Not “girls” however “menstruating individuals” in a doc from the Ministry of Well being: controversy in Portugal

A web based questionnaire launched by the Ministry of Well being on July 9 on the subject of the menstrual cycle, which comprises the expression “menstruating individuals”, is inflicting controversy in Portugal. One of many incriminating sentences is the next: “With the intention of diagnosing the menstrual well being state of affairs in Portugal, the Directorate-Normal for Well being (DGS) has developed an internet questionnaire and invitations all menstruating individuals to take part”. In the previous few hours, a member of parliament from the identical governing get together, Bruno Vitorino, reacted by asking the competent minister, Ana Paula Martins, if she was conscious of the language used. “It seems that the change in language comes from the ideology defended by some and never from science. It appears to me that an establishment just like the DGS, given its function and its purpose for present, must be the primary to make use of science as a foundation for its actions”.

In gentle of this, the Social Democratic Celebration now desires to know from its personal minister who approved the phrases of this marketing campaign and on what scientific foundation the DGS changed the phrase “lady” with “menstruating individual”. The opposition’s reactions weren’t lengthy in coming, paradoxically in help of the ministry’s linguistic decisions. MP Joana Mortágua, from the Left Bloc, says that this can be a “critical subject” of well being communication and equality that “is impartial of any try and launch ethical panic, akin to that which ultraconservative thought has tried to foment in society”.

And whereas Minister Ana Paula Martins has not but spoken out (she has till August 24 to reply), the reactions haven’t been restricted to the parliamentary hemicycle. Heard right this moment by the newspaper Público, psychiatrist Zélia Figueiredo, who coordinates the Consultative Group on Sexual and Gender Range, now a part of the DGS itself, reiterates the inclusive suggestions issued final April by the group she directs, in any other case “an individual who has transitioned from feminine to male continues to have a uterus, however with the anagraphic change now not seems with the feminine gender; subsequently, they might not be screened”