Happy Father’s Day! It might be the last time I get to say that

ONE of the most brilliant, funny women I know is in the midst of an almighty brush with cervical cancer, a ‘hidden killer’ which is asymptomatic in its early stages. Last week was Cervical Screening Awareness week. The basic stats are these: five million women are invited for checks every year, one in four do not attend, and 3,000 women are diagnosed with the disease.

I’d hope for the sake of these thousands, including my friend, that charities would go out there, guns blazing, telling women: ‘For pity’s sake, get your smears done pronto – it’s two minutes with your knees apart for three years’ peace of mind.’

But what did one big cancer charity do? Cancer Research UK issued a tweet not mentioning the word ‘women’ at all. ‘Cervical screening (or the smear test) is relevant for everyone aged 25-64 with a cervix,’ it said.

OK, I’m aged 25-64 with a cervix, and even I was puzzled. Did that mean me? Why not say women?

At the risk of sounding banal, all I can say is welcome to the UK 2018, where the so-called ‘gender construct’ (the out-of-date, politically incorrect notion that there are men and women, mothers and fathers, boys and girls) is being dismantled brick by brick.

The charity explained that the wording was designed not to offend the small number of women who identify as men.

But my suspicion is that the CRU must have been terrified of obloquy from trans women who don’t have cervixes, but would perhaps protest at any suggestion this means they are not women.

They have – or had – penises, prostates and testes (I await eagerly CRU’s tweet urging ‘ everyone with prostate glands’, as opposed to men, to have them checked in due course). To put it uncharitably: the charity seems to think that not triggering trans women trumps saving the lives of women. Meanwhile, it’s Father’s Day today. In celebration of this happy event, schools have, of course, been hosting ‘ special person’ days. ‘Children were sat eagerly waiting in the hall for their special person to arrive so they could present them with a lovely “About My Special Person” card and a chocolate medallion,’ I read on one school’s informative website. Well, at least dads who turned up at Consett Junior in County Durham enjoyed a muscular range of outdoor activities, ending in a tug-of-war. But women and mothers are becoming almost unmentionable across a range of sectors. Retailers are so anxious to be more ‘trans- gender inclusive’ that some, such as Waitrose and Scribbler, dropped the M word from some cards sold on Mother’s Day but flogged others with messages like: ‘Dad, thanks for being an amazing mum.’ Confused? Me too. It seems getting the language right around identity politics is more important than clear messaging about public health; indeed more important than acknowledging the female biological experience, which is being erased as ‘transgender-inclusive’ language becomes compulsory doublespeak. Fail to use it at your peril.

FOR example. A woman who lives as a man is suing in order to have himself registered as his child’s father and have the word ‘mother’ deleted from the child’s birth certificate, even though he gave birth when he was a woman. ‘ Trans parent wants baby to be motherless,’ read one headline. Heartbreaking! How can anyone go to the High Court to sue for the right for a baby not to have a mother?

‘This is the nonsense we have to live with now ,’ aC lap ham ( white, male, middle- aged) GP grumbled to me.

The illogical next step will be for midwives to be warned against calling women giving birth ‘ the mother’. Even t hough every woman who has ever had a baby in an NHS hospital is called only one thing – ‘mum’ – by all staff from pregnancy onwards.

Maybe I should be more supportive, but I’m not feeling it. Too old. I asked my daughter, 24, if she minded the weaselly ‘everyone with a cervix’ way of avoiding the danger word ‘women’, and she didn’t. She was down with it.

‘All efforts should be made to allow transgender people to feel welcome and visible in today’s society,’ she schooled me. ‘That starts with being acknowledged, and the lexicon of our national services and media should be inclusive.’

I still think it’s mad that sex saturates so much of life (I give you Love Island) but talking about old-fashioned gender turns out to be the last taboo.

I’ ll say it, even though it’ s almost actionable.

Happy Father’s Day, everyone.