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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Eve Appeal responds to criticism against TWAW

170 replies

MoreSchnitzelPlease · 16/07/2020 23:38

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.

OP posts:
MarieIVanArkleStinks · 17/07/2020 11:15

I'd be interested to know the implications of this from a research and medical ethics viewpoint. If 'non-malfeasance' becomes an area of very significant ambiguity - by way of the norm, not exceptional cases like the ethical implications of separating conjoined twins, for eg. - then surely the potential ramifications could be catastrophic. I'd be interested to know whether research, or even consideration, has been devoted to this.

The original Instagram post has gone, as far as I can see.

truthisarevolutionaryact · 17/07/2020 11:27

@CharlieParley

I did wonder if this was a way for them to demonstrate that they really are not transphobic (FAOD, they aren't). The pressure brought to bear on any organisation focused on anything female-related to yield first the words women and girls and now female is huge.

I've seen organisations cave on women and girls and moving to female only to be immediately attacked for that, too. And like during the Cultural Revolution, I've seen these organisations then castigate themselves and promise to do better.

Just once I'd like to see them calmly explain that talking about women and girls in regard to issues only women and girls face is not exclusionary, transphobic, regressive, outdated or bigoted.

Amongst other things, I've advised companies on their marketing strategy and communication. I've drawn up customer profiles and buyer personas for clients to help them better target their marketing.

It simply doesn't make sense for organisations and companies whose target audience are women to communicate in this way.

You don't build personas based on the smallest fraction of your clientele. You build them based on large groups. What do the majority have in common, what need do we meet etc.

If you want to be thorough (or have identified an issue with your conversion rates) you can also include barriers to conversion in these profiles. What might stop a customer from buying my product or service? And again, you're looking at large groups when you do that - one in three customers, one in five potential donors etc.

In my view, none of these customers are taking the risk of alienating their main customers for the sake of signalling to 1%. No, they're doing this because they've been told that the majority of their customers expect a progressive stance from them. And they've been told that means changing their language. And amongst those responsible for marketing, especially social media marketing, many staff members (and interns) disproportionately fall into that group.

To the detriment of their long-term success.

Thank you CharlieParley . It's amazing how ready charities and businesses like M & S, Body Shop, Action Aid, Eve Appeal (to name just a few) are to alienate their core demographic - women. It's the weirdest business model. I currently have far more disposable income to share having recently withdrawn my accounts / custom from M&S and today from the Eve Appeal. Maybe the woke are replacing my ££ with theirs as offending / insulting and alienating women is evidently the way to go Confused
UncleShady · 17/07/2020 11:42

If 80-90% of transwomen don't actually have any surgery then even the wokest of woke are now excluding the majority of transwomen who don't even have a neo-cervix. It's just not fair [wails] Who exactly are they trying to appease?

andyoldlabour · 17/07/2020 11:46

DamsonDragon

A male person (which a transwoman is) cannot get cervical cancer. The human body is not like some sort of kit car, where you can add bits on or take them off and then suddenly change sex. The medical world has not yet invented a procedure which will change a person's chromosomes.
A "neo cervix" is not a real cervix so cannot get cervical cancer, although it could possibly contract some other nasty infection.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 17/07/2020 11:48

It's so that they can break the link between "women" and female bodies. To make it unspeakable. That is the goal of this and all the TRA assault on female health related subreddits on Reddit. I imagine Mumsnet is in their long term sights too, and would have been sooner if Justine hadn't made it clear she would defend free speech and discussion.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 17/07/2020 12:00

And here we see either an attempt to claim a neovagina as a female body part, or an attempt to make the case that males can have body parts normally associated with females. Both erase women's sex based health issues, rights and oppression and make it impossible to discuss these things within the wider framework of women's rights. This stuff is important. We need to defend it.

Aesopfable · 17/07/2020 12:19

I imagine Mumsnet is in their long term sights too, and would have been sooner if Justine hadn't made it clear she would defend free speech and discussion.

Mumsnet has been in their sights for ages. Not much upsets them more than the existence of FWR and their inability to shut it down.

wellbehavedwomen · 17/07/2020 12:21

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.

Cancer is the body's own cells, refusing to die. Those cells are extremely specific. A primary cancer, let's say breast, invades breast tissue, because they are composed of breast tissue suffering from a mutation which means cells no longer die in order to be replaced by new, young, healthy cells (autophagy). If those cancerous breast cells travel around the body (usually via the lymphatic system, but potentially also via the blood) they can invade the healthy tissues of any other body part and start growing there. Most commonly the bones, or the liver, but it can be brain, peritoneum, even eyes. Anywhere. But no matter where they metastasise, they remain breast cells. They are identifiable as such upon biopsy. They are not ever cells of that body part. They remain of the breast.

