NHS Blood donating form saying 'gender' not 'sex'

[VicSynix]

I've been a regular blood donor for over 30 years, but recently (since my consciouness was raised by the evil women of Mumsnet) I've become irritated by the fact that the donor form says 'gender' not 'sex'. Surely the NHS, of all places, should recognise how the importance of recording your actual biological sex, not your gender?

I've been tempted to cross it out on the form, and replace it with 'sex', but as I don't want to needlessly antagonise anyone who's about to stick big needles in me, I've instead sent a message via the Blood Doning website asking why they do this.

If there are any other blood donors out there who are also irritated about this, perhaps they could also ask what's going on.

Are there any other instances of the NHS saying 'gender' when they mean 'sex'?

Male sexual partners of transgender women would not fall under the men who have sex with men deferral policy in their assessment

What the actual fuck?

Yes really WTF, if transwomen can't be honest about their biological sex and same sex partners I don't think they should be giving blood. It is not ok to put others health at risk to validate delusions.

The FOI ItsAll posted is absolutely batshit.

If I ID'd as a man tomorrow, DH and I would have to not have sex for 3 months* before either of us could give blood.

A gay man could skip the deferral period by identifying as a woman or getting his partner to identify as a woman.

When I first saw this FOI a couple of years ago I was so shocked. I had previously thought that although the NHS might use 'inclusive' language, when it came down to it they knew what sex was, why and when it was important. I had never imagined that the publicly funded organisation we all trust with our health throughout our lives would go along with this unscientific, dangerous nonsense.

*When this FOI was requested the deferral period for 'men who have sex with men' was 12 months.

The deferral period was cut from 12 months to 3 months by Justine Greening, with great fanfare, ON THE SAME FUCKING DAY she announced the consultation on self-ID:

The Government has also accepted the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (SaBTO) to change the deferral periods for blood donation for men who have sex with men. The usual deferral blood donation period will be reduced from 12 months to three months for men who have sex with men. These reductions are based on the most up to date scientific evidence and medical advances ... The UK has one of the safest blood supplies in the world. These rules are in place to keep blood donors and the patients who receive their blood safe.

If I was a gay man I would be absolutely spitting about this.

If it's not important, why bother asking about men who have sex with men anyway?

Quite.

Either the deferral period for men who have sex with men is important - in which case this is a major safety risk

Or the deferral period for men who have sex with men is not important - in which case this is blatant homophobia.

So a gay man, who in a committed and stable relationship, would be not allowed to give blood but his partner could self ID as a woman and suddenly it’s fine.

There was a web chat a little while back with someone from the NHS organ donor side of things. (Soon after Penny's webchat). I tried to find it - let me look again

It doesn't look like there's any exemption for men in stable relationships.

www.blood.co.uk/who-can-give-blood/men-who-have-sex-with-men/

but his partner could self ID as a woman and suddenly it’s fine.

Yes, it looks that way.

1: Male sexual partners of transgender women
Male sexual partners of transgender women would not fall under the men who have sex with men deferral policy in their assessment. Other guidance may prevent donation but this situation would not.

2: Male sexual partners of transgender men
Male sexual partners of transgender men can not donate for 12 months as per the men who have sex with men deferral guidance.

These rules are in place to keep blood donors and the patients who receive their blood safe.

BUT....

we will fling rules, and the safety of blood donors and patients to the winds to ensure a man can be validated in chosen identity as a woman. I mean, stuff safety and other people, priorities are what matter.

Policy can be found over there, on the pile of abandoned rules and populations, including children and safeguarding, and all the vulnerable populations of women. Oh all right, women in general. All of whom are tax payers expecting basic responsibility and accountability, but fuck that.

Is there anyone - anyone - left in Westminster, who is not so high on glue they still have a grasp on what day it is? What do they think is going to happen when something goes wrong?

And if the chances are so low of something going on that they decided it wasn't worth worrying about, what the FUCK is the homophobia in aid of?

