Irish women, have you seen this?

[SecondRow]

The HSE removed the word "woman" from their CERVICAL screening pages
I stumbled across this tweet
twitter.com/Salwicklow/status/1305967737563422720?s=20

politely asking them to put woman back in, alongside trans men and trans women, who both get their own special mentions, but they have brushed off the woman who made the original request and are no longer replying.

Here's the HSE pages
www2.hse.ie/screening-and-vaccinations/cervical-screening/when-you-should-have-cervical-screening/who-should-have-cervical-screening.html

And here's Aoife Martin - no cervix skin in the game inviting followers to mock women for wanting the 99.9% of people who need cervical screening to be named as such by a health service that already has some serious catching up to do before women can believe it has their best interests at heart.

twitter.com/aoifemrtn/status/1306339571790159872?s=20

@OchonAgusOchonO, well that's just not good enough is it? TBH I'm tired of "being nice" in this debate. That time has passed. The only discourse Ireland favours is revolution and I have started mine.

@Annasgirl - well that's just not good enough is it?

No. It's shite.

Prior to the transition to HPV cervical screening on 30 March 2020, extensive testing was conducted on the CervicalCheck web content, invitation letters, results letters and information leaflets. From this research we learned that the vast majority of the audience were supportive of using gender-neutral language in all communications to users of the screening service

I would be curious to know whether their research asked women were they happy with terms such as "person with a cervix" or was it a bland, generic question about supporting gender neutral language.

[quote OchonAgusOchonO]**@Annasgirl* - well that's just not good enough is it?*

No. It's shite.

Prior to the transition to HPV cervical screening on 30 March 2020, extensive testing was conducted on the CervicalCheck web content, invitation letters, results letters and information leaflets. From this research we learned that the vast majority of the audience were supportive of using gender-neutral language in all communications to users of the screening service

I would be curious to know whether their research asked women were they happy with terms such as "person with a cervix" or was it a bland, generic question about supporting gender neutral language.[/quote]
In a response to an FOI they had lost the wording they used on the extensive user groups that they tested this language on.

How many of us have put in FOIs I wonder?

So they can't provide evidence of the research done?

In a response to an FOI they had lost the wording they used on the extensive user groups that they tested this language on

Interesting. If the research was so extensive, you would think they would have multiple records of the questions asked.

Let's say they used a questionnaire. There would be the original questionnaire, there would be the raw data from the respondents, there would be the reports from the analysis. All of these should contain the wording. Are they all lost?

If they used interviews, they would have had a list of questions or topics to discuss, the audio tapes, the transcriptions, the analysis and the reports. Plus, whoever was conducting these extensive interviews, might remember the wording of the question that was asked extensively.

If they ran focus groups, there would be the questions to discuss, the recordings, the transcripts, the analysis of the data, the reports.

If they ran comparative experiments, they would have created different versions of the material. They would have records of respondents' reactions to the different formats (presumably interview and/or questionnaire).

If they did extensive research, I would expect multiple methods to be used.

That's an awful lot of data to simply misplace. You might be forgiven for thinking they're telling porkies.

Well I definitely believe that the overwhelming majority of people in the research want to see the word woman replaced with the wording people with a cervix

@Runnersos

Well I definitely believe that the overwhelming majority of people in the research want to see the word woman replaced with the wording people with a cervix

Aahh but they never claimed that they did. What they said in the email to me was:

Prior to the transition to HPV cervical screening on 30 March 2020, extensive testing was conducted on the CervicalCheck web content, invitation letters, results letters and information leaflets. From this research we learned that the vast majority of the audience were supportive of using gender-neutral language in all communications to users of the screening service.

Absolutely nobody would have considered that gender neutral language would involve replacing women with people with a cervix.

If you were asked whether you were supportive of the use of inclusive language, most would presumably say yes. I certainly would.

If you were told that the current screening meant some transmen and non-binary people were being missed out and asked would you support the use of language that would include them, the majority would probably say yes. I would have in the past. Now I'd want more information.

If you were asked do you think gender neutral language should be used to ensure that transmen and non-binary people wouldn't miss out on screening, many would say yes if they hadn't been exposed to the likes of this shitstorm previously. again, I would now be looking for clarity.

If you were asked did you think the word women should be replaced with people with a cervix, you would presumably say Fuck, no.

Hence, my assumption that they asked something like the first question above and they know it doesn't stack up

Gender neutral is all well and good, but in medical areas you often need sex specific

@7Days

Gender neutral is all well and good, but in medical areas you often need sex specific

Gender is absolutely irrelevant in most medical areas. The only medical field it might have some relevance in is psychiatry.

Dd is studying medicine and they have been told that sex is what is considered, not gender. It gives me some hope.

I am rooting for the women of Ireland. So frustrating to find that our voices are inaudible by design.

Has the HSE removed the word men from equivalent literature?

@seadreaming2020

Has the HSE removed the word men from equivalent literature?

No. Prostate cancer remains unchanged.

