Is the penis doing the pap smear?? No?? Then SHUT THE FUCK UP transphobe

[Lolasaurous]

mobile.twitter.com/Indy_Leya/status/1103762317613953041

Rachel McKinnon

I don't want somebody with a penis to do my smear. I want somebody who understands how intrusive it is. How vulnerable it makes me feel. How much it can hurt. But how important it is that I still do it.

The only people who can do that have the same anatomy as me.

Someone replied to RMcK original tweet saying 'wanting to know what's in someone's pants is rapey"
I personally don't give a fuck whether a man has had his penis removed, he is not doing my pap smear. His belief that he is a woman is of no consequence to me. I'm not religious or a rape survivor or a small-minded bigot, I'm just a woman saying no to a man.

But what prompted this particular outburst? Was McKinnon engaged in a conversation, responding to a particular article, or just venting out of the blue?

I am a total tweet novice Persifleur but I couldn't see a trigger for the comment. Although it does read like a response to something.

Revolting as McKinnon's outburst is, it's even more alarming if there was no external trigger. Like some self-combusting misogynistic material.

Can I TMI in response to the OP, not the graph? It is on my mind and I like to get things off my mind.

I am a rape survivor, and I was massively struggling with going for my smear. My lovely GP nagged me a bit and I spoke to my RC counsellor and I was all set to opt out of screening after it. I went and I know the nurse at the practice (as a patient). I still had a meltdown in the surgery, but decided I have DC and I needed to get it done.

Well, no opting out after the smear for me, as it turned out to be abnormal, and I had to go for a colposcopy. Gynaecologist was male which freaked me out but I was more freaked by the abnormal result and the fact that I had nearly not gone. So I took Valium and went and he turned out to be a parent from DC’s school (not that I know him, the nurse was making small talk and it came up, so he told me just so I knew although I never recognise people out of context). Anyway, I told him before the procedure that I had experienced trauma and he was really very kind and talked me through everything.

Anyway, the biopsy came back abnormal so I need to go back. They have given me a female consultant this time (whether to avoid social embarrasssment or because I said what had happened to me), and after reading this thread, I think I have been going along assuming that person will be female. I had to get my head around a male person before I went to the last appointment, I knew he was a professional person doing his job and he did it very well. And I am sure a trans person would do their job as well. But it is more the point that I had to get my head around who was doing the procedure and decide if I could cope with that, and have all the conversations with myself to get past the trauma response and make an informed decision to accept the consultant allocated and not ask for another one. I absolutely knew the penis was not doing the procedure, but the point is that my cervix was having the procedure. My cervix which has been battered and bruised repeatedly by a man. And my legs which were in stirrups and not able to get out the room. It is NOTHING to do with the penis but everything to do with the comfort of the person who is having the procedure.

The doctor patient relationship works on trust and integrity and consent. It is not the penis doing the procedure, no, but women should get to know if the doctor doing the procedure has one and be able to say no. Regardless of how that person identifies.

I can see the problem with making that information available, though because it is othering to transwomen. However, we all have to respect boundaries in day to day life and that is quite a simple one.

Though I need to add that if any person did not understand your right to refuse, they would not be doing their job properly!

Sorry you had to go through all that, Katara.
Sometimes there's no getting away from it: transwomen are other. Their experiences aren't the same. And sometimes it can be easier dealing with a man who understands that difference and respects it.

KataraJean

I too have to get myself prepared for a trip to the doctor, not just intimate things but all things as I’ve had such awful experiences due to complicated chronic illness. It takes a lot of energy and the anxiety and adrenaline surge actually affects me for days. If I ask for a female I expect one.

Also, the ‘ wanting to know what’s in someone’s pants’ phrase... no, we know if you’re Male. We don’t need to ask what’s in your pants nor is that the only thing that makes you Male, nor is it the only thing that can hurt or intimidate us. In an intimate vulnerable situation, even a male voice can intimidate or cause anxiety in some women. Why on Earth any Male health professional would want to perform intimate exams on scared women, is beyond me. It’s not about you! Just do whatever we need to feel as comfortable as possible and don’t ask questions. If you don’t have a vagina and you’re not my husband, I don’t want you in mine. That’s my right, because it’s my body.

This person is simply a narcissist. Typical narcissistic behaviour. Fragile, brittle ego. Arrogance as defence. Hyper-sensitivity to criticism - which is then immediately blown out of proportion and re-directed away from self. Impossible to deal with or to discuss with reasonably. Seeks flattery and praise, but cannot handle anything else without abusive outbursts and name-calling. See Donald Trump. Text book.

