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?

How would you answer that if you were unsure? Such a bizzare question to ask on the behalf of a baby. It must come from the angry small percentage of parents that are vocal and have made the decision to keep their child non binary until they can decide for themselves.

Because everyone has a gender? Just like everyone has a national insurance number. Whether you want one or not, it’s been assigned. Of course you can opt out and pretend it doesn’t exist…. But it still does whether you agree with the terminology or not…. Clearly it exists otherwise it wouldn’t be on a nhs form. Like arguing you don’t have a name. Well you do. You might not like it. Or want it. But you were given a name…. At birth too, incidentally……

I don't have a gender identity. You can ascribe gender to me if you want, but I personally have no innate sense of gender.
To use your NI number example, someone can give me a NI number but it is not an intrinsic part of me.

No. On all counts. Just no. You're beginning to sound a bit simple, tbh.

And there is absolutely no issue with that. Take it or leave it.
but the OP is asking why would the NHS ask that question… and the answer is, because everyone is assigned a gender at birth. The gender associated with your biological sex. Some people, or parents, decide to change that gender. Some people pretend that gender doesn’t exist. Just about everyone agrees that gender is a CONCEPT…. The NHS don’t want to be drawn into ideological conversations about the validity of gender existence, gender translation or gender neutrality They just want to find out if you, or you parent, thinks your original gender assignment is the same now as the day you were born. Getting all upset about that seems a bit daft to me. You answer yes or no and move on with your life if it doesn’t apply to you or your kid….

But it is simple. I don’t understand why people like you want to over complicate it with ideology…..

Nobody assigns anything, @Mittemucci Sex is observed at birth, that's all that's necessary.
If it's important to you to consider yourself having a gender identity that can be changed at will; crack on.

Other people think differently.

Fucking ridiculous

I'm over complicating it?? Christ alive...

It’s not important to me. But everyone is assigned a gender 🤣🤣🤣 if your MIL buys you daughter a pink babygrow and gets upset if you shave five year old Amelia’s head then it’s probably because she has assigned a gender to her.

you can shout from the rooftop Amelia is biologically a girl but I will not confirm it to a socially constructed idea of what a girl means and shave its head until it’s old enough to decide for itself…. But everyone else still thinks Amelia’s a girl…..

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

Omg that’s exactly what being assigned a gender is 🤣🤣 it’s almost like you have a really big point to make 😂ok ok you don’t think gender should be a thing 👍 got it 👍👍👍👍👍

You haven't got it at all. You're not in a country mile of it, actually. Sad.

Oh dear.

put a small child in a pink dress, paint it’s nails and call it Amelia. Ask 200 random adults what gender the child is.

now undress the child and reveal that Amelia has a penis. Ask the same adults to identify it’s sex.

if you think that most of those 200 adults would answer those questions differently then you believe gender assignment exists. You also believe that gender can differ to sex.

the IDEOLOGY you are trying to desperately to infer is that YOU believe every adult should only ever wait until the person reveals their vagina or penis before being called either male or female. Which I find pretty stupid to be honest.

You sounds really confused TBH and I can only assume you’ve never had baby. I’ve had several and I can assure you that no one ( in the NHS or anywhere else ) has assigned them a gender.

and you say

Like arguing you don’t have a name. Well you do. You might not like it. Or want it. But you were given a name…. At birth too, incidentaly

Please can you tell me which country assigns babies names at birth?

But gender is not ‘fixed’. Dress the same child in green combat trousers, green jumper and the same 200 adults will call them a boy. But their biology remains the same, they’re still male.

I’m currently wearing pink socks and a blue jumper, so what does gender dictate I am - male or female? That’s the problem with using gender to define someone, the more you delve into it, the more in the modern world it becomes meaningless.

Because everyone has a gender? Just like everyone has a national insurance number. Whether you want one or not, it’s been assigned. Of course you can opt out and pretend it doesn’t exist…. But it still does whether you agree with the terminology or not…. Clearly it exists otherwise it wouldn’t be on a nhs form. Like arguing you don’t have a name. Well you do. You might not like it. Or want it. But you were given a name…. At birth too, incidentally……

I don't have a gender. I have a biological sex. This wasn't assigned at birth. It was observed and recorded.

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.

in the UK, again as far as I’m aware, the NHS registers your sex, based on the genitalia you have; but the society in which you live assigns your gender, prescribed by the social norms associated to the sex in which you are born into. For example in western countries baby girls are dressed in pink and baby boys in blue. The colour of a child’s outfit does not DEFINE their sex, however will determine how the majority of the population ASSIGN their gender. Whether or not people believe gender SHOULD be assigned is totally different to the argument of whether gender IS assigned- and most ironic of all both arguments at the extreme ends of the spectrum (I.e gender CAN be changed and gender CANT be changed) are actually both whole heartedly in agreement that gender is simply a social construct which people can pick or choose to exist or not exist…… but hey I’m the ‘STUPID’ one here….

On a boringly practical note, I was told by someone that because a percentage of people accidently check the wrong box for gender/sex, and the call handlers need to find out whether the patient has in fact changed gender, or has just made a mistake on the form.. And parents of 17 month olds are just as susceptible to fat thumbs as the rest of the population.

So you are in agreement that gender is just a description, and you can choose to use it or not? So why would being asked your gender be offensive? It’s either a thing to you or it isn’t?

the whole post is about outrage that someone should dare to ask gender- but it only matters if it matters to you. If you don’t think gender is a thing….. someone used the earlier example of being asked if they were a Muslim… why would you be offended at being asked a question that doesn’t apply. Just say it doesn’t apply and move on….

On a boringly practical note, I was told by someone that because a percentage of people accidently check the wrong box for gender/sex, and the call handlers need to find out whether the patient has in fact changed gender, or has just made a mistake on the form..

How did they do this before the modern gender bollocks became popular and this language was introduced?

@Mittemucci, because gender is being used as a proxy for sex. Some people have always done this in conversation, being mealy-mouthed about saying sex.

Now that gender's being ratified by all kinds of institutions and authorities, it's infuriating to feminists who have spent the past 100+ years weakening the concept because it is harmful, especially to women.

Even worse, gender's now being used as a proxy for sex in circumstances where sex matters. If you can't see a problem with mentioning "her penis" or asking men if they're pregnant, you aren't thinking.

I think the gender stuff came along as about the same time as the online forms.

As a person who works in a huge bank, I know how difficult and expensive it can be to alter forms and letters etc.

I'd love to know how much money the NHS has spent over the last few years changing all their guidance and forms and letters etc. to ensure questions of this nature are asked.

Ridiculous.

The nhs operator are you are male or female gender, and you answer male. They don’t ask about your sex.

You will not be sent invites for smears, breast screening etc, meaning cancer could be missed.

That’s a simple example of why using the descriptive gender alone is misleading. Yes, in the past, gender=sex, but many younger people use the two different meanings of the word. Or they feel that if you are a born female, and you state you are male, your sex changes automatically, (making you male) even though you still have female organs.