Female presenting individuals

[sleepyhead]

CADTH (A Canadian organisation that produces rapid reviews on various healthcare topics - v highly regarded) says "CADTH believes that credible, objective evidence should inform every important health care decision. When you want to know what the evidence says, ask CADTH."

CADTH has just completed an evidence review entitled: Respiratory Personal Protective Equipment for Female Presenting Individuals

They didn't find anything to review, and I'm sure in doing the search they were canny enough to be looking for literature on females, but wtf do they mean by "female presenting"?

Presumably the purpose of the review was because many women report finding it difficult to get well-fitting ppe due to the sizing being default male.

Female-presenting would include males but exclude females who were not "presenting" as such, despite the issue being down to bodies and not swishy hair and lipstick.

Oh Canada....

covid.cadth.ca/prevention/respiratory-personal-protective-equipment-for-female-presenting-individuals/

How does a female present? Is there a list?

Just wondering before I decide what to wear tomorrow.

From what I can gather the main issue with PPE for women is that it's most often made with a default towards the male skeletal structure including skull size. Someone who is female presenting but not actually female is unlikely to face this issue. If such people were included in studies the research might falsely conclude there is less of problem than reality dictates. This is why #sexmatters.

From what I can gather the main issue with PPE for women is that it's most often made with a default towards the male skeletal structure including skull size. Someone who is female presenting but not actually female is unlikely to face this issue. If such people were included in studies the research might falsely conclude there is less of problem than reality dictates. This is why #sexmatters.

Exactly!!!!!

What Ova said.

A lot of this comes down to homophobia and misogyny in areas such as the military and uniformed services where they don't 'really' want female personnel - and open gays - but will compromise (and keep females out) by having "women" men in their ranks.

The PPE does not require adjusting as such.

@OvaHere

From what I can gather the main issue with PPE for women is that it's most often made with a default towards the male skeletal structure including skull size. Someone who is female presenting but not actually female is unlikely to face this issue. If such people were included in studies the research might falsely conclude there is less of problem than reality dictates. This is why #sexmatters.

And someone "male presenting" might experience the issue but not be included.

It's almost like you need a name and definition for the people who are affected by this.

I would like to see the full search strategy they used in this review, it is not listed in the report or appendices or other accompanying material that I can see.

The review says "the main search concepts were face masks and females."

But later they go on to define the population of interest as "Any female presenting individuals (health care provider, patient, general public) required to wear respiratory protection devices (e.g., filtering respirators such as N95 masks, and medical, cloth, or surgical masks), in any setting" That is a different set of people to 'females'!

How can a researcher in good conscience could go along with these incoherent and contradictory definitions? This review found no included studies, but what happens the next time they do a review about 'female presenting people' and the review produces actual findings, based on nonsense definitions? This stuff will seep into the evidence base.

If reputable agencies are going to start producing reviews like this, who is next? Cochrane? NICE? This is so dangerous and so utterly destructive.

Yes, I suspect the search strategy was geared to look for biological females and not trying to include feminine presenting men, or exclude masculine presenting women.

The title was likely unthinking wokewash - still very worrying for an org of this standing.

It was a problem in the NHS even before the PPE issue. My hospital had unisex theatre scrubs - tops and trousers. Except they were designed for a default male body shape.
So the tops were straight up and down - no flare out to stretch over wider female hips. So we all used to tear the side seams for the lower six inches to make them fit. Otherwise you had to take an extra large size which gaped open at the chest, revealing cleavage. Similarly, to get wide enough hips in the trousers, you had to choose a massive size, so the legs were a foot too long and had to be rolled up.
These problems were entirely sex, not gender, related. It wouldn’t matter a shit how any of us “identified”, the clothes were not going to fit.

Wonder why male body is the default as women make up the majority of HCP in NHS?