Use of “inclusive” language in medical leaflets etc

[TimeandMotion]

As I understand it, one of the pillars of GC thinking is to resist the creeping use of “inclusive” terms in the medical context such as “people with cervixes” or “pregnant people” or “anyone who has ovaries”. I’ve seen examples of this and find the erasure of the word “women” and “female” quite chilling.

What I don’t understand is this: every trans person knows they are trans. They are well aware of what organs they do and don’t possess because they have either been through a complex set of medical procedures, or they have chosen not to transition medically. They have probably been advised during that process (if they had surgery) that they are still at risk of cancers etc in those organs.

Surely a trans man can’t find it that difficult to read a leaflet and say to themselves “I know this says women and I live as a man now but I understand that this applies to me because I have these organs”. Or, conversely, a trans woman thinks “I know this says women but I can ignore it because I live as a woman but I am perfectly aware that I don’t have a uterus”. There is no medical need for each leaflet to remind a trans man that this could apply to him too.

On the other hand, there are women out there who don’t have a good handle of their own biology, whether due to youth or lack of education. It’s important for them to say things like “women are at risk of this disease”. By their very history of having struggled with identity vs sex, trans people do not lack this awareness. And don’t they have any empathy for other members of their chosen gender who need to be protected like this through the use of simple, understandable language?

I know that I am not saying anything new or insightful here, but I am really failing to understand why this medical language thing is a hill that trans people feel the need to die on…or why the NHS have taken this approach.

But I am also painfully aware that what I have just said may well look like a classic example of “look at the words on that leaflet, it’s political correctness gone mad I tell ya”. And I know I’d be the first to say that an official form should, for example, never assume that all married women have husbands, or men wives.

Isn't it funny how many men in management there are.

Once ages ago he said he was. No reason to disbelieve him, after all people are who they say they are, to paraphrase E Watson....

He's said he was multiple times over the years.

One in five women don't have a cervix (obviously this includes trans women, but they are one in a thousand).

It doesn't include any men. One in five women don't have a cervix for medical reasons. Men don't have them for normal biological reasons.

So how many women don't have a cervix and how many men are self identifying?

This kind of data is really useful and important for a lot of reasons.

Not least the cost of sending out leaflets about cervical screening to men out of the budget for women's health care ....

Obviously this is not my area of expertise 😀, but one in five sounds like a hell of a lot?

So how many women don't have a cervix and how many men are self identifying?

This kind of data is really useful and important for a lot of reasons.

Not least the cost of sending out leaflets about cervical screening to men out of the budget for women's health care ....

Well quite.

Climbing the Stonewall ladder, doesn't Stonewall dock points if you don't torture the language? All those DEI people need to be doing something to justify their wages. It all dovetailed quite nicely.

Wow, that pair of posters - are they really there adjacent to each other?
Men are worth saving (ITA) but women aren't even worth naming in a similarly clear and accessible way?

Public information posters like that should be aimed at people with a basic standard understanding of the English language. Trans people should be receiving specific advice as appropriate.

This is the current approach, but this is as a result of campaigning by women on the issue - a couple of years back that would have just read "people with a cervix" with no mention of women. The trouble with that is that research shows that a substantial proportion of women in the target group didn't actually know what a cervix was or if they had one (I think it was over a quarter), so if you leave out the word women, they might not recognise that it applied to them. The "women and..." approach to cover trans men or non-binary people is fine. I'm amazed by that one in five figure though, I had no idea the hysterectomy rate was so high.

In terms of where the editorial policy comes from, I do some work in this area and we recently got told by a working group of clinicians to take the word woman out of a leaflet on a specifically female health issue. When we pushed for their reasoning why, it transpired it wasn't really their opinion but had been a blanket directive from their professional body. Fortunately their role was to advise us on the clinical aspects of the information in the leaflet, so we were able to explain our reasoning for not doing it and keep it in.

On 24 September 2021, The Lancet medical journal highlighted an article on its cover with a single sentence in large text; “Historically, the anatomy and physiology of bodies with vaginas have been neglected.” This statement, in which the word “women” was replaced with the phrase “bodies with vaginas,” is part of a trend to remove sexed terms such as “women” and “mothers” from discussions of female reproduction. The good and important intention behind these changes is sensitivity to, and acknowledgment of, the needs of people who are biologically female and yet do not consider themselves to be women because of their gender identity (1). However, these changes are often not deliberated regarding their impact on accuracy or potential for other unintended consequences. In this paper we present some background to this issue, describe various observed impacts, consider a number of potentially deleterious consequences, and suggest a way forward.

www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full

And the recent very moving testimony from Ciarra Curran of Little Heartbeats to the HoL's committee.

Ms Curran, from Chinley, Derbyshire, said that seeing the words mother and woman being erased from healthcare communications reminded her of that traumatic experience.
She said the removal of such terms…within the NHS, was incredibly hurtful to other mothers who have also lost their babies.
Demanding sex-based language is preserved Ms Curran said: 'It is extremely important for women who have experienced pregnancy or infant loss are recognised as mothers and not just a generic parent.
'To refuse us this status of mother in language is incredibly hurtful.'

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5012863-the-reality-of-losing-sex-based-language

If I’m reading something medical - I want it to be a crystal clear as possible because I am potentially shitting myself that I have cancer or have had a stroke.

I don’t want to be playing linguistic silly buggers about the ‘technical’ prospect of having prostate cancer.

Extraordinary that a group of medically qualified people asked you to take out the word woman without knowing why!

Talk about outsourcing your thinking.

Yes, extraordinary indeed.

I was in a loo yesterday and there was a poster on the door, regarding cervical screening. Nowhere on the poster did it say woman or women, it said three out of four people attend for their smears, lower down it said anyone with a cervix.

If it was the ladies that is stupid- the only people in there will be women (with and without cervixes). Men with cervixes are going to want to be in the men’s aren’t they?

I am, but trans women (as well as the 20% of other women who don't have a cervix) know they don't have a cervix, and not a single trans woman I know would mind at all.

Where is that stat from, it sounds very high? 1 in 5 women don't have a cervix?

The NHS keeps records which allow them to differentiate between trans men and non-trans men. Only the trans men get a reminder.

If they have not updated their NHS records, they will still get a reminder, because they'll be listed as a woman.

You've just reminded me, I never did get a reply when I wrote to NHS England to ask whether they'd been smear testing men to get that figure...

Around 55,000 hysterectomy operations are carried out in the UK each year. This means about one in five women will have a hysterectomy at some point. The most common age to have one is between 40-50, however they are often carried out on women outside of this age group.

https://www.circlehealthgroup.co.uk/health-matters/ask-the-expert/hysterectomy-your-questions-answered

Not all hysterectomies are total hysterectomies.

I can assure you it doesn't. The NHS Trust at which I am employed asked for your 'legal sex'. And patients are allowed to change it without any ID showing the sex they want it to say , I've known patients who have done so. So a large teaching hospital has no idea of the actual sex of its patients.

Can't see how that could cause any issues, after all it's #kind and inclusive.

Hysterectomy doesn't necessarily mean cervix is removed and may mean that ovaries are kept too.

It's also not 1 in 5 women.

I got my ‘invitation ‘ for a smear test recently and it was for people with a cervix
it irritated me so much that I haven’t made my appointment yet 🙄

I'm sure Dadjoke knows as much about women's health as he does about equality law and biology.