Response from health care service providers "assigned at birth"

[FernlovingNodosaur]

Can you please give your thoughts on this matter and if your smart wording/thinking could add anything to my response letter.

I complained via email because I very recently received an unsolicited advert from my major health care provider see below for company. About a serious sex based disease yet the advert used assigned at birth manta.

Their response email below:

Dear Ms

I'm emailing you in response to your complain on Wednesday 2nd November regarding your unhappiness that we make reference to the term "assigned at birth" rather than classifying a specific gender.
I apologise if it has caused you any offence - it is not the service that Babylon aim to deliver.
Our marketing team are using the term "assigned at birth" to cause minimal offence to our many patients and we will be continuing to use this term. Unfortunately, we can't adapt marketing emails individually to each person's gender and have to use a neutral term.
If you have any further queries, please let me know.
Cheers,
Clinical Operations Team Leader.
**

The term 'assigned at birth' is incorrect. Sex is determined at conception by XX or XY chromosomes and it is observed at birth. No surgery, wishful thinking, clothing or makeup can alter a person's sex.

As a health care provider they should be dealing in scientific facts.

Have they asked their 'many patients' whether they find 'minimal offence' in the false, disingenuous, activist-led term, 'assigned at birth'?

It is offensive to deny that biological sex is what determines the health condition in question. It minimises and whitewashes the importance of biological reality and its lived experience.

They should change their wording to 'biological sex as observed at birth'. This would be better because 1. It is scientifically and medically correct. 2. It has less potential to offend, because it is inclusive of transgender people yet it doesn't deny sex is real.

assigned at birth" rather than classifying a specific gender.
I apologise if it has caused you any offence - it is not the service that Babylon aim to deliver.
Our marketing team are using the term "assigned at birth" to cause minimal offence to our many patients and we will be continuing to use this term.

For a start, this person seems to have used gender in place of sex.

I would probably look for a balanced article pointing out the difficulties created in using terms that are not well understood by the majority of the audience, or will cause issues for people with issues with understanding the language (for whatever reason) to send in.

If you wanted to take this further, maybe get an email to the marketing manager (referencing the issues of not using male and female or women and (insert additional).

The issue is to make sure that as many people as possible understand the language to be informed about their health. Not to use words that are unfamiliar when trying to get important health messages out.

I would second GlassDeli’s changes to ‘sex assigned at birth’. If someone is really deep in this, and they’ve bought into the idea that their ‘sex assigned at birth’ is just wrong, then they may decide this doesn’t apply to them (yes I have actually heard someone say that…)

I would also highlight that they have used gender instead of sex, and that assuming someone’s gender and sex are the same is transphobic. Basically, as Helleofabore says, you’re mostly asking them to clarify their language to improve communications

Finally, they highlight that they don’t want to offend some (v loud) people. Ask how they know this new language is not offending a much larger number of less vocal people - they’ve already received at least one complaint!

That tern is correct. For example my nephew was born with female internal sexual organs and external male sexual organs. A medical choice had to me be made at birth which sex was determined and the medical intervention accordingly.

You are being very offensive to intersex children by banging on about what you perceive to be a choice

Thanks OP's for responding. I of course think the assigned at birth is rubbish too especially from a health care provider!

This my response it bit snarky maybe ?

To Whom it May Concern:

Thank you for responding so quickly.

BUT see below.
Couple of points here on good customer service:

Firstly I am a Miss not a Ms. Though that of small matter in this case.

Secondly your marketing team are very much out of date and touch with the general publics feeling on this matter now. Surely your average end user group are much more likely to be older solvent middle ground people than liberal Twitter using 16 year old's? The former, who, like me your customer consider non binary wording nonsense especially in a science/medical/reality based setting.

As to using a neutral terms, that mean everyone. There are excellent long standing clear science based ones available in the English language already. Those easy to understand words are "man" and "woman" Humans aka mammals have a sex and that sex alone not made up terms impacts
our bodies in both disease and treatment.

Because of this being such a serious issue S---,
I will of course be taking this matter much further so your companies stance can be highlighted to both the general public/customers and decision makers. I will of course consult -your customer and my supplier to find out if their stance matches your own first. Just because if their views match yours, they can be highlighted too their customers/public too.

@maddy68 surely in the case of your nephew, further tests and investigations were done to determine what condition had caused the development issues. Rather than a midwife or doctor just deciding and "assigning" a sex?

So do you believe for the half of the 0.018%of people who have differences of sex development (people with DSDs assure us that ‘intersex’ is offensive to them) that a larger group with English language difficulties should get unclear and confusing communications about their issues?

maddy68, I’m a doctor, and can’t think of any DSD that has female internal and male external sex organs. The reverse can sometimes occur in androgen insensitivity.
Decisions in such cases are not “made at birth” in a random manner, but based on chromosome analysis.
The term “intersex” is obsolete and inaccurate, so no longer used either. Would you care to name the actual condition you claim this nephew suffers from?

