Eve Appeal responds to criticism against TWAW

[MoreSchnitzelPlease]

I follow Eve Appeal on Instagram. It is a charity that raises awareness for gynaecological cancers. I did not expect this kind of response from them, and I am so hurt by their comments. How is it possible that trans women would need the services of this charity? How can you be tested for a gynaecological cancer when you do not possess female organs?

www.instagram.com/p/CCt6HK6lehL/?igshid=1t693pbic6ouz

How can a charity for gynecological cancer say that TWAW? It feels like I'm living in The Twilight Zone. I can't support a charity that goes against science. This feels like such a betrayal. Women are not disgusting for going against TWAW.

GriefMonster but it isnt sayong transmen are women.

It states very clearly not only females get cervical cancer. Which is utter bullshit.

*utterly uncontroversial

It's not a cervix, it's part of a penis or colon. Stop erasing women and women's health issues.

I saw a huge clump of my cervix in a pot after the first laser surgery... trust me, no ones mistaking that for a penis

So many of my friends have posted on social media that JKR is disgusting for her views on transwomen. I keep seeing that word used online about this issue - disgusting. Are my views disgusting as well? It feels like they would be considered to be so.

I don't agree with Eve Appeal stating that it is gatekeeping to say that only women get cervical cancer. That doesn't mean that women who have had a hysterectomy are not women, as they suggested in their post. Who would suggest that was the case? It's not the same thing as trans women not having female sexual anatomy, and it does a disservice to women to suggest that the issues are the same.

That said, I don't see what there is to be upset about in the response. They talk about needing to use the word "woman" but also recognise trans men and non binary people face barriers to seeking health care for their bodies (that are female). There's nothing there that is claiming TWAW. If anything , it's saying TMAW

I actually fully agree with this.

I do feel concerned that many transmen and non binary masculine who pass as male may feel very discouraged to access regular health care, in particularly smears. I actually get incredibly frustrated by any argument that discourages anyone from accessing timely and appropriate health care due to social and societal reasons. Because who and why people are accessing or requiring healthcare has no impact on female safety or diminishing of female rights, as medical care is a private matter and has absolutely zero baring or impact on anyone else. But unfortunately societal sentiment can influence whether people access appropriate healthcare.

And i say this as a researcher who often jumps through ethical hoops as I often need to include gender at birth into demographic information as much of my area has traditionally strong gender links, and therefore have to navigate being sensitive and considerate to participants feeling while not allowing PC culture to have a detriment on my results or validity of publications.

I am sorry that I have not explained myself very well.

Fair enough! I scanned it and missed the rather obvious now I see it "not ONLY females"...

I'm still finding my feet with this and finding where my red lines are. It felt initially on reading that post there was plenty of common ground to inhabit e.g. talk of women and TMs and NBs getting cervical cancer. Rather than people with a cervix or worse (in my opinion) "men can get cervical cancer too" (because TMs can get it) etc

@DamsonDragon

They get problems that may resemble the same findings under a microscope, but it’s not cervical cancer, and it’s not a gynaecological cancer.

if it barks like a dog, and looks like a dog...

If it has the same cellular structure as something then it is that something, regardless of personal belief. Thats the beauty of science, its often rather easy to identify if something is the same on a factual, definitive basis, as much of science can be measured in absolutes.

Regardless of whether its cervical cancer or not, it strongly supports that transwomen post surgery require regular smears as in a ideal world women would be getting periodically.

There is no transformation zone on the penis, wherever you repurpose it.

Not everything is like dogs.

It's as though they don't understand the dictionary definition of female ... and have constructed an entire strawman on that basis.
I hope they don't receive any funding that is ringfenced for females since they are incapable of recognising or defining them.

Because who and why people are accessing or requiring healthcare has no impact on female safety or diminishing of female rights, as medical care is a private matter

Not true. You do realise these things are audited, so personal health data feeds into planning? And that the NHS have the potential to capture both sex and gender but they mostly only bother with the gender field?

No one is stopping MTFs from accessing healthcare, but we need to stop pretending that sex doesn't exist. It's not a neutral belief, it is actively harmful.

