Doctors set out medical guidelines for trans men giving birth - Times

[Igneococcus]

Can't see this shared yet:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1471a020-0d2c-11ed-a4af-79eb4b98fc31?shareToken=6ca0e34c47283d9e0ec2cb0554eafa64

So sorry. I've lost count of the number of posts I've read from women saying how hard to was to get a hysterectomy because of gatekeeping about changing your mind, does your partner want more kids in future etc, yet utter the magic words 'I am trans' and it all opens up?

Does anyone remember an Australian article about a woman who pretended to be trans to speed up acceptance for a hysterectomy?

Having had a quick look at the document it's startling how much of it is taken up with endless paragraphs about feelings, perception and language - page after page of it - and how little focuses on medicine.
The language policing is deliberate to ensure that all hcps are perpetually anxious and second guessing themselves when treating someone who identifies as a man yet is having a baby. Maybe because it might expose the current disgraceful state of maternity care for women and babies and highlight the fact that the The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (which presides over the catastrophic shitshow) have found another (miniscule) group to expend all their energies on rather than ensuring that their core patients - women and babies - all receive safe maternity care.

I've been on NHS waiting list for 18 months

tell them you are a man

Are they allowing comments on the article?

A side issue. The banner ad. I got, at top of the page, was a drag queen/tw being used to advertise makeup. I think for Boots or Fenty. I suppose they'll sell more makeup if everyone's applying it with a shovel.

1.6K comments so far and rapidly increasing. Huge number of comments for the Times.

Quote from article:
It [the guideline] says transgender people should be offered advice about fertility preservation before having gender hormone therapy. For example transgender women, who were born with male organs, should be offered the chance to freeze their sperm. It also says hysterectomies, when the womb is surgically removed, should be offered to transgender men.
This makes it sound as though women can just take their wombs out and pop them in the freezer in case they decide they want to have children in the future, the way men can with sperm. When in fact it is the direct opposite.
Horrible the way it lulls the reader into a false sense of security about the future options for these patients.

I read that as ass covering for the Doctors against future litigation.

@NitroNine Agree with every word of your post.

Yes I agree.

This is the only "religion" (and it IS a religion) that has invaded law and legislation to the upper level and is now changing the way the majority of people are treated.
How has it got to the point where the feelings of the very few are outweighing those of the majority?
To appease the feelings of what we are told is a tiny minority, that language itself has to change at the expense of the CLARITY of a health service?

Medicine has to do with PHYSICAL SEXED BODIES.
It should never be (apart from the field of psychology perhaps) about how people "identify".
This is total bullshit.

In a world where people are left on trolleys in hospital corridors for endless hours, where you can't get GP appointments, where it is taking YEARS to see a consultant (still on waiting list after 1.2 years), where there is a staffing crisis, where there is no money for vital services........they have the time to indulge this utter horse shit?

I have already said this but my 71 year old Mother recently had a stroke, was in a hospital corridor for 15 hours on a trolley as there were no beds. What do you think the FIRST question the doctor asked her was?
"How do you identify"?.
She took one look at my face and went on to the next question.

THAT's the bullshit we are facing.
The NHS is captured and doomed.

I totally agree with you!!
I was being sarcastic,🙄 which doesn't come across very well in text.

Jesus. How much fucking time and money is spent on all this hand wringing for a very few people. How many women, who desperately hate being a women so much that they go through a transition to present as a "man" will go on to get pregnant and have a baby? Versus how many black and Asian women who have had shoddy healthcare during pregnancy and birth. Millions of black women receive dangerously shit healthcare, but no lets spend millions on talking about trans people, meeting after meeting, people employed on large salaries to write policy after policy on what is essentially a belief system of nothing.

I want specialised healthcare and a new glossary of words for my fairy wings.

I think guidance for trans men is a good thing. I don’t really understand why you’d want to be pregnant / give birth if you have such major issues with your female body but it’s not for me to say. If there is language / treatment that helps trans men at a sensitive time then great.

But that should be entirely possible without disregarding the vast majority of women who either don’t have a gender identity or don’t have a problem with it.

Out of interest (as the times article refers to cancers and cervical screening etc as well) I went on NHS page for testicular cancer. All about men and boys….what about trans-women who might get this?
will they address these pages next, or will they leave them as be as it’s nothing to do with women?

Future litigation by a woman who suffered the consequences of substandard care caused by the language being mangled so badly in the name of inclusivity that neither she nor her HCPs understood each other?

I wonder how the staff feel about this. They are their to deliver babies and provide care. Were they asked if they were happy to indulge untruths and be responsible for affirming identities irrelevant to anyone besides the one person involved.

Haven't staff got enough to do. And how do you get informed consent when you cabt use medically relevant language? Surely its a law suit waiting to happen.

This! A thousand times.

