Stop mixing up sex and gender GPs told

[flyingbuttress43]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/02/doctors-must-stop-mixing-sex-gender-patients-undergoing-wrong/

Doctors have been told to stop mixing up sex and gender because it can end up with people getting the wrong treatment.

Senior medical researchers led by the University of St Andrews said there was clear evidence that biological sex and gender were both powerful risk factors for "virtually every disease and affect every organ."

The article is behind a pay wall, so here are some salient points...

Sex differences in drug metabolism were well recognised;
Gender significantly affected how a person engaged with treatment;
One GP, commenting on the article on the BMJ website said she spent hours a week ensuring the right people were called for cervical smears;
NHS systems do not allow for sex and gender to be recorded separately;
Sex and gender are not synonymous.

"Dr Margaret McCartney of the School of Medicine at St Andrews, said: "There are many instances of sex and gender being confused by the research community and society more broadly. Unless we identify and count categories correctly, we will end up with errors which serves all populations poorly."

All so obvious to us on Feminism Chat, but good to see push back
on this sex/gender mixup from the research community.

If (medically transitioned) trans people can’t use the spaces for the sex they identify as like other people can then they don’t have equal rights.

There is no medical 'transition' procedure by which a person's sex changes.
Just as one cannot identify into having a change of DOB, age like sex is matter of fact.

There are many reasons why male patients may have higher than normal range oestrogen in their blood, some of which are indicative of serious health issues.

There are many circumstances when patients take a drug/s which temporarily elevates/depresses a blood marker be that prescribed or purchased.

A trans woman’s oestrogen level, or trans man’s testosterone level is not the result of a serious health issue (other than gender dysphoria) and neither is it an incidental elevation. It is the goal of treatment.

It’s no more temporary than any other lifelong medication.

This is why HCPs require age, sex, current medication details in order to diagnose and treat patients safely.

And that’s fine where someone needs to know because there are treatment implications. You don’t need to know if you’re taking a blood sample, booking in an appointment or bandaging a knee.

@Anovaneway

ALL have equal rights.

If (medically transitioned) trans people can’t use the spaces for the sex they identify as like other people can then they don’t have equal rights.

People have a right to single sex spaces based on their sex, not their 'identity'.

If single sex facilities, sports etc, are made open on the basis of identity, then women no longer have sex-based rights.

This is why HCPs require age, sex, current medication details in order to diagnose and treat patients safely.

And that’s fine where someone needs to know because there are treatment implications. You don’t need to know if you’re taking a blood sample, booking in an appointment or bandaging a knee.

HCP do indeed need to know age, sex and current medication as well as allergies when carrying out what might seem to non HCPs basic / routine tasks.

It’s no more temporary than any other lifelong medication.

You misunderstand.

There are many circumstances when patients take a drug/s which temporarily elevates/depresses a blood marker be that prescribed or purchased. means that when the drug is not taken and after sufficient time to have left the blood stream the underlying blood marker levels would return to their underlying natural state. The drug/s are the specific cause of the elevation/depression.

@R0wantrees

This is why HCPs require age, sex, current medication details in order to diagnose and treat patients safely.

And that’s fine where someone needs to know because there are treatment implications. You don’t need to know if you’re taking a blood sample, booking in an appointment or bandaging a knee.

HCP do indeed need to know age, sex and current medication as well as allergies when carrying out what might seem to non HCPs basic / routine tasks.

Spot on, and says it all..

Thanks @R0wantrees.

Basically identifying as a biological sex does not magically make a person change their biological sex.

We all have rights to use the facilities of the biological sex which we belong. How simple is this?

The NHS stores this data.

It's the "gender identity same as birth indicator." It allows people to be respected as their gender, while making sure people get the medical treatment they need. It's important, but none of anyone's business apart from the patient and the medical professionals who treat them.

datadictionary.nhs.uk/attributes/gender_identity_same_at_birth_indicator.html

If (medically transitioned) trans people can’t use the spaces for the sex they identify as like other people can then they don’t have equal rights.

So, any male who 'identifies' as a woman is entitled to use women's single sex spaces?

