Doctors set out medical guidelines for trans men giving birth - Times

I think guidance for trans men is a good thing. I don’t really understand why you’d want to be pregnant / give birth if you have such major issues with your female body but it’s not for me to say. If there is language / treatment that helps trans men at a sensitive time then great.

But that should be entirely possible without disregarding the vast majority of women who either don’t have a gender identity or don’t have a problem with it.

Jesus. How much fucking time and money is spent on all this hand wringing for a very few people. How many women, who desperately hate being a women so much that they go through a transition to present as a "man" will go on to get pregnant and have a baby? Versus how many black and Asian women who have had shoddy healthcare during pregnancy and birth. Millions of black women receive dangerously shit healthcare, but no lets spend millions on talking about trans people, meeting after meeting, people employed on large salaries to write policy after policy on what is essentially a belief system of nothing.

I want specialised healthcare and a new glossary of words for my fairy wings.

I totally agree with you!!
I was being sarcastic,🙄 which doesn't come across very well in text.

This is the only "religion" (and it IS a religion) that has invaded law and legislation to the upper level and is now changing the way the majority of people are treated.
How has it got to the point where the feelings of the very few are outweighing those of the majority?
To appease the feelings of what we are told is a tiny minority, that language itself has to change at the expense of the CLARITY of a health service?

Medicine has to do with PHYSICAL SEXED BODIES.
It should never be (apart from the field of psychology perhaps) about how people "identify".
This is total bullshit.

In a world where people are left on trolleys in hospital corridors for endless hours, where you can't get GP appointments, where it is taking YEARS to see a consultant (still on waiting list after 1.2 years), where there is a staffing crisis, where there is no money for vital services........they have the time to indulge this utter horse shit?

I have already said this but my 71 year old Mother recently had a stroke, was in a hospital corridor for 15 hours on a trolley as there were no beds. What do you think the FIRST question the doctor asked her was?
"How do you identify"?.
She took one look at my face and went on to the next question.

THAT's the bullshit we are facing.
The NHS is captured and doomed.

Yes I agree.

@NitroNine Agree with every word of your post.

I read that as ass covering for the Doctors against future litigation.

Quote from article:
It [the guideline] says transgender people should be offered advice about fertility preservation before having gender hormone therapy. For example transgender women, who were born with male organs, should be offered the chance to freeze their sperm. It also says hysterectomies, when the womb is surgically removed, should be offered to transgender men.
This makes it sound as though women can just take their wombs out and pop them in the freezer in case they decide they want to have children in the future, the way men can with sperm. When in fact it is the direct opposite.
Horrible the way it lulls the reader into a false sense of security about the future options for these patients.

Are they allowing comments on the article?

A side issue. The banner ad. I got, at top of the page, was a drag queen/tw being used to advertise makeup. I think for Boots or Fenty. I suppose they'll sell more makeup if everyone's applying it with a shovel.

I've been on NHS waiting list for 18 months

tell them you are a man

Having had a quick look at the document it's startling how much of it is taken up with endless paragraphs about feelings, perception and language - page after page of it - and how little focuses on medicine.
The language policing is deliberate to ensure that all hcps are perpetually anxious and second guessing themselves when treating someone who identifies as a man yet is having a baby. Maybe because it might expose the current disgraceful state of maternity care for women and babies and highlight the fact that the The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (which presides over the catastrophic shitshow) have found another (miniscule) group to expend all their energies on rather than ensuring that their core patients - women and babies - all receive safe maternity care.

So sorry. I've lost count of the number of posts I've read from women saying how hard to was to get a hysterectomy because of gatekeeping about changing your mind, does your partner want more kids in future etc, yet utter the magic words 'I am trans' and it all opens up?

Does anyone remember an Australian article about a woman who pretended to be trans to speed up acceptance for a hysterectomy?

I don't feel like "desexed language" or gender neutral should be used in any general health documentation/information where biological sex is relevant. By all means be respectful of a person's chosen pronouns and use gender neutral terms with the person individually but information relating to healthcare should always be in the clearest possible terms. Using more complicated but "inclusive" language can render it completely inaccessible to people with poor literacy skills, people who speak English (or whichever language it is written in) as an additional language or only speak a little of it. Whereas a transgender person knows what their biological sex is in order to identify as trans and therefore must know a document referring to male/female refers to them, so while not "inclusive" they can still access the information.

Can you point me to scientific sources for this? I would like to have backup when arguing this point.

i agree it’s a good thing for there to be a specific set of guidelines for trans men and different language etc

however I wish there was this much emphasis on respectful care, dignity, appropriate language choices, discussion over mode of birth for everybody! This is what all women need!

This bit from the draft guidance is interesting:

"Mode of birth should be discussed with all
trans men who desire pregnancy, ideally
during a pre-pregnancy counselling
appointment, but at minimum before the
third trimester"

How is this different from women giving birth? Shouldn't all women be given the option of planned caesarean if they want it? We all know in practice that they're not, but if not, why not?