If someone has no cervix, then they do not have cervical cancer. The cells will be identifiably of the originating body part. There was an extraordinary case of a transplant donor, who had undiagnosed metastatic breast cancer. Four organ recipients ended up with her breast cancer growing in their bodies. It was possible to trace the cancer back to a deceased organ donor's breast tissue, across every recipient.

Cancer is specific at a cellular level. Parabasal cells - the 'similar' in the study you cite - are found in cervical smears where the patient has an endochrine disorder - too low oestrogen and/or too high androgen (male hormones). The study further notes that the cells are, "similar" which you have misinterpreted as, 'the same cellular structure as a cervical cell.' They are not cervical because the body's DNA has coded instructions for growing every single body part. Cosmetic surgery can't alter someone's DNA. Men can't grow cervical cells; the DNA lacks the capacity.

Endochrinology is often very important in cancer, affecting treatment pathways, and disease processes. That's relevant and important in trans people's cancers if they have been treated with hormones, as it is in women on HRT for example, and it's wholly right that appropriate, informed care should be provided. That doesn't mean someone without cervical cells, and without DNA capable of creating such cells, suddenly has them. Pretending that it is cervical cancer is not in the interests of the patient, because that patient needs specialist care.

If a trans man is likelier to engage with smears if the leaflet talks about, "people with a cervix", then there needs to be literature and an approach from the clinicians that adopts that language, for that cohort. We need to help people. That's the bottom line. But you know what isn't inclusive? Erasing women from all the literature, in case accurately reflecting biology, anywhere, might upset a small minority. That minority deserve respectful literature for their needs, just as women of immigrant communities, who don't speak English fluently, need and deserve leaflets that they can read and understand in their own language. But the main literature should state women, and female. Because that's the form that benefits the vast, vast majority of patients, and their needs, interests, and feelings matter too.

Rendering language around women problematic unless it centres a small minority of males, or those who identify as men, is misogynist. The word 'woman' has had a meaning - adult human female - for centuries - centuries in which women were property, and subject to men's whims and demands, and now, finally, we have rights, a concerted attempt is being made to remove any means of accurately identifying who we are. And, please note, that it's not a demand made around men. Nobody's insisting prostate cancer information erases men, just as the Scots government left the legal definition of 'man' well alone. As always, it's women who are at the sharp end, and whose rights - rights based upon recognition of us as a legal class of people - are threatened.

There's a reason 'misogyny' has the 'gyny' in it. Hatred of women is biologically-founded: demanding that women ignore that is about as progressive as demanding that black people abandon all reference to race. You can't counter a bigotry you are not allowed to name. Biology matters. It's the foundation of women's oppression. Biology is the reason. Gender is how.

Eve was a woman. That's why they named the charity.

And this cancer survivor doesn't need some self-important, officious little dipshit on Instagram (with a drama degree. You shock me) to tell me I'm a woman, even without various bits of my female anatomy. My every cell encodes that I am one. In hundreds of years, if they dig up my skeleton, they'll know that I was one. I'm so tired of the fatuous, facile wankery trotted out mindlessly over all of this. Be who you want, live as you like, and I'll fight for your right to do so, and your right to be free of harassment, abuse, and discrimination. But biological facts remain. They will outlive us all, and they don't care what you think.

Winesalot · 17/07/2020 12:30

wellbehavedwomen

This!

And Flowers Thank you for sharing.

I keep saying, if transpeople have these specific needs around language, then they really need to accept that they need different and very targeted literature that is tailored to their perception of themselves. This bludgeoning of language to dehumanise females is not the answer.

I realise that this may contribute to them being 'other' but they also need to accept that for discussions on biology, they actually are 'other' and that is their individual reality.

Aesopfable · 17/07/2020 13:07

TRA don’t want women to have anything transwomen can’t have but that doesn’t mean they don’t want transwomen to have a more than women. They think transwomen should have trans-specific services, trans-specific health care, trans-specific protections, trans-specific rights, trans-specific hate crimes, trans-specific groups, a loud trans-specific voice, whilst at the same time denying women any of these things.

CharlieParley · 17/07/2020 13:14

Brava wellbehavedwomen Flowers

Brilliantly put.

FloralBunting · 17/07/2020 13:20

@Aesopfable

Why do TRAs thrown out these links to studies that say the opposite if what they claim? Do they think we don’t read them?

There is DamsonDragon with their study of bowel and penile tissue (which doesn’t distinguish between two very distinct tissue types or sex of the 20 participants). Mermaids linking a study to refute JKR claims that transwomen have the same level of criminality as other men which showed that transwomen had the same level of criminality as other men. Cambridge Rape centre referencing a study of 32 transgender individuals (22 female) who had experience of sexual violence and inexplicably claimed it showed prevalence of sexual violence against transwomen. And those are just three recent ones.

