NHS mammogram advice - “tell the staff your pronouns”

[Cantunseeit]

FFS why would telling staff your pronouns be relevant to an appointment where you’re physically there with the staff throughout? They never need to use pronouns as you’re right there!

This content was last reviewed in October 2025 so this drivel is still being produced / waved through by the NHS.

It also helpfully points out that ” If you wear a binder, you will need to remove it before having a mammogram.” No shit Sherlock

I’ve just had a mammogram and the patient before me had difficulty standing and didn’t have good English. Her son brought her and he was asked to wait outside to maintain a female only space. The staff were v kind and supportive throughout and went to find her son afterwards to make sure she was OK getting home. I feel that including irrelevant reference to pronouns somehow undermines a great and important service. Women going for a mammogram will have all number of questions and fears but I doubt pronouns are among them.

I might not have thought anything of this once upon a time but today it gives me the rage!

https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/breast-screening-mammogram/what-happens-at-your-breast-screening-appointment/

What's the point in telling someone who is addressing you directly what your pronouns are?
Everybody's pronouns are you/your when you're talking directly to them

BTW MyThreeWords, having a discussion does not mean that we're all 'worked up about it', most of us are interested and engaged in the important subjects involved here: the quality of healthcare in general, women's health in particular, and gender ideology.

The more discussion there is about gender ideology, the quicker the fad for declaring pronouns and demanding that other people use them will pass, and the quicker organisations like the NHS will see that they've been overthinking all this and wasting a lot of energy, and money, on it.

Exactly this.
Telling people they can tell staff their pronouns in this context is purely virtue-signalling and performative.

By informing women that if they wear a binder, they'll have to remove it, shows the NHS know that some people have very little in the way of health literacy. So surely this should lead them to also understand that healthcare needs to be as simple and universally accessed as possible, yet they continue to push the nonsense of pronouns etc and skirting around the issue of sex.

i agree with posters that have made the point that it’s really important that TIFs feel mammograms are for them and feel comfortable accessing them. I don’t feel that mentioning pronouns is the way to achieve that though.

Given the full point is tell us your pronouns if you want to, they may as well have a point saying: feel free to comment on the weather if you want, for all the good it will do.

It feels like virtue signaling- or style over substance- which I feel has potential to be dangerous in a medical context. I’m not saying there’s anything dangerous about this communication, only that it seems someone went to the effort of adding something that seems pointless in the form it’s in. Based on other NHS comms we’ve seen, virtue signalling to trans people often seems to be prioritised over the needs of other groups. IMO this often isn’t likely to be that helpful to trans people either

The pronoun-havers don't need to be invited to impart their pronouns; they'll have them ready as soon as they walk in!
Women going for a mammogram wearing a binder? Really? Wonder how many that would be then?
(Probably tiny)

I agree that younger women sometimes have these, when needed. Even a younger women would understand that she is biologically female though.

Let's be honest. Those who have differing pronouns will let you know.

It's like vegans telling you they're vegan.

But we should all be called by our names? No one calls you she.

"ask staff not to use any phrases or words that make you uncomfortable or nervous"

I would expect that this is primarily aimed at survivors of sexual abuse and violence or other traumatic histories as that is the context in which I usually see this advice. For instance, some SA survivors attending cervical or breast screening might find it triggering to be told to "relax" by the HCP as their assailant had said the same thing when assaulting them.

The video makes the process much clearer than I would have expected. The binder comment towards the end would perhaps be necessary for anyone who hadn't watched the video and thought it was like a chest x-ray where you just need to remove any metallic clothing or items but would still be covered up.

Not necessarily, PP is correct that some of us qualify for breast cancer screening from an earlier age than the general population who don't have our risk factors.