Will smears be done by men/TWs in future?

I'm broadly GC, but have never been at all bothered about a male doing a smear etc. The sex of the medical professional is completely irrelevant - they just need to be competent at their job.

No personally I'd only want an actual woman for a smear or any pregnancy related thing or anything to do with my boobs or vagina!

Had a male midwife back in the 90's he was bloody awful thinking back.

Pervy weird doctor try to perform a cervix scrape thing for abnormal cells as well , horrific awful man. I complained and it was up held. Awful man

Good, and for the women who do care, then women practitioners all the way

Personally I couldn’t care less who does it as long as they are professional. Once you get though a few rounds of IVF and just about everyone in a clinic has had a good look you stop caring.

Sometimes it just isn’t possible to provide a female doctor if the hospital doesn’t have one in that particular specialty.
I remember a muslim patient who required a urology procedure, and asked for an all female team in theatre, plus a female interpreter, as she only spoke Arabic. We were able to provide an all female nursing staff, an Egyptian surgeon’s wife volunteered to translate, I handled the spinal anaesthetic myself, but we didn’t have a single female urologist anywhere in our area of 2,000 sq miles of rural Scotland. In the end, she agreed to our locum Greek chap, who kept a low profile behind the drapes at the end of the table and didn’t speak to her during the op.
I understood the patient’s distress - not only did she have religious objections to a male surgeon, but she had suffered FGM, which had caused her urinary problems and severe renal impairment as a result. We all did our best to support her in theatre, and our interpreter wrote out several useful phrases for her on the ward afterwards. She actually coped very well.

I've no problem with a male gynaecologist and a female chaperone (it's in the spelling, too). The problem is a TW and whether a chaperone is then present since a TW is male. If TWAW then a chaperone may be deemed unnecessary. Asking everyone whether the person doing the smear is male or female seems like a possible route to using TWs - but I think the TW would insist that no chaperone is needed (because the presence of a chaperone would be invalidating of their TW status).

I agree and sorry you are having to deal with this @Naunet

This phrase from mids2019 is particularly insensitive:

There have been situations I am aware of where women have been redirected from other duties to cover for men unecessarily.

What exactly does "unnecessarily" mean in this context? And who decides it's unnecessary?

No, someone who works for the NHS, shouldn’t be talking about women as if their trauma is unimportant and irritating. It took me 2 years of therapy to even be able to allow a woman to give me a smear and then I read shit like this, as if me and women like me are just annoying drama queens and it’s so sad for the poor men.

Ease up, she didn't say anything of the sort.

I think we all know how stretched the NHS is and we're all intelligent enough to know that if certain sexes of staff are requested it has the potential to create staffing issues. That doesn't mean women don't have the right to request female HCPs.

So women need to put aside their trauma to make your lives easier?!

I’m a survivor of CSA, I have PTSD, I will never accept a male performing intimate examinations etc. I’m terribly sorry if that makes you sad for men, or irritated at how inconvenient it is for you.

I don’t see any issues regardless of gender. It’s another way of them covering their backs with complaints and law suits. I think it’s more to do with that than anyone’s gender

This!

I'm sure I've seen articles recently about how women generally have better results if their surgeon is also female (I'm assuming this excludes tw, although rare I know there's at least one late transitioning tw surgeon).

I've always had my smears done by female nurses, ditto the one mammogram I had. I think I'd be very upset if I was expected to believe a tw was female, some do pass though but not many. I believe women do have the right to single sex intimate care, that this is being interpreted as including tw is fucking outrageous. I'd heard at least one police force believes it's okay for a tw officer to carry out intimate searches on female suspects. If the woman objects she might face charges.

This is all down to Stonewall and similar lobbying groups who, for years, have been putting their own spin on legislation which was meant to protect the dignity, safety and privacy of women.

As an aside I'll just leave this here. It's a link to the MN petition page. Trying to get enough signatures to get the Government to update the Equality Act to try to repair some of the damage. If you haven't already please sign it, get your friends and family to sign it. It's on the Government petition website so it is completely confidential.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/petitions_noticeboard/4722618-petition-to-update-the-equality-act-thread-2?page=30

No idea. My dd was told 'it is me or nothing and you don't get your smear today'. Whatever the reason totally inappropriately communicated.

