Good ways of using inclusive language without excluding women etc

[Slythermum]

Anyone got examples?
So for things like periods, menopause, prostate cancer etc - what would be examples of easily understandable (for non English speakers) and that can make sure that trans people are also getting the healthcare access they need whilst keeping the words women, men, mother, father etc in the descriptions? Would be good to include some examples.

Thanks, Platypus that is really useful.

Majestic I'm pissed off, that's what I am!

Awful business, this malarkey. I've just read a whole heap of stuff on twitter about why lesbians are hateful for not wanting penises.

FFS.

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria

I am an HCP and I refuse to used gender inclusive language in patient information leaflets which are for all women who attend my department. I have leaflets with inclusive language for trans and NB people which I think is a good solution to this thorny issue.

My colleagues do not agree. Tough, I'm the boss and I hold the budget so I'm insisting they do an impact assessment of what happens to the engagement of marginalised women if we change the language - if they do that work and show no harm done then I'll change it.

So far there is just a lot of grumbling in the office as they try to out woke each other.

It's as if no one gives a shit about the women with poor literacy, or english as a second language or learning disabilities or those who don't give a flying feck about gender.

Appraisal time is coming. And I will be commenting on the lack of concern for those groups.

Having separate messaging for trans and non-binary people like this would be my preferred way to do it, as it also gives you space to address trans specific issues that wouldn't be remotely relevant to the majority population eg what effect taking cross sex hormones has on your risk profile for certain conditions, the extent to which cosmetic mastectomy reduces your risk of breast cancer and so on. In the absence of that though, I think for public health campaigns the "women and ..." formulations are most appropriate, as otherwise it risks riding roughshod over the needs of some of the target audience for the sake of our ideological preferences. Which is ironic, given that's what happens now with the "people who menstruate" formulations, just with different groups of people.

vivarium 🙌🏻 🙌🏾 all hail!
I can live with women and, although it can never be women and black women or women and lesbian women , the separating it out for transmen is solely to make them happy. However having had the suggestion of ‘women and…’ shot down pretty aggressively a couple of times, I do feel less charitable about catering to people who give no fucks about how I and others feel. (I do try not to think this way and penalise quieter trans people who are rational about their sex).

Tangential, but honestly, why isn't "women" plenty inclusive enough?

Transwomen (well, some them) insist they are women in every sense of the word. So why don't they feel included when people talk about women?

I've never met transmen with such a oddly loose hold on reality. So in a medical situation referring to women will give them the information they need, too. As vivarium pointed out, the important thing is to use language that speaks to all women, including those who forgot to get degrees in gender studies.

Man, woman, boy and girl are not words that denote gender. They denote sex and age.

Even if they did denote gender, it would only make sense for them to do so in non-medical contexts.

In medical contexts, obviously they have to refer to sex. What "role" you're playing is not relevant.

This should be so self-evident (as Jesse here says). The fact that it isn't shows we've got a problem.

The problem here isn't so much with transwomen wanting to be called women in some contexts, or transmen not wanting to be called men. It's the totalitarian insistence on never using the words when we need to use them precisely.

This is why "transphobia" is now a thing, when it wasn't. People were fairly happy to join in the role play on social occasions, on the understanding that everyone understood it was just polite role playing. If the trans people no longer understand it's a polite role play, then we're stopping playing.

“ People were fairly happy to join in the role play on social occasions, on the understanding that everyone understood it was just polite role playing. If the trans people no longer understand it's a polite role play, then we're stopping playing.”

THIS TIMES 100

@fufulina

“ People were fairly happy to join in the role play on social occasions, on the understanding that everyone understood it was just polite role playing. If the trans people no longer understand it's a polite role play, then we're stopping playing.”

THIS TIMES 100

Yes!

Using self-ID and gender identity as the default position in healthcare is also problematic in that it means trans and non-binary people can be missed from routine screening etc.

