@Kimstu, I’m curious if you think the statement “Individuals with colons need to be checked for colon cancer” is superior to “People should get their colons checked for colon cancer.” After all, not everyone has a colon.
100% factual accuracy has never been the point of language. Effective communication is. Talking about cervixes in an awareness-raising context without using the word “female” simply isn’t effective communication. 99.9% of people know what is meant by “female”. There is no ambiguity to this term unless people intentionally make it ambiguous by turning the term into a clown car when it has never been one.
I think they’re about the same in terms of the meaning they convey, since they both refer explicitly to the crucial relevance of having a colon.
Likewise, I think saying “People should get their cervixes checked for cervical cancer” is just as effective and acceptable as saying “Individuals with cervixes need to be checked for cervical cancer”. Both are clearly making the point that it’s the actual possession of a cervix that’s the central issue here.
ISTM that it’s quite effective in such a context to talk about cervixes if you also explain explicitly who has a cervix and who doesn’t, along the lines of the additional statements I proposed.
But that’s not much help in this case if they don’t understand which of the people designated biologically “female” have cervixes and which ones don’t.
You are looking at a term which is 100% factually accurate in this context—i.e., “individuals with cervixes”—and complaining that it’s not sufficiently effective in its communication. Okay then, but your proposed solution is not to improve the effectiveness of the communication without sacrificing its accuracy—by explaining clearly and comprehensibly who has a cervix and who doesn’t—but rather to simply scrap the term in favor of a much less accurate one.
That sounds to me like mere useless obfuscation, and I’m not in favor of it at all.
You left out the parts of my quote that illustrate my point. Yes, you must have a cervix to have cervical cancer. But cervical cancer doesn’t just pop up in a vaccum. There are environmental drivers behind it. Those drivers are contained in a specific constellation of traits a cervix is existing in conjunction with.
The cancer I’m fighting right now is being driven by a constellation of traits. Genes and organs that produce specific hormones that are associated with my sex class–the one that comprises slightly more than 50% of the human population. How do we talk about this intelligently if “female” is now a landmine to be avoided?
I simply don’t agree. The purpose of sex segregation in sports is to ensure GIRLS AND WOMEN have a chance to compete. Boys and men do not have the same problem and do not need to be protected to the same extent. We don’t have sex segregated sports just for the hell of it. We have them so women can have a chance.
As it happens, some amateur leagues are men only, of course - my softball league is open only to men, but that’s really just a “we wanna do our thing” rule, it’s just a local fun league.
Well, it seems to me if you’re going to have a men’s league and a women’s league, it should be limited to men and women respectively. Or else call its a co-ed league and anyone can play. They exist too and do quite well actually.
Sure. But that doesn’t change the fact that specific recommendations about cervical cancer screening are primarily based on whether or not one has a cervix. So it simply makes no sense to me that anyone would argue against explicitly foregrounding that key issue when describing those recommendations.
And I am very sorry about your having to deal with this cancer bullshit, btw, and I hope your treatment is going well.
ISTM we can talk about this intelligently just fine with terms like “biological sex”, “female anatomy”, “cisgender women”, and all the other terms that AFAICT you and I both consider to be perfectly acceptable. I’m baffled as to where you think this alleged catastrophic communication impediment is actually located, unless who you’re really arguing with is somebody else who has different views than I do.
Again, I’m gobsmacked by your assertion that “gender and sex terms are off the table” in such discussions. For whom are they “off the table”?? As far as I’m concerned, I’ve been using a wide variety of gender and sex terms right along all through this discussion, addressing all sorts of social and biological issues, and I don’t feel that my self-expression has been impeded in the slightest, and nobody seems to have had the least difficulty understanding my use of these terms. Nearly 2100 posts in this thread already, and you’re complaining that we can’t talk? I’m mystified, I honestly am.
But that’s not much help in this case if they don’t understand which of the people designated biologically “female” have cervixes and which ones don’t.
Now is my turn to say “Huh?”
Females who don’t have cervixes but who don’t know it are such a small portion of the population that I don’t understand why we’d have to craft our language around them. Especially since they aren’t at risk for cervical cancer in the first place! Females who have cervixes but don’t know it are the ones we should be worried about.
