Newson health - menopause specialists, say trans & non binary people experience menopause

Women, and trans and non-binary people, have been suffering with the menopause hormone deficiency for decades and it’s time to put this right

I think menopausal care for women who have a male or non binary gender identity and take cross sex hormones, or of those who detransitioned after taking cross sex hormones, is an important and I’m going to guess under-researched issue, but I wonder maybe not in the way Newson health might be implying. I’m not medical though this is just my concerns.

I’d guess unless women in this group did not take cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers, or have been very lucky somehow, then already this group will have had the effects of taking additional hormones glossed over and their adverse symptoms minimised for political reasons. This can leave them with a very complex medical history surely we know from individuals’ accounts, depending on for how long they took them.

This quick little statement above comes over as unfortunate and misleading rather than informed advocacy. That unfortunately makes me wonder the company are scared and trying to be inclusive without doing their homework. Or perhaps just trying to widen their client base without doing their homework.

Do they only supply hormones for menopausal women (however they identify)? Or do they also supply hormones to others for gender identity or gender dysphoria purposes as well?

The statement also includes male people, making a nonsense of the whole thing (unless giving men hormones is an aim, while pretending they’re a woman who lacks hormones?). But it concerns me that it doesn’t account for the fact that some transmen and non binary people will have a complex medical history involving taking cross-sex hormones or blockers.

Replacement of hormones around menopause I would have thought becomes much more complex to calculate safely and advise to n competently on the risks (physical and emotional) via your standard package consultation online and follow up emails.

Any patient (however they identify) who has a previous medical history involving cross sex hormones or a complicated set of needs emotionally around hormones seems like one best seen for NHS specialist care. As you would with any patient with a complex medical history.

Otherwise isn’t the service being offered the same sort of shot in the dark territory as the online GPs prescribing cross sex hormones? But instead of doing that on presumably young healthy people’s bodies , doing that on people’s bodies who may have had a complex medical history arising from being affected by hormones or puberty blockers, leaving the patient with lasting health consequences? This area we are told is poorly researched, and even natural menopause in women who have never taken hormones or puberty blockers before is under researched. Just feels all a bit too ‘inclusive’ while not accounting for important different needs. Which isn’t genuinely or helpfully inclusive at all.

I’m not sure what’s more problematic the generalised trans and non-binary bit or the fact that they think we have only been dealing with the menopause for DECADES.

I mean, I’m not a doctor, but…

‘ Women, and trans and non-binary people, have been suffering with the menopause hormone deficiency for decades’

Trans men are affected by menopause, non-binary female born people too. Don’t get the outrage?

Transactivists got "trans identified male/female" banned from here and various other platforms, so no doubt they'd kick up a stink to see it used anywhere now, they'd force people to flog themselves etc.

I suspect they’ve been got at by some TRAs and are trying to appease them so they can get on with their work without being harassed.

Although Louise Newson has done great work getting menopause issues into the media I put her in the same group as Gender GP. Both have spotted a gap in the NHS provision that they can monetise. Appealing to transmen and NBs just widens their customer base.

Initially their refresh of their website, announced with great fanfare, had no mention of women in it at all. None. It was all “individuals experiencing the menopause”. I was very angry and called them out on Instagram, and they asked me to email them. I did, at length, and included an extract from and a link to the BPAS statement. Very soon after that - though I’m sure there were more complaints than just mine - they started to use this bizarre formulation that seems to include trans women. (I had included in my email an explanation of my concern about trans women seeking validation through this kind of linguistic mechanism.) My take on it is that this is a “don’t hurt me” while also being an attempt to preserve the word “women”. I am, perhaps too charitably, reading it as them doing their best to walk a line so that they can continue to provide services and info to women without being totally derailed by the inevitable attacks from the TRAs.

I wouldn't be too sure that they DO just mean Trans men.

As MENTAL as it sounds, there are huge amounts of TW who document their experiences with 'periods' and 'menopause' online if you care to look.
Language like this just further blurs the lines between male and female, and that is precisely what they are aiming for. Anything that muddies the waters of the biological differences between men and women serves their purpose, as if sex is just some kind of sliding scale that you can move around on depending on how you feel.

Seriously, YouTube is eye opening if you want to see biological males identifying their way into periods and menopause. It really HAS gone that far.

This is where the term "trans-identifying females" might be useful?

