People with periods

[Smurftastic]

I follow 'The Eve Appeal' on fb and noticed that they seem to be avoiding the word 'woman' in their campaigns. Example in attached pictures 'How do we support everyone with a cervix to get screened?', wouldn't it be easier 'How do we support women to get cervical screening'?? My daughter has a cervix, but at the age of 2 I'm sure she doesn't need screening. Another one 'Some people experience (...) a degree of spotting between periods'. I'm confused how a charity for women's cancers is not using the word 'woman' anymore. You could argue some women had their cervix removed an don't need the screening, but I've not seen 'People with testicles, make sure to check them', even though some men might not have their testicles intact. AIBU to feel a little irritated by this.

Majority wins, I'm afraid, when it comes to public health campaigns. People who're both transmen and so fragile they can't even read things that acknowledge that they have a cervix are a statistically tiny percentage of the population, much much smaller than women for whom English is a second language.

I am ashamed to say that I commented on Eve Appeal's banner then promptly deleted it, when I realised my daughter is in my profile picture and I didn't want to get any abuse. I've gone from woke to the other side in less than two months. Funnily enough one of my friends recently came out as a transman and it's what they've been posting that made me stop and actually think about the whole issue. The fact that women's health charity is buying into all of this makes me feel like someone had pulled the rug out from under my feet.

We all know it's not about the transmen.

We got a reply from Eve Appeal:
'The Eve Appeal
At The Eve Appeal, we start from a position of inclusion. We want everyone to know the signs, symptoms and risk factors around the five gynaecological cancers. We aim to use inclusive language wherever possible, especially where it is relevant. This event is around the barriers affecting certain people that prevent them accessing cervical screening tests, and this includes trans men, non-binary and intersex people, as well as women with a cervix who face certain cultural barriers, or physical and psychological barriers such as needing a hoist, or extra support and information. Prevention is at the heart of everything that we do and reducing health inequalities for all communities is key.'

Seems someone has already asked this question! And been met with the ‘Why do we need to?’ answer!

Some women do have a cervix then, reading their answer?

'women with cervixes' who have the barriers they mention are not well served by unclear messaging.

They would say to be inclusive of women who have had theirs removed etc.

Strangely, in threads on here, no women without a cervix has any issue with smear campaigns talking about women.

I have yet to see a campaign for people with penises, people with testicles for those cancers.

In some cases a different word is used just to avoid saying "woman" over and over again. Saying "Some people have spotting" wouldn't twig anything for me in the larger context of a pamphlet talking about women.

It looks to me lie in this instance they are actually trying to avoid the word.

I think this sort of thing will probably go away once other more central elements of gender ideology go by the wayside though. I'd tend not to make a fuss about it unless the attempts to make the language conform were really confusing.

Goosefoot, what if not making a fuss lead us to where we are now?

god i hope that person responsible for that wordsalad response to you smurftastic doesnt write their leaflets....

I don’t see any harm in trying to be inclusive of trans men. We all know what they mean.

My kid doesn't.

We haven't really covered the female reproductive system in depth yet, so if she happened across something about "cervix havers" needing smears it's not going to occur to her that this might be something she'll need to do when she's older. But she knows she'll be a woman when she's grown up; if that word were used she'd pay more attention, maybe ask a few questions, and we'd have an opportunity for her to learn a bit more about her own body.

Good point about children. Does my young teenager know she has a cervix ? Prob not. I will ask her.

I'm a supporter of the Eve Appeal. If you look at their main website and click on the links about gynaecological cancers they all repeatedly appropriately refer to women, mothers , daughters and women's biology etc. However they also have a separate link - "info for the transgender, intersex, non binary communities". Once you've clicked on that link then you are taken to info about the different gynae cancers that involve our female biology but where they have removed all "female" language.

While I'm always sad that anyone finds the word woman to be unmentionable I am reassured that the charity continues to centre women in all their work - they are merely reflecting that for some women their biological body brings them so much distress that referring to it accurately is impossible for them - and have probably been on receipt of all the normal TRA threats and bullying.

I think that's genuinely inclusive - offering a separate option while standing firm about talking about women, our biology and gynae health issues. We can be damned sure that they will have been under immense pressure from the aggressive TRA lobby to remove all reference to our triggering bodies but they seem to have found an appropriate and respectful compromise. Take a look at their website here:

eveappeal.org.uk/gynaecological-cancers/

Goosefoot, what if not making a fuss lead us to where we are now?

Some things are primary, and some follow along. These kids of organisations are essentially trying to follow what they are being told is the current non-offensive language. They aren't usually trying to make ideological changes on their own.

It's more important to spend energy on the primary things, the drivers of the change, the ideology. So the law, the medical and psychiatric establishments claims around medical transition, schools and education, the media discussion of the basic issues. When those start to gain some traction, the language expectations will follow.

In some cases it might be worthwhile and it can be a good example of how the language becomes confusing, but overall these things are symptoms more than causes.

But their 'inclusive' language excludes swathes of women, including me

Sorry truth the thread hadn't updated from earlier when I posted my last.

The ironic thing is that gyn as in gynaecological comes from the Greek word for woman or wife , so it seems that the very medical term itself isn’t very inclusive.

This really fucks me off and I'm crabbit today anyway.

Ffs, the word is women.

It's nice of them to provide non-triggering language for transmen and non binary on their website, but it still doesn't mean they should not use the word 'woman' in their fb campaigns. The word 'woman' shouldn't stop being used just because it might hurt someone's feelings.

It hurts my feelings when it's avoided. Like trying to erase my existence. As if I don't matter 😡

We should try that.

"This erases me as a person who knows that men don't have a cervix and only women can get cancer of the womb. I'm feeling very triggered. How are you going to address my feelings?"

When I used to work in marketing we would send out mailshots in the millions.
And we would test two comparator mailshot creatives to see which prompted a better response.
The difference between two test mailshots would be minimal. A colour change. A minor rephrase. A slightly different layout. A new font.
When you are presenting a 'call to action' in the hundreds of thousands, tiny differences have measurable effects in response rates.

You always, always choose the wording and layout that is the most effective in persuading the highest number of the right type of respondents to respond.

If I had chosen less effective wording in a mailout, fewer credit cards got sold, and a financial services company made less money. Big fat deal.
"The banker (best performer) mailshot got 1000 responses, the alternative test version got 920. We potentially lost 80 accounts with that change of wording. Do not repeat. Revert to banker."

If a charity or health provider uses opaque or less effective language, and depresses their response rate to their target demographic as a result, people get sick or die.

How much 'inclusivity of feelings' should be weighed up against lost lives, I wonder?
Who sits in a decision making capacity and decides it's acceptable to deliberately depress a response to a lifesaving campaign because of pressure to use less effective wording?

if transmen are happy to talk about cervixes and periods but will be excluded by the word woman then the question is what on earth do they mean by women and why would the rest of us dropping the word woman help?