How do you challenge a public body who declares that EVERYONE has a gender identity, as a fact?

[FindTheTruth]

Complain? Campaign? Does more guidance need to come from the EHRC?

If a public body says that all people have a gender identity (the foundation of the philosophical/religious/political belief of gender ideology) it has huge implications. They run public services paid for with our taxes and must be neutral and fact based.

I agree, and shall write too.

So the NHS website needs to start by defining sex and defining gender.

Yes they do, I'd like to see a finite definition of 'gender' that didn't base it on feelings or sex-based stereotypes.

As for small children recognising the difference between the sexes, yes they do. At 2 or 3 a child would know a girl is different from a boy and vice versa. They wouldn't know how many chromosomes there are or what the SRY gene does but they know the basic difference and that there are two sexes.

I'm not sure why the NHS feels the need to write about it on their website though, I can't see the link between that and medicine/illness. It can only be a link with the ideological concept of gender identity that the NHS would feel the need to mention it.

Does the NHS have the ideological stance that a toddler could have gender dysphoria? Upon what evidence is this based?

Complain. The right to gender critical beliefs is now enshrined in law in the UK, since the Maya case. A public body using public funds to make those kind of statements about such a controversial issue is inconsistent with respecting gender critical beliefs.

OhHolyJesus
I am not sure that all three year olds do understand the difference between sexes other than recognising them superficially, if they don’t have a sibling of the opposite sex.
My grandson when looking at a potty training book where a little girl was sitting on a potty with a roll of toilet paper in front of her, asked, “Now will she wipe her penis?”
And three year olds may believe that sex can change in that Katie Alcock shows that video where the small child first recognised one doll as male, and another with different clothes as female; but when a handbag from the female doll was put in the male doll’s hands, and asked again whether it was a man or a woman, answered that it was a female.

Children this age would also not really understand how a man and a woman make a baby together.

So while I do agree that children this young will say they are a girl or a boy because they can superficially identify things in their life by then, it is misleading of the NHS to say that children as young as 2-3 understand sex (called gender by them) or that they even fully understand gender.

Directors and volunteers at groups like Fair Play for Women and Sex Matters shouldn't have to give up careers to campaign to protect existing women's rights, funded from the pay packets of ordinary people funding £10, £20, £30. Yet here we are. We live in a society where FPFW are taking a second public body to court to get them to obey the law.

Meanwhile public bodies spend millions of our (taxpayers) money to lobby groups who push the philosophical/religious/political belief of gender ideology. The Scottish government policies are literally being written in full or part by LGBT Youth Scotland,Stonewall Scotland,Equality Network and theScottish Trans Alliance.

Couldn’t agree more FindTheTruth
I’m incredibly grateful to those women’s groups and Maya and Keira and Allison and Ann Sinnott and everyone who writes to their MP and responds to consultations and who brings their legal case and who donates to crowdfunders, and who sets up and runs new campaign groups and charities, because that’s how we will get legal protections which is ultimately what turns this tide and keeps women and girls’ safety, privacy and dignity and rights and freedoms and keeps single-sex spaces, opportunities and services intact. Thank you all, thank you, thank you.

The whole page here assumes that everyone has a gender identity… and this is supposed to be proper evidence based NHS health advice. hmm It’s appallingly politicised:

www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/

agreed. This is indicative of the NHS having fallen

as does this

www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/dissociative-disorders/

The promotion of DID and the link to the charity MIND's batshit page on dissociative disorders demonstrates that the problem is not just about pseudo-scientific nonsense being promoted on an official NHS page, it that the page links to a webpage that links to organisations that become increasingly batshit as you click further on linked pages.

So the NHS link for dissociative disorders takes us to this page
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20211110092414/www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/dissociation-and-dissociative-disorders/about-dissociation/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20211110092414/www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/dissociation-and-dissociative-disorders/about-dissociation/

which links to this page
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20211027213756/www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/dissociation-and-dissociative-disorders/useful-contacts/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20211027213756/www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/dissociation-and-dissociative-disorders/useful-contacts/

that links to a number of controversial organisations renowened for quackery, pseudo-science and abuse of vulnerable people. These organisations give credence to conspiracies about satanic ritual abuse and the development of multiple selves, a concept dentral to gender woo woo.

this descent of the NHS into pseudoscientific quackery should be exposed and fought tooth and nail.

This is one of the reasons why the public do not trust public health officials re vaccinations and other important issues.

We need to rid the NHS of this insanity and to restore a skeptical, rational, scientific, evidence based foundation of information and clinical services as of yesterday.

