I have to ask elderly patients for their gender identity

Worlds gone mad hasn’t it?

Especially as these are elderly you have to be careful
“Mrs Jones I just need to ask a few questions that we have to ask all our patients

… age/dob etc and then say “ I have to ask to ask the question what do you identify as?”

I can imagine the responses though… ‘ a teapot’ ‘ a giraffe’

I think as long as youve built up a good rapport and show in facial expressions/tone that you dont want to ask but need to

I'd point blank refuse to facilitate this absolute bollocks

I have elderly relatives that aren't up on current gender issues and would assume their femininity / masculinity was being queried. I can just imagine them speaking to me afterwards and saying something along the lines of "isn't it obvious I'm a woman/man?".

Down right disrespectful but of course we have to pander to the minority

I worked in a hospital before gender identity became a big issue. What was an issue was ethnicity/nationality. I have seen rows where a receptionist asked a patient for their nationality. The patient would state their nationality was English and the receptionist told them that there was no such thing as English. The list the receptionist had to complete had British or white British as an option rather than English. The receptionist should just have ticked the British box instead of starting a row.

Who even cares if you ask or not? Who is actually going to be bothered to check or who is going to be bothered to complain if you don't ask. This stupid gender talk is just a phase, an embarrassing one at that, of which society will grow out of in few years, hopefully sooner rather than later!
Just don't ask

You mentioned that you are not in the UK.
It all depends on the organisation you work in and the law and regulation applicable where you are.What country are you in?

My elderly relatives know all about ‘the issue’ and would either take the piss / give a facetious answer / subject you to a rant. Don’t assume all elderly people would find it confusing! My DF took great delight in crafting a reply to an email with a ‘she/her’ (from an old fashioned type of woman) after the name recently.

It's a ridiculous question to have to ask, but my guess is that if they're not familiar with the term 'gender identity', they'll most likely assume it's 'gender' as a euphemism for sex and answer man or woman - maybe with some puzzlement that you can't tell.

My elderly parents, both of whom had dementia, would have found that distressing, not for ideological reasons, but because it was one more question they were being asked when they found being questioned stressful because they could not hear and were often confused about the answers because of their dementia. Unless the questions were to measure dementia or test memory we, as their carers, used to help out by answering or repeating the question or similar. I can imagine that in these situations the asker might receive some terse responses. My parents were never asked for their sex in face to face questionnaires when the interviewer was facing them because it was so bloody obvious.

@Hepwo don't forget that anyone can identify as an other than themselves gender regardless of clothes, Arnold Schwarzenegger could identify as female tomorrow and remain exactly as he is.

You can imagine the conversation with an 80 year old man.
What is your gender identity?

What's that?

Do you wear women's clothing ever?

How funny.

The assumption that you are going to explain gender identity if the patient doesn't know is interesting. This can go in any direction at all!

Your patients will surely have male or female on their medical records, so its redundant question really. If they come into hospital with a female complaint they will be treated accordingly

What a pile of shit!

Can you imagine the conversation?
"So what gender do you identify as Mr parker?"
"Sorry love I can't hear you"

The world's gone nuts!

Feck that. I wouldn’t do it.

Anecdotally, I have heard that patients who have had surgical reassignment forget that fact when suffering dementia, and are distressed by their condition. So Norman would be more likely to be distressed by the frock than the trousers. :(

If anyone asked me this, I think I'd find it hard to resist spending at least the next 10 minutes trying to get them to define it and help me figure out what they (or their manager) want me to say...

Wouldn't want to put a wrong answer down in such an important area, so they would have to get very specific about how I know what my gender identity is so I get it right.

I'd also want to know how it impacts the treatment - which clearly it must or we wouldn't be spending all this time trying to figure out what mine is.

This is why I didn’t end up retraining in healthcare. One of the “could you be a carer?” questions was along the lines of, “Norman is 90 and has dementia. Norman’s daughter set out trousers and a shirt for him to wear and asks you to dress him in these. Norman wants to wear a dress today. What do you do?” And my response was to ask him a question like “are you sure you want to wear a dress?”

Apparently that was a fail and wrongthink because if Norman identifies differently we should unquestioningly support him and forget the dignity of elderly patients with dementia. And wearing a dress means you Identify Differently and is nothing at all to do with having dementia.

Who the hell do they think they are helping? My heart goes out to the elderly people having to suffer this undignified treatment and the carers having to support it.

How many elderly people could answer ‘what’s your gender identity’ ffs?

Ooooh that’s good. Extra points for each time you have to call your boss in to explain it « because you don’t understand »

if medical professionals can legitimately refuse to perform abortions and hand out morning after pills due to their beliefs, surely it should be possible to opt out of gender questions!

I would say so as sex is Number 1 in terms of importance and you need to know if you observe it or ask it. Gender - well hmmmmmmm....I think you will get a lot of confusion and " I've just told you that".

I hope lots of your patients have no idea what you mean by gender identity and it takes you ages to explain it to them (good luck with that, I couldn't do it as it makes no sense to me). Then your line manager would be having to ask you 'Crabby, why did you only see two patients today?'

Then maybe they'd bin it.