Did the Canadian Cancer Society "apologize" for using the word "cervix" instead of "front hole"? No, that's not true: The organization added a note to one of the articles published on its website explaining a rationale for the Society's current stand on the matter. The disclaimer did not contain any explicit wording indicating that the purpose of the note was to apologize.
The story originated from an article (archived here) published by True North on its website on June 5, 2024, under the title:
Canadian Cancer Society apologizes for not calling cervix 'front hole' in non-binary disclaimer.
This is what it looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: True North screenshot taken on Wed Jun 12 17:03:38 2024 UTC)
The article went on to cite a note from the website of the Canadian Cancer Society (archived here), one of the major national cancer charities in that country.
The disclaimer (archived here) explaining the Society's position indeed appeared on its website but was not a formal apology. The brief note acknowledged that "cervix" may not always be the optimal word choice, but made a case for its continued use:
(Source: Cancer.ca screenshot taken on Wed Jun 12 16:42:39 2024 UTC)
The term "front hole" has been used in academic literature at least since 2009 when it was mentioned in a version of a scholarly article about HIV risk factors in transgender men (archived here) as an expression preferred by this group, given that not all transgender men undergo surgeries changing their sex organs.
Since then, "front hole" appears to have become slightly more prevalent in public discourse. For example, this term appeared in guidelines published by New York City (archived here) in 2015 and by the University of California, San Francisco (archived here) in 2016. In 2024, a search across academic articles on Google Scholar returned 202 results for "front hole" (archived here) in the context related to transgender healthcare.
On several occasions, claims alleging the existence of a widespread push to replace medical names of body parts with terms such as "front hole" across all groups of patients went viral. However, those speculations were false. Lead Stories debunked one such claim here. Snopes reviewed a similar rumor here.
The website whose article is the focus of this fact check is not an independent news organization. It is affiliated (archived here) with the True North Centre for Public Policy, a registered Canadian charity that also describes itself as a think tank and is known for a far-right bias (archived here), as described by the media bias resource Media Bias/Fact Check.
Lead Stories reached out for comments from the Canadian Cancer Society. If we get a response, this article will be updated as appropriate.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about international stories can be found here.