Do you think they’ve confused it - so when they say ‘transgender women’ they mean women identifying as men? Then it makes sense

And all this while we are in the middle of the most distressing inquiry into the dreadful consequences of treating sick people, including haemophiliacs, with unsafe/ contaminated blood products.
No basic awareness at all. Such wilful ignorance.
Dying from hepatitis B or C is horrific.
I have a friend who got Hep C from a blood transfusion during childhood surgery. It is beyond grim.

Found the web chat
Says transwomen are treated as women except for the making of blood products where plasma is used - there they are considered masculine. But they give blood at the same frequency as women because periods.

As someone who has needed blood products in the past, and may well need them in the future, this whole muddle really scares me.

Hiya Getoffamycloud and stick around if you’re feeling confused- also you could have a look at this thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me?pg=1&order=

Am I right in thinking all policy (changes) by a government department must undergo an equality assessment before implementation?

This seems to be introducing higher risk into the blood system, but I am not sure that it is higher risk to any particular group? Possibly higher risk to men as they could receive blood from a transman who has been pregnant?

There is additional risk to tw because they will only have to meet the required haemoglobin levels for women. These are lower than for men which means tw who give blood may be at risk of anaemia.

Do you think they’ve confused it - so when they say ‘transgender women’ they mean women identifying as men? Then it makes sense

I wondered that, because the language is so confusing. But I think the answer is no.

8: The criteria by which a transgender woman will be considered by NHSBT to be a woman for the purposes of the MSM deferral. If a donor states that they are a woman we accept that and do not enquire about their birth gender. As stated earlier in this response, donors who identify themselves as male will be assessed using the male haemoglobin levels and similarly donors identifying as female must have sufficiently high haemaglobin levels to meet the female levels.

Anyone like to FOI for the Equality Assessment then? Good point re the TW iron levels.

I’d always assumed the blood would be tested to determine/double check it’s, um... provenance (surely not too difficult?), along with testing for safety.

Is that not the case?

The two articles posted by @OldCrone are DEFINITELY worth reading for anyone in the UK

Sex, Gender & the NHS Part 1: The “Single-Sex Hospital Wards” that have always been a lie
medium.com/@anneharperwright/sex-gender-the-nhs-1e8f4e6363a6

Sex, Gender & the NHS Part 2: Your Medical Record and your Ladybrain
medium.com/@anneharperwright/sex-gender-the-nhs-bb86b0c3ebb

I worked in the NHS and fed back my experience of the sex vs gender issue to the author so I won't repeat it all here (life is too short!)

The only thing I would like to point out is that the forms are normally designed or approved by Medical Records Dept - not clinical staff. Most of the gender/sex mix-ups across the NHS seem to be due to clerical/admin staff in Medical Records and IT Depts being responsible for implementing relevant directives from the NHS and Dept of Health - and not understanding them, eg. a widespread misreading of a directive (around about 2007 I think, might be a little earlier) about an additional requirement to record gender.

I know for a fact that this was misinterpreted in some NHS trusts as an instruction to re-label the data field "sex" as "gender" rather than add a new field for "gender". This is because "sex" and "gender" are, or at least were, used interchangeably in common parlance. I challenged it in my Trust but was told, basically, "computer says No".

I was also told that on every occasion we saw a patient, even if we were seeing them every week, that we had to ask them if they had "changed sex" since they were last seen! I told Medical Records that I did not intend having my patients think that I had gone stark staring mad and refused to do it. (In a previous post I worked with transsexuals but I was completely unaware of the "Transgender" issue until a few months ago.)

Image attached of the relevant part of the Out Patient Form from where I worked, after we had been told to replace "Sex" with "Gender". This was in use from, I am pretty sure, no earlier than 2007.

The last few vaccination forms for my DDs have had Gender on them, I crossed it out and wrote 'Sex - Female'.

May 2017 Beyond the Binary article by Andie Pas de Deux
'Giving blood as a non-binary transgender person'

Confirms UK description of blood donation which allows donors to declare their 'preferred gender' rather than biological sex.

