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? 🤷🏼‍♀️

So interesting that there's the 'if it saves one life' when it comes to TM, but women with learning difficulties, literacy challenges, EAL.... this is the point. Women are not just randomly having a fit because TM are included, the point is that this political movement is dominating and reframing all language for women and this is harmful to many other groups of women. Much greater numbers of them than TM.

If it was just including TM too no one would be here arguing.

Although we'll leave aside that we all know it isn't about TM at all in actual fact; the root of this eliminating of all links between the word 'woman' and biology has nothing to do with helping anyone female.

There's no such thing as 'assigned female at birth'. Doctor don't 'assign' a sex. They certainly don't 'assign' a gender - that would be even more ridiculous. They observe what sex a person factually is. Assigning implies that the doctors choose and allocate a sex. Why on earth would they need to do that?

User testing can't possibly be a forte here. If I've seen 2 similar posters with enormous lists of people to cater for by the time I get to the 10th poster which finally has the word female I'd have skimmed ,recognised and discarded. This is how I got to 30 without knowing cervical anything was for women only. Now your turn what's wrong with stating clearly "woman" and whatever criteria anyone else would like to use?

But it's only your perception that those other demographics are not being catered for, and it's the assumption that they're being forsaken in favour of transmen that I have an issue with.

The same poster has provided a really good link with loads of different types of accessible information for women with other needs but that's been ignored.

When that happens, it shouldn't be hard to understand why it comes across that people have more of an issue with the fact that there is a trans man on a cervical screening poster rather than just being worried about women with additional needs.

I'd like to see what evidence you have to back up the claim that advocacy for trans men is disproportionately dominating cervical smear campaigns.

Then I'm afraid this is a very naive view of the kind of needs that make health care inaccessible to many women.

The point is that this poster will be displayed in places that will be accessed by the people described in it. Gender clinics, for example.

It wouldn’t be in the ladies’ toilets in a women-only gym, or probably even on the waiting room wall in a GP surgery.

I don't have a problem with the word woman at all but I am also confused about what is wrong or unclear about the word female. Like, adult human female?

You may like to read around the many and multiple threads looking at the replacing of words such as woman, mother, breastfeeding etc, with neutral terms. Not adding: replacing. It is a significant issue for women at the moment that in the rush to be inclusive to some, others are not excluded. And that the tolerance for diversity runs in both directions.

The reason that I and many other women are currently convinced that it is not, and that it is unfairly biased, is born out by hard fact.

Do you have any evidence to back up your claim that a fair proportion of women with additional needs would either not understand what the word female means or not have a carer who would have input into their medical welfare?

Because it kind of feels like you're using disabled people as a sort of ideological shield right now. If you can provide any literature on the matter I will of course learn from that.

The last leaflet I was sent was such a word salad focussed on trans rather than issues affecting women that I genuinely couldn’t work out if I should go or not (for reasons I have no intention of going into here it is not completely clear whether I still need to be screened and I was hoping the leaflet would provide some guidance)

That is the language of the campaign here on the government website: women and people with a cervix.

As I said earlier, the most recent statistics have been quoted on the thread. Yes, this really is a need.

Gender clinic means the word woman is hidden because? I don't get it? Is there something wrong with the word woman in a gender clinic? Or is woman a dirty word which shouldn't be used in a gender clinic? The one describing females goes where? Not in gp office or gum clinic?Where is this mystical place where women can't say women?

But to claim that they are having disproportionate and "unfair" representation at the expense of women, you can't just provide anecdotal examples of that representation alone. Surely you would have to compare it to the numbers and reach of advertisement and material aimed at women and all the other demographics of women mentioned in order to get a fair comparison.

Has anyone actually done that or do you just post isolated examples of trans inclusion and base your views on that alone?

If there is genuine evidence that uptake in stuff like cervical smearing falls in number when the word "woman" is not explicitly used, I would understand the issue. But I don;t think it's that unreasonable without that evidence to assume the word "female" covers that.

There are many, many resources that provide accessible information for the women you’ve described, and they will also be disseminated and displayed in places that will reach the target audience. There’s an easy-read poster of a lady with Down Syndrome on the PHE smear campaign downloadable resources, which might be displayed in, say, a day centre or group home for women with learning disabilities.

The poster aimed specifically at Afro Caribbean women might be displayed in an area with a large Afro Caribbean population.

The posters which could apply to any women would be displayed in areas where the average biologically female person that would see it would be women that identify as women.

How does that not make sense to you?

If there is genuine evidence that uptake in stuff like cervical smearing falls in number when the word "woman" is not explicitly used, I would understand the issue. But I don;t think it's that unreasonable without that evidence to assume the word "female" covers that

And actually scratch that as they are actually 2 separate issues which I have conflated. There's no correlation between using the word "woman" and either having or not having a trans man on the poster.

Yup I checked. It's in the essay but not in the clear, concise poster which is where it needs to be.

Thquestis ion

www.gov.uk/government/publications/cervical-screening-cervical-sample-taker-training/topic-1-the-nhs-cervical-screening-programme-nhs-csp#barriers-to-cervical-screening

Section 5. NHS, publication date Feb 2020.

You’re being very obtuse.

Biologically female women who are happy that they are women don’t tend to visit gender clinics.

I’m a GUM nurse, the posters we currently have up mention “women” and “people with a cervix”; the overwhelming majority of our biologically female patients happily identify as women so the posters generally reach their target audience. We have a poster specifically for women with learning disabilities, too.

These are just generic guidelines about general limitations, they don't actually provide any insight or evidence around whether people understand the word "female" any less than "woman".

@WetBandits The poster in question is on the local government's primary Twitter and Facebook feeds. That's how I came across it, it turned up in my timeline. The alternate versions, one of which references 'females' did not 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’ve treated two trans men in the last year, both of whom were pre-op and having vaginal sex. Neither of them denied that they had a cervix, but both would probably have ignored a poster ‘for women’ because they don’t think of themselves as women. That’s why they might need something like this poster, as it resonates with them. Like I said, if it saves just one life.

You harp on about accessibility; why does their access not matter as much as yours or another woman’s?

Ah I see, this is one of those times when women won't be listened to unless they produce enough evidence, peer reviewed, from the right sources all pre agreed before hand to pass the test.

Pop into an NHS meeting about this and people will go through it in depth. We're not just talking about people with highly significant need who will have carers who will support access, we're talking about the many women in the population who's reading isn't a strong point, who speak English as a second language. These are familiar issues to anyone actually familiar with women and health care as opposed to looking at it all from a highly theoretical point of view.

It's not about "women not being listened to".

It's about you, an individual, making unsubstantiated claims in order to justify being angry about a poster that has trans representation on it when in your view only women should be represented.

All of this side stepping, what about this what about that, is just obfuscation of that point.

As demonstrated by someone who actually works in this field, there is targeted advertisement directly to these women.

So what relevance does this have to the fact that trans men also, in addition to this, have representation?

My point is your assertion that trans men are being prioritised at the direct expense of other vulnerable demographics of women is demonstrably wrong.