How to respond: been asked what sex I was assigned at birth

Ten years ago no one would have had trouble answering a health form asking ‘what is your sex?’ The only reason anyone might now is because of pandering to these fools and allowing the corruption of language including ‘assigned at birth’.

Ha! It is amazing the glee with which organisations such as Scientific American and Harvard have thrown away their good reputations in pursuit of I’m not sure what….

Yes. There are a lot of younger people who have been badly taught, have learned horrible misinformation.

I mean, look. 'Scientific American' FFS:

'Plentiful data and analyses support the assertions that sex is very complex in humans and that binary and simplistic explanations for human sex biology are either wholly incorrect or substantially incomplete.'

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-why-human-sex-is-not-binary/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/

If the answers to 2-4 are all No but the patient still answers 1 with anything other than what's on their original birth certificate, then they deserve to have their form set on fire and filed in the bin.

I'm so sorry, I forgot that people can get their birth certificates changed. 😡

I think pp are talking about two different things ie 'what's the best question to get a useful answer?' and 'is this question giving succour to our ideological enemies?'

I would ask 1. Sex F or M 2. DSD? (pick from drop-down list) 3. Drugs? (free-form entry) 4. Surgeries? (free-form entry).

If the answers to 2-4 are all No but the patient still answers 1 with anything other than what's on their birth certificate, then they deserve to have their form set on fire and filed in the bin.

No need to even ask for gender identity, unless it's a psychiatric assessment.

My guess would be that people with a DSD are very much aware of what sex they are, and why it would be important to make sure an HCP knows. I also agree that there needs to be education to ensure people know the difference between sex and gender, that sex can’t change, and maybe some of the health implications of getting that wrong. Maybe that should be on the school curriculum 🤔

Or maybe just a victim of the current magical thinking, which says that a person can actually change sex? That could be doing a lot of harm to vulnerable people.

@SaffronSpice Thankyou for that link, those charts are really accessible.
" For those rare individuals with a DSD tests are typically done at birth and will include whole genome sequencing (not just karyotyping)"
That's the odd thing about this phrase coming into fashion now. Decades ago, before we had genome sequencing, if a baby was born with ambiguous genetalia their sex would be assigned. Then, at pubery, the assignation might prove to be wrong. So someone over 40 with a DSD may well have a sex assigned at birth different to their actual sex. This couldn't happen now, assignaion is unnecessary because we have the technology for full diagnosis.
I wonder how they'd respond if you emailed saying, "I seem to only be able to access the form intended for individuals with DSDs" ?

I was just going to say the same!

In zoom training sessions you get assigned to a sub group when they split you into rooms for discussion. Someone else decides where you are and off you go. That's what assigned means.

If you were assigned a sex at birth, that would mean we all came out of our mums, smooth like dolls between our legs, and a midwife went, 'this one is a girl' and a cunt appeared, or 'this was is a boy' and a penis and testicles appeared (and all the internal sex stuff too).

Even on their own terms, assigning sex does not make sense to Gender ideologists. Being trans means, according to them, a gender identity at odds with your sex. So you still have a fixed sex. So they should be comfortable with sex existing as a fixed and observable thing.

Instead its like, at some point in the early days of Gender Ideology, the conversation went:
TRA ' TW are women because of their gender identity, so they should be in all the women spaces and things.'
Feminist ' But those spaces exist to protect women because of differences in sex, not gender identity.'
TRA ' Yeah, well, well, yeah well, , yeah, well, well, er, umm, well, er, umm, yeah well, sex is not really a thing anyway! Yeah that its it! Sex is not really a thing anyway, so there!'

And after saying that, they got stuck in all this nonsense they then had to make up to defend why sex is not really a thing and doesn't really matter.

If you are really interest in DSD then you might find the following charts of development pathways helpful. For those rare individuals with a DSD tests are typically done at birth and will include whole genome sequencing (not just karyotyping), ultrasound, MRI scans, blood work etc. Most DSD affect many body systems and you would likely not be dealing with typical blood ranges. That doesn’t STILL doesn’t mean they are some ‘other’ sex (there are still just two gamete types). It means they are male or female with a condition that affected their sex developmental pathway.

https://www.theparadoxinstitute.com/read/sex-development-charts

Completely agree, @Ereshkigalangcleg, though I do actually have a degree in biomedical materials science, with a masters in a specific type of stem cell therapy. So, I do have the background, even though I work in comms now. But, this is not my area of expertise, so I am asking the questions that would help build my knowledge to the point that the right word choice can be determined. If you’ve worked in comms, you know that’s what we do…get the experts to explain it to us so we can translate and ensure that non-experts can understand.

That’s also why I asked for further explanation of the pp who was discussing the link between gender ideology and women’s oppression - your explanation was really helpful, thank you! I couldn‘t see it but I can now.

Are you suggesting they came out of the vaginal canal in that attire?

You forget that TRA, like LBGT Youth who wrote the Scottish Government’s school guidelines, think that 4 year olds know their gender and that this should be affirmed by the school in secret without letting their parents know.

