The Canadian Cancer Society is drawing criticism once again for maintaining a recommendation that men who claim to identify as women should undergo pap smears as part of a cervical cancer screening process.
On a webpage titled “As a trans woman, do I need to get screened for cervical cancer?” Canada’s largest national cancer charity provides advice for males who identify as transgender curious about receiving a cervical cancer screening.
According to the Mayo Clinic, cervical cancer is a type of cancer that occurs in the cells of the cervix. Various strains of the human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted infection, play a role in causing most cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is detected through semi-regular screenings called Pap smears, in which a small brush is used to gently remove cells from the surface of the cervix so they can be tested.
But the Canadian Cancer Society has been providing guidance to males who identify as women on the female-specific cancer.
“If you’re a trans woman, you may not have given much thought to Pap tests and cervical cancer. And if you haven’t, that makes a fair amount of sense. After all, in order to get cervical cancer, you need to have a cervix — that is, the organ that connects the vagina to the uterus,” the Cancer Society’s official website reads. It goes on to state that “trans women” who have “had bottom surgery to create a vagina and possibly a cervix” should talk to a medical professional to “figure out specific cancer-screening needs.”
A member of the Reduxx team contacted the Canadian Cancer Society posing as a trans-identified male seeking cervical cancer screening information and was provided the same guidance as was on the website. The operator with the Canadian Cancer Society also provided information on gender affirming care, and spent over 30 minutes attempting to provide helpful information on cervical cancer.
The Canadian Cancer Society’s guidance stands in stark contrast to that from the United Kingdom, whose National Health Service clearly states that that males have no cervix, and thus have no need to have a cervical cancer screening.
“If you’re a trans woman or non-binary person assigned male at birth, you do not need cervical screening as you do not have a cervix,” the NHS website states. The guidance was affirmed by Cancer Research UK, the country’s national cancer charity and world’s largest, which stated that “trans women do not have a cervix, so don’t need to consider taking part in cervical screening.”
Cancer Research UK goes on to dispel the Canadian Cancer Society’s reference to cervical cancer impacting a fabricated cervix, stating that “this is made of a different type of cells to the cervix in a cisgender woman.”
The “neo-cervix” created during a vaginoplasty is most often comprised of tissue from the bladder, rectum, and/or penis. The structure of the cavity itself can also be formed from buccal fat tissue from the mouth, or skin grafted from other areas of the body.
The Canadian Cancer Society’s guidance has started making the rounds on Twitter, where it is receiving ridicule from netizens.
Podcaster Aimee Terese first uploaded screenshots from the Canadian Cancer Society’s website on March 13, adding to her thread: “PSA: MEN DO NOT HAVE A CERVIX. You’re welcome.”
The information quickly began to make the rounds, drawing outrage from women concerned about their erasure in medicine.
“Are they looking up these men’s arseholes then?! Ffs, this is appalling. Taking up potentially life-saving appts for women to appease the fucking gynophiles! Sick to death of what seems like the entire world bending over backwards for pathetic men,” user @sarforalltosee wrote in response to a screenshot posted by popular UK-based commentator @ripx4nutmeg.
Some women have even stated they will be cancelling their donations to the Canadian Cancer Society, with one user referencing her own experience with cervical cancer.
“I was livid when I read that garbage,” one Canadian woman who survived cervical cancer wrote, posting a screenshot of the Canadian Cancer Society’s mobile webpage.
The medical establishment has been increasingly impacted by gender identity politics in recent years.
Last April, Reduxx revealed in an exclusive how students studying midwifery at Edinburgh Napier University were taught that biological males could get pregnant and give birth through their penis before instructors hastily edited a workbook they were given.
The idea that men who identify as women may be able to give birth has resulted in medical papers and research on the topic of uterus and womb transplants. In 2021, the academic journal Bioethics published a paper by an obstetrician-gynecologist and clinician scientist at McGill University which argued that trans-identifying men are entitled to womb transplants as a basic human right.
“There isn’t an ethical reason why they should be denied access to the procedure,” said Dr. Jacques Balayla.
“A woman who is born without a uterus and a man who transitions into a woman because of gender dysphoria have a similar claim to maternity if we consider them to have equivalent rights to fulfill the reproductive potential of their gender,” Balayla said. “And I think that we should.”
Last year, a surgeon in India announced that he is developing a surgical plan to implant a womb in a biological male who identifies as transgender. “Every transgender woman wants to be as female as possible, and that includes being a mother,” said Dr. Kaushik said.
Most recently, a video of a trans-identifying male proposing “live donors” be used for uterine transplants sparked outrage on social media.
Alicyn Cathleen Simpson, employed at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Children’s Hospital, explained that his proposal for live uterine donations would involve a person who was “assigned female at birth” but identified as a “transgender man,” and therefore, in theory, would willingly offer up their uterus to a male person who identified as a “woman.”
In contrast, women have frequently been referred to by their body parts in a practice that critics have rejected. In 2016, the US-based LGBTQ+ organization the Human Rights Campaign released a guidance which referred to female anatomy as a “front hole,” a term that is also used in transgender pornography.
In 2021, medical journal The Lancet was accused of sexism and dehumanising women after its editors used the term “bodies with vaginas” to refer to women on the front page of their publication.
The following year, a German federal government agency and biomedical research institute called women “people with short urethras” whose primary sex organs are the “front hole” or “pussy.”
A survey of 182 men who identify as women found that 90% of respondents believed that having “a transplanted, functioning vagina would improve their sexual experience” and 99% believed that “a uterus transplant would lead to greater happiness.”
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