Is my job transphobic?

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

I am a health care professional. I work in sexual health. Most of my patients are female, an increasing number of whom also have a gender difference, which is why they land up in my clinic.

Is it transphobic to say to a person who has a condition which only affects female people that this is because of their sex? I have re-written patient information leaflets so that trans men and NB identified females have the correct language in the info, but the fact remains that it is a condition linked to their sex.

I'm a little worried because the Lib Dems and Greens have said that it is transphobic to refer too someone's biological sex if they have transitioned. I think their definitions leave me vulnerable to being accused of bigotry because sex is immutable.

I want to talk to HR about this, but, can't quite think about how to frame it without sounding like I'm, well, a bigot.

What terms do the NHS use in their online information? I’d assume that’s the way to go in this situation.

Given that any individual could find any random thing "triggering", there's no possible way you can satisfy every person's demand to "not use the word X, I don't like" it simultaneously.

Exactly. A (male) friend quipped when Aimee Challenor successfully pressured TFL to not beginning announcements with "Ladies and Gentlemen" as it was exclusionary for non binary people, that "all audio announcements should be stopped as they are exclusionary to deaf people".

As a slight derail, my child was asked at a medical appointment whether they had 'any diarrhoea or constipation'. Now this was a bright-ish primary-age kid, who said 'No.'

Important point there - something I deal with in work a lot.

People do not like to admit they didn't understand something.

I will often ask people a question and get a yes or no answer, and then it takes another 10 minutes of further questioning to reach a contradiction, circle back and figure out that the correct answer to one question I asked 10 minutes ago was "I don't know" or "I don't understand".

By saying anything vaguely technical about anatomy you're just begging to get a misleading wrong answer, at best wasting time, at worst putting someone at risk.

If the trans man in question has trouble understanding the word "cervix" then he's really unlikely to think that you are talking about him when you use the word "female".

Basically, I can't think of any situation in which you would need to use the word "female" when talking to a trans man about his own body, and if you did so in order not to "pander to fashionable dogma" or to make a gender critical point to your patient even though you know it will cause him to be upset, then yes, it would be transphobic.

It would be like a medical professional saying to a woman who had experienced baby loss "I see you had a spontaneous abortion at 16 weeks due to cervical incompetence". It's technically accurate language, but really shitty and thoughtless phrasing.

@DodoPatrol

That's fair. I don't mean it's not a problem that people can't identify their own body parts! But I understand what you mean.

The OP was asking about language used inside a sexual health medical setting though, when talking to her patients about their bodies, not broader national messaging designed to catch a huge range of people with diverse understanding.

Just speak about the relevant body parts. "Anyone with a cervix is at risk of cervical cancer".

Deeply offensive to women, we are not just body parts and neither are men. OP works in sexual health, there are 2 sexes, there are numerous conditions that are specific to those sexes. These leaflets need to be factual and easy to read. Frankly 'transhopic' seems to translate into 'anything you say that a trans person doesn't like', it is simply someone elses opinion.

I'm amazed that your first port of call about this is mumsnet.

It's tortuous isn't it OP - trying to be inclusive when faced with facts and sex based issues?
I would have thought it is completely in order to ask for guidance on the language to be used with transmen etc about their bodies in relation to fertility, gynae issues, STD etc. After all, the NHS spends so much money with Stonewall and trans groups , let them come up with the 'correct' language to use that is medically and ethically accurate. They remove accurate sex based language for women at lightening speed - let them be confronted with some of the many complexities that their ideological approach throws up.

You work in a healthcare setting and you need to use clear, unambiguous language and diagrams that can easily be understood by the majority of people who use your service.

For women who struggle to read, or who don't have English as their first language, the coy alternatives suggested could kill them.
Women face enough problems getting healthcare, without adding to them. Those problems include controlling abusive partners and its important you dont replicate that dynamic.

Women's bodies are not transphobic. The correct names for the parts of our bodies are not transphobic. Just use the correct terms.

I'm more talking about leaflets and health messaging rather than face to face. But if it's necessary to talk about sex then it's necessary to talk about sex. Shitty though it might feel. It's shitty to be told you've got ovarian cancer.

And I think many medical professionals do talk to women who have miscarriages or fertility issues like that.

@DaisyWaldron

If the trans man in question has trouble understanding the word "cervix" then he's really unlikely to think that you are talking about him when you use the word "female".

Basically, I can't think of any situation in which you would need to use the word "female" when talking to a trans man about his own body, and if you did so in order not to "pander to fashionable dogma" or to make a gender critical point to your patient even though you know it will cause him to be upset, then yes, it would be transphobic.

