Had a reply from CRUK re "cervix havers"

[ShotsFired]

(Longstanding donor, I emailed them following this article: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/smear-test-campaign-drops-the-word-woman-to-avoid-transgender-offence-263mj7f6s?shareToken=84b68d81ce844a6f55b8e64b9a36757b)

The meat of their reply as follows.

================
We want to make it clear that this is not about disengaging women from the screening programme, or eradicating the word women. It’s our duty to make sure that everyone who is eligible for this screening programme knows about it. Research shows that cervical screening prevents at least 2,000 cervical cancer deaths each year in the UK so it is vital that we raise awareness that Cervical cancer develops in anyone who has a cervix.

In addition to this, screening might not be relevant for all women such as those who have had a full hysterectomy. We phrased our information on cervical screening to reflect this. Some women identify as men but still have a cervix, so we wanted to make it clear that they would still need to be aware of the screening programme.

We do always welcome feedback and so I do thank you for getting in touch. We definitely want to ensure that our messaging is as accessible as possible for lots of different audiences and do not want to discourage anyone who has cervix from the screening programme. We will make sure that’s considered for future communications.

Based on this I have now decided to withdraw my donation from CRUK and support a charity that focuses specifically on female gynae cancers instead.

I had a total hysterectomy, I have no cervix, but have had 3 children.

Found this article.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/vagina-study-nearly-half-of-british-women-cannot-identify-vulva-cervix-a7219656.html

It says the original study was carried out by the Eve Appeal - I wonder if they have numbers for how many women would find it hard to understand that they "have a cervix".

@Popchyk thank you for your post at Sun 24-Jun-18 11:04:52.

I can't believe they are not mentioning women in their list of answers affecting females!

I wonder how many women are reading their material going "huh, didn't realize that the Ministry of Truth was running public health campaigns these days".

@Wankame, you are completely and utterly WRONG. I think you need to retake basic biology. The existence of mutations/disorders does NOT mean that human sex isn't binary, in fact it kinda proves that it is. You are either a 'sperm haver' or a 'ova haver', and you can't switch between the two; you're either one or the other (unless you have a mutation).

STOP co-opting intersex people. They are NOTHING to do with transppl and, more to the point, they've asked to be LEFT OUT of this debate.

I can no longer read comments from a person who wrote to congratulate a Cancer screening advocacy group for discouraging women from getting cancer screening.
That, on top of all the lies, is just evil.

Can I make another plea - please don’t anyone report this thread or the comments in it. It’s important that this stuff is left to stand. We’ve had one thread like this go poof in the past 24 hours as it was ‘offending’ some people.

We’re all tough enough to take a little offence without letting it shut down debate.

The circular ‘arguments’ the smirking self righteous tone of some posts, it needs to stay.

And I honestly don’t care if anyone thinks that it’s the GC posts which fit that category because I can guarantee you they are in a very small minority.

Thank you all for this thread which is really informative (in lots of different ways).

We’re all tough enough to take a little offence without letting it shut down debate

I will put money on it not being us...

Thanks for this thread and the articulate arguments put forward about why this change in language is so dangerous.

I donate monthly to CRUK - have done for around 15 years - so I will cancel this, transfer it to a charity such as Eve Appeal, and write and explain to CRUK why.

I mainly lurk on the feminist boards but I am following and supporting where I can.

I think that often the smaller charities are better anyway, the big ones seem to be populated with high paid people who are sort of professional charities people like corporate style. You can see this with eg oxfam etc with them turning a blind eye to abuse, they aren't really nice caring people they're in it for the pay and the corporate lifestyle. (Not all of them I'm sure but with the oxfam threads we had a lot of people who know the sector saying this).

Check out Caroline Criado-Perez on Twitter.

How about inclusivity being “Woman +” to denote the inclusion of transmen and non binary people?

She’s very incisively looking at a positive solution which still centres women but without excluding those who have reassigned their gender.

She’s definitely one to watch

I think that often the smaller charities are better anyway, the big ones seem to be populated with high paid people who are sort of professional charities people like corporate style. You can see this with eg oxfam etc with them turning a blind eye to abuse

This is what I think. They've all been taken over by over-educated pomo-addled nitwits who aren't just failing to address their service users - they're actively adding to the harms done to them.

