Organ donation Scotland doesn't need to know what sex their donors are !

In response to those who say in reality the process will reveal the sex of the donor.

Why do they ask gender in the first place then? If it's irrelevant. Data protection says only data to be used should be collected.

I think a major part of the issue here isn't so much about this particular instance.

It is the creation of unhelpful inconsistency at the different levels of data gathering and creating a new precedent under which data is being gathered. As we know gender is undefined and arguably just a product of social conventions.

For a major public health organisation to be swapping the legally defined, medically essential info on birth sex for the vague and in this case irrelevant concept of 'gender' sets a dangerous precedent which will undermine standards and create confusion in other areas.

There is also the issue of GDPR - holding unnecessary data on people (gender is not a necessary piece of info for medical purposes - sex is essential) - not that the Scottish government seems to let details of the law trouble them.

Thanks, Embarrassing, I missed those!

I don’t for one second think they would use this information for actual organ transplants. What I don’t understand is why they would gather data on gender but not sex.

[quote ArabellaScott]THis seems relevant, though why it's using 'gender' fuck only knows.

www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20021106/sex-matters-in-organ-transplants[/quote]
That guide is from 2002 and a lot has changed since in the almost 20 years since then.

There are some links to clinical papers upthread and it's worth looking at some of the more recent reviews - especially those that discuss both clinical and social issues.

THis seems relevant, though why it's using 'gender' fuck only knows.

www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20021106/sex-matters-in-organ-transplants

If sex is relevant to blood donation, why would it not be relevant to organ donation?

I'd have thought it was so relevant they'd check the organ but maybe not.

The ‘state’ has not taken away anyone’s right to choose, its just made the way you choose different. The process is almost identical. Hey though, you stick to your principles.

I will stick to my principles, for sure. What the fuck would be the point of having any otherwise?

I think it's a huge transgression for the state to lay claim to anyone's body. I am very happy to opt into organ donation. Not happy to be coerced into it.

And presumably sex would be relevant if the purpose is to analyse data and understand how many people of each sex have opted in or out?

If sex is relevant to blood donation, why would it not be relevant to organ donation?

I understand why sex wouldn’t be relevant if this is opt out, but why are they asking for gender?

You can have my kidney after I die, but only if you don't misgender it!

TKAK

All kidneys are piss-kidneys...

Joking aside though, yes, sex matters here. Heart transplants are a lot less successful with a female donor and a male host, for example.

[quote ArabellaScott]@Soontobe60

I think you are too suspicious. Do you see everything as a conspiracy? Fine, you don’t believe in organ donation, that’s your choice. But does that work both ways? Would you want yourself or your children (assuming you have them) to be recipients should the need arise? Or would you be relieved that the number of organ donors has risen significantly since the introduction of an opt out rather than opt in system therefore increasing the chances of getting a donor should you be in that situation? Bodily autonomy is meaningless if you’re dead.

My reasoning and beliefs are entirely personal and private, and I have as much desire to respond to your accusatory statements as I do to be bullied into being on the register.

I had been on the donor register since I was 16 before they made this switch to presumptive opt-in. It's a question of consent. And I am absolutist when it comes to consent, especially in terms of state v individual.[/quote]
I’m not accusing you of anything! Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face. So you WERE a donor, for which you had to complete a form, but now the change to opting out, for which you have to fill out a form, has been brought in you’ve chosen NOT to be a donor.
The ‘state’ has not taken away anyone’s right to choose, its just made the way you choose different. The process is almost identical. Hey though, you stick to your principles.

@Soontobe60

I think you are too suspicious. Do you see everything as a conspiracy? Fine, you don’t believe in organ donation, that’s your choice. But does that work both ways? Would you want yourself or your children (assuming you have them) to be recipients should the need arise? Or would you be relieved that the number of organ donors has risen significantly since the introduction of an opt out rather than opt in system therefore increasing the chances of getting a donor should you be in that situation? Bodily autonomy is meaningless if you’re dead.

My reasoning and beliefs are entirely personal and private, and I have as much desire to respond to your accusatory statements as I do to be bullied into being on the register.

I had been on the donor register since I was 16 before they made this switch to presumptive opt-in. It's a question of consent. And I am absolutist when it comes to consent, especially in terms of state v individual.

Soontob60

if what you are saying is correct, then why would a medic be at risk of legal action if the patient had chosen for their medical records to be changed to indicate female but the patient was born male? Who’s going to sue them? The patient who didn’t tell them their birth sex? Can you see how implausible that would be?

I might not have explained very clearly. The potential legal action I’m talking about would be accusations of medical negligence if the doctor ended up missing something key and/or gave the wrong treatment (like in the case of the trans kidney patient who nearly died because their stats were measured against male levels instead of female). Presumably a claim might not succeed if it is demonstrated that a patient withheld important information but for the doctor, just the issue of being reported and potentially going through legal action would be a huge stress.

I’m not saying these things will definitely happen (although to a certain extent they already have) but it is reckless for a government or the NHS to allow a person to obscure their birth sex in a medical situation.

It is not particularly helpful for the trans person as the information has to come out anyway in many situations and it is certainly not fair to put an extra layer of complication into our overworked medical staff and out them at risk of inadvertently doing someone harm.

If they are conflating gender and sex then they are listing male, female and OTHER as possible sexes, as well as transgender.

This is not just for those opting out. I was asked the same questions when choosing to opt in (with preferences).

Surely they either need the information (in which case collect it) or they don't (in which case new laws mean they can't collect it) .....

So going to reinforce why are they asking

ps of course it needs to be sex or nothing - Gender has to be totally irrelevant???? no relation to anything with regard to organ transplant I would have thought

No idea why 'gender would need to be recorded though, except maybe for working out who to target campaigns at.

Agreed - it's about opting-out not opting-in.

As a slight aside, my family member is a GP. Their practice allows patients to change their sex marker and unlink with previous medical records (I don’t know if they actually get erased but they become disassociated with that patients name).

The GPs feel that it is unsafe to do this and means that they are potentially making treatment decisions on a patient with a blindfold and one hand tied behind their back so to speak (apart being massively limited for time and resources).

The way the GPs mitigate the risk that they see is to put a secret birth sex marker on the patients records. The patient isn’t aware of it but the doctors can see it and act accordingly.

I’m not sure how they attempt to mitigate the lack of previous medical records- I guess they just have to hope that the patient tells them what they need to know (not guaranteed given the lengths to which people will go to obscure their birth decision and a lack of medical knowledge means that they don’t necessarily know what information is important in a given scenario).

This does leave the doctors at risk of legal action for incorrect treatment of a patient died or was seriously injured as a result which is a concern.

The point of this whole issue is that obscuring a persons birth sex can lead to all sorts of unintended consequences.