Anyone has the right to refuse consent for any reason. They do not have to specify why.

As for being 'transphobic' I regard understanding rights and consent enormously important. If understanding how these are balanced when there are conflicts makes me 'transphobic' I take that as a compliment and a reflection of how balancing rights appears to be a threat to some people who seek to impose their will forcefully against others and are happy to see abuses of power and position.

If trans women actually were women, you would expect that they would understand the rights of women to privacy and dignity. But they don't.

What ChiaraRimini said.

I used to be all 'live and let live'. But they aren't. In the TRA world, they come first. It was this attitude that started to open my eyes.

Interesting point, CharlieRimini - do boys and men in general expect less bodily autonomy and dignity in general than females? I've always assumed it's the same and treated them as if it were, but don't really know what they expect from each other. Films and books don't give much hope, now I come to think of it.

*ChiaraRimini, apologies!

Thank you

Jessica I am sorry to hear of your health troubles. It is funny - anxiety and adrenaline surge just about sums it up and yet I have never been able to really articulate that, that is exactly what it is. I understand what you mean about it affecting you for days, but I don’t tend to see it at the time, just think there is something wrong with me for not being okay whereas that response is natural really. It is absolutely natural. Our bodies let us know when things are not okay.

persifleur yes indeed, a man who understands difference and respects it.

RedToothBrush I entirely agree that any women should be able to say no, without having to give any further reason. That is the basic principle of consent. Staggering that we should even have to say this.

She posted a graph of men's heights vs women's heights and used it to say there was no difference in the average, as there were a couple of male outliers who decreased the average and increased the overlap. Is she really published???? Clearly not in a science journal. Her stats knowledge is abysmal, my gcse level ds could interpret the graph correctly. Deeply worrying that people will believe her when all the data she produces actually says the opposite of what she thinks it does.

Katara.

My last smear test was a nightmare (no-one's fault, just my ageing bod going saggy inside which means it's difficult to get everything in the right place to get a sample). The nurse and I tried more positions than the karma-fucking-sutra, by the end of it I was bruised, had had my clitoris nipped in the bloody speculum at one point, and just generally felt like shit. The thought of the trauma had it not been a female HCP is just unthinkable - and I don't have any history of sexual abuse.

I would actually sooner have a male HCP who was "presenting" as a man than someone who self-identified as trans. My experience with male gynaecologists has been that they are respectful of women, because they know we will feel awkward about it. The McKinnons of this world, on the other hand, seem so convinced that the whole process is about the HCP rather than the patient, that that attitude and complete lack of empathy in itself is enough to disqualify them from going anywhere near a patient.

The McKinnons of this world = the Dunning-Krugers of femaleness.

That graph is statistically illiterate. The curves are not normalized (there is much more blue than red), the y scale is obviously wrong, and the categorical bucketing is too fine for the dataset size. About the only thing that's right is the conversion between feet and centimetres.

I’m blocked too.
So all I do is open he link on my browser rather than the twitter app.

Oh ouch ouch ouch Fermats no wonder you felt like shit

FermatsTheorem oh gosh I’m so sorry to hear your story. I have had bad smears but nothing like that.

Thanks. No lasting harm - just unpleasant at the time. (Mine have never been worse than a bit uncomfortable before - this just seemed to be a bad day! I actually had to go back and have it done again the week after because we never did get at the right bit of my cervix, and the repeat was fine - done and dusted in moments.) But it did bring home to me just why I really don't want my smear tests done by anyone who isn't female.

KataraJean

I learnt a lot about hormomes after having an endocrine collapse due to long time undiagnosed hypothyroidism, it affected my adrenals really bad. My private endo helped me understand, as did a therapist I saw for CBT. I had trouble with travel, and having to do the therapy to get back on the train was a long process involving many instances of panic having to push myself to get on. It caused massive adrenaline surges, so the therapist and I had to go a lot slower and actually she did hypotherapy in the end and that was the only thing that got me back on the train without those surges and the days of fatigue that usually followed. I never thought I’d do something like hypnotherapy, but combined with CBT it was amazing for me. It is quite crazy though, at just what it takes to tackle fears and how it physically affects you. I felt like an incapable fool and was to embarrassed to tell anyone but my husband. I thought I was pathetic for having what is a natural response for someone who has experienced anxiety or trauma of some kind.