While there is no doubt that the large majority of people losing their lives to this disease are women, trans men account for a portion of those deaths too.
That shouldn’t be ignored. Contrary to popular myth, not all trans people undergo lower surgery. In fact, more opt for no surgery due to a variety of factors that range from the expense (although not if you are in the UK, where it is available on the NHS) to personal preference.
At present on the NHS, if you are a transgender man who is still registered with his GP as female you will be invited for screenings at the regularly mandated intervals. If you asked your GP surgery to change your registered gender, however, you won’t – even if you are still in possession of a fully functioning cervix. For many trans people, there genitals are a huge source of distress. They struggle to interact with them when they are alone and can often find just the idea of getting there bits out for someone to poke around in distressing. Given that many Cis (cisgender, a term for people whose gender identity is the same as the sex they were assigned with at birth) women, who have no problems with their own genitals, report a similar distress when having to go for a smear test, for trans men, it’s doubly-difficult. Smear tests can be especially difficult for trans men.
Many just can't bring themselves to make that appointment. But increased risk or not, the fact remains that if you have a cervix you can get cervical cancer, no matter what’s going on with the rest of you. There is limited data on how many people identify as trans masculine in the UK, so it’s hard to know how many people this issue affects. Trans men are often the forgotten half of the transgender story, and even within the LGBTQ+ world they can be marginalised, ignored and forced to stand in the shadows, unheard. But this isn’t about politics, this is about life and death, treatment and fear, and we must find a way to make trans men who still have a cervix feel compelled enough to push past their discomfort for the sake of their own wellbeing. That starts with making them feel included in campaigns aimed at raising awareness of an issue that affects them too.
