Brilliant article on the importance of using sexed language in medical settings

Excellent article. Thanks for sharing and thanks for bumping, I had missed it previously. It is such a clear and coherent account of the impact of avoiding sex-based language. Dr VT and his ilk would do well to read it.

What a beautifully written research paper - I sometimes doubt my reactions, wonder if perhaps I'm not getting something, or I'm out of touch, or I'm irrationally attached to these words in a literary sense and being precious.

But these are people working in this field explaining why this language is so important.

Heh. It has just occurred to me that another printed copy might find itself pinned to a notice board at work where current articles and studies relevant to the department are displayed.

Fantastic, @FannyCann.

I'm glad she has some ammunition to justify herself should she need to and she's a clever young woman who may one day end up in a position of influence so maybe I have helped sow a seed.

Well done. How fortuitous that you had it to hand!

Feeling quietly pleased with myself today.
DD had her friend over, who is studying for an MA in Global Public Health policy. She said her particular interest was in relation to women's health so I asked her if she had come up against problems relating to the use of gendered language. The daughter bristled and glared warningly at me and her friend nervously looked from my daughter to me and back again before saying she thought terms like "women and birthing people" should be acceptable but as a woman she didn't want to lose use of the word woman to describe herself.
I trotted off and printed off this article and sent her home clutching it.
No chance for daughter to be offended but I know that article is in good hands.

Worth another bump!

I saw this special article posted by @littlbrowndog too in relation to this thread
BBC Doctor on people with a prostate

I agree it is brilliant. It is nuanced and detailed in its criticism of the misuse of language in a medical setting, yet also completely respectful of trans people. In fact it shows how they are not least among those who would be adversely affected by the use of inaccurate and misleading language.

It should be mandatory reading by all institutions even non medical ones imo.

I first saw it posted on another thread the other night, but can’t remember where or by whom.

I was using 111 online yesterday and it asked for birth sex; giving only male or female as options. There was a sentence explaining why sex is important in healthcare. I was surprised and relieved to find material reality being given primacy over feelings, maybe all is not lost. I also thought it was quite revealing.

Ditto!

Just bumping this. Because the article is important.

And then you have shit like this:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0890334421994541

Loads of 'sex assigned at birth' and you should not call a person 'mother' without knowning how they self-identify, etc etc.

One of the authors is a lactation consultant FFS.

Yeah should be compuslery reading

So clear. So damning

The damage is does to women and girls throughput the world

The educated, middle class, supported, employed female people who can advocate for themselves and their own selfish desires - they got listened to. And they didn't think of the women who's voices don't get heard because they have none of the privilege that the first group enjoy and take totally for granted

Fuckers. I'll never forgive them

A million times over this. One of the most grotesque aspects of all of this is watching degree holding, privileged ' kindness-without- consequence' women, happily forcing other women, often marginalised and vulnerable women, to live the reality of their kindness in homeless shelters, prisons, refuges and rape crisis services. Or the consequences for growing girls who are learning that saying 'no' makes you a bad girl, that you need to over-ride your instincts about risk to be 'good'. Or the consequences for women and girls who train hard their sport their whole lives, only to be told to accept second or third place or they are unkind.

The privileged, smug women and men imposing all this on other women, never have to live the consequence of it.

I'll never forgive them either.

Just started another thread on a relevant point

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4452534-BBC-Doctor-on-people-with-a-prostate

Christ. It's all such an outrageous mess as that article makes clear.

Fantastic article and one to quote when the male supremacists who monitor and post on here arrive.

Superb article- should be compulsory reading in every medical school in the country.

Brilliant article. Professionals from six countries concerned enough to collaborate on an issue that has infiltrated the medical profession through pressure from people whose agenda is not, and has never been, the welfare of women and children.

Thank you authors for standing up for women. Thank you for putting your heads above the parapet. Thank you for your professionalism , your concern, your knowledge and your clarity of expression.

Susan Bewley is amazing and has a superb history of supporting women and evidence-based medicine.

I got really angry with the “inclusive language warriors” when it became clear that 40% of women didn’t know what a cervix was. I have no doubt that a significant number of that 40% were women who may already be marginalised through EAL, educational opportunities, disabilities and other issues with access to services. How dare people put those women at risk of harm and death by using obscure technical language to avoid upsetting a tiny minority of people.

#Biology not terminology