The NHS responded to my query about erasing women from their website

If that's true why are you so threatened by the NHS including people who step outside of stereotypes?

We are not. We are deeply concerned about a denial of biological reality.

I think there is a bit of information missing here. It depends how much of the whole "trans debate" you have been involved in, what you have seen and heard online and in real life..

Many of the more active TRAs claim that the word woman includes transwomen, because transwomen are women. That left women with the word female... which some TRAs are also gunning for, as transwomen are no different from any other woman they must also be female.

It all sounds ludicrous but, and I am with OP here, any embroidering around the terms woman and female allows two things to happen:*

• People with low literacy or for who English is not their first language get confused by the additional terms. Health care is supposed to present itself in the simplest way possible. A transman is always aware that he is a transman, born female. Someone who decides they are non binary knows which sex they were born, no matter that they reject the stereotypes. So in healthcare inclusivity can be harmful (see the many extant cases discussed this forum)

• TRAs can muscle into single sex female spaces, because they are women. Any spaces. This too has happened across the UK causing harm to women and to transwomen, transmen, in the process. Some do it because of the 'thing we cannot mention', others for more nefarious reasons. None do it because they are confused about their actual sex, they know their sex even as they reject it.

That's what happens when people bastardise the language in order to achieve something that is illogical!

*and do remember that this rarely happens to the words men and male. Those concepts are, until very recently in some places, not challenged at all!

I don’t like the way they put non-binary as a separate category that can get penile cancer. I know lots of school-aged girls who identify as non-binary. Do you think they ought to go to the GP to check?

Maybe they need to clarify ‘non-binary and were previously known as male on your birth certificate’. That’s catchy.

I agree with this.

You might wish to revisit your understanding of DSDs. There are two sexes, DSDs are a variation, a genetic miscoding, of those two sexes. There is no third or fourth sex.

The poster has missed the point that we are actually about challenging gender and sex-role stereotypes.

If that's true why are you so threatened by the NHS including people who step outside of stereotypes?

Fenlaindia - the quote you draw attention to:

"So gender non conforming people are simply immature? There it is then. They just need to grow up and that will solve everything. Stick them all in a Boden sundress until they see the error of their ways."

Seems to underscore the poster's earlier confusion where the poster says:

"From here, as someone who is a gender critical feminist, its looking like some people on Mumsnet would be happy to see any female who doesnt adhere to gender stereotypes and who doesnt call themselves a woman, excluded from healthcare".

The poster erroneously seems to think we are all about being nice, good proper women wearing Boden sundresses (I don't actually know what this beastie is), sipping pink gin and having orgasms at the thought of doing our husbands' laundry or something. The poster has missed the point that we are actually about challenging gender and sex-role stereotypes.

I just want to point out that are people who biologically do not fall into either sex category. It is not so simple as ‘people know their sex’ or are exclusively biologically male or female. It is completely scientifically possible to have a mixed picture.

If an argument is based on the fact there are only two sexes and everyone is definitively biologically one or the other, it’s scientifically flawed.

I don’t have a strong position on the whole trans thing. But I do have a strong position science, particularly biology. It is completely BIOLOGICALLY possible to be born, or develop, as neither male or rename or various combinations thereof.

The trans debate is about gender, and the role of gender in society. It’s a valid topic for discussion. But it can’t be based on the foundation that there are only two discrete and fixed biological sexes, because that is not accurate.

"So gender non conforming people are simply immature? There it is then. They just need to grow up and that will solve everything. Stick them all in a Boden sundress until they see the error of their ways."

"Boden sundress"? WTF are you talking about?

Google works for transmen the same way as for anyone else. They would Google their symptoms, they would find a page about ovarian cancer, and they would say "ah yes, I have ovaries after all, so I'd better have a read".

Or when you Google your symptoms do you always add your "gender identity" in there as a search term? "Non-binary demi-boi achy leg sore throat"?

I wish all the people who want to turn biological sex into a philosophical debate and render words meaningless would go back to debating how many angels can dance on a pin head

That. It's perfectly clear to me. Women are not excluded, the word is very clearly there.

The role of the NHS on that site is to ensure that those at risk, know that they are. They need to make it clear in simple terms by listing ALL the people who are at risk, and not assume that everyone is educated enough to know that they are.

