem is there because trans men and trans women object to the word trans being put before their sex and if they were just happy to be called trans men and trans women there wouldn't be this issue.

I brought up trans women being in rape crisis centres and women's refuges and was told that if trans women were in these places it's because they were victims too and had every right to be there, just makes you want to give up!

A recent advert re prostate health referred to "men" not Penis havers, not prostate havers, not testicle havers. And I think it was a woman's voice saying 'men, we are with you
Wonder why that is????
(Ffs again)

These language changes are just creating barriers to health and social care for other groups.

For 10% of the population English is their second language. 1.3% of the population can speak English but not well and 0.3% cannot speak English at all. (2011 census). So 6.6m people affected.

19% of the population are under 16. (As 2018 - ONS website)

Elderly people over 75 = 5.4m people (Age UK website)

Autism affects 0.9% of the population, so 5.5m people (Autism society website)

Illiteracy affects 16.4% of the population (ie people in England described as having ‘very poor literacy skills’ ) (Literary trust website) so 7.1m people in England alone. 7.1 MILLION PEOPLE IN ENGLAND ALONE FFS

Apologies to PPs for posting the same link - I take too long and I should have checked again.