Mick Hartley

Do men need to get tested for cervical cancer, given that they don't have a cervix? The NHS website, despite the unfortunate "assigned male at birth", is clear:

If you’re a trans woman or non-binary person assigned male at birth, you do not need cervical screening as you do not have a cervix.

In Canada, though, they do things differently:

The Canadian Cancer Society is drawing criticism once again for maintaining a recommendation that men who claim to identify as women should undergo pap smears as part of a cervical cancer screening process.

On a webpage titled “As a trans woman, do I need to get screened for cervical cancer?” Canada’s largest national cancer charity provides advice for males who identify as transgender curious about receiving a cervical cancer screening….

“If you’re a trans woman, you may not have given much thought to Pap tests and cervical cancer. And if you haven’t, that makes a fair amount of sense. After all, in order to get cervical cancer, you need to have a cervix — that is, the organ that connects the vagina to the uterus,” the Cancer Society’s official website reads. It goes on to state that “trans women” who have “had bottom surgery to create a vagina and possibly a cervix” should talk to a medical professional to “figure out specific cancer-screening needs.”

As Cancer Research UK points out, a constructed cervix "is made of a different type of cells to the cervix in a cisgender woman.” So pap tests for cervical cancer would be a waste of time – though admittedly the advice here does acknowledge the issues.

Still, we don't want trans women to feel left out, or not affirmed in their new identity.

“It can be difficult to make cancer screening a priority, especially when there's not a lot of information out there about cervical cancer risks for trans women. You may also be concerned about things like experiencing transphobia during the screening process.”