NHS GP referring to “people with a uterus”

[LumenLights]

My local GP surgery has been organising talks and events regarding endometriosis. They recently hosted an event which was open to sufferers and their friends and family - fair enough.

Most of the literature and social media posts from my surgery explicitly refer to women when talking about women, which is a relief.

However, I noticed they have posted a short video advertising an event in which a young male junior doctor proudly declares “endometriosis can affect anyone with a uterus” and doesn’t use the word “woman” or “female” at all. This has really pissed me off.

Is this still allowed? I thought we had left this nonsense behind. I want to complain but not sure the best way to do this, or if I have any right to in the first place.

I get the impression this young male doctor is very involved in the work they are doing around endometriosis, but I haven’t attended any of the events they have hosted so can’t comment on the language used in person.

Loving your idea of a gotcha. But here's a rough guide:

• discussing any individual's genitals is pervy af
• reducing cis women and trans guys to their body parts, e.g. talking about their reproductive capacity and ignoring that they're autonomous individuals, is misogynistic af
• inclusive language harms no one and saves lives, because all trans people fear medical misogyny & transphobia and are reluctant to attend
• prostate cancer awareness tells everyone with a prostate to get checked. This very much includes trans women. Just as penile cancer affects all those with penises, yes

Happy to help.

But is that not what you’re doing when you call people “people with a uterus”? Or are you saying a uterus is not a body part?

As this thread states endo may still affect women who have had their uterus removed. Maybe they should have said "anyone who has now or has ever had a uterus" Or the shorter version "women"

That would also work. It’s funny how TRA get upset when we say women are females, as that’s reducing people to body parts , but it’s ok to reduce women to body parts if it fits in with their ideology.

If anything, the messaging is wrong because cis women and trans guys post-hysterectomy can still have endo. It should be 'those assigned female at birth' or the like imo.

Also lmao at you not understanding the difference between reducing us to our body parts and referring to them in a medical context.

Guessing you're a bloke, or you wouldn't need actual misogyny explained.

That would only work if people were assigned anything at birth. We don’t have sorting hats in the labour ward. Sex is observed and recorded. And immutable.

Yore the one reducing people to body parts. Reducing women to “people with a uterus”. Or “cervix havers”. Or “birthing person”. You started it. If you then get upset when transpeople are reduced to body parts also, that’s on you. Try reframing your trauma. I hear that helps….

https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/psa-test/

I can see on this page they refer to "men and anyone with a prostate"

Why not just say “people with a prostate”? Anything else implies that some people with a prostate are not men. Anyone with a prostate is a man. So they could save words. Also, as TiF claim to be men but don’t have a prostate, dont you run the risk of TiF turning up for the test and wasting time and resources. Or are we saying TiF are not men?

I agree, "people with a prostate" would be fine.

it makes sense. Then we don’t have any arguing about whether males are women. As everyone knows, only men have prostates. Even if they have had them removed for medical reasons. And as women are adult human females (without a prostate), no males can be women. Sorted.

I'm not confident that the NHS can be sure everyone knows what a prostate or a cervix or a uterus is.

I get called in for screening. In fact it's likely that attending these appointments will be the only time I see posters. Unfortunately the NHS has allowed, even encouraged people to change the sex markers on their records. I believe this means they don't receive the letters asking them to come in for screening that is appropriate for their sex.

Perhaps they put some other marker on their files to compensate? I hope so.

Not as far as I am aware. Once the record is changed then all markers are for the wrong sex. It’s then up to the person to make sure they go for the appropriate checks.

Nope, 'reducing us to our body parts' is a term appropriated from the feminist fight against patriarchy.

Such appropriation is very commonly used by far right and anti-trans movements. Strange there's significant crossover huh.

Not all people who get pregnant or need endo care are women. Some are cis girls, others are trans guys or nb. That's the reality, whatever you think of it.

Women protest reductive arguments which treat us as rape objects or walking uteruses.

Inclusive language is usually used alongside references to sex - e.g. you could say that all women and trans men need cervix checks. But some women (and trans guys) don't have cervixes, and may be upset to be included in that messaging.

Your taking offence at medical professionals welcoming everyone has absolutely nothing to do with the fight against reductionism.

Btw reciting 'try reframing your trauma' at me when I haven't once mentioned trauma is quite brilliant, thank you. Excellent demonstration of how the anti-trans movement just repeats the same few slogans without context and pretend it's a debate.