There seem to be people here who'd prefer others to remain undiagnosed, rather than have anyone else included on that list other than women.

They have a job to do, and they're doing it in real time, and equally across male and female cancers.

Well it is.

Are you taking offence at the term ‘mature enough’ - which was meant to mean that it’s not the mature reaction to refuse to answer to a descriptive word regarding your sex (you know your sex) because you don’t feel?

How is it ‘inaccessible’ for someone who knows their bodily sex to use it on a website referring to bodies?

That's not what you said at all.

No - I said if someone cannot bear the idea that their body sex is what it is - who will say they are insulted/triggered whatever by reading the descriptive word for the body they inhabit and need to have euphemisms/other terms to describe it (when a single word will absolutely do) then they aren’t particularly robust, and that is surely a worry?

live your life, certainly. But reality is there.

So gender non conforming people are simply immature? There it is then. They just need to grow up and that will solve everything. Stick them all in a Boden sundress until they see the error of their ways.

Your argument is more akin to saying that the nhs website shouldn't bother offering information in different languages because if people want to use the nhs, the majority speak English and it's confusing to the majority to have options to change the website into different languages. Even though it's still there, in English and it makes no difference to you if there are also options to make the site more accessible to non english speakers.

They haven't removed the word woman. You're still represented. What this boils down to is that you just don't respect other people's choices to live their lives in a different way to you, and youd rather see that resources were inaccessible to them but you're tying yourself up in semantics and using non English speakers as a reason not to make the NHS more inclusive.

And you want to keep it scientific. Someone above doesn't want them using the word vulva because it's too confusing for non English speakers. Which is it? Should they use scientific language, or shouldn't they?

But this is about bodies not minds.

Someone who is ‘mature enough’ to declare/‘live as’ their sex the opposite, really should be ‘mature enough’ to acknowledge that Mother Nature doesn’t care what you feel and even if you can’t see it - you still may have the internal plumbing (you will know if you have had surgery).

if it’s ‘just a word’, then keep it as it is. What next - change any race/ethnic origin categories because people feel differently? Even though some groups of the community are more at risk from certain diseases and need monitoring?

lets just keep this scientific please.

many women, and probably men too, either do not have the vocab or have English as second language so reducing things to terms like vulva befuddles many. As does long lists of who might get those cancers - the naive reader might even think you have to be all of the so-called inclusive list at the same time, (women, trans and non-binary), to get it

What should they say instead of vulva on a page about female cancer?

They are excluding me and women like me

This is what you put earlier. So you call yourself a woman. The website says woman. Ergo, you are represented. You are not a victim.

From here, as someone who is a gender critical feminist, its looking like some people on Mumsnet would be happy to see any female who doesnt adhere to gender stereotypes and who doesnt call themselves a woman, excluded from healthcare. Like i said. If a trans man googled whether their symptoms could be ovarian cancer, would you be happier if the NHS website didn't show up to help that person? Because if the words transman aren't on that page, it won't show up because of SEO. Are females only worthy of help from the NHS if they look and sound and think like you?

The hills you lot choose to die on are baffling.

It is not clear and not consistent. What people writing these things from the NHS to cancer charities do not want to admit is that:

1. many women, and probably men too, either do not have the vocab or have English as second language so reducing things to terms like vulva befuddles many. As does long lists of who might get those cancers - the naive reader might even think you have to be all of the so-called inclusive list at the same time, (women, trans and non-binary), to get it!

2. (and this is is key) in contrast to the above there is not a trans person or non-binary person on the planet that does not know what their biological sex is, so sticking to women and men in any health description is very clear to everyone. And is frankly the most inclusive - as it includes everyone what ever their language or educational ability.

Why do we all have to pretend that trans people and non-binary people do not know what their biological sex is?

And it includes people it shouldn't - male people who consider themselves women. I think it goes to show that we do need a word that means adult human females. We do already have that word - women. Maybe we need to educate people on the meaning of this word.

Just say “woman”, and spell out that you’re talking biological categories only. Everyone’s included, no sides taken. Bingo.

Tbh, as long as the word woman is there, I am content to leave it as it is.

And I mean woman not cisgender woman.

It’s when they erase the word woman and use uterus havers, period people and other words like that. That’s when I have a problem