A statement like “Females should get checked for cervical cancer” signals to a person with female anatomy who has never heard of cervical cancer that they have a big knowledge gap,so they should pay attention to what’s being said. Such a person is likely to be young. They may harbor misconceptions about female bodies since many young women are taught all kinds of bullshit about their bodies. It’s important to use terms that grab the target audience’s attention, especially if the whole point is to raise their awareness.
It would be one thing if we were talking about a well-known body organ or structure. But a cervix isn’t well-known It really does need an introduction.
I repeat: The awareness-raising about cervical cancer screening should concentrate on foregrounding the crucial importance of whether or not one has a cervix, and explaining clearly who has a cervix and who doesn’t. Deliberately crafting the statement to leave out the word “cervix” seems to me completely counterproductive.
I don’t know why you’re so gobsmacked. We’re talking about an article that uses no gender or sex terms for a body structure that is only found in one sex class. Why is it so unreasonable for me to think SOMEONE out there must think gender and sex terms are loaded/offensive/inappropriate/choose whatever negative adjective you want and thus should be “off the table” in medical journalism? I kind of feel like you’re gaslighting me right now.
Oh, you mean you are inferring that gender and sex terms are “off the table” for the author of that particular CNN article.
In other words, you are arguing with someone other than me, who, according to your inference, has different views than I do. Okay then, I’ll let you get on with that.
Well, if 50% of the playing time is reserved for women, it would be logical to assume the other 50% is for men. Give or take. And did you enjoy the co-ed league experience? Would co-ed leagues do you think maybe be a better place for trans women and trans men to fit in?
The Democrats are supporting a bill which would allow biological boys to compete as girls in sport in every state. No matter how sincere they are in their identification, the advantage is enormous and obviously unfair.
And if you don’t care about sports, maybe you’ll care that the Republicans are planning to use this bad policy as an argument against voting Democratic in the upcoming election, as the research YWTF posted shows.
What is the harm in having a woman with no cervix broach a conversation with her doctor about cervical cancer?
Absolutely none.
What is to be gained by shrouding the cervix in such general language that not everyone in the target audience will come away with the understanding that they are the target audience?
You are choosing to defend that article, so naturally I’m going to assume you have the same ideological bent as the writer or editor who approved that writing style.
Why are you defending the terms used in the article if you don’t agree with them?
No one has mentioned the large number of women in America for whom English is not their first language. They are a hell of a lot more likely to know the word ‘woman’ than to know ‘cervix’ or other technical terms. They are also probably less likely to have had good sex education, less likely to see a doctor regularly, and less likely to already know they need screening.
In contrast, approximately 0% of trans people are unaware of what type of anatomy they were born with. In a sane world, the headline would say “women” and the article would explain just exactly which people need screening.
Or if we really want to be PC about it, the article could have just provided a list of risk factors. One of those risk factors could be “female gender/sex”. I would prefer something more attention-grabbing than that because I think people are more likely to read an article when their specific group is referenced in the headline. But a singular mention of “female” somewhere in the body of the text would make me feel like no agendas were being pushed, at least. Its absence is really glaring.
I’m glad to have it confirmed that insincere and malicious “fakers” are not actually a significant threat to the competitiveness of cisgender female athletes, despite some posters’ speculations to that effect.
What I’m supporting is the article’s use of the accurate and informative term “individuals with cervixes” to talk about the group of people who are individuals with cervixes. I’m not supporting, as I’ve said over and over again, the article’s omission of explanatory statements about who has a cervix and who doesn’t.
I have suggested, in at least two posts already because apparently they’re easy to forget, some proposed wording for such explanatory statements:
Mind you, if the article is directed at a target audience of people who know whether or not they have a cervix, then I think the article’s wording as it stands isn’t a problem. But the concerns expressed by other posters in this thread have convinced me that medical journalists should not take it for granted that their readers know basic medical facts such as whether or not they have a cervix.
And I am certainly not defending any of the hypothetical motivations of “PC”, “agenda pushing”, “ideological bent”, perception of “gender and sex terms” as “loaded/offensive/inappropriate”, “language police”, linguistic “landmines”, “woke points”, “dewomanizing”, “taboo”, “gender ideology”, etc., that are being ascribed here to the author of that article.
If somebody’s deliberately concealing relevant and necessary information in order to promote an ideological agenda, I don’t support that. That goes also for people who refuse on ideological grounds to use an accurate and informative term like “individuals with cervixes” in an article on health guidelines specifically relevant to individuals with cervixes.