In this article the male blood donor 'chooses' to donate blood as 'female' and describes correspondance with the UK Blood Donor Service.
beyondthebinary.co.uk/giving-blood-as-a-non-binary-transgender-person/

What seems lost to the author is any consideration to the impact on the blood transfusion service of their demands for validation and most importantly the possible impact on ensuring safe blood products for intended recipients.

Current context being the long awaited contaminated blood hearing:
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/30/what-is-the-contaminated-blood-scandal

Independent 2017
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gay-men-donate-blood-rules-three-months-after-having-sex-12-government-policy-freedomtodonate-a7854811.html

There was discussion about this with regards a complaint by a transgender person North America last year.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3372218-Identifying-as-female-to-sell-blood

PencilsInSpace I think men have naturally higher levels.

Is it that women need higher levels in order to be allowed to donate? As they need more time to replenish with periods and all that. That would mean that TW are less likely to donate than TM.

But TM are at risk, if they still have periods, if they require lower levels to be allowed to donate.

MilkGoatee

YY
In the article linked above, the male non-binary blood donor is put onto female protocol:

(extract)
So I wrote back to NHS Blood and Transplant – they must love me! I said I’d rather register as female – but I raised my query. They replied:

Your paperwork and your record will show your gender as female, we will test your blood using the female cut-off level for haemoglobin testing and the crucial bit now is you should not donate more than 3 times a year.

This is the restriction being applied to female donors as in the general population females have less iron than males. As you may be aware testosterone has some influence on your body’s uptake of iron.

If you stick to 3 times a year donation frequency (average 16 weeks) and you continue your healthy lifestyle, you are at low risk of developing anaemia even if you start hormone replacement therapy and testosterone blockers. Hope this reassures you.

Kindly let me know your donor ID and I will update your record so the nurse on session is aware of our discussion.

Which all makes sense – but it didn’t really answer my question about being registered female before starting HRT. I note that I can also only donate three times a year as female as opposed to four times as male. Anyway, I left it there – and then forgot about the whole thing. Until today – donation day." (continues)

I use a Sharpie on any forms that solely ask your "gender" rather than "sex".

However, I feel it is even more important to be aware of this in a medical/healthcare setting. I recently was given a form at hospital which asked "is your gender the same as the one assigned to you at birth?" This was for a pre-op assessment - what the fuck does your desire to confirm to social stereotyping (or not) have to do with your medical care?! Before we even start with the assigned at birth bollocks.

I discussed it with the surgeon who agreed with me and seemed very GC. Interestingly he said "you just can't say things like that in public these days, to your employers or to your teenage children" (the latter bit did make me smile albeit ruefully )

Obviously I leafleted the FPFW leaflet everywhere I could and made my feelings clear on the questionnaire and patient feedback.

(I'm not allowed to give blood so haven't seen those forms but agree it is ridiculous).

PencilsInSpace I think men have naturally higher levels.

They do, yes. From the FOI:

Haemaglobin levels are set for both males and females; there is a legal requirement that these must be met before a donation can be given. Donors who identify themselves as male will be assessed using the male haemoglobin levels and similarly donors identifying as female must have sufficiently high haemaglobin levels to meet the female levels

2) The haemoglobin level at which we accept a donor is defined in law (Blood Safety and Quality Regulations 2005, and an EU Directive) as 125g/L for women and 135g/L for men. This is for the safety of donors to prevent anaemia developing.

So a tw could meet the level for women but not the level for men and be allowed to give blood even though their haemoglobin is very low for a male.

So a tw could meet the level for women but not the level for men and be allowed to give blood even though their haemoglobin is very low for a male.
I don't think that means extra risk for a TW, as they would exceed the required level for a woman, but wouldn't have the same risk factors (periods) that a woman has - and in England would go down to 3 times per year.
So the extra risk is with TM, if and when they still have periods and are requested to donate 4 times (that latter risk is negligible, I think, many more countries are 4 times standard). You can always skip, obviously. The Hb measurement is an issue when still menstruating, though.