LGBT Youth is also currently under police investigation for child sexual exploitation and grooming.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lgbt-youth-scotland-refers-itself-to-police-over-historical-grooming-claims-v6wdvwclm

@Musomama1 @LauraNorda - yep, agreeing with both of you - if you read my further posts, you’ll see I went into the language choice last night. It’s not a good word, but I was trying to explore how it had come to be the word that is used (even though I didn’t like it).

@2024GarlicCloves - Yes! What sex were you at birth would seem to be the simplest, along with a simple explanation of what sex means as many people, trans included, get it mixed up with gender, which can lead to adverse health outcomes. It was certainly the one I was advocating for at my last job.

But I’m asking what, given the potential for variations in genetic or phenotypic sex, it is exactly that determines the differences between interpreting male and female test results, say. What is it that answers that question in a way that ensures you get the right advice…how do you know which sex you are if, as a previous poster called it, you are ‘ambiguous’? I am genuinely asking, as that helps me to ensure that the wording used is absolutely right…and everyone understands what is meant. What is that biological mechanism or presence that you can test for and point to as proof for either M or F sex? Again…I am absolutely not trying to stir…this is just a question that has always confused me. Any help with answering it would be hugely appreciated!

Actually that's a really good point.

Sex assigned at birth should now become irrelevant because it was decided for you by someone else (a medical professional) and you were never asked for and never gave consent for whatever sex you were assigned.

Plus being one day old you couldn't actually speak to express your opinion/ consent.

So logically there should be no assignment of sex until the person gives their consent, which would be at 18. And on that basis there could be no boys or girls until the age 18 just very small, smallish, medium sized people.

I know I'm not adding anything new to the thread but I am so so so sick of all this nonsense mutilation of language and reality that I want to repeat what many have said:
The question should be "What sex are you?" (with a separate question for anyone who also wants to state a gender identity. Sex is not assigned.
Anyone asking for a bodily service should expect to be asked, with clarity, about their bodily status (not about an alleged bureaucratic status generated by a form-filler at the time of their birth).

I notice you don't say you have any form of medical qualification or biology qualifications, @LaughingCat. I too have worked in "healthcare communications" and it's a different skillset.

Pretending that sex is a complicated term which isn't universally understood is just a tactic used to validate gender theory. Sex - male or female is simple. "gender" is complex, made up and pretty irrelevant when it comes to health are, apart from in relation to mental health and gender dysphoria.

But thats true of everything. Do you ever ask anyone what eye colour they were assigned at birth, or blood group or hair colour? Have people been 'assigned' a cleft palate or Downs syndrome?

The word 'assigned' is totally unneccesary. The question is simply 'What sex are you'?

Because sex isn't assigned at birth. It's observed, often in the womb. Sex also doesn't change, the question seems to suggest it does.

Plenty of midwives are rankled by this terminology.

what clinicians really need to ask is ‘what genitals were you born with?

That's got nothing to do with blood chemistry. As has been said in multiple ways, we are ALL either male or female. That's the only two available sexes in mammals.

Our sex is determined the moment an egg accepts a sperm.

It doesn't matter whether genes have translocated, the X and Y chromosomes are replicated in unusual combinations, or the foetus develops abnormal genitals. The sex is M or F as determined right at the very beginning.

It's also worth mentioning there is no such thing as a true hermaphrodite in humans. A vanishingly small number of people have a mixture of male & female cells for various reasons, but they are STILL one sex or the other; they're medical curiosities, but there's no need to change the language of 100% of people for an 0.000001% with freaky composition.

All you need to ask is What sex were you at birth? Obviously I'd prefer a simple "What is your sex" but am aware some respondents would choose to misinterpret that.

Point is, no fucker assigned it!

What does identify with a gender mean?

I think there should be a campaign that targets Trans people, reminding them to be honest with HCP in order to receive the appropriate care. Why not? They are a tiny minority in this country. In the entire world I believe. So it really makes more sense to target them, instead of subjecting all the rest of us to unclear and inaccurate, and often offensive wording. We all know whether we are male or female. Even the Trans people know, they just need to inform people where it is relevant.

This is just a bunch of twaddle.

Two start with the basics, there are just two sexes: males = small motile gametes, females = large immobile gametes. Some species have both sexes at the same time (sunflowers), others sequentially (clown fish), all mammels are just one sex and never change sex. In all cases there are just two sexes. There is no third gamete.

Sex in humans is controlled by genes, not the whole chromosome upon which they typically reside. Principally the SRY gene. The presence of SRY leads to the male developmental pathway. The absence leads to the female developmental pathway. It is this, not karyotype (xx, xy, xxx, xo, xxy etc) that controls sex (the development of small motile gametes - male, or the development of large immobile gametes - female). Mutations along these developmental pathways (DSD) do not make you an ‘other’ sex; they make you male or female with variations in sexual characteristics.

You should let your HCP know about any genetic conditions, including whether you are a male with Klinefelter’s syndrome or female with Turner’s syndrome , or if you are taking any drugs including cross sex hormones.