Amanda Pritchard is the British healthcare official and public policy analyst who has been the Chief Executive of NHS England who has been in post since Summer.

iirc, she is the daughter of Annette (?) Pritchard, formerly of the Fawcett Society who has publicly expressed disappointment at the Fawcett on relevant matters including when the interim CEO Felicia Willow blocked Maya F and FPFW on Twitter back in May. It's not a given she might be sympathetic to rationality but she might be.

That NHS page is a total mess. It throws a load of different things together and what comes out is all over the place.

'An individual’s awareness of gender identity, and the emergence of a range of gender-typical behaviours, is usually established by the age of two to three years'.

Seems gender identity here used to mean societal norms/ stereotypes for sex.

'By the age of five years, children will spontaneously characterise others by sex (boy or girl). Negative reactions by children to gender diversity in others, which may include teasing,...'

By sex or by external cues- clothes etc? Or a mix of both? Children that age with underwear on not obvious which sex.

Therefore they mean children start thinking boy/ girl according to... A mix of name, what called, referred to as boy, and at that sort of age conformity with stereotypes is a big thing. Stage in development thing.

But in same para-

'Such negative reactions may result in psychological distress for the recipient and heighten any gender dysphoria that they might experience.'

I read that as the very common discomfort with some or many aspects of expected behaviour etc... Is essentially gender dysphoria???!!!

But then!!! It gets more inconsistant with what saying-

'puberty; these changes (growth of body hair, facial hair, external genitalia and deepening of the voice in boys, and breast development and the onset of menstruation in girls) can be deeply distressing to individuals whose gender identity is not congruent with their sex development, again contributing to any experience of gender dysphoria'

Suddenly it's not about discontent with stereotypes around appearance and other imposed constraints for the sexes.

Sex is back! At puberty. Suddenly the discomfort of children at some/ many expected preferences etc. Is totally linked to dissatisfaction with sexed body!

And so on it goes... Total mess. Which essentially says that any GNC thoughts behaviour etc before puberty means sex dysphoria the end.

I think this will piss off everyone whatever their view on these issues!

I hadn’t seen this thread before, but looked up the NHS treatment path at the weekend and like everyone here, found it full of holes, and it’s playing on my mind tonight.

How can GD not be a mental health condition (because stigma? I guess successive efforts to have people open up about depression and anxiety to lessen stigma should be conveniently ignored) but surgery on a healthy body is fine as a prescribed treatment when I can’t even get a mole removed.

Liberal Voice for Women has an event next Monday with a couple of health professionals and I think questions can be sent to the organiser ahead of the event. The email says it is about the conversion therapy ban and impact on children but it’s all linked isn’t it, and adults can be vulnerable too.

It's such a mess.

Gender dysphoria in the page linked is used essentially as no different to gender nonconformity.

And then they link gender dysphoria (gender non conforming) to sex dysphoria.

Loads of children and adults are GNC.

Their mess of a page which is hard to follow. But when made effort to understand wtf saying.

Goes.

Signs of discomfort with or non adherence to narrow stereotypes > gender variant (or similar) > sex dysphoria when puberty starts.

I mean fucks sake.

NHS page gender

'What is gender identity?
Gender identity refers to our sense of who we are and how we see and describe ourselves.

Most people identify as "male" or "female". These are sometimes called "binary" identities.

But some people feel their gender identity is different from their biological sex.

For example, some people may have male genitals and facial hair but do not identify as a male or feel masculine.

Some may have female genitals and breasts but do not identify as a female or feel feminine.'

NHS says male and female are identities?

Not sex?

Leaving them... No words to communicate the sex of patients?

Crikey.

Then they say male/ female genitals? But male female is an internal feeling nothing more they literally just said so!

Feeling feminine or feeling masculine are the other key to whether trans?

FEELING FEMININE!

Christ on a bike. This is all so...

Just makes me think of romantic poets of years gone by producing verse upon verse about the delicacy, sweet nature, innocence, vulnerability etc of women.

50s ads USA wife in pretty dress hair done etc waiting eagerly for husband to come home so she can dote on him starting with slippers and pipe.

Etc etc.

Feeling feminine. What. All the time? In every way?

NHS info page.

And not forgetting that masculinity is even more confining...

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

Amanda Pritchard is the British healthcare official and public policy analyst who has been the Chief Executive of NHS England who has been in post since Summer.

iirc, she is the daughter of Annette (?) Pritchard, formerly of the Fawcett Society who has publicly expressed disappointment at the Fawcett on relevant matters including when the interim CEO Felicia Willow blocked Maya F and FPFW on Twitter back in May. It's not a given she might be sympathetic to rationality but she might be.

