UK government further erases women in its new menopause overhaul

On Oct. 23, the UK government released a statement titled “Major NHS update brings menopause into routine health checks.”

While transsexuals are dealing with the ongoing worry about the upcoming, seemingly unchanged EHRC guidance in the UK, the UK government seems content to continue expanding its war on women.

The press release opens claiming that the government has a “new drive” to make menopause advice a part of the NHS’ health screenings.

The government claims, “Millions of women across England will benefit from the menopause being included in routine NHS health checks for the first time - marking a landmark step forward in women’s healthcare.”

Including menopause in healthcare considerations is, on its own merits, a good thing.

However, the issue is in the details. 

The UK government’s latest presser on women’s health implicitly states that women who don’t bleed monthly aren’t worth consideration and defines them out of a subset of women’s healthcare that could still affect them.

The government claims it is making available screenings for menopause “every 5 years” for women aged 40 through 74.

According to the definitions put forth by the Republic of Ireland’s Health Service Executive or HSE, menopause takes a year - 12 missed periods to be considered fully menopause. 

HSE also states that periods can become inconsistent in the few years prior to menopause.

Is the UK government providing menopause screenings only every 5 years progress or an abdication, or both?

Of course, menopause- meaning the reduction of estrogen and other female sex hormones in the body doesn’t only affect cis women.

It doesn’t even only affect cis women who have menstrual periods. 

All women can, and without intervention eventually will, go through menopause. 

This includes trans women denied their HRT, with the same general poor health effects shared between cis and trans women.

Yet, in the official statement announcing this supposedly progressive policy, the UK government doesn’t only erase trans women- it erases cis women who, for whatever reason, don’t have a uterus.

Not having a uterus isn’t the only reason why a woman may not bleed on her period.

Yet, the UK government’s statement reads,

Women’s Health Ambassador, Dame Lesley Regan, said:

“There is an inevitability that every girl and woman who has menstrual periods will become menopausal, some earlier than others. Which is why it is so important that we provide all girls and women with the information and supportive healthcare they need to deal with their menstrual health and their menopausal health and wellbeing so that they are not disabled or disadvantaged by easily treatable symptoms that prevent them contributing to society.” 

Here, the UK’s Women’s Health Ambassador seems only interested in the women’s health of a very narrow subset of the group of all women.

Further, her statement is focused on this narrow subset of women’s ability to continue “contributing to society.”

In other words, the UK’s institutional war on women didn’t stop with transsexual women.

Of course, transsexual women are worthy and deserving of being fought for on our own existence, our own lines of autonomy.

Without a countervailing feminist movement, this institutionalized UK-based war against women- which focused first and most on transsexual women- won’t end with erasing some cis women from healthcare. 

What will happen to trans women forced to undergo menopause because the UK has decided they aren’t “biological”? Will they get screened for something the government caused?

This new front in the British war against women and diversity seems poised to impact transsexual women again.