"Guys, gals, non-binary pals, you've got to FEEL YOURSELF and if in doubt get it checked out"

[NotTheOnePercent]

Guess which cancer this refers to.

Wrong answers only.

I think its kind of silly and probably meant to be funny - so I would say a touch inappropriate for what its trying to convey. I would not see it as something particularly awful, just bad taste maybe.

Both sexes can get breast cancer, so check for lumps regularly" - too boring and straightforward?

No, sensible. But you wouldn’t get away with ‘both sexes! Too GC…
Maybe ‘all genders’.?

" ideal scenario to me would be to talk about checking your chest or breast as a way to make the message more direct. "

That wouldn't make it direct as it's about breast cancer; chest and breast mean different things. Words have meanings.

Are you saying bad words on the internet can't effect people?! So they can't cause literal violence? Good to know

Of course they do, but if you want a message to be accessible to people who don't identify as female who may still experience breast cancer then you need to choose words that they can also engage with.

They may not "identify" as female, but if they are female, they'll certainly know it.

Perhaps they should have started the message with "now then, now then"

As a 22 year old, I had no idea ‘guys and gals’ was a Jimmy Saville phrase.
To me’ Guys, gals and nb pals” is a very common phrase, especially on the internet.
More than likely this was written by someone too young to know the Jimmy Saville connotation.

It isn't your fault you don't understand the connotations of this.

You might want to educate yourself.

You know they can't cause literal violence. Complaining that bad words on the internet make you feel sick is usually out of the TRA playbook, not the GC one.

Ah, the sort of woman who turns to transwomen in a menopause FB group for the perfect insight in how to accessorise?

Ah yes, I need to say "Both rational and emotional people can get breast cancer..."

I read the title with his voice in my head.

I read the title with his voice in my head.

Yes me too. And you just know if JS was still with us, he WOULD say "non-binary pals" as well.

If you’re dressed in a dress then best check your breast

Given that’s what is required to be a woman these days that should cover all eventualities.

I think this is true. My mind went straight to Saville. But I'm 57. However doesn't this kind stuff through a process where it's checked? Itmay have been written by someone their twenties. But surely it had to get signed off?
The phrasegivesme the creeps

Me too but you and I aren't the target audience. It's older women who are most at risk of breast cancer- I believe the risk increases with age.

I can’t imagine how terminally dim someone would have to be to think using the phrase “guys and gals” in any marketing campaign, let alone a breast cancer awareness one.

Infinitely better than Savile, I automatically hear "You've got to feel yourself" in the voice of John Barnes doing his rap in that song by the England men's football team several decades ago!

Maybe they could put together a whole load of new breast-checking lyrics to the rap and then see if John is available to perform it; but I've seen him on TV discussion shows more recently, and he strikes me as having far more sense than to entertain the NB stuff.

I do think it's a valid aim to publicise to men the fact that they too can get breast cancer, albeit in much smaller numbers - not that knowing it's very rare in men must help if you are a man with breast cancer.

I recall reading about a couple of male sufferers who found the additional challenges hard, such as nobody believing them - and even female patients in the clinics assuming they were up to no good/perverts trying to muscle in, when they were just there for treatment and support just like everybody else.

I don't think that's fair actually, there's a lot of really solid advertising targeted at older women. There's very little targeted at younger women but we should still be checking anyway. I know a number of friends who've had breast cancer when they were late 20s early 30s. The earlier someone gets into the routine of checking, the better and the more likely it is they'll be able to identify something out of place. So I wouldn't assume this is targeted at older women at all.

Same. “How’s about that then guys and gals? <yodel>”. Makes me feel queasy.
I guess a lot of younger people don’t know.

Men get breast cancer so transmen should be fine with it

The lifetime rates of breast cancer in the US (most likely similar in the UK) are one in eight for women (vulva types) and one in 833 for men (penis types). So the female risk is 100 times the male risk.

Lumping everyone together into the same prevention/self-screening category hides that. But the nonbinary pals category actually consists of some (more than half, it seems) who face the 1 in 8 risk and some who face the 1 in 833 risk.

So doing the palpating of breasts is much more important for those who are female, though everyone should be aware of how their bodies feel and function normally so that they can spot differences which might mean that medical attention is needed.

I don't think the all-together-now type of inclusiveness is the best way of discussing something with such great differences in incidence, especially if it makes understanding the real risks harder for some groups.

What this shows to me, yet again, is that we need to keep terms for people of the two sexes in areas where sex matters a lot (medicine, fighting sex-based oppression, sexual violence statistics).

Yes!!! When I was a primary school child, like age 7 or so, I used to get the school bus home, and a popular bus ad of the time was one with a grinning Jimmy Saville and the caption: “Senior gals and guys! Falls can kill, hold tight!”

I remember staring at this ad during hours and hours of bus journeys, and trying to work out a) what it meant, and b) why I found the picture of Saville so unpleasant and creepy.

Guys, gals and non-binary pals has exactly the same creepy energy. Ugh!

Nope