'Women and People with a Cervix'

Suddenly Roy Orbison's song made sense to me

CANCER is a serious disease and nobody - least of all me - wants to get cancer.

So when I saw at the weekend that the Australian Government was urging “women and people with a cervix” to get tested, I immediately wondered how to find out if I was one of those people?

People with a cervix! Is a cervix hereditary? I wondered if I should call my dad to find out if he had a cervix?

I dialled dad’s number but hung up the phone before he could answer. No point stressing out the old man about possibly having cancer of the cervix. He might not even have a cervix. Who could know!

While on hold trying to book an MRI to find out if I had a cervix - and if so, whether my cervix was cancerous - I googled “cervix” and learned that a cervix is a cylinder-shaped neck of tissue that connects the vagina and uterus.

“That’s odd,” I thought. “I don’t actually have a vagina. Or a uterus.”

And then I realised, “people with a cervix” are women.

You cannot imagine my relief. I don’t have cancer of the cervix.

I can’t have cancer of the cervix.

I’m a man!

Even so, you can’t trust everything you read on the internet. So I checked with a mate.

“Did you watch the football on Sunday night? Also, how do I know if I have a cervix?”

He gave me that same weird look he gave me last week when, having read a CNN article on transgenderism, I started to fear I might menstruate.

“Only females have a cervix,” he replied matter-of-factly.

And then he patiently explained:

“Juvenile human females are called girls. Adult human females are called women. Since the beginning of time, individuals with a cervix have been referred to as women.”

And, as a person with a prostate, I tended to agree with him.

Why the Australian Government would say “people with a cervix” rather than simply stick with the more succinct term, “women”, is a mystery.

I suppose “people with a cervix” is their way of being inclusive.

Well, using the term “idiots” rather than “public servants” when referring to content writers for the Department of Health and Aged Care’s website is my way of being inclusive.

When the Health Department deny a group of people who actually exist - like women - for a fantastical one they have imagined - like people with a cervix - they’ve lost me.

Anyway, thanks to our Health Department, I now understand that scene from Titanic where Kate Winslet’s character Rose says:

“Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French people with a Cervix”

I only now realise she meant a French girl!

And Michael Bolton crooning “When a maaaan loves a person with a cervix” also makes sense now. He loved a woman!

But honestly, when you’re singing about people with a cervix, it’s hard to go past the late great Roy Orbison’s 1964 classic “Oh, Pretty Person with a Cervix”

Individual with a cervix, walking down the street

Individual with a cervix, the kind I’d like to meet

Would be a woman … Health Department I don’t believe you, you’re not the truth

No one could be as woke as you

Mercy!

Individual with a cervix, won’t you pardon me?

Individual with a cervix, I couldn’t help but see

You’re a woman … Not a man like you claim to be

That’s why you get a period unlike me

*growl*

Individuals with a cerebral cortex might want to completely ignore the Department of Health and Aged Care’s website.