The disgraceful RCN and Nurse Jennifer Melle

Indeed gets confusing @UpDo ! My debate was more around medical professionals refusing to ever use "preferred pronouns" and / or insisting on same sex pronouns.

Not aware it's been thought about so I thought I'd throw myself in the ring.

Am a pragmatist I don't mean when medical practitioners are busy. But ever i.e. even if someone is deceased and talking to relatives using "preferred pronouns".

No. There's no surely, and this is a fundamentally terrible argument.

Femaleness and maleness exist outside of human cultures and words and do not change. This is not true of language, which means use of female terms for a male are factually wrong in a way that using someone's legal name isn't. Referring to TW Jen Smith as Jen Smith is correct, referring to him as female is not. There isn't any more to it than that.

He challenged her on it, after he heard her. She was explaining why she used “he” that he had overheard. She didn’t just come out with it as a spiel when she was introduced to him 🙄 then he called her the n word multiple times.

Apologies for the error. We seem to be quite confused about each other!

Okay right back to Genesis suppose a female name like Eve that right now only refers to a group of biological women called "Eve".

A transwomen decides to call themselves "Eve". And wants to be called "Eve".

If you are saying pronouns and "Eve" are descriptive and changed then so can "she".

Both are words referencing a group of women according to your theory. If one changes then the other can change.

(There are also issues with a descriptive theory of language which is why we go back to referring for truth values but nm.)

Presumably continuing to quote the Bible this nurse should object to having to call a British man "Eve".

That is fundamentally a Christian female name, after the first woman. If sex is so important it's surely important for names not just pronouns.

It has been, as well as having a male meaning in a different culture to mine long before I was born, and no I don't care.

But the distinction is that the pronoun refers to people who are members of a sex class, and that's all it means. Jen and John don't. We could use different words, refer to females as qwertyuiop instead of she and her, but either way the femaleness that they referred to would still be immutable in a way that no personal name is. This is why the two things are not the same.

Also I think you may have me confused with another poster, I have worked in the NHS but am not a HCP.

@UpDo PS it wasn't me advocating for linguistic gymnastics when discussing male bits.

I get it's high pressured but in that case why is it such a massive issue that a nurse has to start explaining to a patient that she can't used "preferred pronouns"?

You can't have it both ways. Either it's extremely important to you you aren't "lying" or you've got better things to worry about than pronouns.

I appreciate your perspective as a HCP. On other sites that are TRA though they make the opposite point and say it is easy and saves time and issues to use preferred pronouns.

I think expecting anyone who works on a busy medical ward to give any thought to the philosophy of language whilst working is entirely unrealistic, tbh.

It also wouldn't be practical not to call someone by their legal name in a medical setting, when we live in a society where adults can call themselves almost anything they want. If you wanted to refer to TW Jen Smith by his previous name when discussing with another clinician, you'd have to dig it out and rely on the person you're communicating with to know what you were talking about. It would waste time, serve to confuse. In that respect, it's the opposite of the linguistic gymnastics you were advocating for upthread when talking about how a TWs urinary problems should be referred to.

We do actually have to bear in mind that we're talking about high pressure, sometimes life or death environments where we can't afford the staff to waste mental energy on linguistic wanking.

A transgender or any patient in bed cannot help overhearing what staff are saying about them.

So it's not a non issue. If someone's "misgendered" they will hear it.

Or in other words, why is it okay for a name that has been only used for women to be "just a value we happen to assign" and not for a pronoun to be, also a value assigned.

There are obviously names that are only used for women. Part of the purpose of a name is to identify sex. Would you be okay if your feminine name was used by a transwoman?

So you agree that use of preferred pronouns is actually a non-issue in real life situations. The patient should not have been listening in to a private phone call between two HCPs as it may not even have concerned him.

Thanks. I can understand many see using "preferred pronouns" as lying.

I have a different take on this from philosophy of language, studied eons ago.

A lie is an assertion that someone makes despite believing it to be false.

From a philosophy of language perspective, pronouns don't by themselves have any truth value, they function to refer.

So "Debbie is cold, she asked for a blanket" is true if and only if she asked for a blanket. It isn't lying if Debbie is not a biological woman, the "she" points to Debbie.

Or it's equivalent to Debbie is cold and Debbie asked for a blanket.

But it's not the same as saying "Debbie is cold, the biological woman called Debbie" asked for a blanket which is false and so saying it would be a lie, I agree (unless you are Dr. Upton and believe a trans women is a biological woman).

Names are quite different to pronouns. There's nothing inherent about certain names being common for males or females, it's just a value we happen to assign and it can change. So the word or at least concept of female has an immutable meaning, which isn't the case for the name Jen instead of John.

Hi @PrettyDamnCosmic sorry for missing your post, thought I'd replied.

In this case the nurse was using pronouns on the phone with a doctor and was overheard by the patient who got pissed. I've had pronouns used in I.e. reports too.

I agree that noone uses third person pronouns directly to a patient.

Thanks all, sorry for being a bit snarky last night! I enjoy a good debate but when everyone piles on it gets a tad overwhelming 😉

I am now retired but I think that I am the only HCP who has commented on this thread so have practical experience of this issue. You don't seem that keen on a debate as you ignored my previous post but I will repeat it for you.

The only pronoun needed to use to a patient's face is "you". What they are called when being discussed among HCPs is none of the patient's business. I cannot see any circumstance where you would need to use a patient's preferred pronouns. Quite often we refer to patients by illness not name e.g. the MI in bed 7, the D&V in bed 9 or Pain In The Arse in bed 5.

R.e. other threads, yes on second thoughts that wasn't a good definition of transgenderism that doesn't claim transwomen are biological women. Just plucked it off the net.

I am not a TRA so it would be silly for me to try and defend a position I don't hold.

Just not sure where I am on the issue of medical professionals be required to use preferred pronouns for transgender. Or refrain from using correct sex pronouns.

I'm uncomfortable with a medical professional deciding they can conscientiously object on religious grounds and say so to a patient.

It's interesting quite a few see using preferred pronouns this as lying or willing to engage in false beliefs.

Are you willing to use feminine names for a transwomen still?

Thanks all, sorry for being a bit snarky last night! I enjoy a good debate but when everyone piles on it gets a tad overwhelming 😉

R.e. confidentiality, again this is what Jennifer Melle was suspended for. Obviously she has every right to a fair hearing.

But all patients have the right to medical confidentiality - even if they are the most awful person imaginable they still have that right.

Even if the patient's name is not included, if enough information is included they are identifiable that's a breach.

I'm surprised she didn't get legal advice before going to the press about a patient - or maybe she did and didn't care.

Yes, and the appropriate analogy with the Last Rites is that the clinicians shouldn't be expected to provide or participate in them.

You are saying exactly the same thing as me, you just don't realise it.

"an individual" == "someone"
"self-defines their gender" == "thinks, feels or lives"
"other than what they were assigned at birth"" == "makes them a man or a woman rather than their body"

Presumably you will not agree, so please explain what you think the difference is between

"an individual who self-defines their gender as one other than what they were assigned at birth"

and

"the belief that how someone thinks, feels or lives makes them a man or a woman rather than their body"

And more importantly, why this "gender" which isn't anything to do with sex should be given more social and legal significance than sex?

Bonus points if it occurs to you to consider what the difference is from the perspective of more people than just the one doing the self-defining.

But isn’t that ‘literal genocide’ or ‘erasing trans people’? 🤷‍♀️

That is just insane.

I had assumed that “releasing detailed medical information about the patient” meant “using language (i.e. pronouns) that revealed the patient was male” (when anyone could see that anyway).