Hello, my name is...’ NHS ‘patient-friendly’ badges - with pronouns

[Pronoun]

My manager is getting us new name badges for NHS work. The ‘hello, my name is’ campaign is meant to be for the benefit of patients; some are marketed as being specifically dementia-friendly.

I was surprised to see that there is the option to include pronouns on the badges. As these are meant to be for patient benefit, I feel a bit uncomfortable with these. My feeling is that people just want to know your name, to have a proper, friendly introduction, and to be treated as a person, so they don’t feel like an anonymous ‘case,’ or struggle to know who has been looking after them. I feel these pronoun badges run the risk of making interactions about the HCP rather than centring the patient. Am I wrong to feel this way?

I don't know if it would make much of a difference, but if you know someone is trans/and/or struggling with coming out themselves, like bcml said they had someone who is trans as a patient, I think it sounds like would be reassuring and like you have someone who understands, is "on side" (for want of a better phrase) so in that regards I think it sounds like a good idea for them

Could work the other way too. Instead of being surrounded by people who might possibly understand you, you know from their sex based pronouns that they definitely won't.

The best thing mental health specialists can do for trans people is help with the resilience to accept that the world they inhabit is not going to fall over itself to accommodate mistruths. People will use the correct sex pronouns because of habit or principle. People will continue to see them as the sex they are no matter how they want it not to be so. People aren’t being mean when they acknowledge biological reality.

The idea that the whole world should pretend something is something it isn’t (abstractly, not calling trans people a thing) is not going to work.

Instead of being surrounded by people who might possibly understand you, you know from their sex based pronouns that they definitely won't

Not sure I understand, sorry - when you say if someone was wearing a sex based pronoun badge, they definitely won't understand you?
So like if I was wearing one of these badges, mine would say she/hers.
Definitely not trans.
Why would I not understand just because of my "sex based pronoun badge?
Wearing one wouldn't automatically mean that you didn't or wouldn't understand?

I can say that my mental health won’t be great if I know that a slip of the tongue - my brain and eyes being in alignment - could cause aggression, threats and a police visit. What in all that is holy is happening???

As a woman I can be subject to foul verbal (and remember this happens to female from around puberty). I have been told to ‘go home’. I have been subject to ‘banter’ at work because if my nationality, accent, education - even my bloody weight (this was when I was young and before I turned into my mother, and noone messed with her). And yet - one ‘misplaced’ (according to one person) pronoun can get me in trouble.

Listen you to yourself, all you people demanding to be ‘othered’.

@bcml

"I'm a non binary NHS worker and I find it pretty stressful to have to ask 20 different colleagues every day to use my preferred they/them pronouns."

Followed by:

" I'm not actually out at work."

I'm really sorry, could you explain this further?

How can you not be out if you're telling many colleagues that you prefer to be called "they/them"?

@Quaagars

How egocentric to think that just because you both use preferred pronouns you will make a difference to that patient’s outcomes

I don't know if it would make much of a difference, but if you know someone is trans/and/or struggling with coming out themselves, like bcml said they had someone who is trans as a patient, I think it sounds like would be reassuring and like you have someone who understands, is "on side" (for want of a better phrase) so in that regards I think it sounds like a good idea for them

This only works if you believe that what someone in a mental health crisis needs is to see someone else who uses preferred pronouns.

It wouldn’t really help if what you actually need is someone who can treat you with compassion and professionalism, regardless of whether they feel the need to display their preferred pronouns to vulnerable patients.

I am not generally a fan of the rainbow lanyard but it seems to me that if your aim is to show lgbt patients they have an ally in you that is a far better way to do it than pronoun badges, which have lots of unintended negative consequences.
The pronoun badge implicitly says ‘you must act on this information’ whereas the lanyard at least doesn’t do that quite as strongly.
In general I don’t think justifying a badge by means of a purpose other than that for which it is explicitly meant is wise.

I don't know if it would make much of a difference, but if you know someone is trans/and/or struggling with coming out themselves, like bcml said they had someone who is trans as a patient, I think it sounds like would be reassuring and like you have someone who understands, is "on side" (for want of a better phrase) so in that regards I think it sounds like a good idea for them

And what about the patients who might be in pain, scared, upset who look at that badge and think 'oh JFC, I also have to make sure I am using the right fucking pronouns for this person too'?

I am not generally a fan of the rainbow lanyard but it seems to me that if your aim is to show lgbt patients they have an ally..

It's years since I visited a hospital.

Did the staff at hospitals have rainbow lanyards back in the day before the 'T' was added?

Or is this phenomenon more recent than that?

..asking for a friend.

Could work the other way too. Instead of being surrounded by people who might possibly understand you, you know from their sex based pronouns that they definitely won't.

Could and does.

Setting yourself up as using a different pronoun to me sets you up as somehow different to me. Whether that pronoun is a sexed-based he to my she, or a gender-based he/she/they to my it.

