Righto...

[FettleOfKish]

So, cervical screening obviously isn't for me then, a Woman, who doesn't consider herself to have been 'assigned' anything at any stage? 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’m still waiting for the NHS guidance to be published on how midwives assign sex at birth

except of course there isn’t any because sex is observed not assigned

transmen know full well they are biological women

@thedancingbear A similar advert inviting 'Women, Trans-men and anyone with a cervix' to book their smear test would be more than adequate as it doesn't deliberately exclude anyone.

Why not use imagery with a range of Women and people with a cervix while they're at it? I don't present as a Man nor do I have a child, so neither of the images in the ads in this thread speak to me, despite my being prime candidate for a smear test.

I wasn’t assigned the title of woman at birth. I will never accept that language. I’ll take biological woman or woman but not assigned.

Surely this is just targeting a specific hard to reach group, and isn't a general "book a smear" campaign? I'm assuming that the reason for a targeted resource would be that general messaging isn't reaching that group, and it's not hard to see, whatever your view on it, that there might be a bit of mental barrier for someone who is very keen not to be viewed as a woman to access something like a cervical smear.

Maybe, in the 1984 of the future, none of us will be assigned to a sex at birth. We'll just need recorded as a person.
Maybe we'll all get to assign a sex to ourselves when we reach 18.
😬

Doesn't say anything about women. From both ads you could infer that either sex should be going for these.

Most people won't, but surely the purpose of these ads is to clearly specify who needs to go for a smear test? in which case they haven't done a great job.

@TheFallenMadonna That's a valid point; however I had that advert pop up in two places on my social media today, and have not seen any other version aside from the one shared in this thread, which equally makes no reference to Women.

If it's targeted, which I accept it may be, it's not been done especially well (or the other versions haven't been).

Perhaps if I go back and dig through their feeds I'll find a version relevant to me, but that's not particularly the point of a wide public health campaign.

as it’s a photo of a man I would completely ignore the advert. So it’s failed for me.

mmm... should have read the rest of the thread.

So. trans people have their ad and it mentions transgender man, a non-conforming person, or assigned female at birth and with a cervix yet, the second one in the series doesn't treat the rest of the female population with the same level of respect.

No. That is unequal treatment.

A simple 'got a cervix, get a smear' would do.

I think the purpose of the ad in the OP is to reassure a specific group that they won't be made to feel uncomfortable if they go for a smear test, not to clarify they need one.

But the advert is excluding more women than the sector of society that doesn’t realise they have a cervix.

Right, but if a gender-non-conforming man turns up for one, do you think he might feel uncomfortable?

I understand your thinking, but research a year or so ago showed that shocking numbers of women in the UK did not seem to know about them having a cervix.

I'm all for the "got a cervix? get a smear" campaign use a picture with everyone on it sorted

Exactly this... it's anything but inclusive.

That's very obviously what's going on here. Fucking hell, there are things that are going on around the trans conversation that are madness, but an ad aiming to persuade transmen - some of whom I can easily imagine are reluctant - to get smear tested isn't one of them.

If there are other campaigns that don't use the word 'woman' (and I'm sure there are) then I would see that as problematic. But that problem is with those campaigns.

That second ad, with the woman and the child, is not actually either grabbing attention with that detached tone and the image is not really going to make many women think it is for them if they don't associate themselves as being a mother of a young baby.

No. That second ad is very poor at communicating to the maximum number of people who need that information. Since they had the other version, this one should also be very clear and feature a woman with no baby for women who are either going to filter it out because it has a baby and they don't think it applies to them, or for where English language skills is not strong.

They went to the trouble of making two ads at least. But the second one is not strong at all.

It needed to be plain English, and use the word women, and unless there is a third ad with just a woman pictured, the communication with the baby in it means skimmers will filter this ad out. They will just scroll right past.

I almost didn't read it because I saw a moustache and something about trans and stopped. I'm neither make nor trans so it's not relevant to me.

I see there's a second ad. It has a picture of a woman with a baby, but doesn't mention women either.

I have spent a great deal of time living abroad using my second and sometimes 3rd language. Honestly if this were in those places/languages I wouldn't have been sure it was meant for me. Or specifically not for my husband and son. I mean actually in English I still wasn't quite sure! I'm not joking here, when you're not 100% comfortable in another language it's can be really, really tricky. On that basis these signs are exclusionary of a great many women. But well done for including a minority of the 200,000 who identify as trans across the UK's population of 69 million.

The second ad does not use the word 'woman'.

I agree. This is a problematic ad campaign for the second usage.

I think the probability of a gender non conforming man being convinced by this ad to turn up for a smear test is small enough to take the risk, quite honestly. It isn't a question of knowing whether you have a cervix. I think the target audience will be aware of that, as someone else said down the thread.

Women, (including) anyone female who identifies as a transman, unless you have had your cervix removed.
Aged 25-64
etc...

Scientifically accurate, more concise, clarifies that your need for a smear is because of your sex not your identity or the length of your hair (which could in itself be lifesaving information) and excludes men. Ideally it would just say Women aged 25-64 unless you have had your cervix removed, or even Women aged 25-64. But we live in Idiot World.

A simple 'got a cervix, get a smear' would do.

This wouldn't work for some women with learning difficulties, women without a secondary education ( a lot in the traveller community) and women with poor or no English.
Not to mention all the women who should know they have a cervix but don't.

The simple word "Woman" goes a long way. And to not use it in the spirit of inclusivity is excluding vast swathes of vulnerable women.

The really disgusting part is that cervical cancer charities know this, they have research and statistics backing this up and telling them how important clear and simple language is and how it save lives - and they still choose not to do it.

Well that's going to get clear and accessible health information into the hands of women with EAL, learning difficulties, literacy challenges, other hard to reach groups of people who need to hear it. Isn't it? All the millions of them.

Over the tiny statistics of those who will be emotionally harmed without seeing their biological reality dressed up and disguised enough not to jar them.

But we're only talking about women, aren't we? Not even ones with interesting identities. Just boring old tax paying bleeders. They can either figure out the word salad or they're beneath contempt, right? Social justice and equality and accessibility and humanity is only for people who identify as TQ+ these days.

@aweegc That is a concern here. We have large Portugese and Eastern European communities here speaking English as a second or third language. This kind of public health information does nothing at all to serve them.

I know what 'Woman' is in half a dozen languages. I don't know what 'Cervix' is in any aside from English.