Very interesting @EmbarrassingHadrosaurus There may be hope. it takes time to change policies and culture, I think Greg Davies BBC head was in post a year before we saw recent changes but no doubt work has happened before it became public.

Public Policy Analysts are interesting too. For Women Scotland were formed by former public analysts and they're brilliant.

Interesting link analysis Hood. It needs a diagram!!

Signs of discomfort with or non adherence to narrow stereotypes > gender variant (or similar) > sex dysphoria when puberty starts.

It's inherently sexist.

Even those small numbers with gender dysphoria stems from sexism.

the ideology is founded in sex stereotypes, if they didn't exist there would only be a tiny number of people with a serious psychological condition

What annoys a great deal especially when thinking about the psychological aspect of this is failure of NHS and Mind etc to talk about objective reality. My DD has never been asked about disabilities - objective diagnoses when involved in mental health services. She has been asked about this bullsh*t but they shy away from things that have had a demonstrable effect on her life, education and social interactions.

"Gender dysphoria is not a mental health condition." IMHO this is the problem. It should be regarded as one. If someone said they didn't identify with their arms and insisted they wanted to cut them off there would be serious concerns about that person's mental health, and no doctor anywhere would support surgery to remove the person's arms.

@JKDinomum

"Gender dysphoria is not a mental health condition." IMHO this is the problem. It should be regarded as one. If someone said they didn't identify with their arms and insisted they wanted to cut them off there would be serious concerns about that person's mental health, and no doctor anywhere would support surgery to remove the person's arms.

""Gender dysphoria is not a mental health condition."

That is the fault of the WHO reclassification of conditions in ICD-11, which the UK has signed up to.

World Health Organisation ICD 11 on trans people
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3282573-World-Health-Organisation-ICD-11-on-trans-people

Ray Blanchard on the WHO and ICD-11:

"Without question the people involved in the WHO are politicos first and clinical researchers second. Some of them, that whose names I've seen, as being involved in decisions regarding human sexual behaviour in the, on the ICD, the document you're talking about, really have no particular credentials that I know about. So, you know, nothing would surprise me in WHO, because I know that they have politics in mind first and foremost when they're modifying clinical categories that pertain to human sexuality, you know"

@donquixotedelamancha

So the NHS is saying that everyone has a gender identity

No. They are using the term in its original, scientific sense. They don't mean GI in the sense that Genderists mean it; they mean awareness of sex differences and picking up on gender stereotypes as a stage of child development.

This is how I saw it and I’m not sure sex based works as replacement

@MarshaBradyo

donquixotedelamancha
So the NHS is saying that everyone has a gender identity

“No. They are using the term in its original, scientific sense. They don't mean GI in the sense that Genderists mean it; they mean awareness of sex differences and picking up on gender stereotypes as a stage of child development.
This is how I saw it and I’m not sure sex based works as replacement“

Marshal from this site it does look as though the NHS says children have a gender identity

From the link posted by the OP from the NHS.

“When does someone become aware of a gender identity?

An individual’s awareness of gender identity, and the emergence of a range of gender-typical behaviours, is usually established by the age of two to three years. The earliest features of gender incongruence may start to become apparent around this age.

By the age of five years, children will spontaneously characterise others by sex (boy or girl). Negative reactions by children to gender diversity in others, which may include teasing, ridicule and social exclusion, often become stronger as children grow older. Boys exhibiting behaviours characteristic of female gender are more likely to experience negative reactions, than girls exhibiting behaviours characteristic of male gender. Such negative reactions may result in psychological distress for the recipient and heighten any gender dysphoria that they might experience.

From the age of seven years, children become more flexible in how they apply gender stereotypes and begin appreciate that there are differences between individuals in how they express their gender identity. Pre-school children typically have a preference for same-sex friends that tends to strengthen until adolescence; subsequently, boys are more likely to engage in group activities and girls in activities in dyads (groups of two). The formation of same-sex groups is typical of young adolescents; in mid- to late-adolescence, more cross-sex interactions evolve, a prelude to the emergence of romantic and couple sexual relationships. These changes in relationship dynamics may be distressing and contribute to the experience of gender dysphoria by gender-diverse individuals. @

I think that’s ok?

I’m usually very critical re these things but I’m not really seeing it.

As long as no claim is made that sex can be changed. That’s the main thing I care about.