In a context where my sex-based trauma issues are likely to come into play (which to be fair is potentially anywhere I happen to be but is nevertheless far more likely in some environments than others), indicating that you're in an opposing gender-narrative camp to me? Prevents you from achieving your 'patient perceives me as welcoming, understanding and compassionate' goal.

Making things better for some by making it worse for others isn't actually a win overall. You need to tailor your pronouns to the patient if you really think pronouns help your patients to connect with you.

@margaretjohnson

On the contrary, I think this is an excellent idea. Patients don't have to acknowledge them, and I don't suppose many will even notice their names. However, if they do notice it then it will help to normalise not assuming pronouns and may also help NB NHS workers feel valid, as opposed to simply ticking a 'prefer not to say' box that completely ignores their identity.

The only ‘validity’ that mattered to me when my 6 year old daughter was on a ventilator was the validity of the professional qualifications of the person tasked with saving my little girl’s life.

I’m not entirely convinced that relying on others to ‘validate’ you is in itself, ‘valid’, seems to me to be more of an indicator of at best, low self esteem and at worse, personality disorder. Neither thought would fill me with confidence.
And believe me, when you are sitting in bright white room, so cold, sterile and alien to you that you might as well be on space ship, and the only thing you have to distract you from the thought your child might die are the signs on the walls and the tile missing from the ceiling, you WILL notice what it says on the health care professional’s badge. You will read it over and over and over while you beg the god you don’t even believe in to please put you in the hands of someone who knows what the fuck they are doing and not someone who needs special NB pronouns on their badge to make them ‘feel valid’.

For fucks sake.

Regarding the stat tangent and demographics that may be at higher risk of depression and suicidal thoughts...

In my research, I encounter a lot of concern from clinicians, and carers, who are supporting autistic people experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviours. However, there has been very little research in this area. Studiesihave shown high rates of suicidal thoughts (10.9% – 66%), and suicidal behaviours (11% - 30%) in autistic adults and children. Between 7.3% - 15% of people who have been hospitalised for attempted suicide also have an autism diagnosis. This is much higher than the 1% rate of autism diagnosis we would expect in the general UK population.

Mental health is complex.

network.autism.org.uk/good-practice/evidence-base/suicidality-autism-risk-and-prevention

it will help to normalise not assuming pronouns

This is the very definition of a First World problem.

Dude, I'm in hospital and vulnerable. I don't give a shit about your pronouns, I just want to not be in pain and frightened.

I think the badges need to have

Name
Job title (incl seniority, if they are a student etc)
Department

Possibly languages spoken?

@ThatIsNotMyUsername

I think the badges need to have

Name
Job title (incl seniority, if they are a student etc)
Department

Possibly languages spoken?

Now that is an excellent idea- especially the languages!

Could work the other way too. Instead of being surrounded by people who might possibly understand you, you know from their sex based pronouns that they definitely won't

Yes. I'd hazard a guess that this whole pronoun thing isn't even on most people's radar. Someone who requires a badge to tell people they want to be called somehing different than the sex they appear to be could actually unsettle patients.

And those of us who are GC, would be unhappy at behing expected to comply with this ideology.

If I saw these badges I would be pissing myself in case I needed intimate care or help that I would really want a woman to perform. I would feel that the hospital or centre didn’t give a shit about my dignity or comfort and I would be at risk of being refused treatment if push came to shove.

Excellent post Betty and sorry about your daughter.

It's all about the validation, you must validate me, you must submit to my beliefs about myself, forced belief is never appropriate and off the scale inappropriate in a healthcare setting, it's selfish, crass and sinister.

No-one should be forced or coerced into validating someone's belief about themselves.

it will help to normalise not assuming pronouns

Which is just nonsense. Everyone in the entire world has third person pronouns appropriate to their sex whether they want them or not. The only assumption is from the badge wearer in assuming other people care that they might not be happy about it. Well, tough, your third person pronouns are for other people to talk about you, you don’t get control of them.

I like the idea of signposting which languages one speaks on the badge.

Including BSL. I think that would actually be useful. Not how a person chooses to oblige everyone else to discuss them.

I've just read that BSL doesn't have gendered pronouns, but has some different multiples of 'we' - 'we-two', 'we-three' , we-four and we-five.

I'm curious, do 'nonbinaries' feel more 'valid' if they use a language without gendered pronouns at all, or less so because there's no way to signal and enforce their identity on others?

I'm curious, do 'nonbinaries' feel more 'valid' if they use a language without gendered pronouns at all, or less so because there's no way to signal and enforce their identity on others?

I did read a while ago that choosing to refer to everyone as "they" (in order to avoid this pronoun nonsense) was "non-binary erasure"

I like the idea of signposting which languages one speaks on the badge
Same here. It's useful information that might help patients and their families.

It might also be useful to colleagues to know they have someone with additional language skills to aid communication with patients and families.

I believe in BSL a person’s signed name is decided by others and not always in a complimentary way! Must be really difficult for anyone who wants to control how others perceive them.

On the point of BSL, wouldn’t it be better to spend staff training on making sure all staff have some competency in BSL rather than making sure everyone knows and uses newspeak and all information sources are converted into newspeak?