We have to be grown up a little this. Woman is a term that has a meaning, like it or not. Start expanding the wording so that we can’t even say a single word to describe 51% of the population (and yet use the word ‘man’) stinks.

I don't think this bothers me so much. I mean they still use the dreaded W word, not sure if I'm keen on " hormone deficiency" to describe a naturally occuring life stage though. I'm more concerned about that TBH

Females who don't identify as women (can I use that term?) will still go through menopause and likely earlier and with more profound effects if they medically transition so it's important that they are fully aware of what to expect when they make these choices.

Call yourself a woman, don’t ca yourself a woman - your body will not listen either way.

The correct phrase in referring to the menopause, if all this is absolutely necessary, is "women and biologically female trans and binary people".

Yes. I suspect the wording they used was carefully constructed by committee, sitting round trying to work out how to be inclusive of everyone, not erase women and not invite abuse. Not excusing that, it just may be what they decided to do.

If you use "women" to mean adult human females, it's a minefield because that will be taken to include males by transactivists, deliberately and perversely (because if they were actually bothered about actual menopause and respected women, they'd be happy to understand that it meant females).

But if you specify biological women or "cis" women then you're announcing you're on board with the idea that males can be women, which is kind of even worse.

That's the trouble with "inclusive" language. It includes people who, for the sake of clarity, need NOT to be included.

The correct phrase in referring to the menopause, if all this is absolutely necessary, is "women and biologically female trans and binary people".

Because the menopause is biology, not identity

I wonder if Newson Health, at any point, at all, considered auto-suggestion or affirmation, or any of a number of mind effecting possibilities. Just a thought

I would have been happier if it had specified transmen, to make it clear they’re still referring to biologically female people, but otherwise I can’t get too wound up about inclusive language that lists women first.

I think it could have been differently phrased, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making it clear that menopause can have serious effects. I think saying that’s a weak/damaged female narrative is emotive! It’s important to be clear about the things that physically affect, and yes sometimes harm, females - and males in their turn. Childbirth, for example, can leave women horribly damaged. That’s not about being weak, it’s an amazing ability unique to females (in humans). But it has effects that need to be understood, need to be researched and treated, need funding for that, etc.

The alternative is pretending women are the physical equal of men, and they aren’t. Stronger in some specific ways, but overall weaker. Pretending women and men aren’t really different physically or the differences don’t matter is part of the whole trans ideology juggernaut. But women (and other female people, if you are being as inclusive as possible) are weaker and more easily harmed. If that’s a “narrative”, it’s a true one.

Point taken but I’m more concerned about the emotive language. My menopause was an absolute breeze compared to puberty, and while I realise it’s not the same for everyone this builds a narrative of the weak and ‘damaged’ female

If it makes sense to refer to women and not men because sex is relevant, I don’t see why the same doesn’t apply to trans people.

Transwomen are not of the female sex, so this doesn’t apply to them. By stating “trans” it covers trans people of both sexes, which is incorrect.

Women, including female trans and non-binary people, have been suffering with the menopause hormone deficiency for decades

Cruel and unhelpful to pretend to people with any kind of trans identity that their sex is irrelevant. After all, their female sex is precisely why trans and non-binary people suffer with the menopause hormone deficiency.

I think it would be better if it said Women, transmen & non-binary people who are female rather than trying to cram in an implication that transwomen might be part of it too.

At least they tried I suppose.

But it isn't saying that all women do, any more than saying that women have babies is saying that all women do.

Also, if it says women (and xyz) experience menopause, then it is actually not saying that woman is a gender, because male TW don't. So it's using women as a sex, plus those trans and NB people who also have the female sex.

I have no idea where the ‘decades’ come from, but I take issue with the blanket assertion that women suffer with the menopause related hormone ‘deficiency’.

Some women, but by no means all, suffer with it, and it is debatable whether normal and natural levels of hormones (oestrogen, surely?) should be considered a deficiency.

Post-menopausal women are still normal, even if society at large view us as aberrant.

I’m personally ok with the phrasing ‘women and . . .’. Anything that avoids the erasure implicit in terms like ‘menstruaters’ is a win.

They’re right, in fairness. Women, even if they identify as trans or nb…
The danger is that any mention of “transpeople” is automatically decoded as ‘transwomen’, since tw are the sole and only focus of transactivism. Almost like the way man is the default setting in so many parts of life. T’is a funny old world.