Smear appointment reminder with a Mx

[catin8oots]

Have a routine smear booked at my local surgery and just received a reminder text saying it will be with Mx Firstname Surname.

I have no idea if this person is a biological woman or a biological man.

Can I call and ask?

I accept I misused the phrase "male to female surgery". However, I stand by my point that after all the messing about they've been through in their genital area they'd most likely make every effort to be gentle

To be honest I wouldn't really want my smear done by Mx Keri even if she is female (she probably is). I don't mind having a smear done by a man. I do mind having a smear done by a self-absorbed person (of either sex) who thinks their patients should be expected to go out of their way to ensure they are seeing someone female. There is no excuse for a nurse to use "Mx" at work.

Like India Willoughby you mean, yes I know IW doesn’t do smears but his contempt for women is clear, wouldn’t trust them to be gentle.

Not sure I’d want a self-confessed AGP like Hayton who has had genital surgery near my genitals either.

I’m sure I could pull up lots of other public examples given a little time.

Your friend may well be lovely to you but you don’t know what they are like to their female colleagues who are going to be in a minority and relatively powerless.

Not heard about the Eunuch Maker then 😬'gentle' definitely not their bag. It's like Mrs Doyle.

@DisillusionedTech Since you’ve already mentioned them, I’d say that IW is a very good example of a trans identifying male who, despite doing everything that they can to become a woman, retains every last vestige of the male privilege that they enjoyed while living as a male and continues to believe that their male entitlement trumps womens’ very few, paltry little rights by some measure. IW seems to believe that not only is he a woman - he’s a vastly superior example of womanhood too!

🍪

Sarah Jane Baker is well known for being gentle. Kidnapping, torture and attempted murder is gentle, right?

Ok. Sorry late back to the thread.

As we all suspected, Keri was (to my eye) female. Not a girly girl but definitely not presenting as masculine.

I was getting undressed and we were doing the chat bit, I expressed my concern/confusion that her pronoun in the text was Mx.

She was really lovely and told me that the practice encouraged all staff to put their pronouns in their email signatures etc and she didn't want to be defined by her sex so opted for Mx. I explained how this made me feel and told her that I'd called the surgery to ask her sex and she seemed genuinely shocked and apologetic.

Then we did the normal smear chit chat while she carried out the procedure and that was it.

I wasn't bold at all in the convo it was quite awkward. I'm no JKR. I do think I will be following up with an email to the practice manager though?

Well done, OP. Sounds like (maybe) she was trying to avoid the genderwoo but didn't realise her choice of title would have repercussions for patients.

Yes well done on discussing it with her, that was brave and sounds like she didn’t realise and may now change it.

Sounds like being bold wasn't what was needed OP - explaining how many many potential patients would process her choice of Mx was needed so hopefully you gave her something to think about and she may reconsider the impact her choice is making on the people she wants to help. Thank you for your service! (and here's to the smear coming back all fine, most importantly).

40 years ago people said that, or worse, about Ms.

Ms never created doubt about the sex of the person using it. It was purely about not advertising marital status. This Keri said to OP she didn't want people at work judging her about her sex, and doesn't seem to have realised the position she was putting patients in.

You are probably right. It is unprofessional for a staff member to conceal their sex when offering intimate care, but the OP has explained that Mx Keri's employer has given her poor guidance so it's not her fault. Her intentions we good.

I am touchy about this because of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis debacle, where (among other unprofessional behaviour) the CEO encouraged a counsellor to hide her sex from a worried client and bullied another staff member who was trying to find a diplomatic way to reassure and inform the client so the client could consent.

OP your sensitive approach is just right. Following up with a letter to the practice manager about their policy is a good idea.

@AmaryllisNightAndDay I'm of a generation where a person the title Doctor was 90% likely to be male and the sensitivity was dealt with by having a female chaperone present. I may therefore see the world through a different prism.

With that in mind I'm not sure that use of Mx is actually concealment. It wouldn't strike me that way, more a question of being unaware of how it might be read. I've seen it used maybe three or four times in the last ten years. In one case I think the user was probably a man in course of transition.

...

Ok…

WTF? Your experience is not other women's.

(You know editing doesn't delete what's originally posted.)

Not posted in yonks.

Women have every right to ask for a biological woman especially in intimate situations. You don't know this poster's reasons and you shouldn't question her choice! She doesn't have to justify anything to anyone.

At the age of 10 through to 14, with no one willing to advocate for me, I was intimately examined whilst conscious by a 40+ year old male doctor due to a shitty illness I have. My notes show I was difficult!!!

Biological males will NEVER do this to me again. No woman should feel awkward or scared to ask for a female to undertake procedures.

You're right. I tried to offer a different perspective but realised it probably isn't needed here. And a shame that I can't delete the post. I certainly wasn't trying to invalidate anyone's experience.

Ms has been around since the 1700s.
I’d love to see some intel on people refusing / questioning care from someone titled Ms

I was genuinely not aware of that.

It seemed to be adopted more widely from the seventies/eighties and it was well into that period before it was accepted. I've recently re-watched episodes of Rumpole of the Bailey from 79/80 where the pupil's use of Ms was a running 'Ms Liz' gag. Colleagues well into the nineties thought any Ms was a lesbian.

My partner started using it around that time and fought some battles to get schools to use it on staff lists/badges etc.

I tried to use it on a building society account in the 1980s & met some resistance until I said I'd just take my business somewhere it wasn't a problem - & suddenly it was acceptable!

Ms is all womens original title and originates as a shortened term from Mistress ( not a man’s mistress that’s a more modern term for the other women, )

Just as Master is shortened to Mr.

Identifying women by marital status came after Ms

Going back a bit, but I always think of Dallas, and Ms Elly. Sounds better in a Texas drawl. I think half the reason it hasn't really caught on here is that nobody knows how to pronounce it.