Snapping, not elitist definition - factual definition. Intersex however I think most will agree is another discussion and a difficult one. Certainly when it comes to debates as to which sports teams an intersex person should be on. I was asked once if I would change team if discovered I was intersex and my answer was that I likely would even tho it is clear from my performance that I certainly do not have an edge. However, there are a lot of trans people who are doing remarkably well since transitioning....

Wakame no I do not agree with you. An intersex person has given birth helped hugely by science. Science has helped both males, females and intersex and trans people. The fact science has been used to help them does not change the fact they are biologically male or female. And even intersex people are ultimately male or female depending on their hormones. How they identify is something else. The person in the paper was brought up female and believed themselves female and continued to identify as female. They then had massive help from science. Biologically they are still male. A woman who needs help from science to conceive is still female.

The volunteers who spent years busting their buts for Komen Foundation For the Cure go a nasty surprise when they found out how little money went to finding a cure and how much went into executives pockets and friends of executives businesses.
It is disgusting to think that grifters use charities this way but there are too many instances of phony charities and charities that self deal to trust without checking out where the money goes. Charities that raise money to advertise to raise money to advertise are the worst of the self dealers.
I won't give any charity money any more until after I see where the money goes. If they will not show you then they should be reported as a fraud.

I read a bit of this thread but actually it's just too disgusting.

How a human being can continue with this smug obfuscation when they must know how important clear messaging is to vulnerable, poorly educated women and women whose first language isn't English... It's just mind blowingly callous. Awful.

And underlying that the desperation to be in a club of people who don't want you.

For fucking shame.

I phoned and cancelled my long standing donation earlier today.

When asked why, I explained, and was told that they'd removed the word 'women' to avoid offending trans ppl that don't id as women, and to be more inclusive of "all genders".

I told her that I found the removal of the word 'women' from a women's cancer insulting, and she repeated the stock answer and said she understood.

I stated that I believed biological facts were more important than gender feelz, especially considering what cancer is, and who it affects.

When I explained that I was also concerned that they'd actually made it less inclusive as many women aren't aware what a cervix is, (or that they have one), and that's without those that have English as a second language. I told her that MORE people were likely to understand the term 'women' than 'person with a cervix', and so they would really be excluding the very groups that need the most help!!

@ScienceIsTruth I am waiting for their reply to me (I cancelled the dd myself, but made some observations on their email comments, and requested they confirm that my details had been removed etc).

They did take an unusually long time to reply to my first email, based on previous experiences when they have replied within a day or so - their first reply took them a full week and came from a "senior exec", not just the usual supporter services. So they are clearly using pre-written answers now - they don't even have the courage of their convictions to allow their team to speak freely.

I have started emailing all prostate, penis, and testicular cancer charities asking them to remove men from their literature and replace it with people with prostates, people with penises, and people with testes. I have referenced CRUK’s change in talking about people with a cervix and ended each correspondence with ‘transmen are men.’ I’ll let you know if I hear anything back.

What is the betting that you hear nothing, Nauticus

I am rapidly losing all respect for companies that are putting woke-points ahead of clarity and facts.

I feel like we are living in a world of pseudoscience where opinions & feelings rule supreme. For me it started when Michael Gove said "people in this country have had enough of experts" back in 2016.

I highly recommend reading George Orwell's essay 'Politics and the English Language'. In part of it, he gives 6 rules for effective writing. CRUK could do with reading rules 2, 3 and 5. 5 is the most pertinent:

"5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent."

Woman / man / girl / boy used to be some of the simplest words to understand. Stripping them of meaning or removing them altogether does not benefit anyone.

highly recommend reading George Orwell's essay 'Politics and the English Language'.

Yes! I hadn't read it before and a good friend of mine sent it to me unprompted after reading some revised moderation guidelines on a web forum that I had mentioned to him. Plain English is key for understanding.

My friend, at 40, didn't realise that women peed out of a seperate hole from their vagina - true story. It is not beyond the realms of imagination that there would be women that are ignorant of having a cervix (but know that they are women).

I had an ex who was the same, and he had a fucking degree in biology!