The NHS want to know what genitalia I have

This was a home testing kit. No anything to do with attending a clinic. Home testing kits are provided (amongst other reasons) to encourage uptake of testing for women who might otherwise not attend an in person test. There will be plenty of (obvious) reasons why women might want a home testing kit, and people who are triaging the access to them ought to be aware of that and interact with patients with that in mind.

Now women have to answer silly and intrusive questions just to appease ideologues.

Oh for goodness sake, it's a clinic for willies, fannies and the clap. Last time I went I was asked all about my sexual history, what I liked doing in the bedroom and then had things inserted into orifices by someone I'd only known for five minutes. Being asked what was in my underwear would have been insignificant small talk.

It's not a sensible question. "What is your sex, male or female?" is a simpler starting point. No one is assigned a gender a birth. Sex is noted, at birth, and prior to that often via scans or via various in utero tests, for example.

You could then ask about whether or not the patient has had sex reassignment surgery or cross sex hormones if that's relevant to the specific tests being carried out.

Your genitalia are definitely important when it comes to STI testing. And I guess they're trying to avoid confusion in case people don't understand the various permutations of assigned at birth, sex, gender, non-binary etc. Or perhaps they need to adapt the tests if you've had surgery to alter your genitals. It seems a very reasonable question to me. If you're having an STI test then you are going to be asked quite a lot of questions that don't get asked when you buy a coffee

oh for goodness sake. Male and female used to cover this nicely and simply before all this other rubbish language complicated things. Now women have to answer silly and intrusive questions just to appease ideologues.

Your genitalia are definitely important when it comes to STI testing. And I guess they're trying to avoid confusion in case people don't understand the various permutations of assigned at birth, sex, gender, non-binary etc. Or perhaps they need to adapt the tests if you've had surgery to alter your genitals. It seems a very reasonable question to me. If you're having an STI test then you are going to be asked quite a lot of questions that don't get asked when you buy a coffee.

I'm sorry you had to go through this. I honestly don't understand why they can't just say "are you male or female? Are you transgender?" then if the person says they are transgender then they can go through all the genital stuff with them. Inclusive without all the nonsense about gender/sex being assigned at birth.

Surely they need to know your sex to know your genitalia?

So sorry you have had this experience 😔

what an altogether horrible experience.