Brighton midwives told to say “front hole”

[tabbycatstripy]

Daily Mail reports that a care guide for transgender patients pregnant or giving birth suggests midwives should use ‘alternative’ anatomical terminology, so, instead of calling a vagina a vagina, they could use “genital opening” or “front hole”.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10727051/Midwives-urged-avoid-using-proper-words-anatomy-avoid-upsetting-trans-patients.html

Aside from the issues of linguistic misunderstanding that might arise when patients are allowed to choose what medical professionals name anatomical parts, isn’t “front hole” simply degrading language? Isn’t it pornified and dehumanising?

‘Yes, that's the puzzling bit!’

Once you understand the dynamics at plays, not so much.

Transgender ideology (in my view, in a fundamental level) centres the worship of the male body (lady dick, “tenting”, coercion of lesbians by forced teaming) and the negation/degradation of the female body (bleeders, top surgery, chest-feeders refusal to name female body parts).

So what happens to standard medical terms? Can they no longer use those as well? VE, vaginal examination, becomes FHE? SVD, spontaneous vaginal delivery, becomes SFHD?

Absolutely ridiculous. Trans or not, they still have a vulva and vagina. It's biology. The midwives and other staff all need to be able to communicate with each other via a common language/abbreviation system. It'll get dangerous if everyone calls it something different.

Not sure why I have so many typos this morning. Possibly my confusion at reading about the vagina being called a front hole?

@Westfacing

Does anyone know how many transmen have actually given birth in the UK?

I'm sure the numbers don't warrant this assault on medical terminology.

Two as of 2017 according to this from Feb 2021

"This strained, clumsy, impractical lexicon is meant to cater instead to the tiny number of natal females who transition to male socially but not medically and give birth. As of 2017, the UK had two such people. To coin a phrase, the policy is not for the many, but the few. Women don’t matter; people who have renounced being women do."

Why are the language police trying to wipe out women?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d1157740-6d57-11eb-ba86-e516f9df6e0a?shareToken=ab3552cb26c8c29af01c9783d37effc8

Who are we counting as “transmen” here? I don’t have a quantifiable definition of that.

My main problem with it is that any time and money at all has been spent putting these guidelines together and publicising them internally when there are so many other areas of maternity services where that time and money could be far better spent. Areas where women and children are actually dying or suffering life changing consequences.

This pisses me off more than anything. How about improving maternity care for everyone and putting whatever extra resources into reducing the unacceptable higher maternal mortality rate for black women? That should be much higher priority than terminology training for someone’s precious feelings.

Maybe it means transmen with a GRC? But this guidance would apply more widely than that. Anyone would be able to say to the midwife, “Don’t say X”. Or to any doctor. Or it would be discriminatory.

I’d like the doctor to call my vagina my marshmallow.

‘How about improving maternity care for everyone and putting whatever extra resources into reducing the unacceptable higher maternal mortality rate for black women?’

Has anyone investigated/been able to explain this issue properly yet?

‘It’s clear from the daily mail that this only applies if the person is not comfortable with the ‘normal’ terminology and requests something else.’

I know. But aren’t there limits to what you can ask a medical professional to do?

The limit is what the patient requests. As it always is.

Why should they be forced to use degrading terms for the body? What if someone wanted to call the vagina a “penis receptacle”?

They can seek to transfer care to a colleague, just as they would fornany patient they had ethical reasons not to treat. But I suspect this point is a reductio ad absurdam rhetorical point.

Isn’t it better to use accurate terms anyway?

When amongst clinical,staff yes, and this guidance fpdoes nit cover that. In front of the patient then it is better to,p use the terms that the patient is familiar and comfortable with. This is particularly important in diverse areas (and I don't just mean trans by that)

And of course a transman might be pregnant not by choice, and of course they have the right to be pregnant whatever anyone thinks. But do they have the right to control others’ language in this way?

Yes, just like every patient already has

‘The limit is what the patient requests. As it always is.’

No it isn’t. I would not be allowed to insist on a midwife calling my breasts my “wank pillows”.

ResisterRex, absobloodylutely to this:

"If someone is that upset about anatomically correct terms then I wonder about the ethics involved in giving them hormones or assisting with fertility. If you can't face reality of what body parts are called then how the hell are you going to deal with a baby?"

This person needs help, not pandering to!

As for the two births, hasn't one since desisted?

