Doctors and Health Secretary call for NHS to use the word 'woman'

[Hagiography]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61731994

'Leading doctors say they have concerns about the NHS reducing mentions of the word "women" in ovarian cancer guidance.

They say "it may cause confusion" and create barriers to care.'

This is from The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, with Sajid Javid backing calls for clear language. This is great news.

Great news indeed when this particular cancer often goes undiagnosed until advanced. A problem no mtf Transperson will ever experience.

Great news.

I'm all for a huge pushback on this dehumanising and batshit nonsense.

In the Mail:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10895801/Sajid-Javid-condemns-NHS-remove-word-women-advice-web-pages-ovarian-cancer.html

And even the Guardian:

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/08/sajid-javid-criticises-changes-to-nhs-pages-removing-word-women

-okay, it's in all the papers! Herald/standard/telegraph, etc.

This is really heartening. Not just that relevant politicians with clout are standing up for women's rights and common sense policy, but that so many papers are reporting it and for once, not smearing women, who've been shouting themselves hoarse over this for fucking years.

Very good 👍

I hope he gets to grip with the fact that it's not just about linguistic confusion, muddying the waters over who is affected by these diseases. It's about ideology captured public bodies.

Otherwise, he's going to have to take it one by one. Cervix havers for cervical cancer, menstruaters for period issues, birthing bodies, etc.

He needs to identify the reason, and tackle that, not the symptoms.

Yes, absolutely. At the very least the symptoms of genderism have been noted and widely seen as a problem. Whether Javid will listen to the women telling him what the root cause is or not ... we will see.

I'm really heartened by the remarks made by members of government in recent days by now I want to see leadership.

I want the government to issue very clear guidance on the EA so that no one is left in any doubt that a business or service which denies women the safety, privacy and dignity of single sex spaces and services did so by choice. And that the erasure of female specific language can cause confusion with unintended consequences which could amount to discrimination.

I wonder if it's worth letters to SJ and other relevant parties (Truss, EHRCetc) to spell out these issues? Maybe 'Sex Matters' and other groups will be able to get meetings/write letters to raise all these points?

I'm hoping that they're already very aware of them, but not optimistic enough to presume they've joined all the dots.

• by 'they' I mean govt

Good. More sunlight, thank you.

This was discussed on Politics Live (BBC Two) yesterday, which is more exposure.

There was a woman on the panel, from online news media, who insisted loudly and repeatedly that there was no need to use the word 'woman' since every woman knows from her female body that she is a woman. Talk about a lack of logic and missing the point by a mile. Women who know they are women don't necessarily know about diseases or the terminology of bodies or why the NHS is using the terms it uses for imparting information and the implications and meanings of doing so and who it is intended for, if it doesn't make it plain and clear.

every woman knows from her female body that she is a woman

What worries me is the lag. Currently some bodies/organisations/people are relying on the fact that girls know they are female, and grow into women who know they are female. So you can, for a time, fudge the issue, erase the word 'woman' and rely on the tacit knowledge that remains unspoken, implying as the NHS does that all women know they are women without being told.

But iIf you raise a child to not know what 'girl' or 'woman' or 'female' means, to think that it's an arbitrary label with no relation to one's body, you will create a knowledge vacuum.

A child raised with no words to describe sex will not know whether or not they have a cervix, or ovaries.

'How do I know if I have ovaries'?

How do you answer that question without reference to biological sex?

'How do I know if I have ovaries'?

How do you answer that question without reference to biological sex?

When we said you were AFAB, that wasn't quite as random and arbitrary a process as you might have been led to believe…

“The Royal College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists, which represents thousands of
women's health specialists and pregnancy doctors, said the language used "does need to be
appropriate, inclusive and sensitive to the needs of individuals whose gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth".
But it added: "Limiting the term 'woman' to one
mention may cause confusion and create further
barriers for some women and people trying to
make an informed choice about their care.
"We would therefore support the use of the word
'woman' alongside inclusive language."”

This worries me, adding more ink is not the answer. We need separate resources for those who believe in the gender identity theory view of the world whilst keeping traditional language and terminology for the majority if we genuinely want to aim for clarity and meeting everyone’s needs effectively.

The people writing this shite will have to be fired. They are steeped in queer theory and I doubt the strength of feeling and appeals will have any sway with them.

It's odd, though. Everyone I know that works for the NHS - various roles - nurse, midwife, doctor, physio - are not on board with this.

Yet there must be certain levels/parts of it that are utterly in thrall to genderism, because it's affecting so many areas within a huge organisation.

I think SJ should be looking for an enquiry into what's going on.

If you consider the Cass report, and what is most likely to come out of that, the dire stats on women's healthcare, the maternity care scandals, especially the poor outcomes for black women, the rape and subsequent denial, patients being vilified for correctly sexing other patients, patients asking for female HCPs and being confronted with males, the staff who have lost their jobs, 'chest feeding', cancer screening/treatment, the Zoe covid app recording by 'gender' despite clear evidence males were worse affected ...

The NHS is not only captured, it's affecting so many aspects of healthcare for so many people. This is a brewing scandal. We need someone to connect the dots and call out the ideology - genderism - that links many of these issues, and also note that the problem stems from and is exacerbaged by the NHS refusing to listen to or give consideration to females; by a deeply inbuilt sexism within the organisation.

As with the police, genderism isn't creating sexism, it's just highlighting it.

I spotted this paragraph at the end of the BBC article under NHS Digital’s response:

The NHS constitution, which sets out the principles on which the health service runs, explains that it aims to be available to all "irrespective of gender, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion, belief, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, marital or civil partnership status".

So no mention of the protected characteristic of sex and the inclusion of a term which is not a PC (gender)? That needs sorting out immediately.

“The Royal College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists, which represents thousands of
women's health specialists and pregnancy doctors, said the language used "does need to be
appropriate, inclusive and sensitive to the needs of individuals whose gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth".

Why would an obstetrician think sex were 'assigned at birth'???
This is going to be a long haul. Can we really hope that was just a stonewalled PR person wording it like that and getting it signed off? Do medics now say 'assigned at birth'?

This is the problem, you cannot quote 'gender' instead of 'sex' using them interchangeably as is commonplace in speech especially in the USA, when the actual Equality Act lists SEX as the protected characteristic.
When I was pregnant 20+ years ago, the radiographer definitely asked 'do you want to know baby's sex?'......gender didn't get a look in.

Good spot.

Here it is:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nhs-constitution-for-england/the-nhs-constitution-for-england

NHS Scotland has 'sex' correctly listed:

workforce.nhs.scot/about/principles-and-values/

Finally

My impression is that NHS England is obdurate in the face of correction on this point—sex not gender, and the PC of gender reassignment.

They also don't brook arguments about conflicts and intersections and the need to foster good relationships.