Why am I being asked by the NHS if my 8 month old baby 'still identifies as the gender assigned at birth?'

[Beatricebotterx]

We had a medical concern with our 8 month old baby, so I rang 111 for advice, we got directed to a lovely nurse to ask further questions, all going well until she asked....

'Does she identify as the gender assigned at birth?'

Oh wait a minute, let me just ASK her..

Surely parents wouldn't have made that decision to 'change the gender' of their baby?

What is going on, I understand the question may need to be asked for older teenagers/adults but a baby?!?!

Aibu to feel a bit annoyed and confused?

Feminism is fundamental opposed to patriarchy. Which is again, a social construct of rules and privileges assigned to a person because of their gender or sex, which used to be wholly interchangeable because their was no concept of fluidity or diversion - the issue is that the social construct of gender has changed - arguably attributable in part to the feminist movement - but of course feminists are not a homogenous group and therefore cannot be assumed to have wholly the same beliefs, other than the foundational element of the movement which is general opposition to the patriarchy… anyway.. wholeheartedly agree, gender and sex are two different things….. which is why organisations ask whether the person engaging has different answers to this questions. Makes perfect sense.

So then your upset is related to a missing question on the form: what is your biological sex, rather than the question of whether your gender has changed…….

@Mittemucci

As far as I’m aware pretty much all countries require your parents or guardians to assign you a name I order for you to be registered as a person

that’s not what you said, you said babies were given a name at birth. Whereas in fact babies are given a name which their parents chose and that is formally recorded when the birth is registered with the authorities.

Some parents chose a name before birth, at birth or even weeks later. Some choose it and then change it later by whatever legal process is required in their country.

Some adults change it later by other legal procedures.

It’s different in each country, throughout time and in each family. That’s because these are LEGAL rules and SOCIAL CONVENTIONS. They can and do change.

But none of this has anything to do with sex, which is determined at conception. This has been the same throughout human history, in every country and family, in every society and regardless of the law of the country.

Everyone has a sex, some may have one , more or no genders.

In the Uk there is no legal definition of gender and the government does not assign anyone a gender. You can keep saying it all you like but it doesn’t make true.

Most people here on MN have had a baby in the UK or they were born here, they have a Uk birth certificate which they can read. It’s quite easy for then to see you are talking nonsense.

111 operators use the same script for every caller. That’s why I get asked if I could be pregnant - given that I was born in 1950 something that seems highly unlikely.

Except the uk does have a legal definition of gender…….
https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/measuringequality/genderidentity

also, quite clearly, I agree with you that gender is socially assigned - not prescribed by an authority. The authority assigns your sex, based on you physically characteristics- then those around you assign your gender based on your sex…..

This.

Also sex is not defined at conception. You may need a biology lesson there.

StarlightLime · Today 11:07

Amelia will be a girl no matter how much hair she has or what clothes she wears.
Do you imagine dressing a boy in a pink baby grow will make him a girl? Interesting in it's extreme stupidity

If you substitute dressing a boy as a monkey or as a elephant... I identify as an elephant, well good luck but it doesn't make you an elephant.

I think a big problem is that until very recently in human history most non-pedantic, average people engaging in average normal (typical) use of lanuage would have taken sex and gender to mean the same thing. The Victorians would have thought they were the same

What sex is your new baby? Male
What gender is your baby? i just told you - male

What sex is your dog? Male
What gender is your dog? Male.

This idea that gender means something else - ie. not your biological sex but how you choose to present yourself is relatively new and it is a confusing word for this concept because for so long it has been understood to mean the same as sex.

They should re-label gender in this sense as something more suited to what it means- like presentation. That's not an ideal word I realise and there are probably better words to be created or used. But its better than gender and captures what its about. It's how someone chooses to present themselves to the world.

What is your presentation? I present as male/female/neutral/monkey/elephant = I dress and act as one of these and it is how I present myself to the others.

Agreed. But the only people getting upset about it are the people that agree it’s a thing.

the people who don’t think it’s a thing say hmmm that doesn’t apply to me and move on.

the people who think it’s a thing either scream from the rooftops it is a thing…. Or scream from the rooftops it’s not a thing…. And therefore perpetuate the necessity for the NHS to have specific questions on a form, mainly to identify whether that person is going to get upset whether it’s a thing or not and make the administration of medical treatment secondary to their ideological beliefs and by default that persons day at work utterly shit.

at least the people who say it’s an issue have the decency to acknowledge it…. Those that make it MORE of an issue by pretending it doesn’t exist are actually much more tiresome

Apparently the ability to carry a baby does not make a person a woman. I've read that somewhere.

Who honestly goes about thinking what their "presentation" is. If I'm in jeans and a jumper and wellies and doing the diy what am I presenting as? Because I'm still a woman doing those not-stereotypically-female things.
I notice you are avoiding using the word "identity" which is what so much of this is about - not "are there a set of stereotypes people associate with men/women" but " what is your innate gender identity and does it differ from your sex".
You are not advancing your argument at all.

Curious statement. When is it defined, and how does that happen?

Who honestly goes about thinking what their "presentation" is.

Is this a serious question? Those who argue about this sort of thing. People who are making a big thing about being "non-binary" like that actress Emma Corrin are all about what their public image/identity/presentation is - whatever you want to call it, it amounts to the same thing.

Why on earth would you make a big deal about being called they/them if you aren't obsessing about how you present yourself and how others see you?

again it depends on your definition.

most medical texts would suggest It is able to be defined from a round six weeks from the point of conception. Arguably the pattern of cell development is pre- determined, however undetectable to modern science unless removed from the mother and therefore theoretical only. Most research journals would agree When the fetus starts to develop definable physical characteristics related to the physiological characteristics of the sex is the point of which biological sex can be ‘determined’.

however if you prescribe to a more conceptual definition of being, defining the sex of a Fetus May suggest personhood and some people may be reluctant t to ascribe personification until around 22-24 weeks, whereby a fetid is generally accepted to be viable outside the womb and therefore able to be ascribed independence as a person and ascribed characteristics that make it such. In this case the ‘determining of sex’ would occur much later.

The world has gone mad! I had a hospital appointment yesterday, and I was asked if I was pregnant or had given birth in the last 3 months - I'm almost 65!

Fascinating, @Mittemucci. So the sex of a child has nothing to do with the sex chromosome (X or Y) delivered by the sperm accepted by the egg (X)?

By the way, preimplantation genetic testing of lab-fertilised embryos can identify the sex of each embryo, which have fewer than 10 cells at this point.

But surely you could get pregnant if you identified as 25?

It’s standard. It happens to me and I’m older than you. I grin and make a joke about it.

Sex, well either female or male.
Gender, according to all the languages I know, is masculine, feminine or neuter.
Babies, well I doubt very much at 8 months that they "identify" as anything other than a pooing, peeing, cooing, crying, smiling, eating pod.

Are you allowed to tell us how many identify as men?

Also sex is not defined at conception. You may need a biology lesson there

I was going to ask for some word salad with extra twisty bits to explain this but I see it has already been provided with a side of bonkers.

As a 70 something woman I'm glad to say that at both MRI scans I have had I was NOT asked if I might be pregnant

They are obviously just reading from a script to tick a box so they can say that you've been asked the question. I called 111 for my DS once as he had a rash and they asked me "is the patient breathing?" As if the patient had stopped breathing, but I just wanted to talk about the rash first!

Beautifully put 😂 And, just like that, the expert on nonexistent reproductive science disappeared!

👍Jesus, you just re wrote what I said.