I actually get incredibly frustrated by any argument that discourages anyone from accessing timely and appropriate health care
Then you'll understand people's frustration with female cancer charities removing the words women and female from their campaigns and some of them even dropping the word smear. Their shift to use language that excludes women has coincided with a massive drop in the number of women going for smears.
If this was about access and inclusion, it would not be deliberately conflating the meaning of words.
Honestly I am done with this bullshit.

If it has the same cellular structure as something then it is that something,

Given that the cervix is a very specific part of female anatomy, with a uniquely female function, it does not have the same cellular structure as the penis.

You know Damson, had these men not stolen every other fucking bit of female language, we might have been more sanguine about them pretending that some sex-stimulation mechanism embedded in their front hole could be called a neocervix if that made them feel better. But given the fact that they have successfully browbeaten organisations into removing the word woman from campaigns on women’s cancer, they can fuck right off with their insistence that they must be seen as us, and not just as wanting to resemble us as far as possible in a respectful manner.

If this was about access and inclusion, it would not be deliberately conflating the meaning of words.

This. It's not about that, it's about validation and control, and I honestly despair of woke idiots or even insincere woke posturing. I'm very disappointed in Jo's Trust and the Eve Appeal for pandering to this utter shit.

@DamsonDragon

They get problems that may resemble the same findings under a microscope, but it’s not cervical cancer, and it’s not a gynaecological cancer.

if it barks like a dog, and looks like a dog...

If it has the same cellular structure as something then it is that something, regardless of personal belief. Thats the beauty of science, its often rather easy to identify if something is the same on a factual, definitive basis, as much of science can be measured in absolutes.

Regardless of whether its cervical cancer or not, it strongly supports that transwomen post surgery require regular smears as in a ideal world women would be getting periodically.

No.

They don’t need a smear. Because according to that report, the rare lesions found aren’t in a cervix. They’re in the vault of a “neovagina”. Routine smears wouldn’t work because there is no cervix to smear. It requires its own unique surveillance from a doctor who would know what they’ve created and where to biopsy from.

And it wouldn’t meet the Wilson screening criteria either.

Transwomen who have had surgery or are on hormones need regular surveillance for the myriad of iatrogenic problems their treatment will bring and should be tested and screened accordingly but that is not the same as partaking in a nationwide screening programme for a uniquely female cancer.

[quote DamsonDragon]transwomen who have had gender confirmation surgery can get cervical cancer of the neo-vagina/cervix.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28217933/[/quote]
Did you actually read the paper? It states no such thing of course, given that neovaginas do not involve the construction of a cervix.

This study of 20 patients with neovaginas included 12 males and eight females. It examined precancerous and cancerous cells found in the neovaginas as well as cancerous lesions and metastases and whether HPV was present.

Of the 12 male patients, to construct the neovagina, penile skin was used in nine, colon skin in two and other skin in one patient. For the female patients, it was one colon skin graft and seven other skin grafts.

The authors explain the reason for their study:

Regardless of the material used for vaginoplasty, the creation of a neovagina results in exposure of the transplanted tissue to abnormal endogenous (eg hormonal) and exogenous (e.g., trauma from inter-course, colonisation by bacteria and low pO2) influences. To date, the effects of such exposures have not been sufficiently examined. Although considered a rare neoplasia, carcinoma of the neovagina has been documented several times in biological females, but only three times in transgender women.

In other words, cancers may develop in the neovaginas of both female and male patients, although the former are rare and the latter exceedingly so.

They go on to posit that no follow-up protocols for routine cancer screening in these patients exist and that they are needed because cancer can develop in neovaginas even if that is rare.

The only times cervical cells are mentioned at all is in comparison to the samples obtained from the patients with neovaginas and the quality of these samples (specifically mentioning difficulties with getting good samples from penile and colon skin drafts).

And that is solely because cervical cancer screening is the only routine cancer screening involving the vagina available for comparison, not because these patients can develop cervical cancer. They cannot. They do not have a cervix which is the necessary condition for developing cervical cancer.