Perhaps put in a line about doubting the medical competence of a company that confuses something as basic as sex and gender? But put a little more diplomatically.

@maddy68 you make an excellent point - if an incorrect sex was assigned at birth due to DSD, (recognising Babdoc’s information that that would not now happen) it would be very important that the person affected by that knew their ACTUAL BIOLOGICAL sex, not their ‘sex assigned at birth’

OP's I might not respond for a bit, as I have to go out. But please continue to post your thoughts and any help in constructing my letter to be as good possible. I will post when back.

Personally I'd leave out the comments about being 'out of date and touch with the general publics feeling on this matter'; it comes across as a bit rude, plus they could easily argue about how 'the general public' feels. I'd also drop the speculation about their 'end user group' being 'older solvent middle ground people' and the 'liberal Twitter using 16 year old's'; again, it's a bit rude and emotional.

I'd basically go with what GlassDeli suggests: point out that sex is determined at conception by XX or XY chromosomes and it is observed at birth. Suggest that better wording would be 'biological sex as observed at birth'. And add that they're using the word 'gender' in place of sex, which is inaccurate.

Methinks Maddy68 is making things up.

No one 'assigns' a gender, and not everyone agrees they do, this is a faith based position which should not be enforced on non believers.

It is ridiculous to play these silly games because of people born with DSDs who are very vocal that they do have a sex thanks and are not a gotcha intended to enforce trans ideology on the world.

No sorting hats are involved to assign anything. Medical tests may be used to identify in very, very rare cases of medical need. Sex is observed, usually before birth.

The Forstater case placed on record that those who believe in biology and sex as a reality cannot be discriminated against, and this language enforces belief as it was fact, and the only truth. That is not 'inclusive' and it's probably not legal if you wanted to take it far enough. This group were probably trained and directed on information coming from one of the 'Alternative reality interpretation of law' groups who tend to present their opinion as fact and law. They need to check this out.

Sorry, that should read 'No one assigns a gender and not everyone agrees that they have one'.

I don’t believe this. ‘Your nephew’ might, just possibly, have been born with a distorted or unusually large clitoris. So she would be your niece.

no human being has ever been a true hermaphrodite , with both male and female ‘sex organs’. You need to do a bit of reading up about interest conditions, which are chromosome malfunctions, but even then the underlying sex is clear at the chromosomal level.

No one 'assigns' a gender, and not everyone agrees they do, this is a faith based position which should not be enforced on non believers.

Lots of TRAs try to assign me a gender, and loads of organisations seem to insist I identify with one too.

Intersex you bastard autocorrect.🧟‍♀️

The aim is that everyone shuts up and gives up.

I won't be genuflecting at that particular altar, and shall be making myself difficult every single time it comes up until a more inclusive and tolerant approach comes up that accepts some people do and a fuckton of people don't.

My issue with the "assigned at birth" phrase is it is inaccurate. Sex is determined at conception and noted at birth. Gender is a set of social conventions that a person adopts throughout their life. Surely a medical organisation should take care to express itself with accuracy?

The term “assigned at birth” originated with people with DSDs as a way to describe the historical process of when doctors used to view genuine ambiguous genitalia and decide on behalf of the baby what they thought would be best for them growing up. This is now not the normal process: all children can have their sex correctly determined and there is now a general view that doctors shouldn’t “assign” anything different regardless of what they think would be best functionally or cosmetically.

Gender ideologists are the ones being offensive to DSD people: they have appropriated a term for genuine ambiguity and taken it to try and force us to believe it means that doctors and midwives who correctly observed the sex of a baby were somehow supposed to know that person would grow up with confused gender feelz.

Just googled Babylon Healthcare. I think, instead of you continuing to complain, it would be better if they received multiple complaints about their unclear and incorrect language. I only looked briefly but it looked like you have to download an app, for a 'free' healthcheck . I might do it later and if I come across this 'assigned at birth' nonsense, I'll email to complain as well.

I think one problem confusing matters is the conflation of sex and gender. These words might be clearly defined to mean very different things in the mumsnet feminist board bubble, but in wider society, they mean the same.

My daughter tried to tell me this assigned at birth nonsense I said sex is observed not assigned they don't have a boy/girl target to reach every day they look and note it down what you choose to do with your gender later on is entirely up to you but your sex will always stay the same

Her response is, well intersex people....

I think I would address their conflation of sex and gender. They are a company that is offering a service for a sex-based condition. The fact they do not appear to know the difference between sex and gender is worrying and does not inspire confidence in their ability to provide a competent service.

Excellent point!

A bit like Caster Semenya. If Caster was led to believe they were female today still and had health issues, the results would be dangerous for them.

By puberty, I would hope most of those with differences of sex development would know their sex and be able therefore to cope with the words female and male where it is vital.

This marketing team is putting other people’s lives at risk and I doubt it is being done for those with differences in sex development.