Actual incidents of 'wrong assignments'

[Threadbaretoe]

Does anyone know if data has been collected / published in relation to the number of incidents a year, in the UK, whereby a baby's sex at birth has been incorrectly recorded? What about the number of babies, in the UK, for whom the recording of their sex has to be delayed due to uncertainty?

In an attempt to prevent this thread being derailed, here are a couple of footnotes:

It is sex that is recorded - I'm not asking about gender or what gender is assigned. I view this as something separate to what I am asking.

By sex, I am referring to the two sexual reproductive roles - male/female (not hormones, sex characteristics etc). Well over 80% of adults are fertile at a stage in their life cycle and an additional 15% plus have fertility issues that are not related to anything that brings their sex into question. I know that less than 0.4% of the population require medical testing to ascertain which sexual reproductive role they would play if fertile.

Thanks for any helpful answers....I'm in work all day but will check in later to see if any has the information I'm looking for or could point me in the right direction.

I think Emma Hilton did some work on this. You might find links to studies on her Twitter: twitter.com/FondOfBeetles.

This is a quick answer without any links, but before intersex got coopted by Stonewall there were instances where doctors took decisions, and made surgical interventions on babies that lead to long term harm.

And prior to Stonewall, there were intersex campaigns to make sure that no surgical intervention was allowed.

I have in the past tried to find these links, but it is almost as though google, even using the option to only find results from say 20 years ago, seems to have lost that information.

I suppose if the web sites weren't archived and the independent intersex campaigns closed down that these records are not lost.

This might be of use too: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06yhhjj

Not particularly about babies but talks about how sex is defined medically.

Placemarking to see if the data exists! I naively expect it must be very rare these days. Surely famous examples of wrong assignments, such as the athletes with 5-ARD who were registered female, wouldn’t happen any more given how accessible genetic testing has become.

Anne Frank was wrongly recorded as a boy and her parents had to correct it

Thats all I've got

It's going to be more common in areas with less medical intervention around birth than others I'd have thought. Still rare though.

What do you need this for OP? I can think of something related but not sure it will help you.

Was this you? If not it maybe shows why it’s not an easy question to answer. The intersex rights organisations would probably have the next best data. www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/numberofbabieswithintersextraits

Thanks all.

I am asking because I get in to a lot of conversations with young people about trans issues.

I talk about how sex isn't assigned, it is biologically determined, and debate issues around who does what in relation to assigning gender.

I address the points raised about how sex is so complicated (hormones, secondary characteristics etc) by discussing fertility statistics. I also point out how it really isn't difficult to observe the sex of a baby. It would be helpful to be able to give some numbers regarding the inaccuracy

Thanks again for all of your pointers.

RaeUK, ClaireCAIS, or IntersexAF on twitter may have the info you want, or you may find useful info here dsdfamilies.org

dsdfamilies stated in their submission to the census in Scotland that around 130 to 140 babies a year need specialist input to determine sex, and that for only 7 or 8 of them the results are inconclusive and - in consultation between the parents and the specialist doctors - those are the only children to whom a sex is then assigned.

They also estimated that around one in ten of those children who have their sex assigned find this assignation wrong when they are adults and change their sex. That amounts to one person in the UK every two years (i.e. it's extremely rare).

In percentages (total UK births per year):

0.02% needing specialist input
0.001% have their sex assigned
0.0001% decide to change the assignation

Other organisations may have other figures, but you get the gist - doctors make an educated guess only in 1 in 20 cases where sex at birth is ambiguous and they get it wrong in only 1 in 200 cases where sex at birth is ambiguous.

As Dr Emma Hilton found when she reviewed newborn kartotype studies, where sex is not ambiguous, doctors do not get it wrong because they do not assign sex but merely observe it.

Although getting it "wrong" may be a word that misrepresents what's happening, because an educated guess at birth cannot take into account any and all future development of that child.

Last but not least, what's happening in the case of someone assigned the "wrong" sex at birth because of specialist input giving inconclusive results and doctors and parents making a choice for the child that doesn't work for the adult is not the same as gender dysphoria in transgender people.

Many thanks, Charley. This is exactly what I was looking for:

*In percentages (total UK births per year):

0.02% needing specialist input
0.001% have their sex assigned
0.0001% decide to change the assignation*

To name one well-known example, Caster Semenya has XY chromosomes and yet was considered to be a girl at birth, and was brought up accordingly.