# Do we need to replace the word 'Hysterectomy' with Nicky Denson-Elliot

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/womenkind-collective-3653569/do-we-need-to-replace-the-word-hysterectomy-with-nicky-denson-elliot
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/womenkind-collective-3653569/do-we-need-to-replace-the-word-hysterectomy-with-nicky-denson-elliot.md
Podcast: [WomenKind Collective](https://stenobird.com/podcast/womenkind-collective-3653569)
Published: 2026-07-18T21:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/womenkind-collective/episodes/do-we-need-to-replace-the-word-hysterectomy-with-nicky-denso
Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/660030ee8d6ad80016ba0381/e/6a57a30dc152a357dbc62149/media.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/womenkind-collective-3653569/episodes/do-we-need-to-replace-the-word-hysterectomy-with-nicky-denson-elliot
Duration seconds: 2796

## Resource

Link to Pre Order: Tackling Gender Bias in The Healthcare System. What Patient stories Teach Us About Implementing Systemic Change:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tackling-Gender-Bias-Healthcare-System/dp/1805018817 This week we are Spilling The Tea with Nicky Denson-Elliott , a professional feminist, community builder, award-winning podcaster, and the woman asking a question that, once you hear it, you can't unhear it. We're talking about the word hysterectomy, a word one in five people don't even realise means the removal of the uterus. A word rooted in "hysteria," a diagnosis used for centuries to dismiss and pathologise women, only struck from medical record books in 1980. Nicky had a hysterectomy herself this year, and it crystallised something she'd already been thinking about as a feminist campaigner. She's now petitioning NHS England to retire the word "hysterectomy" in favour of uterectomy, clearer, more accurate, and free of centuries of baggage. Today we're talking medical misogyny, language, and why the words used for our bodies matter more than we think.  We ask her about the petition and the moment that made her think "this word has to change"; how living through her own hysterectomy this year sharpened her view on the language; the real history connecting "hysterectomy" and "hysteria," and whether people actually know it; why a procedure that around one in five UK women will have has never had its language challenged before now; how she's finding getting the petition out there given the algorithm's treatment of women's health content (following our chat with the CensHERship Campaign last week); whether she's faced any opposition or the response has been entirely positive; and what NHS England and clinicians have said so far. We also cover the n…

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## Transcript

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