Cancer Research: anyone with a cervix

[Aloneinacrowd70]

Not sure how to link to Twitter, but Cancer Research UK have a pinned tweet which says:

'Cervical screening (or the smear test) is relevant for everyone aged 25-64 with a cervix. Watch our animation to find out what to expect when you go for screening #CervicalScreeningAwarenessWeek'

Everyone with a cervix? I think in their attempt to be inclusive, they are potentially excluding women who may not know about their own biology. Plus, they still refer to men with regard to prostate cancer:

www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/prostate-cancer

It's only women who are unable to be named, apparently.

Rowantrees: yes, she’s from the USA so it’s bizarre she’s tweeting at a UK charity.

I think its international activism WeeBisom

TransTwitter power!!

Do you think CRUK or Daily Mail have any inkling?

I've noticed someone called Katelyn Burns (?) who I think is also in North America and seems very involved in the UK and connected.

When the mass 'terf' blocker went rogue KB was very involved.

The lack of thought or care into what the effect will be of changing the messaging this way says it all really.

There are at least two posters on this thread who have said they think the wording is fine. Question for them. Given the fact that many women and girls will not for various reasons understand that "people with a cervix" means them, do you still think the new wording is good?
One poster said that changing to " people with prostates" would be positive as well. On another thread there was a stat saying something like 50% of men don't know what a prostate is. So, how will you mitigate that, in reality?

In general I am interested to know, if sex is decoupled from biology, and the part being referenced is internal, how do people know whether they have one or not? Surely most people assume they have the relevant parts for their sex. If you take sex out of the equation, how the hell does anyone know whether they eg have a prostate or not?

betty
Hope you are feeling ok, must have been a big shock to get that letter

This seems like going back in time to the days when body parts and functions were only alluded to. Even in Jackie magazine (which I read voraciously!) periods/perspiration etc were talked about in very vague, coy terms and did not offer any information to those with less than helpful mothers (me).

Agree that to many "cervix owner" is say what? I'm sure I'd never heard of the word until trying to conceive.

Oh yes, I remember a whole talk at school about being careful which toilets we used as some 8 year olds gad been scared by wgat they found. It took a while before I realised she was talking about the disposal of sanitary pads.

I've noticed someone called Katelyn Burns (?) who I think is also in North America and seems very involved in the UK and connected.

Katelyn Burns follows lots of UK TRAs and has written some "interesting" articles. Katelyn tweets a lot about how awful gender critical feminists are and likes a spot of victim blaming and wrote DARVO pieces about both Maria McLachlan and Rose McGowan.

This is my best Katelyn Burns moment: https://twitter.com/transscribe/status/923710965673181184?s=20

Irma yes true

And reminded me that this continues on, with women's functions in particular being seen as somehow impolite, or "gross". Shown by the fact that we have nice "friendly", broadly used and understood terms to teach boys - "willy" and "balls", while there are no equivalent words for girls to use. So we end up with no broadly used and understood terms, with some girls using language that others wouldn't understand, presenting possible safeguarding issues. This comes up frequently on MN and there is no consensus. Why aren't there "friendly" terms? It's because women's genitals are considered somehow too obscene to mention, whereas men's are not. The word "cunt" is the "worst" swear word for a reason.

Anyway yes in general we were starting to get somewhere - issues that have been hidden starting to be talked about - meaning that things like childbirth injury, vaginal mesh scandal and so on are coming into the open along with global issues for girls around menstruation and so forth. It's been changing slowly over the last decade or so maybe. And now we get this massive pushback - which is eagerly adopted maybe because bottom line is a lot of people still feel squeamish about women's reproductive stuff, and are more than happy (many of them possibly subconsciusly) to see it pushed back into quietness again.

To get rid of stories in the papers about torn vaginas, incontinence, mental health problem and the pill, menopause etc and go back to a time where women kept quiet and carried on as best they could.

Ereshkigal - that twitter link is v interesting with the baffled transwoman trying to understand what KB is on about - interesting because the transwoman responding has adopted the same "I'm probably wrong but" tone that seems to be a theme with this.

There is a lot of deference going on with all of this, isn't there.