Covers all the bases. In two bloody paragraphs.

The reason why this sort of mind blowingly simple advice is not provided? Wholesale capture by TRAs.

Wow that sounds really awful for the child’s development.

Most of this is ridiculous, and some is dangerous nonsense.

As far as pregnancy, I would say that people who have body issues of other kinds will still want to become pregnant, so I don't see that it would be different with transmen. I've known women who had anorexia for example who desperately wanted to become mothers but struggled with the weight gain of pregnancy.

I don't think helping people disassociate in thee kinds of circumstances is particularly kind of helpful, mind you.

It's also true that many pregnancies are accidental and many people don't consider abortion to be a neutral option for dealing with that, so the idea that any transman in that situation would have an abortion if possible seems like a tremendous assumption.

The reason why this sort of mind blowingly simple advice is not provided? Wholesale capture by TRAs

The sooner trans people realise that actually these tras are not their friends nor do they have their best interests at heart the better. If they cared at all about trans people then they'd stop asking for things where the only possible outcome is that care cannot be properly provided. Either because their sex markers have been changed on records or because they cannot have anything explained to them in appropriate Language.

Its a power play masked as inclusion where trans people are merely the tools to achieve it.

I have read the document and I will be writing to the college shortly. I have a few thoughts so far but I am still in too much disbelief to write a coherent response to the college. They tend to ignore their own members and fellows anyway (who pay millions in membership fees) but evidently they listen to Stonewall (which is where those membership fees appear to be going):

1. Why is the pseudoscientific term “assigned [sex] at birth” used throughout this document? Sex is not assigned at birth, it is observed. Sex is determined at conception.
2. Why is the term “cis” used at all when it comes from a belief system that many (or indeed most) women do not subscribe to and therefore do not identify with and may find hateful?
3. Why does this document detail surgical and medical treatment for transgender identifying males? Certainly the issue of surgery is a urological one and would therefore be better addressed by the royal college of surgeons.
4. The term “cis-sexism” is defined in the document to mean “prejudice in favour of ‘cis gender’ people.” Why is there no defined term to mean “prejudice in favour or transgender people at the expense of ‘cis gender’ women”? There are already numerous examples of this occurring in the NHS with regards to sexual assault of women by trans identifying males and the difficulties that these vulnerable have had in accessing support.
5. Hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oopherectomy: the document details the risk of prolapse of neovagina in trans identifying males (an operation which would not be done by a gynaecologist anyway) but in its recommendation for hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oooherectomy in female patients there is no mention of the much much higher risk of pelvic organ prolapse (40% vs 2.8% for males), osteoporosis, menopausal symptoms, heart disease, depression, anxiety and memory problems to name a view. Naming the complications for male patients who the college members don’t even treat but not naming the complications for female patients is sexist, negligent and patriarchal. I see women almost every month in my own clinical practice who have life changing symptoms of pelvic organ prolapse following hysterectomy and were not appropriately consented prior to their operation.
6. Why is the term “chest-feeding” used as a default term throughout the document, with no mention whatsoever of “breast feeding” in the context of “cis women”? Have “cis women”, who make up over 99% of OBGYN patients, been consulted on this change in language? Language appropriate to patient preferences is essential. Do not change to “chest feeding” as the default when many women prefer “breast feeding.” Use “chest feeding” when it is appropriate to the patient and what they prefer. I am a doctor and a mother. I have never and will never “chest feed” and am horrified at its increasingly common usage. I breastfed my babies and would have struggled to engage with any “chest feeding” support meaningfully, and I have no doubt that use of the term “chest feeding” (or indeed “cis woman”) would have left me feeling alienated and alone as a new mother.

Final point for MN before I attempt to write to the college -

The document states, of the Equality Act (2010):
The definition of ‘gender reassignment’ in the Act includes people who have not yet undergone any medical interventions and those who are making a social gender transition without any intention to undergo medical interventions. Protection under the Equality Act does not require a gender recognition certificate.

If this is indeed true then should it have a caveat? The paper does not mention inclusion of trans identifying males (transwomen) on women’s wards thankfully, but I know first hand that transwomen have been placed on womens gynaecology wards without the consent of those women.

It's such extreme male supremacy, it's difficult to believe.

Using the term cis woman in the context of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding? It's unhinged.

They're talking about a woman doing the most female thing she can possibly do, in terms of 'not being a man who identifies as a woman'.

All because a tiny minority of sexist males have demanded it.

I can see why a female person might embrace the intensely and uniquely female experience of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, while at the same time rejecting society's stereotypes of femininity.

Words like 'she' and 'breastfeeding' do not reflect societal stereotypes, but if avoiding such words when addressing these individuals will improve their outcomes, then it is an appropriate way of achieving a legitimate objective.

But only when addressing these individuals.