I think they strategize, with some justification, that though we may read them, the vast majority of people will not, and will see a link to something that looks vaguely 'sciencey' and accept what they are told the conclusions are.

It's a spectacularly manipulative and deceitful version of the 'appeal to authority' fallacy.

Durgasarrow · 17/07/2020 13:25

I think some TRAs might be trying to make the case that if both cervixes and neovaginas can theoretically get cancer from HPV, then they both get cervical cancer. Without acknowledging that HPV, the Human Papillomavirus, if a freaking VIRUS. And if there's one thing we have learned in the Year of Our Lord 2020, Viruses gotta Virus. They want to spread anywhere they can.

gardenbird48 · 17/07/2020 13:31

Thank you @wellbehavedwomen I am reading this thread with such sadness - as mentioned above, we are not just made up Lego parts that we can swap in and out or turn a functioning body part into a different one. Even our microbiome is sex specific and determined at birth (actually way before birth as I understand as it hereditary) - female microbiome is designed specifically to form part of a babies‘ immune system at birth and beyond through highly tailored breast milk. If the microbiome is compromised with the medical treatments/hormone treatments etc (which it will be with all the antibiotics, anaesthetics etc involved) required for transgender people it is very likely to lead to many health issues including mental health. The research in this is quite young and just highlights how little we know about the huge complexity of our bodies. The lack of basic biological understanding demonstrated by some posters above means that it is more important than ever to have complete clarity from medical professionals and advocates about our bodies and the sex specific nature of healthcare. It almost feels like we have gone back to the Victorian era where we must not speak of it acknowledge women’s bodies and health needs.

OldCrone · 17/07/2020 13:35

Why do TRAs thrown out these links to studies that say the opposite if what they claim? Do they think we don’t read them?

It's because they don't read them themselves. They don't read anything themselves (think about all the TRAs who commented on what they had been told JK Rowling had said without actually having read her essay themselves).

This is how it seems to go.

TRA 1 posts a link to a paper (which they may or may not have read) and says 'It shows x'.

Subsequent TRAs don't bother to read the paper and just quote TRA 1.

TRAs come on here and repeat what TRA 1 said, assuming we're as lazy/stupid as they are and won't bother to read the original source.

Clymene · 17/07/2020 13:42

Absolutely OldCrone. Bet you a fiver DamsonDragon doesn't return to this thread

And WellBehavedWoman - epic post. Thank you and Flowers to you

NearlyGranny · 17/07/2020 13:43

EndoplasmicReticulum, thanks, I stand corrected. I didn't know that about HPV causing cancers in other organs in both sexes.

I learn something new every time I visit!

CharlieParley · 17/07/2020 13:47

Why do TRAs thrown out these links to studies that say the opposite if what they claim? Do they think we don’t read them?

Yes, they really do think that. It helps that most of these papers are paywalled, and they often think we can't access them. And given that so very often the press release and/or abstract don't accurately reflect the actual paper, they may think that the paper proves what it doesn't based on reading the former and not the latter.

truthisarevolutionaryact · 17/07/2020 14:02

Brilliant post wellbehavedwomen
I live in hope that someone from the Eve Appeal might be reading this thread and pondering on how they have allowed such misogynistic attitudes to infiltrate a once worthy charity for women.
As you say Hatred of women is biologically-founded: demanding that women ignore that is about as progressive as demanding that black people abandon all reference to race For the Eve Appeal to perpetuate the silencing of women and removal of language that defines us is egregious.

Michelleoftheresistance · 17/07/2020 14:36

wellbehavedwoman Flowers

All of that.

NearlyGranny · 17/07/2020 15:16

Surely 'Eve' appeal is a bit exclusionary, too?

Is it too cynical of me to imagine that half a dozen activists - or even as fee as three - are systematically downloading and working their way through every PDF ever uploaded by NHS trusts and charities across the country and searching for woman, women and female? A search like that is done in a split second and highlights all the appearances.

Another individual or group could have a template complaint document ready to populate and send off. No one organisation would know their letter or email wasn't unique.

Thus is the culture changed and the language controlled. The tools are there. It certainly looks ststematic to me!

NearlyGranny · 17/07/2020 15:17

Systematic, sorry.

VortexofBloggery · 17/07/2020 16:05

Wonderful post wellbehavedwomen.

PurpleHoodie · 17/07/2020 16:39

wellbehavedwomen

WOW!

Every lurker should read and re-read your post.

Teach it to your children, family and friends.

PurpleHoodie · 17/07/2020 16:39
Flowers