You’re the one saying women are “people with a uterus”. So you’re being very misogynistic aren’t you? Reducing women to walking urteri. Tut tut. I mean, if calling women “people with a uterus is ok” calling men “people with a prostate is fine”. It just confirms no man can ever be a woman, as icky men have prostates, women don’t. So you’ve just confirmed males with a trans identity are not and never can be women. Well done. You’re doing the feminist work for us.

Everyone who gets pregnant is a woman. It doesn’t matter what they believe, you need a female body to carry a pregnancy.
There just isn’t a whole checklist of people who aren’t women who could get pregnant if they chose to do so.

'Reducing women to their body parts' means valuing our reproductive capacity or the sexual desires of men above female autonomy.

Whereas making it clear that cis girls, trans guys and nb people need endo checks is just dotting i's and crossing it's.

Do you want that in fewer syllables, love? Or will I get told 'tut tut' again? Also 'icky' - are you six as well as ignorant? Lmao.

Removing your uterus doesn't necessarily cure endometriosis, so that's not true.

Nope. You are the one reducing people to body parts. Just own it. But I suppose it does solve the trans problem. We make two categories of people. Those who have or ever had a prostate and those without. We call those with a prostate men, and they use all the facilities for men, and we call those without a prostate women, and they use the facilities for women. It’s all good. Then we don’t need to worry about identifying etc. there you go, we’ve just ended this entire debate. .

Also, there’s a generation of women who are perhaps used to using the word womb, not uterus. I’ve met women who were unaware their urethra and their vagina were two separate holes. Some of them older, some from different countries. The NHS cannot rely on the general population having good anatomical knowledge if it wants excellent public health engagement. Better off using woman, much clearer.

Oh the irony.

Female people exist. Why is so terrifying to you that we should have a name?

What exactly do you think the difference between men and women is that is not sex, yet nevertheless so much more super important than sex that we needed to name it and arrange society around it?

Who exactly do you think Feminism exists for, if it is not female people?

And if it is not female people that feminism exists for, and if it is not female people that the name Woman exists for, what exactly is your problem with female people standing up and being recognised in our own right outside these things?

Why does supporting "identity", whatever that is, always in reality seem to end up with punching down, silencing and undefining female people? It's weird.

Genderism needs to find a way to get away from this sexism. It makes you all look very very bad.

Reducing women to their body parts' means valuing our reproductive capacity or the sexual desires of men above female autonomy.

You mean, like calling women "people with a uterus"?

Can you even hear yourself?

It's not like any male person will ever be in that group is it? So really, it's all still the same people we are talking about. You haven't changed anything, widened anything, you've just made the reality of women seem like something unmentionable.

I am a woman. An adult human female.

I am not in any way diminished if someone suggests women need smear tests because "clutches pearls" it implies I have a cervix, because I am not ashamed or unconfortable with the idea that I have female organs. It is simply a fact that is true.

I am however deeply, deeply dimished if someone thinks they need to separate being "a woman" from being female, firstly because that reduces me from a complete embodied human person in all my complexity and with all the experiences of my body into some sort of bloodless conceptual personality type, and secondly beause it suggests that being female is somehow unmentionable, shameful.

I pity you so much that you hate women like this... love

[Final comment deleted because it't not fair to link your misogyny to your username given there is another vulnerable person involved]

OK, so having just had a row with Google AI over a replies that referenced ‘cisgender women’, endometriosis is exclusively experienced by women. The original biological variety. The only recorded cases of biological males experiencing it number less than 20 and involve men taking oestrogen therapy for prostrate cancer [as part of a clinical trial it would seem] which, ironically, is another exclusively sex-specific cancer (which Google AI had to effing shoehorn ‘cisgender’ into the replies, despite my specific wording and instructions to stick to scientific language).

So, no, ‘people with uteruses’ is inaccurate. It is only [biological] women who can develop endometriosis ‘naturally’ during the course of their biologically determined female sexed lives.

Shal we discuss uteruses v uteri now?

Gender-inclusive language is not the same as plain language. It is often much more obfuscatory. The latter is important in affording access to healthcare for people with low literacy for various reasons, who unlike your typical trans individual, will struggle to understand subtext. The NHS has a whole bunch of guidelines about plain language that get thrown out the window on this topic. Non-English-speaking women have died in childbirth in the UK in recent years for lack of language provision. Trans people are not the only people whose communicative needs matter.