"Their gender meant nothing to me, the ‘chaperone’ caused my upset by being unprepared and creating an audience."

I doubt they just assume you need a chaperone with male patients, so maybe a bit of a double standard. Yes, they may sometimes be used anyway for policy reasons.

I've had smears and internal exams done by men - i've had chaperones offered/provided sometimes- but not always women
the worst experience being male doctor, male nurse and 6 male medical students - male doctor told me to stop being silly when i flinched... BUT it was more that the doctor was a complete jerk and I was too young to have said no to all the students- the male nurse was actually fine and very reassuring.
In the last year or so I had a very intimate exam (for childbirth repairs) by a male doctor and wasn't offered any chaperone but had a smear by a female doctor who offered me a female chaperone
in summary its totally messed up and inconsistent - the issue for me is that you are not always given time to process what you are being offered or what you want- its often presented as "you're fine to do this aren't you" and i politely say of course..the default position is no chaperone unless you ask whilst i think it should be the other way round
I think i'd be more uncomfortable with a trans woman doing the procedures than a man- it feels more sexualised/odd

Was that because there was only a man available at that time though? It should have been made clear in advance though, even if it was a last minute phone call because the women wasn't in. I can't imagine any GP practice would insist she could only have a man attend to her.

She def should complain. It's not on.

My dd went to the GP for a smear test recently, it became clear that it was to be undertaken by a man. She was told that she had no choice in the matter. She left. I have advised her to complain.

My last smear was done without chaperone, and i don't remember being asked if i wanted one. I've got one booked for next week (doesn't three years just fly by) so I shall be interested to see whether I'm asked or not and if there is just one there regardless.

re mammograms I'm currently trying to pin down my NHS trust on what their definition of female is with regards mammograms. As the paperwork for the initial mammogram stated female only staff. But when queried with so far three different members of staff the answers have ranged from unwillingness to discuss to well if a transwoman applies for the job we can't say no and the service would still be single sex!?! Despite them apparently running the department under the single sex exemption. Someone has gone off to look into it further (check with the legal department i suspect).

Whilst I wait for their response it was interesting in the fact that the letter for me to return for more mammograms and biopsies at the main breast unit didn't have the female only on the letter, and there were male members of staff floating around the department.

I had a smear performed by a male nurse recently. I was asked if I was ok with that and that I would have a female chaperone (who I think was a receptioninst/admin). I took a gamble because I'd read that male nurses are often better and luckily for me it was. It was the best smear that I'd ever had. He put it up slowly as opposed to the usual jam it up and it didn't hurt in the slightest!! I was concerned that he hadn't done it properly because it hurt so little haha.

For myself only I wouldn't have a problem with a fully transitioned TW with a the legal gender change document.
But if they haven't fully transitioned then I want a biologically female HCP.
However I don't want a fully transitioned TM either as although their sex is biologically female their gender is male and they are living as a male.

But I'm wondering how you accommodate that?

I know the above might not make sense to some but this is just for me only.
e.g. Caroline Cossey was a HCP I would be happy for her to do my smear test.
But not Balian Buschbaum as although born biologically female, he I think has fully transitioned & is gendered male & looks like a 'man'

However I agree that you should still have the choice of whether you want a biological female/male HCP.
What about women (biological) due to religion, past trauma etc that must have a biological sex female that is also a gendered female HCP do their smear, mammogram etc?
Or men (biological) who must have biological male sex, gender male to do any intimate examination?

Now will probably get into trouble for this but a biological male wearing a dress & not fully transitioned or on the route to be fully transitioned is not a 'woman' as in gender in my head.
And the same goes for a biological woman wearing trousers & not fully transitioned in or on the route to being fully transitioned is not a 'man' as in gender in my head too.

I too think the system works, now.

But what will happen when there are many many times more trans women/trans men in healthcare?

I wont have an intimate exam by either, but I'm confident in standing up for myself, what will those women (and men for that matter) who cannot stand up for themselves going to do?
It's as good as sexual assault as no consent, and you cannot force consent, that's not how it works.

I cannot care about bias or lack of bias in the NHS recruitment, people require same sex care, if that leads to employing more women, oh well, what a shame.