flu immunisation forms at school - ask gender not sex

[carefulvulvadriver]

name changed as I'm starting to get ranty about this in work and social life

My kid's school has sent home the annual form from the NHS for parents/guardians to give consent for the flu vaccine (which I'm all in favour of).

I dont know if this has been the case in previous years, but right at the top it asks for the kid's "gender" - options being Girl/Boy (which is going to upset some).

I have crossed out gender, scribbled in "sex" and written a barely legible rant about how surely the relevant thing to know before a medical intervention is the BIOLOGY of the person you are giving it to?

It may well be that they have actually been asking "gender" for ages when they mean "sex". But the debate now is such that I dont think it can be guaranteed any longer that people mean the same thing. There is just such confusion.

But more importantly, I believe this is a slippery slope which the NHS has already been sliding down. There are many bureaucrats in the NHS who are terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing when it comes to gender identity. They demonstrably are willing to ignore the importance of biology WHEN IT COMES TO TREATING BIOLOGICAL BODIES - all in the cause of avoiding getting caught up in heated discussions about gender, gender identity and the whole caboodle.

Where will we get to in this? When it comes to the flu vax, it's probably/hopefully the case that biological differences between male and female children dont matter. But there's plenty of medical interventions were they absolutely DO matter - in dosage, in interactions, in additional risk, esp as kids grow into adults. Will healthcare professionals in 5 years time have the information they need to treat people according to their biological needs? Will those who commission and plan services have any idea at all what the biological needs of their local populations are? Or will they just vaguely have an idea of their "gender identities"?

I'm going to send a cross email. That'll help

[umbel]

Ours was the same last year and I too took to the form with my ranty green pen. Very pleased to see that this year the forms ask for sex. (Not sure I can take sole credit for this, but I was happy to see the change!)

[carefulvulvadriver]

oh wonderful! well done you.
I'm going to try and do more complaining I think. Maybe this is naive optimism, but I keep thinking there must be some sensible people left in these organisations who really just need to be able to show to their superiors/boards that people out there (here) are going to notice if and when they do stupid things to tick stupid boxes

[gardenbird48]

I have a thread on here with some helpful responses - Assistance Please - why Sex not Gender on Immunisation Form (don't know how to link I'm afraid) - I have found exactly the same thing (I was looking for reasons to provide why they should put Sex instead of Gender).
GDPR is one of the useful reasons apart from medical justification.

Just finalising my email now - good luck!

[ErrolTheDragon]

There's another thread on this which you may find interesting/ helpful with wording. Good luck!


www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4025226-Assistance-please-why-Sex-not-Gender-on-Immunisation-Form

[carefulvulvadriver]

ah sorry! I did try to check to see if it had already come up. Please let's add any other comments to the thread above as it looks like some really useful resources and ideas already. Apologies again for being an idiot

[ErrolTheDragon]

It's quite hard to keep track, lots of new threads on other stuff since then - always better to have 2 threads than none!

[Iamanaubergine]

Ours had sex on too - I was pleasantly surprised.

[SerenityNowwwww]

Good luck.

A clinic I went to handed me a registration form that had ‘gender’ on it - pretty daft when it was for chiropractic services (and some massage, physio and counselling services). I had a word and they did change it.

I pointed out that surely as most of the practitioners were women, working 1-2-1 in a small confined area with their client, surely they needed to know the sex of a client (especially new ones) so that they could decide if they needed to ‘have a trainee observe’ if they felt uncomfortable.

I used to work as therapist and if I felt wary of a particular client I would ask another therapist (didn’t really matter what their discipline) to sit in as my ‘trainee’ (of course I’d ask first).

[OwlDoll]

I had to book a Covid test for Dd a couple of days and they asked for gender: male or female. As it was online I couldn't change it to sex as I usually would on forms. I must send a feedback email now.

[Manderleyagain]

Our school vaccine form was the same. The fact it only gave boy or girl as options made me think it was probably not for political reasons but to use the v recognisable simple words boy & girl, rather than male female.