Its not a documemt which can be ignored.

If a doctor (or any HCP) is subject to a complaint the best pratice documents and this type of guidance will be used to benchmark.
The benchmark test will be the documents say that the HCP should have done X, but did Y.

The doctors who specialises and becomes a member agrees to follow the rules and agrees to be disiplined accordingly.

These new doctors are being trained to pretend that sex is not relevant in single sex health care provision.
And apparently to provide male reproductive healtcare to males on female wards in clinics etc. when they trained to be specialist in female reproductive healthcare.

There is treating someone with dignity and respect as in seeing the person not the medical problem; and there is political grandstanding.

I agree - there have been some very disturbing stories about the effects on babies of testosterone inadvertently transferred from men using HRT gel. I don't know if any research has looked at the effect in transmen.

The documentary made by the journalist 'Freddie' about pregnancy was interesting in this respect. I cannot agree with his/her stance on many issues but it did give me a lot more sympathy about what it feels like to be a transman.

Will someone challenge this legally? Sex Matters?

chestfeeding FFS

This is particularly infuriating given that we actually do have a group of people in this country where there is such a notable health disparity - the BLACHIR Report is absolutely damning - but while there was a flurry of coverage about the fact black women are four times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth than white women there’s been a distinct lack of action.

Of course, when it comes to maternity services specifically, the one issue is a bit harder to unpick & address. It might involve people actually dying rather than hearing words that somehow make them feel more uncomfortable than the actual physical reality of being pregnant. The bigger group of women - the ones doing the dying - are the ones who lack power. They contain a number of women who rely on clear language [that their child can translate for them]. Add a targeted leaflet for trans men. That’s what happens for other minority groups. They get a targeted leaflet, rather than a change to the entire NHS that will render it less accessible to other users.

Do we have any actual studies into health disparities in the trans community? I’d be astonished if there were any, given the general resistance to any kind of accurate data collection (see the last England & Wales Census) & shutting down of research of “the wrong type”. There are lots of groups of people who are hesitant to engage with medical professionals due to bad experiences: people with [a history of] mental health issues & people who are obese are two obvious examples. Both much larger sectors of the population, but again, nobody’s running around to change things for them.

Trans men not being called for cervical screenings is absolutely a huge issue - and one that should have been fixed years ago. Fields for sex + (optional) gender are needed for the NHS; no changing your NHS number; no pretence sex is mutable.

The fact that people are still trying to insist trans women should be treated on female wards enrages me. There is no privacy in a hospital bay & it’s bad enough other women being privy to intimate details about your body. Males, however they may choose to identify, have no place there.

I know the NHS is doing this because it’s thoroughly captured, but given it’s impossible to satisfy TRAs, it really would be nice if this energy and funding could be diverted to groups who’d really benefit from it. You know, ones where people are actually dying; not ones where activists make unfounded claims re: suicide/suicidality of children & young people & utterly misrepresent the nature of some brutal drugs. It’s no wonder there were TM complaining about delays to their mastectomies in 2020 because cancer patients were being prioritised - the NHS has done nothing to quash that kind of entitlement nor the narrative their surgeries are “life saving”. Ugh.

^What did the NHS say about the changes?*
NHS Digital said it followed standards and guidelines set out in the NHS service manual . It says those writing for the NHS website should “only mention sex, gender or sexuality if they’re relevant, for example, to signpost people and help them get the health information and access to treatment they need

When a medical professional reads a manual and is too stupid to connect the dots and signs off on medical texts:

Why is gender-neutral language in healthcare controversial?
Campaigners say “desexing” medical language denies basic biology and risks marginalising women. Earlier this year the NHS was criticised for removing the word “women” from internet pages on ovarian, womb and cervical cancers. It now says: “Anyone with ovaries can get ovarian cancer.” It also removed the word “women” and “woman” from its menopause guidance.

When dealing with sex specific health care the word woman may be a little clue

@GettingMarriedAgain political capture?

Plus I am guessing that male post-op physical examinations etc ended up in the area with the equipment needed to carry them out with the least hassle for the medical staff.

So here is the dilema, the Breeder of Baby doctors guidance says that women go to womens wards and men to the mens.

By that logic the men breeders should be admited to a men's abdominal ward and the doctors should respect the identity and do all their breeder management stuff on that ward.
The nurses in the abdominal may need a little upskilling on breeder stuff and may have to be sent for an extra days or two training on breeder stuff but that should not be a problem. Its not like the nurses, who do the day to day paitent management, gain experience in their area to know when things are not going well. That never happens.

But I am guessing the guidance did not recomend that men breeder's are placed in the men's wards as that would require the doctor to remember to visit an additional ward??

@Iknowitisheresomewhere reminders for sex specific testing etc is generated by using search paramaters on a database, the first is always going to be sex the second is normally age.
If an adult female is sufficiently competent to instruct that her medical record be fabricated to change her sex marker to male, then she needs to be able to take responsibility for the outcomes.