Excellent BMJ editorial on sex and gender

Science as it should be - thanks for linking! The amount of ‘wrong think’ is worrying

Thanks for linking…

Crikey, that's almost revolutionary. Simple clear hitting the nail on the head.

It's a great article. Thanks for sharing.

I really do despair at what's happening in Scotland. I think the phrase 'biological sex' is considered a hate crime by some.

It's absolutely insane. I'm going to send a copy of this to the office of the national statistician.

You might think that this

" For example, a lack of inquiry means we have no accurate data or high quality evidence on whether gender diverse people are more or less affected by covid-19, and thus whether public health and medical advice ought to be different for trans people taking cross-sex hormones."

would mean that people on such hormones would actively want to stand up and be counted accurately, so that their medical care might be improved.

In fact, I would have thought that making sure you were transgender would be something anyone transgender would want to be counted as being in the census, because the more of them there are the more they will get the treatments they need in the NHS -- but it seems many don't see it that way.

In fact, I've just emailed this article to myself at work so that I can quote it at any healthcare professionals who push back when I correct them!

Fantastic article and one which definitely needed to be written- well done the authors. They make a good point too about medications, laboratory tests and covid too.

I used to work as a biomedical editor and now I'm a medical writer. I've been on a one-woman crusade to ensure that 'sex' and 'gender' are used correctly in every academic article I have edited and written over the years. The number of academics, and even medics, who really don't get it just baffles me. I'm very pleased to see the BMJ offering solid advice.

I've quoted these before so please ignore if you've seen them.

SAGER - Sex and Gender Equity in Research guidelines are a good read:

researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41073-016-0007-6

Heidari S, Babor T, De Castro P, Tort S, Curno M. Sex and Gender Equity in Research: rationale for the SAGER guidelines and recommended use. Research Integrity and Peer Review. 2016;1:2.

SAGER guidelines are useful to persuade authors:
*to acknowledge the number of male/female trial participants;
*to provide sex disaggregated data analysis of the results.

At an early enough stage, they should promote a better sex and gender balance of the research team and can improve the design of trial protocols. However, as in the thread below, they've existed for some time and there is still disappointingly little implementation.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a4104564-Sex-and-gender-analyses-in-the-design-of-research-studies?msgid=102566915#102566915

“However, contemporary medical research and clinical practice often erroneously use sex and gender interchangeably”

Indeed. The consent form DS brought home for his HPV jab asked me for his gender with the option of male/female/prefer not to say. I’d have thought a vaccine to prevent a sexually transmitted disease that largely affects biological females was one where the sex of the recipients for data and monitoring purposes was important.

The authors shouldn't need to be courageous as well as good scholars but they are.

Competing interests: We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and declare the following interests: CM is a member of the government’s LGBT Advisory Panel. This editorial was written in her academic capacity and not as part of the panel. MMc, SB & AR declare no relevant interests (full declarations for all can be found at www.whopaysthisdoctor.org).

Encouraging that one of the authors is on the government's LGBT Advisory Panel - I'm not sure what that is in relation to things like the WESC etc but presumably a positive.

That is good news, though surprising. The BMA and BMJ are separate organisations, but deeply emmeshed, and the BMA is full Kool-Aid.

Margaret McCartney wrote a column expressing concerns about cross-sex hormones a couple of years ago and, shortly afterwards, lost her regular BMJ column. I've always assumed it was as a result though - given this development - perhaps not.

thanks for the link EmbarrassingAdmissions - I will read it fully in a bit but this sentence stood out for me

In Scotland, the national statistician is currently consulting on the 2022 census wording of sex and gender questions, proposing the converse of England and Wales: a compulsory gender identity question but a voluntary question disclosing sex

Compulsory gender identities for all. Not really interested in sex.

Which planet are these people living on??? And what is the point of doing what they are doing at all?

I sincerely hope the tide is turning.

I wonder if this could have international ramifications for research as now the 'gold standard' would be to have a clear definition of what information is being collected. Without being clear whether it is data on sex or gender, the findings of any research would be less convincing surely?

Just goes to show how the FPFW 'just changing a couple of words in the guidance that no-one reads anyway' (every TRA on twitter) is already starting to shake the foundations....

Brilliant!

Bravo BMJ and bravo Susan Bewley. There are no new points or perspectives there, but an elegant simplicity that sums up the issue very well. It eases the constant cognitive dissonance that has been my constant companion of late, to hear respected journals beginning to emerge from the doublethink. This is a milestone. That the BMJ were vulnerable illustrates how far down this road we have travelled already. We are not home and dry yet so respect to the BMJ for sticking out their neck.

Really interesting, thanks for sharing.

[quote EmbarrassingAdmissions]This link should allow access: www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n735.full?ijkey=xn35xYzLXf2qhe6&keytype=ref[/quote]
This worked!
Thanks for highlighting, op

Susan Bewley is great, she's spoken about this a lot. Suprised to see it being promoted on the bmj twitter account though.

Umm, maybe we need to find a way to pay their open access fee, then it would be available for all. Might suggest this to FPFW