Am I going to look like a complete eejit?

Tried to sign up on app today, wasn't happy with wording, and I see others here were put off as well. Looking into it sent me down a rabbit hole. It seems that in order to be "open source" the makers of the app had to sign up to a code of conduct, and that "assigned at birth" and the gender questions might have been written that way to fulfill something or other. www.contributor-covenant.org/

The questions are: Who wrote the code of conduct? How is it being interpreted? Which is more important, the Code, or the data?

My complaint letter to Prof. Spector at kcl, in part:

I am fully on board with including marginalised groups. The guidance you have signed up for and follow also says "open source projects suffer from a startling lack of diversity, with dramatically low representation by women, people of color, and other marginalised populations."

I belong to one of those groups that are described as dramatically under represented. I am not able to participate in this study because your cack-handed attempt at inclusivity makes me question your ability to go, without fear or favour, where and only where the evidence leads.

I love all of you who are 'making a fuss' over this issue. Asking about 'gender' not sex, and even worse, 'sex assigned at birth' ON A MEDICAL FORM FFS is beyond stupid. I always cross out 'gender' and write 'sex' on forms. I think it's really important to challenge this lazy nonsense whenever we come across it

Why ask the question if it’s not going to give statistically significant results?

I was going to sign up too.
I believe and so does my GP that I had Covid19 in March/April.
I wasn't ill enough to need to be hospitalised treatment and there weren't any tests in the community. We were too scared to leave the house as I work with communities that were high risk.

I have been left with lots of symptoms, (still can't taste or small properly) so I thought that the Zoe app might be interesting and useful.

When I saw that question I had to stop the process, I emailed pointing out the biological realities of life and the importance of acknowledging those realities when you are dealing with bodily sickness.

Like everyone else I too was ignored.

Oh dear, that's not going to help much

"To ensure the safe provision of any medical treatment such as an immunisation, we have checks in place to confirm that we have correctly identified the person in question. This is usually done by ensuring that the child’s name, date of birth, sex/gender matches the information stored on their health record. For example, we may have more than one patient called Sam Bloggs (which could be a male or female name) and ensuring the name, gender and date of birth all match provides a safeguard that we have correctly identified the patient in question."

I couldn't even be bothered to reply after that.

Maybe if pandering to the identity lobby doesn't give you the easy life you'd hoped for people will stop doing it and design questions that are accessible to both gender believers and nonbelievers.

Think this is true. The reason so much goes against women is because there are a small number of fanatical men, and a larger number of hypervigilant teens following their lead, who delight in kicking up a huge fuss every single time. For most of us, it goes against the grain to kick up a fuss, but we have to stand together and do it because what we do have is numbers.

And yes, its a pity that useful studies are being messed up, but it’s the same as in women’s sport. If we don’t object, the situation will get worse.

So thank you OP. Hope you feel better soon and sorry the system is letting you down.

I'm sure you're right iheartjennimurray (so do I!) Tim definitely knows that the sex matters in medical resesrch.

I doubt Tim was hands on in designing the app, especially the profile set up questions which is where this inaccuracy resides. Probably delegated to some super woke post graduates who were long since indoctrinated to be afraid to ask people’s sex lest it is seen as offensive. Yet they work in the field of medical research. What a world.

You are not an eejit OP, but what a shame it is that this wording is putting sensible people off using the app.
It's an important study that has moved our understanding of cv19 on. I've been using it from the beginning, and learned a lot from the updates it provides. Wording notwithstanding, it's worth using.
Tim Spector's twin studies have discovered a lot of useful stuff as well, including the insights into gut bacteria (see The Diet Myth - stupid title, fascinating book)
I can't understand how such a c!ever, eminent doctor can go along with this nonsense.

So the creators of this app, which could support the health service and protect people’s health, are willing to lose potential uptake and possibly skew their results by ignoring biology. Brilliant. OP, you’re not the eejit.

Perhaps you can help me. If sex is 'assigned at birth', how is it possible to determine sex before birth? How is it possible to screen embryos on the basis of sex (e.g. for the purposes of reducing the risk of genetic illnesses)?

You see, I think that the phrase 'assigned at birth' is ludicrous for the above reasons. I think that the OP is not ridiculous for pointing that out.

I am curious to know as to why you disagree. What am I missing?

They still have a few areas without enough signed up (can't link to it as it doesn't work atm - seems to be about to change the format again)

I’ve complained and deleted the app. Will reinstate if they correct it to ask medically accurate questions.

You did good. I was registered with the twins study which they wanted to link, but when I couldn't get past the 2 stage questions without affirming a belief in gender ideology, I gave up.

I got ignored by them too.

The silly app kept badgering me to fill it in so I deleted it.

I am not sure I want to bother with the twins stuff further either.

Taking the political side of things out of the equation, if there's a case of
covid in the family, you really want to report that and get a test. Covid doesn't care about these things and you gotta do what's best for your childs health atm

I was shocked to see 'gender' on my DC's flu vaccination consent forms recently. I rang school and emailed the company to register my objection. I think it's important to make the point.

I deleted the app when they decided to go woke.

When I did it there was a self describe box which I used to say sex not gender or something along those lines. Took me a few tries to get something accepted, there may have been a non explicit character limit. Well done for emailing. I do think it's worth making a fuss with these things. Maybe if pandering to the identity lobby doesn't give you the easy life you'd hoped for people will stop doing it and design questions that are accessible to both gender believers and nonbelievers.

You did good op.
I'm going to follow your example and email next time I see something like that.

I’m contacting them too, I can’t answer their question

Sex matters in medicine. Its not a tim to pander to feelings. Its facts that will save you or kill you.

Nice one op no one needs to know your identity they just need to know your sex and and how covid might affect you.

I contacted them about this months ago when they first changed the questions asked. I pointed out that it was already becoming clear that males were at greater risk so why not clear data.