NHS Blood donating form saying 'gender' not 'sex'

Hiya Getoffamycloud and stick around if you’re feeling confused- also you could have a look at this thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me?pg=1&order=

As someone who has needed blood products in the past, and may well need them in the future, this whole muddle really scares me.

Found the web chat
Says transwomen are treated as women except for the making of blood products where plasma is used - there they are considered masculine. But they give blood at the same frequency as women because periods.

And all this while we are in the middle of the most distressing inquiry into the dreadful consequences of treating sick people, including haemophiliacs, with unsafe/ contaminated blood products.
No basic awareness at all. Such wilful ignorance.
Dying from hepatitis B or C is horrific.
I have a friend who got Hep C from a blood transfusion during childhood surgery. It is beyond grim.

Do you think they’ve confused it - so when they say ‘transgender women’ they mean women identifying as men? Then it makes sense

These rules are in place to keep blood donors and the patients who receive their blood safe.

BUT....

we will fling rules, and the safety of blood donors and patients to the winds to ensure a man can be validated in chosen identity as a woman. I mean, stuff safety and other people, priorities are what matter.

Policy can be found over there, on the pile of abandoned rules and populations, including children and safeguarding, and all the vulnerable populations of women. Oh all right, women in general. All of whom are tax payers expecting basic responsibility and accountability, but fuck that.

Is there anyone - anyone - left in Westminster, who is not so high on glue they still have a grasp on what day it is? What do they think is going to happen when something goes wrong?

And if the chances are so low of something going on that they decided it wasn't worth worrying about, what the FUCK is the homophobia in aid of?

It doesn't look like there's any exemption for men in stable relationships.

www.blood.co.uk/who-can-give-blood/men-who-have-sex-with-men/

but his partner could self ID as a woman and suddenly it’s fine.

Yes, it looks that way.

1: Male sexual partners of transgender women
Male sexual partners of transgender women would not fall under the men who have sex with men deferral policy in their assessment. Other guidance may prevent donation but this situation would not.

2: Male sexual partners of transgender men
Male sexual partners of transgender men can not donate for 12 months as per the men who have sex with men deferral guidance.

There was a web chat a little while back with someone from the NHS organ donor side of things. (Soon after Penny's webchat). I tried to find it - let me look again

So a gay man, who in a committed and stable relationship, would be not allowed to give blood but his partner could self ID as a woman and suddenly it’s fine.

If it's not important, why bother asking about men who have sex with men anyway?

Quite.

Either the deferral period for men who have sex with men is important - in which case this is a major safety risk

Or the deferral period for men who have sex with men is not important - in which case this is blatant homophobia.

The FOI ItsAll posted is absolutely batshit.

If I ID'd as a man tomorrow, DH and I would have to not have sex for 3 months* before either of us could give blood.

A gay man could skip the deferral period by identifying as a woman or getting his partner to identify as a woman.

When I first saw this FOI a couple of years ago I was so shocked. I had previously thought that although the NHS might use 'inclusive' language, when it came down to it they knew what sex was, why and when it was important. I had never imagined that the publicly funded organisation we all trust with our health throughout our lives would go along with this unscientific, dangerous nonsense.

*When this FOI was requested the deferral period for 'men who have sex with men' was 12 months.

The deferral period was cut from 12 months to 3 months by Justine Greening, with great fanfare, ON THE SAME FUCKING DAY she announced the consultation on self-ID:

The Government has also accepted the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (SaBTO) to change the deferral periods for blood donation for men who have sex with men. The usual deferral blood donation period will be reduced from 12 months to three months for men who have sex with men. These reductions are based on the most up to date scientific evidence and medical advances ... The UK has one of the safest blood supplies in the world. These rules are in place to keep blood donors and the patients who receive their blood safe.

If I was a gay man I would be absolutely spitting about this.

Male sexual partners of transgender women would not fall under the men who have sex with men deferral policy in their assessment

What the actual fuck?