In conclusion, the authors point out that while neovaginas are different from vaginas, screening is still necessary:

The present study provides direct evidence that although neovaginal cytology resembles the cytology of the normal vagina only in a minority of cases, patients with neovaginas are prone to precancerous lesions and invasive carcinoma of the neovagina and should, therefore, be advised to engage in cancer screening programmes. The optimal follow-up strategy for these patients has yet to be defined, and it needs to take into account the comparably earlier onset of cancer and the reports of neovaginal cancer developing many years after vaginoplasty.

If you'd care to amend your statement to say that like females with a neovagina, males with a neovagina may also develop neovaginal cancer it would be correct.

And if you then say that a screening program should therefore be developed specifically aimed at preventing cancer in all patients with neovaginas, I would agree. Especially given the stated difficulties in obtaining good samples, which suggest that special training may be needed for the health care professionals carrying out the screenings.

if it barks like a dog, and looks like a dog... hmm

Carving my liver into the shape of a heart wouldn't enable it to pump blood around my body.

Similarly, sewing a penis into something that looks like a vagina/cervix doesn't make it a cervix. A cervix is an actual organ, with an actual purpose (as is a penis) and you can't turn one into the other!

Me too Erish . I am also very, very angry with them.
I wish there was enough funding, staff and resources to set up comparable organisations that see their main purpose as prioritising female health and saving women's lives. Organisations that anything before that, whether it be woke cookies or some ring-fenced funding from a TRA or inaccurate training from a TRA organisation- anything that they put before women's lives means they have lost all credibility. I'd be so ashamed if I was them. They had one job and they fell at the first hurdle.

That post from The Eve Appeal is problematic to me. On one hand, it’s clear they’re (individual) reacting from a position of pain - they mention it’s the (perceived) weaponising of having cancer that’s triggered their upset. The issue is they go on to double-down on the stupid “if you don’t have a cervix you’re not a woman” accusation that no one in their right mind has ever thought, and then sort of compounded things for me with the ‘poor transman didn’t want to have a smear and needed female support’ which ... fuck, NONE of us like it, mate, but it’s part of having a female body. Not to mention thinking their charity’s social media was a place to vent their triggered emotional response as if it was their personal Instagram.

Female body = female cancer.
You can’t identify out of it or into it. I’d think that’s the point they’re missing by a mile.

None of us like it mate, but its part of having a female body

This. They need to stop pretending to young girls they can identify out of being female.

Males who have a neovagina constructed from penile tissue need regular visual checks for penile cancers. Testing involves a biopsy of any suspicious lesions, not a smear test.
Usually men should self examine, as women do for breast lumps. Thats not possible if the penis has been inverted.

No one should be forced to lie about medical tests, no matter how dysphoric the patient. Medical insurance for practitioners doesn't cover this kind of liability.

Its depressing how many fucking posts about penises there are one thread about cervical cancer.

I don't agree with Eve Appeal stating that it is gatekeeping to say that only women get cervical cancer. That doesn't mean that women who have had a hysterectomy are not women, as they suggested in their post. Who would suggest that was the case?

TRAs. If someone says "A person with a uterus is a woman" they think it means the same as "A person without a uterus is not a woman." It's a failure to understand basic logic. It's the same as when JK Rowling said "A person who menstruates is a woman" and they thought it meant "A person who doesn't menstruate is not a woman."

And i say this as a researcher who often jumps through ethical hoops as I often need to include gender at birth into demographic information as much of my area has traditionally strong gender links, and therefore have to navigate being sensitive and considerate to participants feeling while not allowing PC culture to have a detriment on my results or validity of publications.

I think you mean sex, not gender.

And i say this as a researcher who often jumps through ethical hoops as I often need to include gender at birth into demographic information as much of my area has traditionally strong gender links, and therefore have to navigate being sensitive and considerate to participants feeling while not allowing PC culture to have a detriment on my results or validity of publications.

@DamsonDragon I’m a little confused about what research/er uses gender at birth? Or do you mean sex when you use gender? That would make more sense to me, but I don’t want to assume your meaning, or put words in your mouth.