I have to ask elderly patients for their gender identity

[Crabbyboot]

Please can I have some advice on this, I have been told by my boss that i have to ask our elderly patients for their gender identity when they come to see us. Without giving too much away I don't work in the UK so I am not NHS. My boss also does not agree with this but she says we need to do it as the regulators require it as part of our standards. Bearing in mind that we are a medical department I feel that this is highly unscientific. Also given the demographic of our patients it is inappropriate. I don't know if I should bother fighting this, or if it is just something I let go and accept. If I fight it I would like some help to articulate myself properly and in a way that is legal so I can't loose my job. I partly feel like just complying but insisting that everyone at work refers to me as a he/him/his just to prove how silly it is.

Is it a box you need to tick?
Surely what sex they are is of more importance

How likely are your patients to say, "Eh, what? I'm male/female" (as appropriate)? I'm not "elderly" but I am 60 and would be inclined to answer (politely, I know it's not your fault!) that I don't have a gender identity. Perhaps most of your patients won't have a clue what you're talking about anyway.

I'd just not do it. They're unlikely to tell a supervisor that their gender wasn't asked.

''I'm sorry but I have to ask you, do you have a gender identity, yes or no?''

Record their sex where necessary and if there is a separate gender box mark that fro their sex as well

I would let your parents say what are you talking about and let the ridiculous question be asked!

Precisely, sex of the patient is very important in healthcare.

If you do ask, you should record their actual answer.

"You what?"

"Eh?"

"Are you calling me a woman?"

God sake patients not parents!

My 88 year old grandfather would think you'd lost the plot. He's clearly male, I don't think he knows what "gender identity" is.

To clarify you have to ask sex and gender identity ?

I'd ask.

Hopefully you'll get complaints from offended elderly people and they will revise the policy.

Do you work in a field where there could be a legitimate medical concern if you failed to tell sex apart. Eg not screening a male patient for prostate cancer because you believe them to be female. If so I think that you could politely ask some questions around that.

do you work in a field where safeguarding is important ? Eg single sex wards, a chaperone when a male doctor is doing an internal exam on a female patient. Again that could be an area to ask some polite questions

an alternative could be to comply but inform patients that if they don’t like that question they can complain and here is a form

good luck!

Goodness me I wasn't expecting so many responses so quickly! yes as some of you have mentioned I do think they will ask "what the hell is that?" And perhaps documenting this response is the way to go.

I think it is just the principle of the matter that irritates me the most, especially in the medical field.

This is something I have asked to have clarified as I said asking for gender identity alone would lead to inaccuracies.

Not too sex specific but we are treating conditions that are more prevalent in women. I was concerned about data being inaccurate.

I hope lots of your patients have no idea what you mean by gender identity and it takes you ages to explain it to them (good luck with that, I couldn't do it as it makes no sense to me). Then your line manager would be having to ask you 'Crabby, why did you only see two patients today?'

Then maybe they'd bin it.

I would say so as sex is Number 1 in terms of importance and you need to know if you observe it or ask it. Gender - well hmmmmmmm....I think you will get a lot of confusion and " I've just told you that".

Ooooh that’s good. Extra points for each time you have to call your boss in to explain it « because you don’t understand »

if medical professionals can legitimately refuse to perform abortions and hand out morning after pills due to their beliefs, surely it should be possible to opt out of gender questions!

This is why I didn’t end up retraining in healthcare. One of the “could you be a carer?” questions was along the lines of, “Norman is 90 and has dementia. Norman’s daughter set out trousers and a shirt for him to wear and asks you to dress him in these. Norman wants to wear a dress today. What do you do?” And my response was to ask him a question like “are you sure you want to wear a dress?”

Apparently that was a fail and wrongthink because if Norman identifies differently we should unquestioningly support him and forget the dignity of elderly patients with dementia. And wearing a dress means you Identify Differently and is nothing at all to do with having dementia.

Who the hell do they think they are helping? My heart goes out to the elderly people having to suffer this undignified treatment and the carers having to support it.

How many elderly people could answer ‘what’s your gender identity’ ffs?

If anyone asked me this, I think I'd find it hard to resist spending at least the next 10 minutes trying to get them to define it and help me figure out what they (or their manager) want me to say...

Wouldn't want to put a wrong answer down in such an important area, so they would have to get very specific about how I know what my gender identity is so I get it right.

I'd also want to know how it impacts the treatment - which clearly it must or we wouldn't be spending all this time trying to figure out what mine is.

Anecdotally, I have heard that patients who have had surgical reassignment forget that fact when suffering dementia, and are distressed by their condition. So Norman would be more likely to be distressed by the frock than the trousers. :(

Feck that. I wouldn’t do it.

What a pile of shit!

Can you imagine the conversation?
"So what gender do you identify as Mr parker?"
"Sorry love I can't hear you"

The world's gone nuts!

Your patients will surely have male or female on their medical records, so its redundant question really. If they come into hospital with a female complaint they will be treated accordingly