What sex were you assigned at birth asks Covid Symptom Study

[Areyouactuallyseriousrightnow]

The Covid Symptom Study, developed by health science company Zoe, with data being analysed by Kings College London, and endorsed by various large public bodies, asks participants to confirm the sex they were ‘assigned’ at birth.
It doesn’t appear to even be conflating this with gender as gender is a separate question.
If a major health science company is using biologically impossible terminology, what hope is there?
If I can figure out how to question this with them, I will.

@ChattyLion

I can’t mention the GRA without saying that I think the GRA should be repealed- it’s superfluous now because (rightly!) we have same sex marriage and equal pension age.

It’s also not the state’s role to issue validation for validation’s sake in the way GRA now does. (because unless I have misunderstood greatly, holding a GRC is no longer correcting any individual injustice around marriage and pensions etc, it is now just ‘correcting’ reality.)

The fundamental principles of the GRA are sexist and homophobic and misogynistic because they rely on privileging sexist stereotypes of femininity and masculinity over biological sex, and the GRC process itself was poorly and naively drafted because it contained those sorts of assumptions.

So for example GRC process lacks the basic features of an official status that is granted if people meet specific criteria. For example it has no revocation process because the GRC holder has changed their mind- so it fails basic rules on consent in how it traps people within an official record of legal sex even after they detransition.

And GRA requires meaningless things like that GRC holders must live in that gender until death, but provides no revocation process if people don’t actually do that, so it’s not really any kind of requirement at all.

GRCs and the secrecy and criminal punishment around asking who has the GRC all cause a chilling effect around the GRC itself. All that props up self ID and problems with male access to women’s places and spaces. The existing exceptions in the EQA to the GRC’s relevance are unclear and very hard to get enforced.

There are loads of other problems with it. It’s a big, outdated mess. Let’s do away with the GRA and just let people live how they want under their EQA protections. Our laws should recognise that society does need to place value on biological sex- especially to support the interests of women and children.

Well that's how it was before Corbett vs Corbett. No need for a GRC just have a "sex change" and get new id documents.

@Gottalife

It's not difficult. Sex assinged at birth = sex assumed by the midwife from a quick glance between the legs. It is also recorded on your birth cerificate in the box labelled "sex". Of course unless your bc has been corrected at any time...

It wasn't a quick glance between the legs when it came to my son though. His sex was glaringly obvious.

And he peed at birth. All over the midwife.

My daughters were obvious. No penis.

Of course there then followed the cleaning of my babies following nappy changes. Two females and one boy.

I can sort of understand sex assigned at birth when there is some sort of intersex condition, it's not obvious and maybe it turns out the wrong decision was made. Most people don't have a sex assigned at birth, it's a basic observation that's right most of the time.

placemats "And he peed at birth. All over the midwife."

Hey midwife, I got this brill water pistol.

the term ‘sex assigned at birth’ is becoming completely normalised into everyday language,

I find Cwenthryth’s NHS questions on page 1 quite heartening. That (parts of?) the NHS appear to have moved on from/are resisting standard use of “assigned” is very good news indeed.

“Registered sex” or anything asking for current sex won’t work either due to the GRA, which conflates sex and gender, so that some people’s legal sex is considered to be different from their actions sex.

“Registered at birth“, or “recorded at birth“ would satisfy me until the point when we have moved so far beyond this nonsense that we can revert to simply asking “sex” again.

*actual, not actions

This is no doubt a stupid question but instead of saying 'assigned', can't they just ask what biological sex?

Your question isn’t stupid, SheepAndCow. What’s stupid is that even scientists are being coerced to obey the truth-twisting demands of the trans lobby. Some TWs are now claiming they were born female. Very few authorities have the integrity or courage to contradict them.

@SnuggyBuggy

I can sort of understand sex assigned at birth when there is some sort of intersex condition, it's not obvious and maybe it turns out the wrong decision was made. Most people don't have a sex assigned at birth, it's a basic observation that's right most of the time.

This is a very rare situation now, with advancement of medical testing and knowledge of embryonic development etc. It is a very overstated situation by people who want to break down the concept of there being two sexes.

I was very shocked when my DD who seems to have got embroiled in this ideology told me that her friend with Turner's Syndrome was 'intersex'. She is very much female, with all the accompanying problems of having a chromosome condition which she has been bloody marvelous at dealing with all her life.

It is a creeping ideology that seems to take over everything it can coopt in its way. Once you blur the edges and think "oh well I suppose you could think about it that way", the boundaries are extended and go further, and those in their pathway that have been coopted will be the ones whose "right to be themselves" is lost and blurrred away, and with it the rights to fit their needs.

Intersex does seem to get viewed as a kind of sex blank slate which doesn't at all fit with the majority of conditions, like you say someone with X0 Turner's is obviously female and someone with XXY Klinfelters is male. It must be rare to have someone who doctors genuinely cant consider either male or female these days.

Also the obvious fact that the vast majority of transgender individuals are straightforward XX or XY gets forgotten completely.

Assigned sex at birth just sounds like something from a teen dystopia which maybe is why it's taken off so well amongst young people.

Its ridiculous that they have to find phrasing to make people answer 'Sex:' honestly. And still a fair few will lie no doubt. Maybe some kickoff about it not recognising nonbinary identities or some such rubbish too

The old Irish retort 'Ask me bollix' just sprang into my mind unbidden.

I love this.

www.nhs.uk/sign-up-to-be-contacted-for-research

I totally missed a trick with this one. As we have said it asks volunteers about sex as registered at birth (catering to the political idea that is admin and can change legally via GRC) but which seems necessary as part of capturing sex accurately, because of the political zeitgeist we are in.

But the gender question only allows for matching or not matching that registration sex. There’s no ‘Gender is sexist, harmful and a political dogma that I don’t believe in’ option. Not even ‘i don’t know’ It takes some deciphering to know what to put.

I had to pick my gender fitting with my sex because otherwise I think they would have coded me as trans, but of course now they will code me as ‘cis’. I really object. Anyone know who is running this programme so i can get in touch with them?

And GRA requires meaningless things like that GRC holders must live in that gender until death, but provides no revocation process if people don’t actually do that, so it’s not really any kind of requirement at all.

There’s also no clear explanation of what it means to ‘live in a gender’. If getting pregnant & giving birth can be done when ‘living as a man’ then where on earth are the boundaries?

I went for an NHS drive through covid test today. To track progression of the disease, I was asked my ethnicity and gender....