When the transgender industry finally collapses, I suspect that the autopsy will show that a significant role was played by the asinine strategic decision of trans activists to tone-police charities dedicated to helping sick people.
The latest example of this manages to be both crude and incredibly insulting at the same time: the Canadian Cancer Society, run by philanthropist Andrea Seale, has formally apologized for using the term “cervix” instead of the designation demanded by the transgender movement: “front hole.”
A statement was posted to the charity’s webpage on cervical cancer under the title “words matter.”
“We recognize that many trans men and non-binary people may have mixed feelings about or feel distanced from words like ‘cervix,’” it read. “You may prefer other words, such as ‘front hole.’ We recognize the limitations of the words we’ve used while also acknowledging the need for simplicity. Another reason we use words like ‘cervix’ is to normalize the reality that men can have these body parts, too.”
There’s a lot to unpack there. Words do, in fact, matter – which is why the Canadian Cancer Society’s crimes against the English language should be noted. Men do not, in fact, have cervixes. Women who claim to be men do. There is no such thing as a “transgender man”; there is only men and women. “Non-binary,” a recently-invented designation, is an ideological term, not a biological one. To call the cervix a “front hole” is crude and dehumanizing to women, but that, of course, does not matter to trans activists.
Or, apparently, to the Canadian Cancer Society.
This is just the latest example of what has been an incredibly successful co-opting of the charity by LGBT activists. The CCS makes it clear that anyone in possession of a cervix, “regardless of gender or sexual orientation,” should get regular screenings and adds that “[i]t’s important to tell your healthcare provider if you are taking testosterone because this can cause changes to cervical tissue that can affect your test results.”
Additionally, the CCS editorializes, medical professionals “should affirm your gender and perform any tests that reduces your discomfort and any feelings of gender dysphoria you may have as much as possible.” Last year, the CCS was the receiving end of much ridicule after they advised “transgender women” – that is, men – to talk to their doctors about cervical cancer.
Men – even those who identify as women – do not have cervixes.
Fortunately, this offensive terms have gotten significant pushback. On social media, people – mostly women – have been apoplectic. An Australian campaign on cervical cancer awareness that has swapped out “cervix” for offensive terminology has gotten an extremely negative response. Amy Hamm responded to the trend in a scathing National Post editorial:
Lest we forget this year’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling from Justice Sheilah Martin that suggested an appropriate term for a rape victim is a ‘person with a vagina.’ Yes, yes, the ruling still contains the word ‘woman’ – as many woke progressives fervently pointed out in attempts to downplay the absurdity of ‘person with a vagina’ – but that is beside the point: Under zero circumstances is it kosher to demean a female, let alone a rape victim, by referring to her as though she is defined by her sex organs. We are women. Full stop. Have we lost our collective mind?
But at least the court still threw us a pittance and used the term ‘vagina.’ A phrase like ‘front hole’ doesn’t just imply men can have female organs, but that the name of the organ – the cervix – itself is offensive. Perhaps ‘brain’ should be added to the list of words now considered beyond the pale, as it seems that not everyone has one – which could be considered exclusionary.
Hamm is right – and her outrage is one example of why, ultimately, the transgender movement will lose.