Yes really WTF, if transwomen can't be honest about their biological sex and same sex partners I don't think they should be giving blood. It is not ok to put others health at risk to validate delusions.

Male sexual partners of transgender women would not fall under the men who have sex with men deferral policy in their assessment

What the actual fuck?

If it's not important, why bother asking about men who have sex with men anyway?

If it IS important enough medically to keep in - then how about we prioritise reality and keeping people safe over polite lies to benefit people's sense of self? This is insane! Please, someone tell me I've misunderstood this somehow?

I recently had to fill in a form at my local sexual health clinic which asked for gender and not sex.
Surely what contraception they give you is wholly dependent on what reproductive system you have.
I wouldn’t have minded if there had been a question along the lines of ‘is your gender different to your birth sex’ or something like that.

Why say either?

Observed not assigned! Doh.

Recently went to a sexual health clinic and although they did as for sex, they also had a box that asked if my gender identity matched the gender I was assigned at birth. I scribbled in that box - "gender is a social construct, sex is assigned at birth"

My nurse loved it! We had a good old chat at the ridiculousness of the NHS ignoring physical realities of patients. Plenty of people in the NHS see the issues, but are worried for their jobs if they speak up. It's insane.

I'm also a blood donor and find it a bit irritating too because gender is how one identifies whereas sex is a biological given. When donating blood I feel that recording biological sex is more appropriate because it's blood donations / medical / science! The wee test tubes are for measuring haemoglobin levels which differ for male and female sex. The frequency of donating is also different for male and female sex and I think that has something to do with iron levels although I'm not certain.
Sometimes there's an imp in me which when confronted with 'sex' on a form really wants to write 'yes please'!

Are there any other instances of the NHS saying 'gender' when they mean 'sex'?

Completely different topic to blood donation, but the form I had to fill in to be referred to my local autism team asked for my gender rather than sex. I know it seems like a minor thing but I was (and not only for pedantic reasons) enraged by it. It made me furious because of the issues in regards to the disturbing numbers of autistic children identifying as trans.
I couldn't let it go, so I crossed out the word gender, replaced it with sex and at the bottom of the page included an explanation why. Two reasons it matters, a) you would think the NHS would understand the difference between the two and understand the need to collect data on the basis of actual biological sex. B) Autism in girls is hugely under-diagnosed. Letting people fill in forms about their autism diagnosis and self identifying as a girl/woman could skew those figures, without more girls actually being diagnosed with autism.

Up until right just now I thought that gender was the preferred term !! I used to correct my children e.g. when they referred to someone's " sex" as being girl/boy or man/woman. Something in my education ( I am 67 ) told me that the correct term was gender. I am confused.

Are there any other instances of the NHS saying 'gender' when they mean 'sex'?

You might find these two articles interesting.

Sex, Gender & the NHS Part 1: The “Single-Sex Hospital Wards” that have always been a lie
Sex, Gender & the NHS Part 2: Your Medical Record and your Ladybrain

But why not

Because TWAW obvs...

I've now found the articles which alerted me to this rare risk. In the order in which I read them they are:

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/trans-canadian-blood-services-1.4851296

blood.ca/en/blood/am-i-eligible/trans-individuals

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfusion-related_acute_lung_injury

It's a bit like detective work. Read one thing and before you know it you're far down the rabbit hole.

Male sexual partners of transgender women would not fall under the men who have sex with men deferral policy in their assessment

But why not?

Are there any other instances of the NHS saying 'gender' when they mean 'sex'?

I saw this on a hospital website regarding single sex wards

www.hey.nhs.uk/about-us/corporate-documents/emsa/

It starts talking about single sex, but then moved on to gender

Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is able to confirm that mixed sex accommodation has been virtually eliminated in all of its hospitals.

The room where your bed is will only have patients of the same gender as you, and;
Your toilet and bathroom will be just for your gender, and will be close to your bed area

It feels deliberate