The Federal Government has granted millions of dollars in taxpayer funding for a new cervical cancer campaign to an organisation accused of “erasing women” from its messaging.
The Opposition has raised concerns about the community organisation that received the $3.3 million boost, ACON, pointing out that its current campaign uses the terms “people with a cervix” and “front hole”, the latter as an alternative to vagina.
A 2023 video produced by the group, which aims to increase awareness about self-testing in cervical screening, avoids using the word “women” entirely.
“If you have a cervix, the test can save your life,” an actor says in the clip.
Federal Liberal Senator Claire Chandler says the language that has been used is not only unclear, it is offensive to women.
“Questions need to be asked about why the government is paying taxpayer money hand-over-fist to this organisation to push their radical ideology that, quite frankly, is insulting to women and wildly out of step with what Australians would expect from our federal departments, particularly our federal health departments,” Senator Chandler said.
“That [language] is really confusing and really inaccurate in circumstances where biological sex does, in many cases like cervical cancer, relate to one sex over the other.
“It’s really disappointing to see the federal government choosing to give money to a group that it knows is erasing what it means to be a woman.”
Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women globally, with about 660,000 new cases diagnosed in 2022, according to the World Health Organisation.
Every year in Australia, more than 200 women will die from the disease.
More than 70 per cent of cervical cancers occur in women who have never been screened or are not up-to-date with screening, making the health messaging vital for prevention.
Dr Karleen Gribble, an adjunct associate professor at Western Sydney University who has researched the role of language in women’s reproductive health, said confusing terminology risks alienating the most at-risk groups.
“When language like ‘anyone with a cervix’ is used, that’s going to present a barrier to women who have lower English language skills, lower literacy or just don’t know what a cervix is, which would be quite a lot of women,” Dr Gribble said.
“There are groups that are less likely to engage in this health behaviour than others and amongst those are migrant women and Aboriginal women, women with lower education levels. So really, any health education around cervical cancer screening should be prioritising using the plainest possible, clearest possible language.”
She said while trans men – females who identify as men – are also a group at risk of not getting screening, they would be better served with campaigns targeted just to them.
“You can’t meet the needs of both this plain language for women who have low literacy and language skills and trans and non-binary people who want to have language used in a particular way that avoids referencing their sex directly,” Dr Gribble said.
“If you try to meet the needs of different groups that are, I guess, in conflict with one another in terms of what works best for them you’re going to meet no one’s needs.”
Australian research on inclusive language in health policy, using cervical screening as a study, was published in the Health Sociology Review journal last week.
It found health professionals, advocates and policymakers were largely supportive of using non-gendered language such “people with a cervix”, although one was quoted voicing concerns the term was “not plain English” and would not “translate very well.”
Dr Gribble said research should be focused on the people who the message is targeted at instead.
“That should be something that’s very concerning to government – that these changes are being made from the top down by people within health departments and other organisations without actually an evidence base to support what they’re doing,” she said.
The funding was given to ACON in January, although it was only disclosed by the Department of Health and Ageing via a Question on Notice last week.
Four months after the payment was made, the department was awarded Gold Employer Tier status by ACON at its LGBTQ+ Inclusion Awards on May 31.
Representatives from ACON declined to be interviewed or respond to questions.
A Department of Health spokesperson said Australia is “the first country in the world to be on track to eliminate cervical cancer because of our rigorous cervical cancer screening program”.
“However, we know the rates of cervical cancer screening are lower for First Nations women, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse women and the LGBTIQA+ community,” the spokesperson said.
“The 2022 Budget included $10.2 million for national campaign was announced in the March 2022 Budget to raise awareness of cervical cancer screening self-collection for these groups.”
It’s understood a similar amount of funding was given to the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and the Australian Multicultural Health Collaborative.
Non-gendered language in women’s healthcare such as “chest feeding” and “gestational carrier” has been a hot topic of debate.
In 2022, Government Services Minister Bill Shorten reversed a trial of hospital consent forms that used the term “birthing parent” instead of “mother”, following public outrage.
This week, the Canadian Cancer Society apologised for using the term “cervix” instead of “front hole”, saying it acknowledged that many trans men and non-binary people may have “mixed feelings about or feel distanced from words like ‘cervix’.”