No mention of 'girl' or 'female' on NHS poster about child pregnancy

[Dominoodles]

I've seen this photo on Facebook and had to share. This was seen in a doctor's surgery, explaining that even a girl as young as ten could be pregnant and what that means. It's a horrible subject but I get the need for it to be a discussion, given the state of things right now.

But there is nothing mentioned on here about girls, or women, or females. A 'person' of child bearing age is not clear to little girls. A ten year old girl suffering sexual abuse is not going to realise this is for her. A ten year old boy is not going to realise it isn't for him, because it doesn't actually say. The visuals on the poster even show what appears to be a man as well as women.

Not too mention kids who do suffer sexual abuse are not going to have had a comprehensive sex education, so they might not even understand what 'child bearing age' is without context.

Ten year olds are not going to see this as the offer of help it was intended to be, and by obfuscating who this is meant for, those girls could be missing out on necessary help. It even uses the kid friendly word tummy, but can't use the word girl.

A girl "identifying" as a boy is still a girl, and will be, until she matures and becomes a woman. She will never be a boy.

Children need boundaries and certainty and safety, not confusion and fantasy created by adults who should know better.

Our sex is being erased.
The more this is done, the more it is likely to be seen as precident for the future.

I guess they are wanting to include females who may be living as or identifying as male.

It’s not about protecting young girls who don’t want to be girls though. If it were, the information campaigns about prostate cancer would also stop using the words men and boys for their posters, and they haven’t.

It’s always about men. Specifically, trans identifying ones who don’t want any public acknowledgment of the fact that only women and girls get pregnant because they want everyone to participate in the pretence that they too are women (or cute schoolgirls)

Of course they're still girls. Being mentally vulnerable and groomed by others to believe you've been born in the wrong body doesn't change your sex.
Young boys are not going to get pregnant and adults wanting to share these delusions with young children need to be stopped.

These girls know they remain girls, though. And if adults have encouraged them to believe otherwise that is grossly irresponsible. What a mad, mixed up world are we creating for children?

Adults and teachers should be teaching the fact that 'identity' and 'sex' are two distinct matters and categories. Nobody can change sex. A girl is a juvenile female human.

What does it mean for a 10 year old girl to " be living as male"? Can you explain, please.

It's like girls and women only exist in public funded services if they are trans girls / women 🥺

And the 'cute' baby feet. Bonkers.

Thankfully I am in a mostly non patient facing role so I dont have to be involved with this nonsense but not sure how I would deal with it tbh. Then what do you do about the subset of TIM'S who believe they can get pregnant and say they might be..? Total madness.

I don’t think anyone on here can answer that. The only person that could would be the 10 year old trans boy. Whether you are GC or pro trans, no one can know what it feels like to be inside someone else’s brain. But for most they know they are biologically female, they wish they weren’t. They desperately want to be male so they will do everything possible to look like and be treated like a boy, including cutting their hair short, wearing boys clothes, adopting a male name and male pronouns. I guess this is what “living as male” means to them. Some may believe they actually are male and “living as male” somehow turns them into a boy, they are children at the end of the day. Some may know they are simply a girl trying their best to pass as a boy. I suppose it heavily depends on what the adults in their life tell them, what the do encourage, what they don’t encourage etc

You're talking about 10 year old girls? Many pre pubescent? They're not trans. They're vulnerable and confused girls who need to be loved, safeguarded and play an active part in their family, school and friendship groups as they navigate how to become teenagers and then adults in our confusing world. Not a single one of them should be being schooled in being trans, non binary, gender queer, gender fluid or any other fantastical identity.

They should be learning, playing, cooking, being part of friendship groups and families. Their bodies are growing and developing - often uncomfortably and nobody should be telling them that they can opt out of this by being the opposite sex.

What are people thinking?

The whole concept of a trans child was created by adults. It didn't even exist just 10 years ago. i was teaching then and i know that for a fact. Adults should therefore be able to explain what it is that they are suggesting to young and impressionable minds. Children imagine all sorts of things.

I suggest that should a 10 year old girl believe she is actually a boy - and is not simply engaged in imaginary role play - then that is down to the supposedly responsible adults around her. 10 year olds are not stupid. They know that a poster talking about 'girls' and possible pregnancy refers to them too.

No girl is a boy.

This thread is mostly dark age thinking. Just my opinion.

I mean come on, this is official NHS stuff, get with the times.

Well said.
It's also worth pointing out that any 10 year old girl who's pregnant - or thinks she may be - will have been raped. The idea that the NHS thinks some random radiographer is the right person to start raising that question with her defies belief.
The overwhelming arrogance of openly displaying the NHS's complete lack of understanding of children and safeguarding by allowing this poster to be produced, let alone displayed, is incredible. It shows, yet again, how the niche demands of this powerful but unrepresentative minority group have the capacity to override basic safeguarding and make life less safe and more difficult for others - especially children.

Fortunately you're a tiny minority on this board and in society as most people are far more concerned with safeguarding children than "getting with the times"

What a time to be alive....

You are quite wrong there and the laminated NHS advice proves so.

NHS ADVICE. Not my opinion.

Hmmm. That's the NHS that compels women nurses to undress in front of male colleagues, who sold puberty blockers to children as irreversible until the facts forced them to stop, who run maternity services that routinely harm women and babies - despite countless enquiries and demands for them to improve and who like to wedge men (including male sex offenders) onto women's wards because the men demand it. That NHS?

No.

The NHS "advice" in this regard is based on so-called Stonewall Law, which is illegal and based on (mainly) men's desires and wants, and not on the actual law in England, Scotland, and Wales.

It certainly feels odd to not mention girl/woman. Is it just a legal thing? so an intersex or trans man can’t take legal action for using language that excludes them.

It's called evolution dizzydizzydizzy

Well, if it is the new "evolution " then someday in the near future, there won't be any people left! 😁

Being too scared to mention women and girls in relation to pregnancy is regressive. Taking us back to Victorian times where women were invisible and the property of coercive men.
Unfortunately too many of these regressive men (and some women) have influence in the NHS and elsewhere. Which is why women have to keep taking court cases to force institutions to comply with the law - and not the Stonewall made up law that until the Supreme Court judgement the NHS and other poorly led institutions followed.

It's taking an age to get them to recognise that there's nothing shameful about women, pregnancy, women's rights and women's language and it's not right wing bigotry to speak about women. . We're also having to roll back the notion that children are mini adults and don't need safeguarding from age inappropriate issues - like thinking 10 years olds can change sex.

Fortunately most responsible adults understand all this.

Good observation about the cartoon baby