Metro story about male breast cancer survivor 'refused access to support group'

[ArranUpsideDown]

You can see the Twitter reaction from a self-declared SJW here:

twitter.com/MBCoalition/status/1232946331976716293

Actual Metro story reveals it's about a FB group:

metro.co.uk/2020/02/24/dad-breast-cancer-rejected-support-groups-man-12291570/?ito=article.amp.share.top.twitter

I'm sure the outraged tweeter doesn't feel he's over-reading the situation at all. Why is it so easy and so damning to accuse women of insensitivity and so unthinkable that women shouldn't have to tend to a different set of needs and emotions? This level-headed chap thinks it appropriate to call those women who raise polite objections TERFS and goes further: That's just one reason why your hostile reaction is so cruel it verges on psychopathic.

Not nice for anyone to have breast cancer. But easy enough for men to find support and advice (as others have said)
www.hisbreastcancer.org/
breastcancernow.org/about-us/news-personal-stories/getting-support-if-youre-man-breast-cancer
preventbreastcancer.org.uk/about-breast-cancer/men-and-breast-cancer/
Anyone whose doesn’t understand the difference between breast function in men and in women, and the different consequences and concerns for either sex in the case of cancer, is simply foolish. And possibly just out to make trouble.

Sorry to be boring and to blatantly derail, but can you please look at this?

Breast cancer is not always going to be a pea sized lump. It can be a thickened area, or a dimple, or a leaky nipple, or, or, or... presentation can be in all manner of ways. If you recognise them, then you're forewarned.

People whose breast cancer is caught very early usually survive it.

People whose breast cancer is caught very late never survive it.

Check yourselves tonight. Please. Not just by touch, important as that is. Do it looking in a mirror, in a brightly lit room, all angles and with arms up, then down, then straight out (so the breast tissue moves, and you can see if anything looks weird). It could save your life.

This man's instinct - to try to spread awareness - is pretty universal amongst survivors. I absolutely promise you, some of you reading this will have breast cancer and not know it. How early you get that treated will be what determines your survival.

Great work wellbehavedwomen. I had the lemon pip (felt like a peach stone). I let my female friends who asked, feel it, so they'd know what a breast cancer lump could feel like. 7 years free now. Hope you're doing well too.

I'm not 'tenderly concerned' for this bloke.

I do think it is possible to deal with situations considerably more competently than seems to have happened here

I do realise it's heresy to say that volunteers sometimes get things badly wrong (see zillions of previous threads on a wide range of topics) and in doing so hurt people's feelings. But it can and does happen.

My direct experience in this concerns how to keep a particular baby loss group only to those who have experienced a particular type of loss. Others who have had different, but equally distressing, losses have to be turned away. AFAIK, there have never been complaints about how we do this which is along the lines I posted about previously.

It wouldn't occur to me to even think that that person, in distress themselves, should be setting up a new group or had been in touch just to muscle in

I do think it is possible to deal with situations considerably more competently than seems to have happened here

He said can i join this group as i have breast cancer

They said no its women only

Seems fairly competent

Thats obviously bearing in mind that we don’t know exactly what was said and i dont want to make anything up

The problem seems to be when the paper got hold of it and that twitter bloke ran with it

Thank you wellbehavedwomen. I'm sorry you had to go through all that, and I'm glad that you had the support you needed. It's a horrible disease and it does help to know that you are not alone.

My gran died from breast cancer and so did her cousin after ignoring the signs. As they both developed the disease at my age, I recently had a chat with my GP about early screening for me and although I felt a bit daft asking about that without having symptoms, he did not dismiss my concerns. I simply don't want to be repeating their mistakes - they were too scared to face up to the possibility until it was too late to cure it. Which I understand btw. It is scary. But their suffering was scarier.

My mum died of breast cancer

But she didnt get a lump...she had a pain in her armpit...least i think it was her arm pit, it was a long time ago

But deffo no breast lump

Thank you for that timely reminder, wellbehavedwoman

I remember well my mum's story - in 1999 she was booked for a routine mammogram - she was really busy, and very, very nearly skipped it. She went in the end - and a very aggressive form of breast cancer was found. She was only 55, she'd noticed nothing, no lumps, no changes. But the mammogram found it and saved her life - well, a bunch of surgery, chemo, radio & tamoxifen also saved her life.

They found it again last year - she's in her 70s now. She found a lump in her armpit this time - it was the same cancer. They have again operated - and they caught in time, and she's ok. Thank goddess.