A trans man who is part of a system that does not accede that he is biologically female will not be invited for cervical screening for example. Unless, as a part of healthcare records and GP registration, you complete a ticklist of what organs you do and don't have- which isn't exactly feasible.

@Cuck00soup

I’m with Babdoc. I work in an area with low literacy rates, low income and multi-generational low educational attainment.

Information needs to be clear and unambiguous. Pregnant women works just fine. Not everyone has the luxury of knowing what a pronoun is, never mind the long list of choices.

Couldn’t agree with you more. It’s a “luxury” (mis) belief.

Medical language needs to be clear and unambiguous. Lack of clarity of language STOPS it from being INCLUSIVE.

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria

I am an HCP and I refuse to used gender inclusive language in patient information leaflets which are for all women who attend my department. I have leaflets with inclusive language for trans and NB people which I think is a good solution to this thorny issue.

My colleagues do not agree. Tough, I'm the boss and I hold the budget so I'm insisting they do an impact assessment of what happens to the engagement of marginalised women if we change the language - if they do that work and show no harm done then I'll change it.

So far there is just a lot of grumbling in the office as they try to out woke each other.

It's as if no one gives a shit about the women with poor literacy, or english as a second language or learning disabilities or those who don't give a flying feck about gender.

Appraisal time is coming. And I will be commenting on the lack of concern for those groups.

Please put them straight.

I don't care about inclusive language. It's all smoke and mirrors and people patting themselves on the back about how wonderful they are.

When push comes to shove - we all know what language means.

I don’t want to be 50! I really don’t. But I won’t fight tooth and nail to be redefined as ‘youth’ or even middle aged (unless I’m planning to live to over 100). I also have Heath issues that I’d rather not have, but no amount of sugar coating language will hide the facts.

You may not ‘feel’ a certain way - but facts are facts.

Language evolves so that we don’t discriminate or insult people (think of the Scope and its old name, old words for mixed race, etc). Not so that we can pretend something is more important (gender based sex) or falsify facts (and then try to mainstream these ‘inclusions’ as fact).

I’m too old (possibly too wise) to NOT see where this can get us, and I’m not prepared to keep shtum in case of ‘hurty feelings’ of people who are grown up enough to stop playing games.

Yup, just adding the 'and' works.
Changing paperwork where appropriate - when we were having our kids it was all 'mother' and 'father' and we would put a line through 'father' and write mother on NHS and nursery stuff but now we've noticed that some have duel forms. So a father/mother family still have their version and we're given a version that says 'parent 1, parent 2' or our kids birth certs day 'mother' and 'parent' rather than mother/father but a straight couple still have mum and dad on theirs.

@FrancescaContini easy tiger! This is about accessible language, vivums staff can be whatever sexuality they want, I don’t think she is planning on putting them straight at all

Proper laughing, time.

Actually, if I COULD change their sexualities it'd be helpful. I'm kind of behind in the diversity box ticking.

@Babdoc

And as a pedant, I object to the nonsensical term “women and people who menstruate”. It is only women who menstruate. Who are these other people? Men don’t menstruate. If you menstruate, you are a woman, whatever you identify as or wish you were instead. We need to stop confusing sex with “gender identity”.

I agree

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria

I am an HCP and I refuse to used gender inclusive language in patient information leaflets which are for all women who attend my department. I have leaflets with inclusive language for trans and NB people which I think is a good solution to this thorny issue.

My colleagues do not agree. Tough, I'm the boss and I hold the budget so I'm insisting they do an impact assessment of what happens to the engagement of marginalised women if we change the language - if they do that work and show no harm done then I'll change it.

So far there is just a lot of grumbling in the office as they try to out woke each other.

It's as if no one gives a shit about the women with poor literacy, or english as a second language or learning disabilities or those who don't give a flying feck about gender.

Appraisal time is coming. And I will be commenting on the lack of concern for those groups.