@seadreaming2020 - Has the HSE removed the word men from equivalent literature?

No. Prostate literature uses the word "men". Maybe their extensive research only looked at gender neutral language for women.

The cervical cancer website men people wieh a cervix, but also speaks of transmen.
The prostate cancer website uses the word men through out the site. Strangly it doesn't make any reference to transwoman who are also at risk of prostate cancer.

*mentions people with a cervix

@Runnersos

The cervical cancer website men people wieh a cervix, but also speaks of transmen. The prostate cancer website uses the word men through out the site. Strangly it doesn't make any reference to transwoman who are also at risk of prostate cancer.

Strange how none of the transactivists are complaining about that.

@Runnersos

The cervical cancer website men people wieh a cervix, but also speaks of transmen. The prostate cancer website uses the word men through out the site. Strangly it doesn't make any reference to transwoman who are also at risk of prostate cancer.

And all nonbinary male-bodied people are also at risk of prostate cancer. The extremely lopsided erasure of biological sex is such an enlightening aspect of the movement. The goal is to erase the meaning of 'woman' but to keep the old meaning of 'man.' That's how we get men and non-men, ultimately, though the UK Green Party was slightly ahead of its times by using it a few years ago.

I got a reply to my last email. I'm tied up in meetings all afternoon but intend picking it apart later. If anyone has any suggestions, please post below. They haven't really answered the questions I asked.

My email:

While the term “anyone with a cervix” is gender neutral, it is likely to have the effect of excluding those who have poor English language skills and those who have poor anatomical knowledge. Can you please let me know how you intend to mitigate against that potential outcome? Has any research been conducted to determine whether women in those circumstances recognise themselves as a “person with a cervix”? If not, do you intend doing that research, particularly given the outcome of the research conducted by Jo’s Trust in the UK (www.jostrust.org.uk/node/666780)?

If you have conducted research amongst women with poor English language skills and those who have poor anatomical knowledge can you please point me towards it?

Their Reply:

CervicalCheck is a population screening programme, which means it has the opportunity to improve the health of the eligible population. We aim to make the programme accessible and inclusive of everyone in the population and reduce health inequalities wherever possible. Measures needed to reduce health inequalities include, but are not exclusive to, Health Promotion activities in key populations where uptake is low; having communications materials translated into languages other than English; and using inclusive and accessible language in our communications materials.

Revision of language in web content, invitation letters, results letters and information leaflets in National Screening Service programmes is carried out regularly for each programme. We revised our CervicalCheck information in preparation for the move to HPV cervical screening in March 2020.

Key references that informed the use of gender neutral language:
· WHO’s ‘Health 2020’ Boyne T, Brown C. Reducing health inequities: perspectives for policy-makers and planners. Regional Office for Europe: WHO; This policy was also referenced Dr Gabriel Scally’s Scoping Inquiry into CervicalCheck 2018
· 2017 Government’s Healthy Ireland “Framework for Improved Health and Wellbeing 2013-2025”, a key goal of which is the reduction of health inequalities.

The National Screening Service also adheres to HSE communications guidelines when developing web content. The HSE’s ‘How to write about people’ guidelines are available here and advise to ‘use gender-neutral text wherever possible’.

A recent example of language revision of HSE content occurred during the mychild.ie campaign, where parent focus groups and market research supported the use of ‘your child’ and ‘they’ rather ‘he’ or ‘she’ in communications concerning children.

Our CervicalCheck material has been created in consultation with patient representatives and stakeholders of screening. It has been user-tested with a sample of the target audience and the National Screening Service Public Participation Panel, and approved by CervicalCheck’s Programme Manager, Clinical Director, Clinical Advisory Group, and the HPV Primary Screening Steering Committee.

We continue to work to implement improvements that help to reduce health inequalities for everyone.

I know the WHOguidelines say that people should not be expected to be experts on health. If up to 40% of women don't know if they have a cervix, then they are not using language takes this into account. Their own policy says that they should use gender neutral WHEN Appropriate. So while it may be appropriate in the example they use regarding children, it would seem to be inappropriate in the context of cervical screening.

That response was just a word salad, what the hell is wrong with them, and this all just so soon after the massive screening scandal that affected so many WOMEN in Ireland. Shame on the people behind this.

Still angry and fed up with this and Barbie Kardashian.
And someone tried to hack my FB account.

Excluding 'woman' is not inclusive.

End of.

No more bullshit, whitewash, be nice arguments.

Same people sneering about how they are also going to change the radiotherapy info.

Foreverfaithless that happened to me and some gender critical friends a while back, seems to be something they do. Lots of IT guys in that world.

@OchonAgusOchonO thanks for posting your enquiry and the reply.

Unfortunately, this has diminished just a bit more, my trust in the HSE as a "fit for purpose" service for women. A bit like the Catholic Church was exposed as not "fit for purpose" 15+ years ago.

The tone of the reply that you received, is one of "there there little girly, dont you be worrying about this, we know what we're doing".

@XXSex where did the information that they 'lost' the questionnaire come from?