The NHS doesn't store this data. That's what the whole thread has been discussing. With referenced evidence and cited links. We've had several HCPs discuss the problems caused by the NHS not storing this data. Have you not read any of the thread?

[quote DadJoke]The NHS stores this data.

It's the "gender identity same as birth indicator." It allows people to be respected as their gender, while making sure people get the medical treatment they need. It's important, but none of anyone's business apart from the patient and the medical professionals who treat them.

datadictionary.nhs.uk/attributes/gender_identity_same_at_birth_indicator.html[/quote]
I think you should read the thread.

R0wan will know that I've done a 180 on this
My friend who had full surgery at 18-20 is to all external appearances
female
and I support her right to use the toilets that match her appearance
BUT
she was born male
she is being monitored for prostate issues
the NHS must be accurate

So, any male who 'identifies' as a woman is entitled to use women's single sex spaces?

No of course not. But medically diagnosed trans women undergoing treatment are. In most cases.

No of course not. But medically diagnosed trans women undergoing treatment are. In most cases.

'Transwoman' is not a medical diagnosis and use of female single sex spaces is not a prescription for alleviation of male's distress.

Women's single sex spaces and services are not therapeutic tools for boys and men distressed by their sex.

Spot op @R0wantrees.

That is straight to the point, and says it as it is.
"female private spaces" must be respected by all biological males.
Having estrogen, castration and "self ID" as female does not constitute a biological sex change.
These "trans women" have equal human rights, BUT that right does not equate to undermining women's rights for female only spaces, nor female only sports.

Even as an intersex person, who has overwhelming female biological issues, I would not undermine those basic rights, I respect women's rights to private spaces, I have adapted over 40 decades.

Sadly some "trans women" do not respect those simple rights, and in some cases, they demand special treatment, some are shocking and blatantly against common decency and respect for women. They even call women who protect women's rights "T.E.R.F.S"....or transphobes, which i am often labelled. They should understand women's concerns and respect the rights of women, and adapt their lives approprialty. It is the least they can do?

If (medically transitioned) trans people can’t use the spaces for the sex they identify as like other people can then they don’t have equal rights.

Do you think adults should be able to be on children's wards too? People do not have the right to be in spaces they 'identify' with only spaces that they are.

Nor is it the spaces themselves that matter - it is the other people in that space that do. So you are suggesting that transwomen (ie males) should be able to be in spaces alongside women if they choose, but women are not allowed to choose to be in spaces free of males. You are saying single sex spaces are not allowed.

Males can never be in female single sex spaces or sport because as soon as they enter it it becomes a mixed sex space or sport. The single sex spaces ceases to exist.

Guardian July 2017
'Mixed-sex wards endanger and humiliate women'
Catherine Bennett
(extract)
"The unacceptability of mixed-sex wards has been a cherished theme for every opposition since Tony Blair alighted, in 1996, on what is still, universally, agreed to be a valid cause of public upset.

Mixed wards, he said “cause indignity, upset people”. Subsequent studies, including a 2008 examination of nurse and patient perspectives, confirmed he had not exaggerated. There were patients, it confirmed, of both sexes and of varied ages, who “experienced a lack of privacy, worried about bodily exposure and felt uncomfortable”. Nurses entirely sympathised. “Mixed-sex accommodation,” it concluded, “is an unacceptable solution to bed shortages.” (continues)

Patients and their relatives attested to intrusion, exhibitionism and leering from nearby beds, even with staff around. In 2009, Channel 4 discovered that almost two-thirds of sexual assaults by patients in hospitals (21 out of 33 in 2007/8), occurred in mixed-sex wards. Variations on Blair’s question to an evasive John Major – “Is it beyond the collective wit of the government and the health administrators to deal with that problem?” – was a reliable line in opposition outrage until Jeremy Hunt declared in 2014 that this indignity was “nearly”, or “virtually”, history.