I want to applaud this post, thank you for standing against the madness

So far there is just a lot of grumbling in the office as they try to out woke each other.

It's as if no one gives a shit about the women with poor literacy, or english as a second language or learning disabilities

There are no ally points for doing anything to make communications more effective for these groups. No chance for photo opps. Nothing to burnish your CV or achieve promotion within a network that might lead to lucrative opportunities at some point.

Just the dull, boring grind of doing your job and doing it well. And then turning up tomorrow and doing it again. There is the added kicker that if you do your job really well, nobody notices and there are no plaudits available except within your own professional peer network.

I personally would go with 'women including women who wish they weren't women but nevertheless are women' but then I am getting bored of this whole thing

Maybe its time to remind your place of work that The Plain English Campaign is still going, and they still give out the Crystal mark for clarity and honesty.

plainenglish.co.uk/

How often do you get asked for your Christian name these days? You don’t - you get asked for your first name. Forms used always to ask for your Christian name. The change to first name was to take into account the substantial percentage of UK population who were not Christian. (Even more substantial now, something like 45% non-Christian.)

That was an inclusive change that worked well. It did not disenfranchise Christians in any way, did not require them to deny their reality or affirm a different belief. It did not change the meaning of Christian by pretending that the meaning could be decided by any Jew, Muslim, Hindu, atheist etc who chose to label themselves Christian, and then demand that Christians changed their Christianity to accommodate them.

It is not the same as replacing ‘women’ with ‘people’, or by adding ‘and…’ . Those wordings deny the physical reality of being a woman. They pretend that it is possible for anyone to experience things that only women can experience. Those wordings pretend that anyone can decide what defines a woman and label themselves women, and demand access to women’s services regardless of how that affects actual women.

@Babdoc

And as a pedant, I object to the nonsensical term “women and people who menstruate”. It is only women who menstruate. Who are these other people? Men don’t menstruate. If you menstruate, you are a woman, whatever you identify as or wish you were instead. We need to stop confusing sex with “gender identity”.

Agree. Everyone knows what sex they are, and this push to pretend that trans identifying people will not be able to access sex appropriate medical care, appears to me to be a tactic to erode the use of female sex based terminology.

Trans women are adults. So are trans men. So they should be capable of adult powers of reasoning. When it comes to their health careALL of their health carethey should proceed as if their health is connected to their bodies. That's what the rest of us do. So if they have male bodies, as all trans women do, get your prostate checked. And if you have a neo vagina created from your male genitalia, that is a man plumbing problem, not a lady plumbing problem. Nothing indeed could be more willfully male. If you are a trans man and find a baby squeezing through your vaginal canal one day, you might want to understand that your efforts at becoming male fell short--you are a woman. We don't need to change the English language for trans people to get decent health care. They need to take responsibility for themselves.

I used to work in the NHS and it is critical that the health message / advice / campaigning is in the most plain English possible and understood by the people it is being targeted too.

So women and men or children or girls/boys and if there are ethnic minorities or hard to reach groups then specifically targeted to them in their own language / cultural way. Accessibility is KEY.

The World Health Organization and NHS and worldwide organizations have identified that Health Literacy is extremely important. It can mean the difference between life and death, of not understanding how and when to take your medication, or how to prevent getting an STI, or how to check lumps for cancer, what a prostate is and who has one, who needs to be aware of cervical cancer checks…

It’s a huge issue with estimates varying but 40% not understanding what their GP tells them for example say about their diabetes care.

So in the nicest of ways, sensitivities about using the word woman or man can go take a hike. I’m amazed not more healthcare trusts or public health realize the total contradiction here. Fudging the message will literally cost lives. Who cares honestly is someone is hurt that a poster says women aged 18 to 50 need to turn up to their cervical cancer check ups - the important message is that women need to go to their cervical cancer check ups. Seeing ‘person with a cervix’ throws that added confusion when we already know that even clear messages aren’t always picked up is totally against medical health literacy targets.