It would be like a medical professional saying to a woman who had experienced baby loss "I see you had a spontaneous abortion at 16 weeks due to cervical incompetence". It's technically accurate language, but really shitty and thoughtless phrasing.

Yes, but if you're putting out a general leaflet more than 99% of your target audience will be women, and far more will have LDs/ESL than are likely to be transmen.

Is the aim to save lives or validate a tiny minority's feelings? If the former, then let's add in the cervix language, not replace the clear version.

I'm amazed that your first port of call about this is mumsnet.

The OP is a regular MNer.

Yeah, they do talk like that, and I don't think it's acceptable professional practice.

I would have thought it is completely in order to ask for guidance on the language to be used with transmen etc about their bodies in relation to fertility, gynae issues, STD etc.

I agree - it certainly makes sense to have information available in "genderese", to cater for that community, if there seems to be an approach they understand better.

But it makes no sense to present stuff in "genderese" to the general public, just as you wouldn't put it out in Urdu or Braille rather than English.

If it's a single publication, then you might need some asides or "this includes" or whatever, but you can't avoid the simple most-understood terms.

because it's more important that prostate cancer is identified early, than to risk alienating a vulnerable patient to make a point.

By using 'people with a prostrate' you are alienating and excluding vulberable groups like those with learning disability, poor English or poor biological knowledge in order to make a point.

@wusbanker

Just speak about the relevant body parts. "Anyone with a cervix is at risk of cervical cancer".

God! Have you not been listening? Cervix Havers... ?

OP Follow the House of Lord's example. Female sex is the key here, it is a sex specific service and so, like the maternity bill, is a service specifically for women.

Use your wording, point out that the EA2010 includes sex as a protected characteristic, gender is not, and hope the lunacy doesn't hit. If you need help with HR etc come back here. We can signpost you to the right Hansard, ONS and MoJ court cases etc.

Yeah, they do talk like that, and I don't think it's acceptable professional practice.

And I agree, having had a miscarriage and surgical management. But I don't think we can expect them to walk on eggshells.

I agree - it certainly makes sense to have information available in "genderese", to cater for that community, if there seems to be an approach they understand better.

But it makes no sense to present stuff in "genderese" to the general public, just as you wouldn't put it out in Urdu or Braille rather than English.

If it's a single publication, then you might need some asides or "this includes" or whatever, but you can't avoid the simple most-understood terms.

Yes, this is exactly how they should deal with it.

@crosspelican

You cannot be serious. That is one of the lowest information sentences I have ever read.

Can you explain?

It’s likely that if you know you have a cervix, you’ll already know you’re at risk of getting cervical cancer. It’s the people who don’t know they have a cervix who are more likely not to know they’re at risk so they won’t know that the information is relevant to them. I’m trying to think of another example

@idontlikealdi

I'm amazed that your first port of call about this is mumsnet.

Be abuse the debate around these issues is so toxic and threatening that mumsnet is one of the few places that we CAN ask questions about gender issues and get thoughtful, considered answers rather than gifs of barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bats?

What an auto-corrupt!!
“BECAUSE the debate..”!

Just to reassure, this is not my first port of call - but I am apprehensive about speaking to HR because we are have Stonewall approved inclusion training - so, I think that even saying the words could be seen as problematic.

This was a situation in a different department - a patient was upset at their sex being referred to because their belief was that they had actually changed sex because their birth certificate and passport and sex markers on their NHS records had been changed.

I agree language needs to be clear. Cervix havers is probably ok for leaflets for the trans/NB community, but, not for the majority.

My worry is that I cannot now acknowledge a person's sex as it pertains to their healthcare if that person has a gender difference. I don't want to upset people, but I do want to be good at my job.

So sad that "woman" and "female" have become dirty words and posters on this thread are tripping over themselves to come up with ways to avoid using them.

And as for Surely "Prostate cancer is a risk for people over the age of whatever so we ask you to check XYZ when you ABC" give me strength. As a woman in my 50s no I'm not at risk of prostate cancer, along with the other 51 percent of the population, so 'people' are not at risk, MEN are.

Jo’s Trust did a survey which showed 40% of women didn’t know what a “cervix” was. I’m guessing women with English as an additional language, women with poor literacy and women with learning difficulties will be over represented in that group.

That’s why health messages should use simple, accessible language.

Also, reducing women to body parts is dehumanising and offensive.

I think I really unfair that everyone else around them has obliged with it all leaving anyone who then has to use clear medical language in order to make sure patients fully understand what is going on , being labelled the bad guy.

If patients make a complaint/sue, where does that leave a medical establishment when it transpires that many of the patients left unaware that they were at risk of things becuase of their sex?

Withholding information about women's bodies was how men used to control women. Kept them.ignorant . I don't see how this is much different tbh.