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.

Yes I appreciate you are all captured. But at some point this nonsense has to end.

I’d hate to have to ask such a stupid question.

Thank you everyone who has replied to my question, lots of very sensible answers and ideas! This hasn't been brought up again at work and I'm not sure when they intend to implement it. This has given me some ideas on how to fill the form out, it's a valid point that for 99.9% of the patients they won't have a gender identity so N/A would be suitable. I will bring up the fact that this could offend some people, for example, they may think I am mistaking them for the wrong sex.

Why should we have to play along with this nonsense when it is likely to confuse and offend a patient group that it is not relevant to? Doesn't assuming someone's gender based on their sex without asking them defeat the whole object of the exercise? In which case, we may as well just have a box for sex rather than gender.

If you feel your sex is accurate and describes you completely

I don't understand this. Can you explain?

How would one's sex be inaccurate and if it's not, what exactly is it describing? I have no gender identity - like most people - so just trying to understand the POV of someone who does.

@AlisonDonut

Well bless you Honeybunch, but my answer remains the same. If you are sure you are a woman, then tick 'female' and move on with your day.

I'd say 99.9% of my elderly patients wouldn't have a clue what I was on about.

@Crabbyboot

It's only confusing or offensive if you make it so.

Get to that part of the form, say to the elderly person who you have presumably built some rapport with by then 'as you know there are lots of possible answers nowadays. They've asked for your gender, shall I tick female or would you like a chat about it first?'

Then let the patient make the decision about their own information and care.

Its a mistake to assume that elderly people are necessarily simpler or more easily confused. Most of the older people I work with read the paper and are more aware of the modern world than people my own age. They might share your views, they might not. Don't presume, treat them like an adult.

"Gender" is a social construct and is shorthand for culturally-bound sex-role stereotypes. "Gender" and "gender identity" have no more bearing on, for example, appropriate doses of medication, signs and symptoms of various medical conditions, blood transfusion, etc. than Religion.

Sex is biological reality and it really does matter a lot in health care and medicine.

If "Gender" is being used as a synonym for "Sex" then this compromises patients safety, as the patient might volunteer that their "gender" is female when they are actually male, or the reverse, or that they are "non-binary", or any other made-up, fashionable "gender". If so, vital information on "sex" is compromised.

Expand the question to be explicit about its actual meaning and it is obvious how ridiculous, irrelevant and therefore impertinent it is:

"Do you identify with the culturally-bound sex-role stereotypes of masculinity or femininity?"

The OP is being extremely responsible in her efforts to ensure patient safety and her concern about avoiding distressing or confusing her patients, whatever their age, should be applauded not mocked.

But we won't have built a rapport with them, this is something we are to do at the beginning of the consultation (because god forbid we misgender them). And the majority of our patients have cognitive impairment or dementia so no, I'm not making assumptions about them because they are older, I'm trying to make the consultation less confusing for them. They will already be stressed about coming in for the consultation. Also, how many of them do you think this will be relevant to? I'll bet my house on none of them.

I can't believe this question is on a form, it's a wrong and loaded question.

recently had to complete a form which asked 'something like' how do I identify- male, female, other- please specify. Then 'do you identify as the same gender you were assigned at birth?' Yes, no, other.

Since nobody is assigned a gender at birth are they. They are assigned a sex. I would want to point this out to them, and say I was assigned a sex but have obviously never officially been assigned a gender, and have never identified with a gender. FFS even the forms don't get it right.

Why not ‘sex’ and preferred address - they already ask if you want to be called Mrs Kong, Kitten, etc.

Of course you can’t compel people to remember if you wish to be addressed as the opposite sex pronoun if one of the many new pronouns.

Its really idiotic and just an attempt to normalise a trend that at best will be kaput in a couple of years.

Enjoyed the appearance of Mrs Trellis (of South Wales) Bosky!

If being a woman has nothing to do with your body type, how would one be sure they are a woman? The problem is that people are actually telling you when aex they are, not what gender. The question is deliberately obfuscated.

North Wales, you Heathen! 😂

"Mrs Trellis of North Wales made her first 'appearance' on ISIHAC during Series 17 in 1990. There was a long gap before she 'appeared' again, in Series 22 (1993). But from that moment on, pretty much every game of Mornington Crescent was preceded by "slightly less than two letters" from that particular Welsh correspendent.

This is an exhaustive (but I hope not exhausting) compilation of every single one of thuse nutty missives by the fragrant Mrs Trellis for your delight and delectation, read by the late, great Humphrey Lyttelton."

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue—The Complete Mrs Trellis (1990-2007)

Just tell them your dad is a woman and your mother is a man. What is the odds? This is about where this nonsense leads to