Macmillan Cancer Support

There is of course no screening programme for PCa, so most men who look at these pages are likely to have more pressing concerns. But shifting this language would definitely be on the agenda, given the huge overrepresentation of ‘people with prostates’ among TRAs. I imagine Pink News would be as outraged as they were by the “disgustingly transphobic lie that 'only females get cervical cancer”.

I had a "dodgy" smear resullt, some years ago and had to have a colposcopy. The only time the doctor took any notice of my concerns, was when I was accompanied by my husband. I didn't have to have any treatment, but the whole thing scared the living daylights out of me.

I’ve other friends who have had precancerous cells detected and were able to be successfully treated

Anecdotal reports I know but before people start campaigning to remove a screening programme that benefits women away I’d want to see very very solid evidence for it’s inefficiency

Complaining about the absence of “people with prostates” is only going to lead to its presence.

I wouldn't be sure about this not solving the problem. Most men will be really pissed off if they are referred to as the above , or their golf club regs were changed to say" only people with penises in the bar etc."

Complaining about the absence of “people with prostates” is only going to lead to its presence. The real issue is the use of circumlocution for women and men as sex-based biology terms.

True, though you have to be old for that one!

May I ask what you're classing as old? Different healthcare systems have different thresholds of age and there's a push to reduce the age of screening in some systems and to use more elaborate imaging technology by default.

The was to EmbarrassingAdmissions

Or a huge machine learning expt. being run via auto-correct function.

Don't know where "factor" came from there

There's the breast screening programme for women only though. And McMillan has separate info for men and women.

The more I think about it, the more I think all advice/education/information should just make it perfectly clear upfront that it is biological sex that is being referred to, factor not gender.

As this recent BBC Radio4 programme manages to state quite clearly and unambiguously

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p098d1xd

There have been proposals for prostate cancer but the biomarkers were useless so that proposal was abandoned. However, that nuance is lost every time an angry man argues that healthcare systems largely fund breast and cervical screening for women but nothing that is exclusively for the male sex class.

There's a screening programme for breast Cancer sure ly

I wonder if the push to gender-neutral terms, coinciding with the expansion of the HPV vaccination, is what is causing some of the confusion around who might develop cervical cancer?

This may relate to the fact that cervical cancer is the only one which has a screening programme. Likely the screening program which, for obvious reasons, targets women, is seen as a point of contention.

I'm conflicted on this. The evidence is unclear as to the value of some (previously proposed and currently active) screening programmes. There is a strong scientific debate about the value in various countries - but it's all grounded in the evidence and the published trials and follow-up data etc.

If there are people who want to abolish sex class screening programmes then they would be better advised to do it that way. And, in fact, they'd be doing healthcare systems everywhere a favour if an inefficient screening programme were axed and the money repurposed to, for example, research to identify indicators that somebody has an active and rapidly progressive or so-called 'indolent' cancer.

Yes I was going to say the same. It does seem to be that one instance of a gender-neutral term on the cervical cancer pages. Everywhere else they have referred to women in the same way that they have referred to men.

Interesting.

This may relate to the fact that cervical cancer is the only one which has a screening programme. Likely the screening program which, for obvious reasons, targets women, is seen as a point of contention.

And honestly if the new "you can`t possibly know what reproductive organs you have, if you never had your chromosomes tested, because sex is a complicated spectrum and not at all binary" rethoric preveils at school in a generation 100% of pupils at university will not know.

Exactly. If you're non binary how do you know if you could get cervical cancer? Exactly how do you know.

And yes to the titillation aspect of vulva owners, vagina havers, etc. Completely unacceptable.

It's always women's charities, companies, organisations that are targeted. It's always women's biology that must be separated from the word, and therefore the concept of, woman.

How many times are these places shown the inconsistency of their 'inclusive' language? But nothing happens. They know full well what men would say to being addressed as prostrate havers and ejaculaters.

It's men identifying as women who want the word women to not be contingent on female biology. Which is why the addition of words isn't suggested. 'Women and transmen' still attaches the word woman to female biology. Strange how we so rarely see it.

These places must be held accountable for why it's only women's language that is changed. It exposes the sexism, the misogyny and, importantly, who exactly is driving it.

Think it's not enough just to write to the CEO - she is clearly captured with her she/her pronouns on twitter. We need to contact the trustees who have ultimate responsibility for the governance of the organisation. Only problem is I can't find their email addresses - if anyone has contact details to email please post....

www.macmillan.org.uk/about-us/who-we-are/our-trustees

Our trustees
Richard Murley

Iain Cornish

Jag Ahluwalia

Jane Cummings CBE

Kate Howe

Feilim Mackle

Mohammed Mehmet

Toby Strauss

Rachel Higham

Nick Owen

Dr Jean Abraham

not to mention the difficulty for those with dyslexia, low reading ability and thoise with communication disabilites wherre a whole wodge of text is off putting.

Wrote to them to express my feelings on their 'people with cervixes' cop-out.

Well, the correct term is Uterine cervix, i.e. "Neck of the womb". They could at least explain that.