I was called for a mammogram last year, at 48 - I was apparently picked randomly for a trial in doing mammograms for women in their late 40s - I went, and all clear.

Please watch for any changes - and most importantly, go for routine mammograms. It saved my mum's life in 1999.

Awareness can be raised for men too - but I don't see why anyone has to gripe at an all women's group remaining an all woman group.

Rufus, I cross posted with you

Oh there we go i was making stuff up

Armpit like zebras mum

Glad she is ok zebra (for your mum)

Ahhhhhh

I wasnt making stuff up!

She died nearly 20 years ago...which is why I didnt remember initially

And i with you zebra

@AuntieStella. I do think it is possible to deal with situations considerably more competently than seems to have happened here

Firstly, I'm sorry for your loss. As someone who's also suffered losses, I know it's very hard.

Facebook support groups for particularly confidential things always have questions before you join, and have done for years. If you manage a forum, that's different in approach, as people can arrive, and post, and then have to be gently managed out. I'm afraid that you project your own experiences here, because he never reached that stage. He says himself he was told that he couldn't join, because women would not feel comfortable. That was the extent of what upset him, and frankly it was the kindest thing that they could have said - it wasn't anything about him as a person, it was simply women wanting single sex provision to discuss their breasts, and their cancer. He's a man. It was as impersonal, neutral, and universal, as that.

I do see that you feel protective, as someone who worked hard to ensure nobody felt hurt by posts. Our mods are the same way. But telling someone at the questions stage that they can't join, with a polite and valid reason, isn't cruel. And having that stage, to protect all the existing members, is the epitome of competent.

@RufustheLanglovingreindeer I'm so sorry. Words are completely inadequate, but I send much love.

@theflushedzebra thank God it was local (or regional?) recurrence. I'll cross everything that they have got it now, and she's fine. It's terrifying how many years later it can return.

@CharlieParley if you have a strong family history, I'd push for early check. An ultrasound is often more sensitive in younger women. I'm so sorry for your bereavements.

Younger women get caught rather later, because we don't get mammograms. MRI and ultrasounds work better in young women, too, because we have denser breasts and mammograms don't necessarily work on us. Checking is vital, at this age.

I'm afraid in the present NHS you really do need to be your own best advocate. Only squeaky wheels get any oil.

@VortexofBloggery so far, so good! Glad you are as well. Bugger and a half, isn't it?

I do think it is possible to deal with situations considerably more competently than seems to have happened here

And I think you're wrong. Facebook groups can be about whatever a person wants them to be about. As pp have said, there's no clue to how this man was dealt with. It may have been perfectly sensitive. But this man chose to make it an issue. Perhaps he's the one who should have some empathy, with women with breast cancer?

Facebook support groups for particularly confidential things always have questions before you join, and have done for years.

I have a family member who had to go through 10 days of a process to join a FB group about a very sensitive condition. And everyone has to read through various units, pledge to abide by the group rules etc. before they're allowed to post without being held in moderation first. They take the security and confidentiality of that group very seriously.

As per the OP, I was more taken aback by the tweeter (a Guardian columnist and self-professed left SJW) feeling so comfortable about throwing around "Terf" and accusing women with a dissenting (and reasoned) opinion of cruelty and psychopathology. Plus the fact it was a FB group made the whole seem like a substantial misreading and over-reaction by him.

The man with breast cancer could have talked about there not being enough support for men without talking about the nasty women who wouldn't let him join them. If he hadn't grumbled about it to the journalist they wouldn't have known about it and put it into the story.

I have no problem with the man in the Metro article discribing his experience as a man with breast cancer.
.But the tweet twat obviously hadn't read beyond the headline before shouting terf.No real concern for Dave just trying to point score against women who see the differences between male and female breast cancer.

I do think it is possible to deal with situations considerably more competently than seems to have happened here

If only the women had said no to the man in a politer / firmer / kinder / more respectful / whatever way. Sounds familiar....

It's odd that the journalist decided to focus first on the fact that there are women only facebook groups. It's also odd that they also decided to say that he was rejected from the group, when really it was just not a group set up for him.

I would have thought the treatment he received by the professionals would have had a bigger impact on him.

The reaction from some on Twitter show that people see terf as a word for women who don't centre men. And some think it's wrong for women to have groups without men.

The reaction from some on Twitter show that people see terf as a word for women who don't centre men.

But it's literally just a descriptive acronym for anyone, male or female!

wellbehavedwomen it most certainly is!