Regulations introduced by the coalition government in 2010 compelled hospital trusts to report their figures for mixed-ward occupation, then fined them £250 per night for breaches. “We want to see the end of mixed-sex wards,” Nick Clegg said. “Everybody knows this has got to end.” As recently as his 2015 conference speech, a key part of Hunt’s claims to representing “the party of the NHS” was the unqualified triumph: “mixed sex wards eliminated”. The mysterious disappearance of mixed-sex elimination from the recent Tory manifesto, plus its own virtual elimination from the J Hunt repertoire, has in turn revived opposition testimonials to the distress underlying the statistics.

Norman Lamb, the Lib Dems’ health spokesman, described soaring mixed-sex breaches, as hospitals come under more pressure, as “an utter scandal and an affront to basic human dignity”.

If this trend continues, thousands more patients may, when parliament resumes, have occupied a bed a few feet from a stranger of the opposite sex, an arrangement explicitly deplored in the NHS constitution. It “commits” to patients “that if you are admitted to hospital, you will not have to share sleeping accommodation with patients of the opposite sex, except where appropriate”. As for providers, they are expected, according to the NHS handbook, “to eliminate mixed-sex accommodation except where it is in the best overall interest of the patient involved or respects their personal choice”. (continues)
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/30/mixed-sexed-wards-endanger-and-humiliate-women

So, Anovenaway - ' medically diagnosed trans women undergoing treatment are' (entitled to use female spaces)

We'll leave the 'treatment' part aside, because as far as I know there is no 'treatment' required to become a transwoman.

What if women object? Why does the transwoman's desire to use female space override the woman's desire to retain a single sex space?

Why does the transwoman's desire
override the woman's desire?

Regulations introduced by the coalition government in 2010 compelled hospital trusts to report their figures for mixed-ward occupation, then fined them £250 per night for breaches. “We want to see the end of mixed-sex wards,” Nick Clegg said. “Everybody knows this has got to end.” As recently as his 2015 conference speech, a key part of Hunt’s claims to representing “the party of the NHS” was the unqualified triumph: “mixed sex wards eliminated”.

It is important to reconsider these statements by Jeremy Hunt and Nick Cleg in light of Anne Harper-Wright's article.
medium.com/@anneharperwright/sex-gender-the-nhs-1e8f4e6363a6

As OP Barracker wrote in 2018 when the article above was published,

"We've been lied to about 'Single SEX' wards since 2010

They were ALWAYS based upon 'gender'.
The evidence is in NHS documents from 2010.
And the Department of Health were told, by the NHS team, not to tell people wards were segregated by sex, because they knew the policy was based on gender.

But the DOH purposefully used the word sex to the public instead.

We've been deliberately misled.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3396859-Weve-been-lied-to-about-Single-SEX-wards-since-2010

Such an interesting thread, thanks in particular to hamster and alex.

I can’t persuade the GP to stop calling me for cervical smears on my non existent cervix. I wouldn’t endorse a system reliant on a tick list of organs/physical attributes you may or may not have, that’s introducing unnecessary complexity in a system that already struggles with routine deviations from the norm.

Sophoclesthefox Its a very common issue for women who have had total hysterectomies often discussed on women's cancer support boards. Some being very distressed at receiving the letter whilst they are still recovering from the impact of their cancer diagnosis and treatment.
In UK administration of cervical screening is managed centrally. The GP practice needs to action removal of a woman's name from their database.
A phone call to the practice manager is often the most effective way to ensure this is done.

Thanks r0, I thought I had it cracked at my previous GP, then changed practices and my cervix somehow reappeared again. I might have the energy to try again soon!

In UK administration of cervical screening is managed centrally. The GP practice needs to action removal of a woman's name from their database.

Unfortunately, those female patients who request their GP change their patient record to 'male' are automatically removed from the centrally administered cervical cancer screening service.

The responsibility is then placed on patients to remember to arrange their own regular cervical screening and is inevitably likely to increase the risk of cervical cancer developing beyond the early stages when it is more likely curative.

Thanks r0, I thought I had it cracked at my previous GP, then changed practices and my cervix somehow reappeared again. I might have the energy to try again soon!

I've been through the process myself and sympathise.

Unfortunately, those female patients who request their GP change their patient record to 'male' are automatically removed from the centrally administered cervical cancer screening service.

One of many reasons why they should not be able to change their sex marker.