CRUK really have cocked up (!) on this one. They need to backtrack. It’s not a political issue, they won’t be humiliated - it’s too important. They need to hold their hands up and say this was I’ll judged and add the word woman, even if they have to also keep ‘...and anyone with a cervix’.

It was interesting at the time that 'terblocker' went rogue, to see who seemed to be taking control of the situation.

interesting because the transwoman responding has adopted the same "I'm probably wrong but" tone that seems to be a theme with this.

It's so funny when KB is forced to admit that sex is a thing because otherwise it's meaningless

Sardine
from The Eve Appeal:

"More than 21,000 women in the UK are diagnosed each year with gynaecological cancer, which equates to 58 diagnoses each day.

Yet despite this, awareness levels among both women and men are startlingly low. That’s why here at #TeamEve we’re determined to change this by raising much-needed awareness that gynae cancers exist, and the associated signs and symptoms of these brutal cancers.

The lack of basic knowledge about the female body or conversations around how the female anatomy works, is extremely worrying - how can we expect women to know what to look out for in terms of unexpected changes in their vagina or vulva or to be aware of the signs and symptoms of a gynaecological cancer, if they’re not body aware?

This was posted elsewhere and not by me, sadly I can't out the person who posted it for obvious reasons either, and I'll paraphrase so it can't be searched.

This, from CRUK, was an ad campaign. Anyone who knows anything about ad campaigns will know that they exist purely to get a message out to the widest number of the target audience as possible. Every word of copy is analysed, checked, agonised over and approved to ensure it will chime with that target audience, this is what ad agencies are paid enormous sums of money to do. So the choice between the word "women" and the phrase "people with cervixes" was carefully chosen.

Transmen, by dint of discussing their treatment options, will often have a really good grasp on female anatomy. Transmen who retain their cervix, either because they don't have surgery, or because the surgery they do have doesn't remove their cervix are reminded separately to attend cervical smears, because for the few transmen who have dysphoria, a smear can be immensely difficult for them, so this isn't aimed at that demographic.

It's been shown over and over that women often don't have a great grasp of their own anatomy, and as Betty ( ) showed, that lack of knowledge can be a killer, so this can't be aimed at that demographic either.

So, to whom is this language change pitched?

So, to whom is this language change pitched?

This is the heart of the matter. And it's how we see the narcissism, misogyny and lack of empathy which drives transactivism. They simply do not care if less women access female healthcare due to confusion. This is all about their feelings and their need to control women's speech and erase women as a sex class.

But why do a charity like this play along?

Do they not realise that their message will be lost on a large swathe of the target audience, or do they not care?

Or did they just not think about it?

Or have they had some group or other in to "educate" them?

Christine Patterson was on Sky about an hour ago complaining about this. I caught only the end, but she was having a good go at the (female) doctor who was also being interviewed. I've seen her talking about it before, she hits things right on the button. So it is getting a lot of mainstream attention - as it should.

This is the heart of the matter. And it's how we see the narcissism, misogyny and lack of empathy which drives transactivism. They simply do not care if less women access female healthcare due to confusion. This is all about their feelings and their need to control women's speech and erase women as a sex class.

See discussion re appropriation of the experience of having a hysterectomy from page 16 of discussion:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3261705-Turns-out-Hampstead-swimming-ponds-are-single-SEX-after-all?pg=16&messages=25

But why do a charity like this play along?

Its worth asking who are the inclusion advisers.

It’s true - why do they play along?

What are these inclusion advisors saying to justify this in that case? We mustn’t remind those who say they are women the body parts that they don’t have at the expense of risking the health of those who don’t know the body parts they do have?

Give. Me. Strength.

I think they might just know they’ve got this so very wrong.

Do they not realise that their message will be lost on a large swathe of the target audience, or do they not care?

Of course they realise, the ad agency they instructed will have done the usual audience targeting and demographic searches, this isn't a mistake.

It’s true - why do they play along?

Because the people running all of them are posh graduates of the pomo-addled liberal departments of universities.

Kettlepotblackagain

You can listen to exactly what some inclusion officers are saying in this video.

Tara Hewitt is running a workshop for HCP on trans people and cancer.

This is from 2016.

Tara is emplyed by the NHS.