And also to be clear, I wouldn’t have an issue with guidance saying, “Where a patient is dysphoric about their body or part of their body, avoid the use of anatomical terms unless clinically necessary.”

But where it is clinically necessary, the term should be used.

So, I wouldn’t mind a medical professional saying “chest” instead of breasts in an informal conversation. But if talking about chest pain or breast pain, they’re different things. They need to use accurate clinical language for safety.

I keep hearing about instances of the new language being introduced and made compulsory in medical settings - but never hear about women actually objecting to it when it is used with them in care. Is it actually being used? Do women just let it slide? Or do they feel awkward or too vulnerable to object?

Brighton. But if there were Oop her, Oop north like, would it be front passage?
" Eeh 'ilda, take t' bins out t'front passage, like"

It's bizarre to think there was so much progress in teaching girls and women to not be shamed or embarrassed to call their body parts the correct terms like vagina and labia. And now to hear those same words are triggering and loaded.

Just a thought, how is language being adjusted for penis-havers? Despite the threats to rape with their "lady cocks", I'm sure penis terminology must be v upsetting. So perhaps "small flesh extension"? "Exterior urinating flap"?

Mandala

I expect it’s not being used very often. But not because maternity care is a respectful female-centred pocket in our overall mess of a healthcare system. Just because the vast majority of women would go “Eh?”

No it isn’t. I would not be allowed to insist on a midwife calling my breasts my “wank pillows”

Would you do that, or is this more reduction ad absurdam?

And would you be happy people were instructed to always refer to them as mammary glands, because that's a preferred medicalised term?

If someone starts requesting an offensive or other problematic term then you deal with that if and when it arises.

Otherwise you go with the terminology the patient understands and prefers, and I would relaly not want to see a change to professional standards on that

(There are whole sections in PLAB that cover the vocabulary doctors who are non-native speakers need to both understand and use to help deliver effective patient-oriented care)

‘Would you do that, or is this more reduction ad absurdam?’

It’s absurd to call it a front hole. Which is what I’m saying. It’s absurd to use any term that isn’t clinically correct and is potentially ambiguous. You are pretending all patients are allowed to insist on that. They are not.

‘And would you be happy people were instructed to always refer to them as mammary glands, because that's a preferred medicalised term?’

To refer to breasts as mammary glands?

‘If someone starts requesting an offensive or other problematic term then you deal with that if and when it arises.’

We are.

‘Otherwise you go with the terminology the patient understands and prefers, and I would relaly not want to see a change to professional standards on that.’

I wouldn’t want to see medical professionals using vague and obfuscatory language for any patient, except when it doesn’t matter clinically. But that isn’t my only point in this case. My point is that guidance suggesting “front hole” is offensive, because (as you can see) many people would reasonably find it offensive even if they didn’t mind using another euphemism informally.

Again, would you happy if they suggested “cunt” or “fanny”, telling medical professionals that they should use those terms for the vagina? Some people are comfortable with those terms. I find them unprofessional and dehumanising in a medical setting.

It's not a hole though is it! It's a complex structure.

This brings to mind an episode of Call the Midwife from a few years ago. An older woman was suffering from a prolapse but couldn't see the doctor about it as she did not have the language to describe it. By reducing the vagina to a hole you are removing the language necessary to describe what is happening.

To be fair these obsfucations are not new - I recently received a questionnaire asking me about my 'waterworks'!

@VikingVolva * (There are whole sections in PLAB that cover the vocabulary doctors who are non-native speakers need to both understand and use to help deliver effective patient-oriented care)* Though can understand in a diverse population a sensitivity to preferred language is a way of delivering personalised service, is there a danger in then being required to remember colloquialisms.

Which is what I’m saying. It’s absurd to use any term that isn’t clinically correct and is potentially ambiguous. You are pretending all patients are allowed to insist on that. They are not

I am not pretending, and using terms that the patient understands and prefers is at the core of the respectful treatment you wish to champion.

There is no 'end point' other than the maintenance of the existing professional standards

Perhaps midwives wanted some support on whats best to when the person in labour identifies as male. It must be a bit of a minefield for them.

I dont think the idea is to force it on all mothers. I dont think my midwife said anything about vaginas or vulvas but she did mention cervix, labia and perineum- so I think they need to be clear about what is or isnt dilating/tearing/stretching/being cut etc for consent purposes.