Why are MEN being offered Cervical Cancer Screening...

[Beansonapost]

What is going on in this country?

If you are registered as a female with your GP you are being offered screenings...even if you don't possess the organ.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/14/women-identify-men-not-offered-routine-nhs-breast-cancer-screening/?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/623309/Transgender_cross_programme_screening_leaflet.pdf

OP you clearly haven’t read the links you’ve posted. Stop spreading anti-trans hate.

But if they are going to go with the blanket invite approach, they should probably record someone's inferred-sex-at-birth rather than just their current gender.*

Well if they're currently using the gender someone has ticked on a from to determine which letters they send then the NHS clearly doesn't have this information to hand at the moment.
So to do this, presumably, they'd have to re-design^^ and re-distribute the form they currently use so it also asks for sex-at-birth as well as current gender? This would presumable have to be back-dated so basically everyone in the U.K. would need to be sent the form, and complete and return it.

Then re-design the database so this data can be stored. Then this data would have to be added to the database somehow.

Then there would have to be developments made to the output from the database - so the new 'sex-at-birth' fields are used for the letter generation instead.
Then the accompanying leaflets would have to be re-designed and re-printed.

Then there's the cost of training for those maintaining the database, making staff in GPs aware of the changes and the impact etc.

When realistically how many people are we talking about here? - Even if someone identifies as male but they know they have a cervix the chances are they'll know they should get a cervical cancer screening. And if they don't they'll probably see a doctor/nurse at some point about something and it could be mentioned to them then. And even if they don't, what are the odds of them getting cancer?

The costs of the cancer treatment for the few who do slip thorough will be minuscule compared to the costs of changing the NHS databases. It's a numbers game.

The same applies to the statistics of those not attending. Compared to the millions of people in the UK the number of people not attending because they have been sent a letter inviting them to make an appointment for a smear test, but they don't have a cervix, will be so small it will be negligible.

A better approach would be to run awareness campaigns to remind people that whatever gender they identify as being if they have a cervix - get it checked, if they have a prostate - get it checked etc. But even that costs money that the NHS doesn't have!!!

so it also asks for sex-at-birth

But that would be incredibly transphobic, and I imagine would be vigorously campaigned against by TRAs

KNain yes, new forms may be needed. Just like when same-sex CPS then marriages became a thing, no doubt plenty forms and documentations had to adapt. Non-conformists can certainly pose such issues for pre-existing forms and databases. But they exist so in this case replacing gender with natal-sex or adding it, is the simplest way to go.

WE don't need new forms for everyone because a tiny minority of people want to pretend their penis is a vagina.

Once I had had my hysterectomy I got one invitation for screeening and I informed them I no longer had a cervix. Never heard from them again.

Breast screening is more complicated, I carry a gene which makes it more likely that I would get breast cancer. I might have passed this on to my children and it increases the risk for both. The females would be more at risk but I think they will screen the sons as well. I don't have all the details as only just found out.

At the moment the NHS takes the information from initial registration. Which for the vast majority of people is taken from their birth record. Presumably there are different ways to get an NHS record if you immigrate (probably immigration paperwork takes the sex record from your identity paperwork from your country of origin). The issue is that when people change their medical records and F/M becomes biologically incorrect all the systems set up to trigger on the basis of age/sex will do so incorrectly. A small issue when changes were only made in line with the GRA, but in the current age of self declaration a rather bigger issue as numbers go up. Should the NHS really spend millions on redesigning their IT systems to incorporate new fields for gender as well as sex and then figure out new algorithms, compose new letter templates etc? Screening is designed to save both lives and money as the cost of screening plus early treatment should always be less than treatment when symptoms appear - if not the program should be pulled.

WE don't need new forms for everyone because a tiny minority of people want to pretend their penis is a vagina. I have a vagina but no cervix. Plenty of other women are in the same position.

I bet there are more people in my situation with no cervix than there are transwomen.

@Friedgreen I have. This is not a trans-exclusive issue. And whatever you want to call it/ or me I'm tired of things trans shite now!🙄.

Perhaps throw that onto someone with a thin skin... because really, I don't care... person with a penis /pseudo vagina is a man... pseudo penis a woman. There is nothing in this world that will change that... that's why there needs to be more help where mental health is concerned.

With regards to new forms , how does this affect the gender fluid?

How do they go about not feeling offended and excluded because they don't fit a criteria ?

And yes I agree making it a neutral platform for whatever gender to remember to have their screenings done is probably the best way... but it will cost, probably less than redesigning an entire computer system... but it will cost. Where is that money coming from?

@nooka where immigrants are concerned

You only state if you are male or female. Nothing else.

Plenty of other women are in the same position

you're not in the same situation as transwomwn. You had a cervix now you don't, you tell them that and they stop calling you for screening. They never had a cervix and are in no need of screening, but they are for certain mens diseases that they won't be called for.

I didn't think there was any routine screening offered to men, nothing like mammograms or smear, but apparently they are offered Abdominal aortic aneurysm in their 65th year. My husband wasn't offered it, don't know why. I think I better tell him to ask next time he sees GP.